I just had surgery on my eyes so I might not be able to answer your commnts as timely as I'd like, but trust me I'll get to them...

Jet

Jet, wow, so much to talk about!

I understand that you have your nemeses, but you just can't stretch conservative Christianity to include the "fake moon landing" crowd. There is a whole conspiracy subculture, and while some Christians buy into some conspiracy theories, the mainstream (heh) of the X-Filers is scientific. The UFO nuts tend to be atheists, or believe that what we call religion is just a misinterpretation of alien encounters.

You're completely, completely right about the evil of the Holocaust and the Holocaust-deniers. I only wish that it was just a Middle Eastern phenomenon. I admire Germany's willingness to admit to its history. Turkey still denies the Armenian genocide.

More later. (I really hope this article catches on.)

Thanks Baronius, I appreciate your thoughts, however I have seen more than a few TV preachers lately try to deny the science of the moon landings because the moon can't possibly be as old as science clamis it is and still be within theolobical teachings. Even the fox network aired a movie on the subject claiming the moon landing was faked.

It's not just the religious zealots, it's politicians too.

I was inspired by the Iran denials, but it goes a lot deeper,

thanks again for contributing to the conversation my friend.

Jet

Oh boy, another science vs. religion article! Only thing left to do is weigh odds on how many comments this one will go. We'd normally set the bar at 125, but this is a Jet article, so the parlay is 205½.

Place yer bets!

Excellent article Jet, informative and timely.

Since Bennet isn't around any longer posting sci-articles, it appears BC has missed this article about the findings of some comet samples from Project Stardust.

One excerpt I really like is...
"The organic material, which is older than the solar system, could reveal clues about the origin of life and whether it exists elsewhere in the universe. Because there was some sort of mechanism that spread matter from the inner solar system to the outermost area where comets were formed, the same stuff must have been sprinkled on all the other comets and planets in the solar system.

"So if you need some magic ingredient, some pixie dust to get life to pop up somewhere, we have a mechanism to sprinkle it around," Brownlee said.

Whatever the mechanism, it is likely a universal process that predates the solar system, so the same kind of thing may have happened in every other solar system in the universe, Sandford said.

"There's nothing unique about our solar system in this regard," Sandford said."

Read it twice, and let it sink in, strange and wonderous times are upon us, and not in the fictional "Left Behind" kind of way.

Keep up the good stuff, Jet. All the best hopes for a speedy recovery from surgery.

Suss, I say the thread breaks 250.

"Compare yourself to your great-great-grandfather, and you'd find that you live longer, and you are taller, stronger and healthier."

Not evolution, but a result of a better diet and access to medical care unavailable to him.


"While countries such as North and South Korea . . . . currently making great strides in medicine, stem cell research, computer and electronic technology"

North Korea? A country where people resort to cannibalism due to food shortages cant honestly be called a pioneer in medical research. North Korea has an official philosophy of advocating nationial self reliance (or juche) and therefore still relies on "traditional" remedies like the consumption of dog penis as a cure for impotence. The stem-cell breakthrough in SOUTH Korea was revealed to be a hoax. North Korea's great strides in technology have been the ingenuity they muster to ignore the copyrights of myriad products.

Jet, I don't think I'm asking for too much here. I'll admit that there are crazies who think they're following God. Please admit that some people believe in nutty things in the name of science.

UFO's, crop circles, cattle mutilations, telepathy, Gaia, healing herbs that the AMA doesn't want you to know about, Bigfoot, pyramid power, Area 51, Diebold, "the real reason they had to silence Kennedy", harmonic convergence: does any of this ring a bell? These are the theories put forward by secular nuts. If Christianity has to take the hit for some loon denying the moon landing, you've got to stand for these people.

I believe that we're so afraid of offending people (right left and center) that we don't stand up for the truth. No one says "you're wrong" anymore, except on the internet, where no one says anything else. Of course, you and I don't agree on what the truth is. Still, I'd rather see kids taught evolutionary theory as fact, if students were taught that truth is different from error. Darwin's got maybe 20 years left anyway.

Matthew, Matt, Mattie, It's getting so hard (forgive the pun) for you to hide your love for me isn't it?

Thanks for your words D'oh, and the encouragement. I'm now a guinea pig for a new eye drug only 6 months out of the FDA. They only want to try it on one eye at a time and it's so new that 6 doctors crowded into the room because they'd never seen it administered before.

We'll see (I hope)

I like your way of thinking and I'll have to do a little research now.

Thanks again
Jet

PS. I think Sussy's jealous. I take the time to respond to my readers, comment count is secondary, I pay attention to the right sidebar under the heading "Most Readers".

"UFO's, crop circles, cattle mutilations, telepathy, Gaia, healing herbs that the AMA doesn't want you to know about, Bigfoot, pyramid power, Area 51, Diebold, "the real reason they had to silence Kennedy", harmonic convergence: does any of this ring a bell? These are the theories put forward by secular nuts."

And you and the rest of the ecumenical religous supremacists are free to rewrite these as often and as much as you wish. When it comes to science however can we agree to keep supernatural causation shelved?

Please do tell, why does darwinian evolution by natural selection only have about 20 years left?

Abstruse, I'm so glad you took the time to leave a word or two on how much you loved the article. You're sweet.

Point of order, you can't get taller than your father due to better medical care.

As for North and South Korea, at least they're DOING something instead of sitting on their hands. True or false, great medical strides are being made outside of the U.S. not in it.

The mention of the Koreas was more toward their electronics, which is where most TVs are made today. When did the last se a "made in the USA" sticker on a TV, Stereo, I pod etc?

"I take have the time to respond to my readers"

Fixed that for ya'.

Baronius, I will give you an absofuckinlootly on that. However I'm not talking about loonies with UFOs I'm talking about a President denying medical knowledge in favor of Jerry Falwell claiming AIDS will only hurt homosexuals. I'm talking about jerks in Iran denying the holocaust happened, I'm talking about Loony preachers claiming George Washington was the Second coming of Christ sent by god to set up a theocracy in the new world.

To shove everything else in with it cheapens the legitimate arguments, and that's not fair.

Like saying all gays chase little boys
Like saying all Jews are cheap and cheats
Like saying all blacks are thieves
like saying all irish are drunks.

It's not fair and it's not right.

I'm sticking to established facts that are being bent to fit an agenda, not UFOs and perverts.

Ah Matt you're making it hard (whoops)for me not to feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Thanks for fixing that and for caring enough to take the time..

Uh Mr. Sussman, now that all the flirting's done, what did you think of the article? I KNOW I'll regret asking.

"Point of order, you can't get taller than your father due to better medical care"

Myriads of teratogens can act upon the unborn limiting the scope of fetal development. For instance alcohol can cause facial abnormalities brain defects and underweight births not to mention stunted growth. I argue that my mother not drinking during my gestation is directly connected to access of medical knowledge disseminated to the public at large. So, you CAN be taller through medical care.

"great medical strides are being made outside of the U.S. not in it."

Absoloutly, the news from Europe last week was a breakthrough in cancer treament using a "ray-gun" to target unoperable growths.

Always nice to post sources.

