Pericles, Kenny move over to the Peter Sellect thread and lets see if we can find some rational Intelligent Design Christians. Aslan has proved CS's are a waste of time.

Aslan,

"What about all the witnesses to his miracles and the people's desire to make him king? Ockham's Razor."

This can be refuted fairly readily in the context of Occam's Razor. The situation you outline suggests the co-exist of natural and supernal phenemona. Occam's Razor comes done hard on pluralism. In this frame, it is "simpler" for there to be only natural phenomena than both natural and supernatural phonemena. Thus, given the world is physical, it is, according the Occam's principles, best to disregard the supernatural. Probably good advice regarding the supernatural and miracluous feats: e.g.,

Uri Geller was good at physic photo and bending spoons until he was
caught. I like the one where -because of his quick reflexes- Geller was able to take pychic photos with the lense cap "on". Until the day he used an interviewer's camera specially fitted with a wide angle lense, which captured not only the the mystic circular centre, but also his fingers holding the cap! :-)

In your recent post to Pericles, you use the "argument". Please elaborate. If you you mean syllogistic construction I have said repeated this was not what I intended. If you mean support tentative constructions, I recommend you read Popper and Einstein.

More later.

Only to be expected, I suppose, that you choose to change alter history rather than admit you were wrong. Let me remind you that it was your selection of an interpretation of Oliver's position that I challenged. How that makes my selection "wrong" can exist only in your imagination, I'm afraid.

My criticism of your "syllog" was that it was imperfectly formed, and thus inadmissable. I notice that you tried to re-define this after the event as well, in another attempt to change the past to suit your position. It just doesn't work, I'm afraid.

You maintain your position of being "right" only by being very selective in your evidence. Not everyone, for example, believes a word of the "explanations" in answersingenesis.org. To some, they are mere bluster and furphy masquerading as evidence, in much the same way that you view the arguments for evolution.

"It is true because I believe it to be true" is a valid philosophy, but what you don't seem to accept is that there are other truths out there, belonging to other people's version of "I believe".

Actually Aslan, I will give up on this thread, it is becoming repetitive. You will keep on insisting that other people's evidence is mere assertion, while your evidence is the real deal. As you said to Oliver a few days back "I had a look but its just more assertions", carrying the implication that the material you present - a string of excerpts from a highly biased source - is not.

With such an attitude, there is little point in attempting to demonstrate to you that rational people are able to hold, quite comfortably, beliefs that do not accord with your own, and that these beliefs have equal validity out here in the real world.

Have a great day, see you around.

Aslan and others,

LIGHT

The Robert Newtown postulation seems to be geometrically based. Referential frames in 4-D space-time don’t work this way. Rather, the comparative rates of change in time are related to velocity and the aggregated time where the referential frames are separated. Mirrors at each end of a hall or the messages between Earth and Mars are essentially in the referential frame because the comparative speeds involved are only a tiny frame of the speed of light. Already, the relationship between velocity and time is (tentatively) known and has been already been tested and confirmed. This relationship is referred to bt the term, Lorentz Transformation:

http://www.bartleby.com/173/11.html

Moreover, light exists as both a particle and a waveform. Were light to return to an observer at infinite speed, the duration of the waveform would be infinitely small and therefore could not exist.

Also, if the light from two stars (a. & b.), say, at distances of ten and twenty parsecs respectively, were in seen within a particular Earth observer’s very narrow field, the light from both stars would according to the postulation arrive together: However, astronomers routinely measure the relativistic influence of the nearer star’s gravity on electromagnetic radiation travelling from the more distant star. That is, star b. warps space near its mass and light (electromagnetic radiation) from star a.’s trajectory is bent. Measurement of this phenomenon would be unachievable given the scenario presented by Aslan’s author.

Almost lastly, the author made no “real” attempt to tether his ides to existing knowledge platforms e.g., the relationship between light and time and velocity. Nor was there an experiment suggested to (tentatively) confirm or refute the theory. I suspect Stephen Hawking would through this one in the bin.

Lastly, the piece is very deceptively constructed with a few oblique references to astrophysics in a field of contrivances. The author seems to trying to build a model to fit an a priori conviction. Pericles would seem to be correct about the bias thing

Aslan and Pericles (if you are still just reading),

TENTATIVE AND NON-TENTATIVE, DOGMATIC AND NON-DOGMATIC

Regarding the "demarcation" between valid science and other approaches [e.g., Creationist theism], Karl Pooper wrote on the difference between dogmatic attitudes (Aslan and Creationism) and critical attitudes (Pericles and Atheesism, Oliver and Freethinking. Perhaps, more Freething because Atheism can be religious. With dogmatism, beliefs remain affixed:

The world is interpreted "in accordance with a personal set pattern which is not easily given up ... every new experience is interpreted in terms of it [that is the predisposed belief] and verifying it, if it were, and contributing to its rigity". (Popper)

Next,Popper continues to consider "rational" non-dogmatic belief in opposition to "irrational" dogmatic belief:

"The term [non-dogmatic] belief is taken to cover critical acceptance of scientific theories - a "tentative" [Popper emphasised] acceptance combined with an eagerness to revise a theory if we design a test which it [the theory, hypothesis or proposition] cannot pass." [Popper] Makes good sense to me and the reason above, I kept repeating it. Herein, I feel Popper has aptly categoried Alsanain and "Robert" Newtonian thinking and separately Pericles' thought and Oliver's thought.

Lastly, therefore, "there is no more rational procedure than the method of trial and error - of "conjecture and refutation" [Popper emphasises]of bolding proposing theories; of trying our best to show these [theories]are erroneous". Popper

"Popper is brilliant!. Brialliant" (Oliver