And the North korea thing is just a response to my current obsession with the Kim dynasty.

Jet, I figured you were talking about Lasick or something. I didn't realize this was a big deal. I hope you don't mind if I keep you in my prayers. Actually, I kind of hope you do mind, and I'll do it anyway. Pfffthhhh!

Thank you Baronius, I do care, but if it'll help, I'll stop. I'm not anti-christian by any stretch of the imagination, but I am against corporate churches and fools putting words in God's mouth.

(:^p~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Gads Abstruse, do you realize now man links are in this article alone? 20 down and 230 to go Matt!

I was'nt being flipant. In fact I was agreeing with you. Seems you are being a lil bit combative.

Jet, this message will self destruct with a nuke after you read it. The world is in your hands. The village Idiot.

Abstruse I just had my 11th proceedure to save my eyesight, I was being overly defensive, not combative.

Thanks for telling me
Jet

A little hard to make an unborn joke on this subject, isn't it sr?. Thanks for popping in and saying hello though.

Jet

Here is another one for you , Jet.

Just another case of reality not matching up with "official" policies.

"Oh boy, another science vs. religion article! Only thing left to do is weigh odds on how many comments this one will go. We'd normally set the bar at 125, but this is a Jet article, so the parlay is 205½. Place yer bets!"
- Matthew Sussman

Sounds like a cat hissing.

Thanks D'oh. My sister used to grow a huge one on the landing going up her stairs to the 2nd floor of her house.

She got so used to it being there that she forgot it, except to water it of course. One day a cop friend came to visit her and she nearly fainted when he walked right past it without a word.

The next week it was hanging from her overhead light in the dining room to dry.

Jet,

A question for you. Are you sure this is science versus religion? Could it be that theologians do not know their science and are talking out of their hats? Could it be that scientists do not know their theology and are farting out of their lab coats?

I'm an optimist. I suspect that what I've suggested above is the truth, and that it is the big reason for the divide between two branches of wisdom, with two different approaches.

As for the idiots who deny the holocaust, the moon landings, etc. well, the world is filled with idiots, and the internet just makes their quacking louder...

Thanks MCH, after remembering when he used that very line, I nearly fell out of the cahir laughing.

I'm glad you liked the article?

Ruvy, this article is about policians rewriting history to serve their own ends, it's about unqualified religious figures revising science books, it's about politicians mangling the word of God in order to serve their very ungodly ambitions.

Jet,

Don't take my comments for criticism. You did a good job of journalism. I'm suggesting a way out of the quagmire of lies and deceipt.

Ruvy: Could it be that scientists do not know their theology and are farting out of their lab coats?

Why should it matter whether or not scientists are versed in theology? They're not versed in astrology, either, just to take an example.

"Sounds like a cat hissing."

I suppose the charade must end.

In truth, I desperately crave 265 e-mails notifying me of comments posted by random, stubborn, and wordy kettleheads all writing and not really listening to each other. For that will that somehow validate that my article rocks, when in fact it's just a property of the Internet: People argue 'cause they can.

(And it sure is easy with an alias!)

Now MCH, I'm sure I wrote a comment 2 years ago which contradicts this comment. Go find it, boy! Go!

I never had any doubts Ruvy, sorry if it sounded that way, but thanks for telling me that.

I honestly believe from my research that if Iran can get enough people to believe that the holocaust was all a lie, that they can whip their extreemists into believing Israel doesn't deserve to exist.

I knew you weren't critisizing.
Jet

Suss I believe the cat remark was made on the writer's private page and you had directed at me. I suppose I could look it up but why bother.

Asside from cutsey remarks and flirting with me, do you have any intelligent input on the subject?

Duane it's more about priests trying to blame Ben Franklin for an earthquake. It's fools that have no idea what they're talking about, trying to use their position of authority to rewrite science... or the lack of it.

Besides no star can be more than 10,000 light years away because the universe isn't that old, just ask Jerry Falwell.

Thanks for entering the fray.
Jet

Suss, you seem to have the obsession with comments you continuously accuse me of. As I've stated, I'm more interested in the "most readers" column, than the most comments.

Don't fight the feeling babe. We're only a few hundred miles from each other and there's always that Motel 6 in Mansfield?

"Why should it matter whether or not scientists are versed in theology?"

Duane, some scientists might want to understand why and wherefore, instead of being satisfied by the empty theological shrug that agnosticism and atheism has to offer. Some might feel that there is more to it all than "life's a bitch and then you die."

Ruvy, I'm more inclined to believe that God set the process of creating the Earth and Universe in motion, knowing the eventual outcome. However, I don't believe for a second that it happened the way some fool fictionalized it in the bible.

sorry.

I believe in God, I believe in a higher power, but one that works in ways we'll never understand and in a timespan of more than mere thousands of years.

I believe that God started the "big Bang" billions of years ago, and was probably wise enough to know the outcome, and that there would be more than one world that priests arrogantly believe was God's perfect creation.

If God was trying to create a companion, he would've and could've done a hell of a lot better than us.

To believe that we were created in his image is folly, we're too fragile and feable and too short-lived to serve his purpose, and the conversation is too one-sided, even if we were intelligent enought to carry on a converstaion with him/it/her.

There's also the non-scientists who deny that global warming doesn't exist. Just campair a satelite photo of the polar ice caps from 20 years ago to todays. Just compare the average temperation from 1960 to today.

OK, Ruvy (#38), I'll buy that. Science has no idea about "why?" But I believe that theology is the academic study of religious beliefs, or in more general terms, the study of man's relationship with God (or gods). That might narrow down the scope of the search for meaning, since it presupposes the existence of gods. Maybe the entirety of metaphysics is what is you bump up against, not just theology.

But don't let's quibble.

Matthew: ...random, stubborn, and wordy kettleheads all writing and not really listening to each other.

We all listen to everyone else, but the thing is, everyone else is wrong.

Jet at #39. I tend to agree with much that you write. I believe, as do you, that G-d created the universe about 15 billion years ago by creating the forces that resulted in a Big Bang. Some m'kubalim say that it took 15 billion years for those forces (which they describe as a greater light interacting with a lesser light) to develop the strength to build up to the explosion known as the Big Bang. Hence we have a period of 29 to 30 billion years to stretch back the very roots of the beginning of the universe, when G-d said "let there be light."

Maimonides wrote a thousand years ago that the first verses in Genesis describing the creation of the universe were true in terms of providing a moral lesson, but the actual events themselves were hidden in the text, encoded.

I strongly suspect that there is a whole lot more to all of this than the brief lines you see in the Hebrew text of the Torah. There is a theory that seems to bring the ideas together rather well, tying ancient Sumerian records to the events in the Torah, but it is yet missing a very large item of evidence before it can be seriously discussed as a theory for being an effective concordance, if you will, of science and advanced technology, ancient ideas of "religion and gods," and the existence of a Divine Being Who makes good and evil. For that reason, I have been silent about it, hinting here and there, but really saying nothing on this magazine. This is a public forum.

So for the moment, I'll stand with the statement that the Torah is the Divinely created blueprint of the universe, and encoded within it is the data describing the universe in detail, and encompassing all possibility. That, of course, is a statement of belief. I also believe that much of the Torah is history, provable with archaeological evidence. Contact me off-line for more details.

Duane at 41. The entirety of metaphysics is exactly what you bump into, not just theology. And there are a number of places where biology and physics both manage to cross the line into metaphysics...

That is what makes it all so interesting.

Ruvy, I think it would be a great idea if you were to make the effort to write up in a coherent way your theory about the ancient Sumaria and the Torah possibly being an "effective concordance, if you will, of science and advanced technology, ancient ideas of "religion and gods," and the existence of a Divine Being Who makes good and evil".

I've been trying to get you to clarify these ideas for ages now but you still just keep dropping little hints without ever seizing the opportunity to delineate it more coherently, which is most frustrating.

As you say, this is a public forum, so how about it?

Ruvy, you asked,

A question for you. Are you sure this is science versus religion? Could it be that theologians do not know their science and are talking out of their hats

Duane remarked,

We all listen to everyone else, but the thing is, everyone else is wrong

JET, nice article. Good stuff.

=====

re: Matt "Stuart Larkin" Sussman -- Man, you are SO FUCKING CLEVER! Your snide, desperate little cries for attention contribute a lot to this site. Keep up the creative, original contributions!

And thanks for reminding the readers that discussing science, politics, and metaphysics is SO MUCH LESS IMPORTANT than which gang of overweight, steriod-sucking motards will push a little ball into the end-zone this weekend. We talentless, weenie nerds need to know we can vicariously participate in sports -- and you are the team captain in that regard.

Keep rockin', maaaaan.

Duane remarked,

We all listen to everyone else, but the thing is, everyone else is wrong

Now, I know of many instances when a politico or a religionist has argued about science and all, but I am unfamiliar with any scientist worth his salt who has gotten into the god business other than to say "we don't know"

Which, to me, appears to be the only real and honest answer on the metaphysical front.
Could just be me.

Ruvy: "...the Torah is the Divinely created blueprint of the universe, and encoded within it is the data describing the universe in detail, and encompassing all possibility."

I'm with C. Rose on this one; Ruvy, please to enlighten us.

Thanks in advance,
S[amateur biblical scholar/professional atheist]HARK

=========

re: C. Rose: "...you still just keep dropping little hints without ever seizing the opportunity to delineate it more coherently, which is most frustrating."

I hope this isn't one of those esoteric, "you will learn when you are ready" things.

Ruvy, What can't I be that intelligent and lucid at three in the morning?

You'll note that I've never attacked the statement that God created the universe in 6 days. That's because it's a guessed timeframe on man's point. After all what reference did he have?

Somehow I don't think that an eternal being such as God would have or even need a calendar. If you've lived since eternity began and will exist until infinity what's + or - a few billion years?

I've never trusted the Christian version of a week anyway. for instance Christians hold Sunday the first day of the week, and consider it holy because that's the day God rested, so they consider it a "day of rest".

Duh?

If the Bible teaches on the seventh day he rested, why isn't Sunday the last day of the week instead of the first?

As for your well written and well thought out words, you should be publishing this in a book somewhere, but until you do, I feel honored that you chose my articles to "articulate"

Jet

Christopher Rose, Better yet, a book co-authored by you and Ruvy debating the existance versus the lack of the existance of God or a higher being.

It'd be wonderful to read such a text with intelligent arguments on both sides of the aisle out of mutual respect, instead of adversary.

Jet

Thank you Shark.

For a moment I lost my train of thought, pondering that "gang of overweight, steriod-sucking motards"

Uh...

Wait I'll get it back......

D'oh, as I've said many many times, the most intelligent thing someone can ever say is "I don't know"

Someone who won't admit that, is usually the dumbest one in the room...

But enough about Bush

Jet, on just the day of the sabbath thing, all accounts say the sabbath is on saturday. It was the catholic church in it's earliestdays that shifted it to sunday, at the whim of Constantine.

This worthy emperor was conflating the current trend of Roman Sun worship with early christianity to make his new, state religion. "Sun"day, after all. A very common practice of early "catholic" doctrine was grabbing local customs as much as they could and incorporating it all into their new religion. Santeria does much of the same thing today.

SHARK - if you are amateur biblical scholar, I'd hate to see what you would call the real thing, scary thoughts after reading some of the insights you and others have written here on BC in the last few years.

My question to the forum is why can't religious texts be taken for what they are at face value? Why do they have to be "encoded"?

It'd seem to me you could play "find a word" with any text and discover enough letters to make up sentences to justify anything you want.

By the same hand you can twist the meaning of words to make them say anything you want.

Why not just take the Bible at what it is? Ancient people from different times put their thoughts into an ongoing text over a period of centuries, trying to make sense of their world and how it worked, using the only theories that they could understand.

I'm sure 2000 years from now our science books will look just as quaint.

"I've been trying to get you to clarify these ideas for ages now but you still just keep dropping little hints without ever seizing the opportunity to delineate it more coherently, which is most frustrating.

As you say, this is a public forum, so how about it?"

Chris,

Thank you for the offer, but one does not push ideas as science without the effective evidence, particularly on a public forum. A huge piece of evidence needed to move this theory (which is not mine, BTW) from the fringes of the debate where it sits now to an intelligent scientific theory that respectable scientists would not fall off of their chairs laughing at, is not yet there. As I told Jet, contact me off-line.

What can be asserted with a certain amount of proof is this: there was a fellow named Abraham who had a father named TeraH. There was a Joseph who saved the Egyptian economy from famine. There was a series of plagues that destroyed Egypt for 400 years a few of generations later. There was an exodus of slaves from Egypt. This can be proven.

Let's just hope we don't look as foolish as the preacher that blamed evil Ben Franklin's lightning rod for an earthquake.

Thanks D'oh, it's not that it's biblically incorrect, it's that it's so GLARINGLY biblically incorrect.

It's on the line of the born-agains constantly lamenting "The lord giveth and the lord taketh away". Since they insist that everything in the bible is litterally correct, that's their explanation, but that's so glaringly wrong it's laughable.

While it's true that the lord did give to Job, it was the Devil that took it away to test his faith. So any bible scholar would lament "the lord giveth and Satin taketh away". But then that wouldn't be a Fundamentalist word for word in stone thing to say, so the idiots keep saying it the other way...

I think just to make me cringe when I hear it.

Ruvy, reconsider. Not wanting to put your thoughts down in a public forum because you don't think they're provable scientifically is folly. After all, by putting things out here, other's will help you summarize what you know, and make you ponder what you don't know.

That's how I larn that there uh.. stuff.

I've lost count of how many of my articles have turned into text books on this or that, and I've learned many things from my friends here.

Even Suss!

"It always seems to me that as soon as a man like Bush is backed into a corner and is too hard-headed to admit he's wrong, he comes out swinging instead with his redundant and repetitive 'God is on my side' speech.

I'll give him credit for at least amending it to 'God is on OUR side'"

Jet, Moshe Dayan, a coward who rose to the top of the IDF beause he was cautious, had the sense to tell reporters in June 1967, when the Israeli Army was wiping their butts with the Egyptians, Syrians and Jordanians, that "no, G-d is not on our side. We hope that we are on G-d's side."

Even this traitor had more class than George Bush.

But I digress...

Amen Ruvy, and digress all you like

Jet,

The value of the Torah is in the encoded data. On its face, it is a saga of a very small, insignificant group of tribes in the Middle East and the code of law they were given. If that were the entire value to the Torah, I could forget about being a Jew and all the other stuff, and go back to eating bacon, egg and cheese croissants at Burger King (so I could get a fatal heart attack).

It is the encoded data that makes the Torah valuable. The encoded data is what the Rabbinic calendar is based on, effectively giving a theoretical new moon before creation (based here on six days, not fifteen billion years) that determines the day of the week to start the calendar on. This encoded data is very likely very similar to what the Sumerians used in determining their own lunar calendar. It should be borne in mind that it is very likely that Abraham's father was a high priest in Ur who left when the king he served died. He taught Abraham the family business. When you look at the names of the wives of TeraH's sons, Milka (queen), and Sarah (princess), you realize that Abraham and his family were not just shemndriks who chased sheep around the field into a pen. When you bear in mind that NaHor and Abraham married their half sisters, just as did the Sumerian kings, you realize that they were following the marital customs of royalty and were likely royalty themselves.

It is the encoded data that tells you that this dusty work on scrolls is of Divine Authorship, and not the result of combined authors fighting to put their particular versions of the Hebrew saga onto parchment.

It is the Torah Code that had to wait for computer technology to uncover it.

Here is a link that sheds some scientific doubt on the Torah codes.

There are other links on that page that can allow the reader to explore more fully at their leisure.

Flimsy stuff to base a view of reality upon, but to each their own, I guess.

"Ruvy, reconsider. Not wanting to put your thoughts down in a public forum because you don't think they're provable scientifically is folly."

What I do with my ideas is my business - but the ideas I'm talking about are NOT mine. They've been written into a series of books and have made it to the internet as well. But because of the missing evidence, the gaping hole in this man's theory, his work has been relegated to the lala land section of the internet, where all sorts of crazies paste their own loony fantasies onto his work, which is serious and well documented.

It's disgusting to see and it's humiliating. Basically, I hope for this man's sake that the piece of evidence needed to prove his theories shows up before he dies - he is an elderly man. But not all of us are so rewarded...

The author mentions several examples of natural selection, but then claims that these are proof of evolution. Any biologist will tell you that these are not the same. In the examples above, please note that people are still people, bears are still bears, viruses are still viruses, etc. Natural selection only works with existing information, it does not generate new information. And mutations are no help at all, either. Evolution is a nice story, but that's all it is - a story to try and explain how we got here without a Creator.

And please don't lump all creationists with the fringe elements of society, such as holocaust deniers, flat-earthers, anti-gays, moon landing hoax believers, etc. Many are intelligent, well-trained scientists who simply interpret the evidence from a different worldview, and accept the supernatural, rather than naturalism/materialism, which is driving modern science.

I was waiting for the ID types to show up. Please show your scientific and peer reviewed evidence and data, along with experimentation notes and results, for ID?

Unfortunately intelligent and unintelligent people alike can interpret encoded date two completely different ways and both be convinced that their's is valid.

alas

C'mon kids! I wouldn't want to disappoint Sussman!
Comments-I need comments.

Yes that was dumb as it sounds.

Thanks D'oh, I appreciate the link. This isn't about science vs religion as much as it's about unqualified people trying to rewrite history, science and religion.

I don't try to put anyone's beliefs down unless I have to.

What ever gets you through the night without fearing the dark.

D'oh,

The problem with McKay and his collaborators is this. Codes in the Torah were in use long before "War & Peace" was written. As I pointed out they were used by ancient priests in Israel to verify the calendar against witnesses, and to claculate probable dates of new moons. The number the ancient Hebrews used for lunation (the average length of the moon's cycle) is found encoded in the Torah, not in observing the stars or the moon. The ancient Hebrews were not astronomers generally, and did not contribute to any astronmical knowledge that we are aware of. But Abraham, the son of a Sumerian High Priest, was reputed to know astronomy.

When you check the numbers used to calculate lunation, different cultures used slightly different numbers. The Hebrews, who were not astronomers, and later the Jews after them, stuck to the number they had, and it turns out that this number is closest to what is observable by NASA satellites - as opposed to the numbers used by Greeks, Babylonians and others.

To use science to provide a watermark to prove the existence of G-d sticks in the throat of many scientists. That the Torah Codes should be valid was simply impermissable in the eyes of many of them. Thus, it was with great difficulty that Witztum Rips and Rosenberg were able to get their work published in Statistical Science at all. After McKay published his refutation, the editor of the magazine said the subject was closed.

So much for scientific objectivity.

Through natural selection a species better adapts to its environment. It transforms itself into something different in steps in order to survive.

That's evolution.

Please by all means name you "any biologist". Just because you selfrighteously proclaim something doesn't make it so.

A german shepherd evolved from the wolf-they're still both dogs.

A man evolved from the apes, and we're both still simians.

An aligator is a reptile whether it's in the water or out of it. God created Noah to live to be over 600 years old, if we didn't evolve how is it we don't live that long?

Take your foot out of your mouth,
and read your bible instead of beating it.

G-man reminds me of a kid that Jay Leno pointed out last night. there was a published christmas list in which this little girl wrote a letter to santa and included about 200 items on her list, and then as an afterthought included at the end, "...and don't forget Jesus is the reason for the season."

Talk about hypocritical parents!

I'd LOVE to meet an intelligent, well-trained scientists who simply interprets the evidence from a different worldview, and accept the supernatural, rather than naturalism/materialism, which is driving modern science.

I bet he's not a geologist

I bet he graduated from Jerry Falwell's Liberty College with honors!

Maybe he's even a of overweight, steriod-sucking motard?

Jet,

Try reading from this web-site by Jerry Schroeder. His work generally notes that more and more of the universe seems to be beyond mere material. Here he speaks as a scientist, and not a religious scholar, and notes that other scientists are reluctantly coming to the same conclusion.

As you said, it is time that people stopped beating their bibles and started reading them. There is plenty of evidence that religion and science are two differing approaches to wisdom that should be working together, and not in opposition to each other.

Scientific minds are used to working with partial evidence Ruvy, so don't let that hold you back...

Like I said, Chris, these are not my ideas, but the life's work of an aging man. His books can be bought and read, and much of his work has made it onto the internet. But because there is a big item missing from the his theoretical construct, an item that needs to be in evidence to give his theory solidity, his work languishes in the internet's looney bin, with all sorts of crazies pasting their fantasies onto it.

For me to push it here would not clear away the loonies or provide the evidence needed.

Ruvy, that shouldn't stop you from giving your take on it, and some would even say that you might be worthy of completing the work.

Ruvy, may I humbly but fervently suggest you either provide a link, name, whatever to these ideas which are not yours -- or shtok et hapeh.

Watching someone try to do some sort of intellectual striptease here is just not a very charming adventure.

Chag same'ach!

Good point MOAZ, especially since it's Ruvy doing the stripping.

Aside from that what did you think of the article?

I have seen Ruvy and, trust me on this, we definitely don't want him stripping

*SHUDDERS*

Christopher, I don't think I even want to know what the circumstances behind that were. (shudder)

Not to put too fine a point on it, but this article is crap. It rambles on and one throwing in all kinds of completely disparate things, some of which have some different bases of legitimate complaint and some of which simply don't.

For starters, I have an answer to your titular question, "Who among us has the right to rewrite religion, history or science?." The correct answer is: every one of us.

Sometimes the "common knowledge" is completely wrong. What right did some young fools have to claim that the Earth is round? Everybody knows that the Earth is flat. It's common knowledge. It's also common knowledge that most homosexual men are pedophiles.

Plus, a lot of this article is just your typical pure anti-religious bigotry, foisting off every belief that you consider wrong on religious people- as if somehow the moon landing conspiracy stuff was Jerry Falwell's doing.

Speaking of your ridiculous anti-religious bigotry, "the U.S. is being held back by religious fundamentalists who scream their outrage and wave their bibles at anything they can't use "God" to control. College students are heading to India and China to get hands-on experience and jobs in advanced electronics because none of it is manufactured here in America any more!"

The "being held back" stuff is just hateful hysteria, putting off your irrational emotional resentments on everyone else. Is your basis for this simply that some conservatives (and not just Christians) have some qualms about cloning and embryonic stem cells? You might not share their concerns, but this doesn't begin to justify your sweeping drama queen rhetoric.

And pray tell how are you blaming religious superstition for lack of US competitiveness in the manufacture of electronics? I don't recall any religious groups protesting against any form of electronic research. That's just dumb.

The AIDS stuff in this article was also just dumb. Don't blame Reagan for AIDS. It's not like Ronnie was out in the night spreading the disease in the gay bathhouses. And it's not like the federal government wasn't spending any money or doing anything.

Plus, you're just wrong in making AIDS out to be an equal opportunity disease. In fact, AIDS is mostly spread by anal sex and sharing IV drug needles. In fact, average church going Christians who aren't shooting IV drugs or having promiscuous unprotected anal sex have never been at much risk. It's a damn shame that homosexuals and drug addicts face such an ugly disease, but it's just wishful thinking flying directly in the face of facts for you pretend that it's an equal opportunity disease.

Ronnie was promoting neither of those risky activities. You seem to want to presume that if Reagan had just spent even more money, the AIDS epidemic wouldn't have happen. That's just not true.

The biggest underlying problem with this story though is the basic premise that there's more and more crazy theories and irrational beliefs than ever. That does not seem to be the case.

People have ALWAYS believed a lot of dumb crap- and the internet and satellite tv has just made it a lot easier for people to refute the bad beliefs. The best antidote to bad ideas is generally exposure to better ideas. People get more exposure to dumb conspiracy theories with modern technology - and more exposure to arguments and evidence against them. Given that, the better ideas will tend to beat out the bad ones.

The recent Iranian holocaust denial conference is a good case in point. Yes, there are some dumbasses talking anti-Semitic nonsense. That's been around ever since WWII though. What's different is that with the internet and numerous 24-hour news channels we have seen more disinfectant sunlight than ever shined onto the wicked people and weak arguments involved.

In short, human belief systems SHOULD be open to re-examination and question. YOU certainly shouldn't presume to be the arbiter of what beliefs are beyond question.

Hmmm I'm wondering just how long the remnants of cyonide would last, especially out in the weather like that, plus you have to take into account that holocaust victims were shot too... not to mention the hanus medical experiments that were performed.

Oh Al sweetie, I knew you were out there somewhere what took you so long?

Not to confuse the easily confused with facts, but apparently you didn't follow any of the links.

Reagan is responsible for the spread of AIDS in the U.S. for not taking action to get the word out. follow the link. Al I consider you a total [personal attack censored by author] for perpetuation of the lie that aids is spread by anal sex only. it is spread by the exchange of body fluids either by sexual contact, shared needles, or birth..

You're also a [personal attack censored by author] for saying all gays are pedophiles, but then someone as ignorant as you I'd expect nothing less.

You are a [personal attack censored by author] for spreading the lie that AIDS is a gay disease, when in the other 90 percent of the world it isn't.

But thank you for taking the time to write such an eloquent and well thought out diatribe here. I'm sure you've solidified many people's opinion of your intelligence.

mine too.

Nowhere did I say the moon conspiracy theories were Jerry Falwell's idea you [personal attack censored by author]. I did however say he was a complete [personal attack censored by author] for trying to whip up public outrage over ficticious children's characters. Tinky Winky should hit you over the head with his purse and knock some sense into you... not that it'd do any good.

Your ignorant right-wing bigotry and foolish [personal attack censored by author] makes you look like a total [personal attack censored by author]

You have a lot of room to talk about hateful hysteria you [personal attack censored by author]. I feel sorry for [personal attack censored by author] like you.

love
jet

Al Barger makes some good points, Jet. One that I will second explicitly is the idea that the expansion of the internet has actually undermined many of the conspiracy theorists. I wish I could remember where I read this -- it was a good article -- but the point was that, for example, if on Wednesday someone spreads some nonsense about the US faking the Moon landing, then on Thursday there will be a flood of posts dismantling the conspiracy argument. The counter-arguments show up in a Google search just as readily as the arguments. It is more difficult for the conspiracy theorists to maintain credibility when the skeptical refutations are there in black and white.

Ruvy, it is scientific objectivity we are talking about here where it concerns the Torah codes.

The link I gave you shows the experimentation, both for and against, and the methodology discussed was examined by the very same institution that published the original findings, and lent some credibility to the intitial results.

So the very same institution went over the methodology and findings of the study I am talking about, and published the peer reviewed results. That IS the scientific method in action.

In that article is another link with a very interesting bit about the flexibility of Hebrew spelling, and a mention of how this skews the probability analysis. You might want to check it out, or not.

First & foremost, Jet, dear: I hope this drug restores your sight to 20/20 & then some. Secondly, I really enjoyed the article. You got quite a head of steam up, there, and some pretty spot-on points; there'll be lots of discussion on this,I'm sure. Your usual excellent article. Finally, wish you & all on this blogsite very safe & happy holidays, whether you celebrate Christ or crop circles.

Oh yes, I almost forgot, the bit about the lunar calculations. Has it escaped your attention that the Egyptians, Mayans and Celts and Chinese all had very accurate lunar calendars in the time you mention?

Your assertion that said information could be found by some type of encoding in the Torah is interesting, and one can only wonder if the author picked it up in Egypt.

I dunno, duane; I remember a conspiracy theory thread on this website about 9/11 that went on & on & neither side really won; both sides had some pretty good, solid arguments & backup, pro & con. I think I came out believing it was Cheney in the War Room with the Smoking Gun, but at this point in time it's dim.

Point is, Al & all, there are idiots of ALL persuasions who will believe anything, any time, any where. The overall human race is not known for sagacity or much common sense, or we wouldn't be in all the trouble we're in today, or have gotten ourselves into in the past. It's just that for some reason those inclined to religiousity seem far more inclined to want to foist their beliefs onto others under the impression they alone have access to absolute truth. Of course there are members of the scientific community who are like this, too, but since they tend to have stricter standards of provability for their beliefs, they are fewer in number & less in/obtrusive. Basically it all goes back to the human instinct ... actually, the hominid instinct, when I think about it ... to mind everybody else's business but your own.

Duane what you're trying to tell me is that there aren't tens of thousands of radical islamic fundamentalists in the middle east right this moment that haven't been waiting for someone-anyone to self-righteously pronounce that the reason for the jewish state to exist is false, giving them an excuse to further attempt the extermination of Israel, and that the internet is going to refute that claim, and change their minds?

I think not.

For Barger to assert that AIDS is a gay disease and that the victims deserve to die because they're perverts and pedophiles is irresponsible disimformation and wrong because there's tens of thousands of people waiting for someone one in authority to say that to justify their hate.-but not unexpected.

Remember how everyone automatically assumed that Magic Johnson was homosexual the moment they found out he had AIDS-Instant and irresponsible judgment without the facts to back it up.

It's no different than some nut job seeing a painted sign that reads "Kill a Queer for Christ" and goes out and does it.

For Leaders in Iran to pronounce that the holocaust is wrong, because there are tens of thousands of people just waiting for someone one in authority to say that to justify their hate.

When that preacher blamed Benjamin Franklin for causing the 1755 earthquake with his little lightning rod, what if he'd been put on trial for it? If people were stupid enough to believe it, they'd be stupid enough to convict him.

Barger is no better than some idiot in Salem yelling WITCH!!!!!!!!!! and half the town believing him.

Disinformation is poison and dangerous, and there are always people waiting to drink it in like a Jim Jones follower waiting for his koolade.

The news of the faking of the holocaust recently was spread by joyous word of mouth by people who wanted to believe it, just like Barger's bullshit is being spread to people who want to believe it.

I pray to God that everyone is smart enough to see what it is, for what it is.

And yes, I will blame the religious right on the United State's decline of thousands of jobs to India and China-Why? Because highschool students are being taught not to trust science by assholes teaching intelligent design as fact and science as theory. Science grades have taking a terrible tumble in this country, while overseas it's just the opposite.

At it's extreem it could put kids off to studying medicine too, in favor of becoming some born-again faith healers.

Lies and hatred in the name of religion.

But it's not legitimate religion that's the problem. Legitimate belief in Christ and Allah teaches acceptance and cherishing of eachother and "Judge not". But corporate churchs teach that you only get to heaven if you have a ticket there distributed by this religion or that. that the powerful become saved by judging others unworthy of their approval.

Jet

MAOZ,

I never frequented strip clubs, and do not know how to "strip"

Avál, sha'álta, v't'kabél. Aní lo ehyeh ba'ál akhzavá.

The gentleman's name is Zecharia Sitchin, who wrote "The Twelfth Planet" 30 years ago, and has been writing additional works to it since. His essential premise is that the "gods" worshipped by the Sumerians (whom he argues were the first "civilized" people) were not gods at all, but long-lived large sized humans from a planet several times the size of earth that has an orbit that brings it close to the solar system every 3,600 years or so. According to Sitchen, these are the "nefilim" mentioned in the Torah, and their original goal was to mine gold on Earth. Humans worshipped these beings simply because they had advanced technology (which we would recognioze now) and appeared to them to live forever.

He then traces individuals in Sumerian writings through various transmutations (including one that takes place in India) and notes all sorts of interesting things in the Bible that this explanation would answer, including many of the items used in the Temple to communicate with G-d.

What is the problem? The planet is no where to be found in the sky, even though he argues it can be found in the literature of the Sumerians describing, amongst other things, the destruction of a planet between Mars and Jupiter, with half of it breaking into little asteroids, and the large chunk of it moving towards the sun to become Earth. According to Sitchen, this destruction is recorded in Sumerian literature because it was taught to the "black haired ones" the Sumerians who were like slaves to these annunaki ('anakim in Hebrew - giants).

Because this large planet has not been found, there is a huge hole in his theory which prevents it from being taken seriously. If it is found before he passes away, he like the man who discovered continental drift, will have a large place in the annals of human understanding. His books are carefully researched and while he may not have the whole story right, he has plenty of evidence in his books to back up his ideas.

But without that big planet somewhere in the sky, it just doesn't hold water.

Nancy (#88), whenever there are two sides, neither side ever wins at Blogcritics. You might read through a whole thread, and see that the momentum is going one way or another, and then post #360 appears the next day from someone new that seems to have ignored the previous 359 posts, and the argument starts all over again.

Sometimes people will concede a point (I have), sometimes people will admit to their mistakes (I have), sometimes people will change their minds.

At best BC debating is educational, but usually it's debating practice. And that's worth something.

No, Jet (#89), I'm not trying to tell you that. I'm simply saying that people who are swayed by internet-spread conspiracies can also be swayed in the other direction, so that the spread of disinformation BY INTERNET has an automatic system of checks and balances. I doubt that this applies to the group of people to whom you refer.

Ruvy in #90.

Thanks for sharing th every interesting bit of info.

One quibble is all I'll toss out for now. You mention that these aliens came from a much larger planet, and were giants.

Physics states the opposite would be true, a larger planet with a higher gravity would produce shorter, denser life forms, it would be a planet with less gravity that would produce giants, and they would need artificial aid in getting around our heavier gravity.

There is a point of diminishing returns as well, too small a planet would not have enough gravity to hold an atmosphere.

But now I do want to read this book you mention, sounds like fascinating stuff.

Jet- Your responses to me (comments 83 and 89) are just you ratcheting up the dishonesty and drama queen nonsense from the original article- and libelously accusing me of all sorts of evil stuff that I'm not saying nor have any desire to say.

For example, this nonsense: "For Barger to assert that AIDS is a gay disease and that the victims deserve to die because they're perverts and pedophiles is irresponsible disimformation and wrong" I said nothing even vaguely resembling that comment.

I feel pretty sure that a man of your intelligence could not have accidentally missed the point that I was likening the "common knowledge" of homosexuality equating with pedophilia to the "common knowledge" that the Earth is flat. You knew better than that when you typed those words- but you were mad, so you didn't care. After all, Al Barger is obviously an evil homophobe, so it's okay to make up whatever you need to say in order to refute him. It's for a higher good.

Again as to that point, AIDS is mostly spread by anal sex or sharing drug needles. That's a fact. It's not just or fair that people get such a horrible disease just for getting laid- but it's not my doing. Blame God- not Reagan, and certainly not ME.

AIDS is to a large extent a gay disease. That's exactly why you're so heated up about this disease rather than others that kill far more people, but don't have any correspondence to your interest group. Then you carry on about AIDS not having anything to do with gays - but directly contradicting yourself by making insufficient attention to AIDS out to be an attack on homosexuals. If AIDS has nothing to do with gay, then it's no skin off your ass either way.

It's a damned shame that gay folk have to deal with this extra nasty disease problem on top of everything else. Shooting the messenger won't cure the disease, however.

On the other hand, if you respond to my gentle invocations of reason by throwing a diva fit, hysterically cursing me and saying that I'm stupid and an evil demagogue out to massacre homosexuals- why, that'll prove conclusively that I'm a no-goodnik whose ideas shouldn't be considered.

Everybody can go right on humping as many of whatever kind of holes as they can get to, assured in the knowledge that this doesn't cause AIDS. And if they get sick anyway, remember that it's Ron Reagan and Al Barger causing it.

Ah, Al..you are familiar with the African statistics about AIDS, are you not? Hardly a gay only problem there, same with the disturbing growth of the illness in Asia.

That being said, I do think Jet missed you equating the whole "gay disease" bit with the "flat earth" stuff, more than likely an honest error rather than any kind of "drama queen" stuff.

Since when am I the referee around here?

bah!

"you are familiar with the African statistics about AIDS, are you not?"

Apparently not.

but it's just wishful thinking flying directly in the face of facts for you pretend that it's an equal opportunity disease.

It's also common knowledge that most homosexual men are pedophiles.

AIDS is to a large extent a gay disease.

And pray tell how are you blaming religious superstition for lack of US competitiveness in the manufacture of electronics? I don't recall any religious groups protesting against any form of electronic research. That's just dumb

D'oh- I never said that AIDS was a gays-only problem. In America and Europe, it seems to be mostly promiscuous (as opposed to chaste or monogamous) homosexuals and needle-sharing IV drug users who are mostly at risk. I say that not because of liking it or considering it fair, but simply recognizing and naming reality on the ground as best I understand it.

I claim no significant expertise in infectious disease medicine, but in less developed countries, it doesn't seem surprising that they would be much more vulnerable to any disease. They're more sickly to start with, often will have already compromised immune systems, and have less medical knowledge (a point not helped by hysteria from the likes of Jet) or access to health care.

Thus, it would seem that all this increases the vulnerability of impoverished populations to infection from sexual practices that are generally not high risk for AIDS in healthier, wealthier populations. But still, that mostly involves obvious high risk sexual behavior, whether it's gay or straight. It's not just jumping on people out of the air.

As to "honest error," I would tend to give all benefit of the doubt in such things - if there is any reasonable doubt. But my writing in comment 81 was not that ambiguous, and Jet certainly knows me better than to honestly think that I'd say or believe anything near to the nonsense he's attributing to me.

But he's been mistreated and he's ill- as he has been at pains re-iterate, so we should not expect normal civic responsibility to be rational or honest- much less polite. Thus, he expects to throw public hissy fits like this article - much less the increasingly hysterical nonsense in these comments - and ol' Al is the bad guy cause I dare name the obvious.

Still, this foolish article reflects badly on the site, as does the shrill hostility in these comments. Also, Jet does not respond well to even the most gently and discreetly stated criticism, so I'll just have to be the Blue Meanie.

It's tough being me, but who else can I be? Which leads to this concluding note: Jet, did you happen to notice that you responded to a charge of being a "drama queen" by throwing a hissy fit? Do you think that likely to be an effective strategy in disproving my observation?

Al, you don't seem to be too aware of AIDS in Africa. The growth is among the women, and heterosexual population. There are quite a few experts who equate much of it with abstinence only education, and not having actual and practical sex education among the population.

So men go out and fool around, catch the disease, and infect their wives and thus their children.

A very complex issue all around. I hear what you are saying, but I also hear where Jet and others are coming from as well.

If the antagonism ratchets down a notch or ten
(and on this thread, you brought the nasty first , Al)then perhaps better understanding and some education with communication can occur.

So play nice, the both of you.

Another link for the thread can be found here

A significant breakthrough in electronics, in a Swiss facility with Chinese engineers.

Dear Ruvy,

Thanks for showing yer intellectual pasties on the Torah code thing. I'm almost kinda sorry I asked, tho.

As far as chasing esoteric puzzles, I actually prefer deconstructing cosmic numerical values as they relate to Hebrew letters found in Madonna songs.

=======

BEST LINE OF THE DAY:

MAOZ: "Watching someone try to do some sort of intellectual striptease here is just not a very charming adventure."

That was great, man!

=======

Worst Painful Attempt to Be Provocative on a Real Slow Day:

Al Barger lecturing the class on AIDS.

=======

WORST LINE FROM BARGER:

"I claim no significant expertise in infectious disease medicine, but..."

=======

MOST IRONIC MOMENT: Barger denying he has any resemblance to a homophobe -- while constantly addressing JET [a gay man, btw] using phrases like "drama queen", "diva fit", and "hysterical".

======

BEST EXAMPLE OF BARGER STARTING TO LET A TINY GLIMMER OF HIS TRUE SELF EMERGE:

"Everybody can go right on humping as many of whatever kind of holes as they can get to, assured in the knowledge that this doesn't cause AIDS."

Whew!

If nothing else, Big Al knows how to toss around the compassion, don't he!?

======

Carry on, kids.

...But just don't let that G-man start in on the "Intelligent Design" crap. I ain't in the mood.

xxoo
S

D'oh,

At comment #91. At this point you are no longer arguing with me, you are arguing with Sitchen. He has a web-site, but no e-mail address.

At comments #85 & #87.

I live here in Israel, D'oh. My own last name has at least three ways it can spelled in Hebrew that I can think of, though others in Jerusalem bearing it have chosen the same way to spell it that I have (maybe they had the same clerk processing their papers at Ben-Gurion Airport - he did look old enough to have processed Moses' immigration documents, let alone my great-grandfather's). So it is no surprise that after 3,000 years, a language will develop a certain flexibility in its spelling - particularly when dealing with transliterating letters from the Latin or Cyrillic alphabets.

When dealing with names of that nature one of the procedures for Torah Codes researchers is to use all the possible transliterations.

Maybe you weren't paying attention to what I wrote. Other peoples in the ancient world have developed calendars, the Chinese and Mayans for example, and those where damned sopisticated calendars at that. But the one culture to have the most accurate number for lunation is ours. And the point is that it was not found by looking in the sky, but by looking in the Torah.

As for "scientific method", when a magazine declares that a subject will no longer be considered in future, that is shutting the door to further research, so far as it is concerned. That is not science, that is politics. Ubnfortunately science, like all other forms of human endeavour, is shot through with politics.

As for McKay and friends and their site, of course I went there, and saw the charges of Dr. Eliyahu Rips proven true. They have used every method they could think of to delegitimize the work of Witztum, Rips and Rosenberg, and they succeeded at the magazine "Statistical Science."

In this instance, "orthodox scientists" who have embraced atheism as a faith (something they will never admit to), stand in the place the Catholic Church did 500 years ago, trying to deny advances in human knowledge. They will succeed as well as the Vatican did then.

Finally, Jet, Barger,

Cut the crap, both of you. You make the magazine look bad. Go duke it out in a bar in Columbus (Jet can't drive to Indiana these days, so you need to go to him, Al).

I found an interesting cosmic conclusion encoded in RUVY's TEXT!


If the "n" in "Genesis" = #1, and you take every 19th letter (excluding spaces) IT READS:

"Maimonides wrote a thousand years ago that the first verses in Ge...

Nesisdescribingthe = 18 letters
Universeweretruein = 18 letters
Terms of providing a moral lesson, but the actual events themselves were hidden in the text, encoded."

"NUT"

Wow.

Fascinating!

The light turns on in Shark's brain - see the following:

"Nesisdescribingthe = 18 letters
Universeweretruein = 18 letters
Terms of providing a moral lesson, but the actual events themselves were hidden in the text, encoded."

'NUT'"

Wow, dude!

I'm impressed! With a bright intellect like that, you could make a real contribution to Torah Codes research yourself. Didn't know you had it in you.

Referring all of you to comment 4 for proof, Barger and Sussman seem to enjoy immediately dumping on any article I write or any note I leave on the writer's board with such adjectives as Drama Queen, hysteric, diva etc. all the while using a patronizing tone.

I'm considerate enough to respond to people that care enough to write to me here and I'm constantly being put down for it, instead writing me off as being nothing more than childishly wanting attention.

That's not fucking paranoia-comment 4 makes it a proven god-damned fact.

You BOTH started the attack. Perhaps sooner or later I'll start arbitrarily negatively and joyfully leaping on every damned article you write and return the favor you seem to love doing to me.

Fortunately I'm more grown up than that.

Al, I refer you back to Comment 97, which you conviently didn't answer.

As for you self-righteous pronouncement that I'm making this site look bad, WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU TO DECIDE THAT? I'd point out that the word at the top of this piece says OPINION. There's a difference between intelligently voicing your disagreement with my point of view and CHILDISHLY and condescendingly playing the smart-ass playground jerk.

Overreacting? You're godammed right I'm over reacting, and I could bring up dozens of comments like #4-12 and the first sentence of #81 from both of you to fucking prove I'm justified... and that's just on this article alone.

Again, I'd like a response to 97.

Sincerely
The immature goddamned fucking picked-on cry-baby Drama queen, who only wrote this to get attention.

Shark, thanks for summing it up and making me smile.

Jet

D'Oh and Ruvy, thanks for keeping at an intellectual level, much appreciated.

The light turns on in Shark's brain - see the following:

"Nesisdescribingthe = 18 letters
Universeweretruein = 18 letters
Terms of providing a moral lesson, but the actual events themselves were hidden in the text, encoded."

'NUT'"

Wow, dude!

I'm impressed! With a bright intellect like that, you could make a real contribution to Torah Codes research yourself. Didn't know you had it in you.




Wow Ruvy in Jerusalem, whenever i read your posts, all i see is, "Blah Blah Blah, I'm a dirty Jew."

Just want to clarify, although An Angry Citizen and I share the same IP, we are entirely different people in the same work place. Friends, but we have different opinions.

I'm not against debate; anything is better than the one-woman diatribe going on over at the "Miracle at Fatima" thread, lol!

I can't stand that Women Sung About. Is she for real? Because of the completely outlandish things she's saying (such as being the women from "Let it Be" and Walt Disney or whatever, I don't know), I'm beginning to think this is a very drawn out joke. Completely stupid and just plain annoying if it is.

Can we get that woman blocked?

Or at least stoned.

dear concerned, PLEASE don't talk about getting stoned when I have a medicine cabinet full of pain killers!

So... what did you think of the article?

Dear Nancy, I've been kinda preoccupied, so accept my belated thanks for your contributions.

Jet

Ruvy: They're vultures. Don't let them under your skin.

JET to Barger and "Stuart Larkin" Sussman: "...sooner or later I'll start arbitrarily negatively and joyfully leaping on every damned article you write..."

Hey, that's my job!

XXOO

~~~~~sh/rk~~~~~

"Wow Ruvy in Jerusalem, whenever i read your posts, all i see is, 'Blah Blah Blah, I'm a dirty Jew.'"

Thanks for the compliment, Shark. I'm flattered. Now let's teach you the proper phrasing, direct from a kid who was willing to march and bust heads with the Jewish Defense League and Rav Meir Kahana, of blessed memory, may G-d avenge his blood.

"We are Jews! We couldn't be prouder. And if you don't like it, we'll shout a little louder!!

WE ARE JEWS! WE COULDN'T BE PROUDER! AND IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT, WE'LL SHOUT IT EVEN LOUDER!

WE ARE JEWS! WE COULDN'T BE PROUDER! AND IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT, WE'LL SHOUT IT EVEN LOUDER!!"

Whew, that felt good. It's been too long.

Those were the days, Shark. The baseball bat still feels good in my hands...

Love and kisses and
Happy Hanukkah

Ruvy in Jerusalem

Well then Damn it Shark get to work!

Ruvy, this is getting gross, first your pictured as a stripper, now you're in a mini skirt and pom-poms doing cheers.

Do you have any idea how long it's going to take to get the picture out of our heads.

Happy Hanukkah
and blessings

Jet

Jet,

You know, when the Germans first faced Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto aiming pistols and machine guns at them, they said in utter shock and disbelief "Jews? Weapons?" before getting shot by the partisans.

Don't forget the baseball bat I mentioned - it's purpose was not for playing little girlie games, either...

And it still feels good in my hands...

Put the bat down Ruvy, that was meant as friendly banter. This article was inspired by the outrage of Iran trying to deny the holocaust.

It's good that you and millions like you feel outrage, Jet. THAT'S progress. Real progress. But for us, the basic lesson is that Jew - hatred is NOT the Jew's problem, but the problem of the hater of Jews. And our job as Jews is to educate the hater to make sure that if he hates us, he at least does not act on his hatred.

Hence the bat; the pistol; the M1; the M16, and whatever other damned weapon it takes to "educate" the Jew hater.

THAT was what I learned from the Rav Meir Kahana of blessed memory, may G-d avenge his blood.

I learned what the rich scared Jews in America and Tel Aviv have either never learned or have forgotten - to stand up proud with a straight back, and to fear no human - only G-d.

Very well put Ruvy, thanks. I could never pretend to know what it feels like to be a Jew in Israel right now. So many people pretend to know exactly what it means to be Jewish in these times and have no idea. They put labels on you and lump you all into one pile out of ignorance.

At least you have the comfort of your/our god. In the case of American gays though the problem is that so many evoke the name of God as an excuse to hate us that many of us have left any religious faith behind in order to survive.

Without knowing us they FALSELY brand us perverts, pedophiles, and little-boy recruiters in order to continue our race. It'd be impossible to explain to someone one straight exactly what it feels like to love in fear like we do. It'd be as hard for a man to try to explain to a woman what it's like to be a man and vice versa.

This is tragic.

I pray for your safety and that of your family every day my friend with what little faith I have left.

Hate and prejudice is not something created by God, even though those who do evoke his name to do so.

Jet

Wow. Just ... wow. Okay, we're gonna have to dissect this one.

"Referring all of you to comment 4 for proof, Barger and Sussman seem to..."

All right, we're gonna freeze it right here. Comment No. 4 was written by me and has nothing to do with The Barge. Let's look at Comment No. 4, shall we?

"Oh boy, another science vs. religion article! Only thing left to do is weigh odds on how many comments this one will go. We'd normally set the bar at 125, but this is a Jet article, so the parlay is 205½.

Place yer bets!"