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Author Topic:   A non theological case of ridiculous assumptions...
Citizzzen
Inactive Member


Message 1 of 29 (198165)
04-10-2005 10:41 PM


I don't know if I need to propose topics for the Coffee house, or if I can just post there, but that would be the proper forum for this...
My disbelief about some of the things I see and hear is not limited to E vs. C issues. In general, I am beginning to think people are just getting stupider every day. My example...
I am watching few minutes of the Master's Golf tourney (Colorado is under blizzard conditions, and I was channel surfing...) and I watched Tiger tee off... His ball landed with a thud, and settled onto the green.
The announcer then went on to say that the force of Tigers ball landing on the green was enough to dislodge the ball of another golfer, which had been sitting just on the crest of a ridge, about 25 feet away.
He was going on and on about how amazing thing that was to see. I was incredulous... Was there no better explanation? A puff of wind, vibration from the thousands of spectators in the gallery?
It was a great example of an eyewitness account of an amazing event, and the eyewitness was completely convinced that his version of the events was true. Despite the obvious physical flaws in the theory, and despite any thought of more likely causes.
Thankfully, after a minute of the lead announcer going on and on, the color guy chimed in that the other golfers ball was already rolling, and then proceeded to cue footage showing the other ball in motion, before Tiger's ball landed.
Somehow, though, if the event had some sort of divine overtones, I think the claim would be spreading in Christian circles, but not the follow up...
Citizzzen

Replies to this message:
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 Message 4 by arachnophilia, posted 04-10-2005 11:43 PM Citizzzen has replied
 Message 5 by berberry, posted 04-10-2005 11:53 PM Citizzzen has replied
 Message 6 by Rrhain, posted 04-11-2005 3:35 AM Citizzzen has not replied

  
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Message 2 of 29 (198181)
04-10-2005 11:34 PM


Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
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Message 3 of 29 (198183)
04-10-2005 11:41 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Citizzzen
04-10-2005 10:41 PM


Me and a friend were once a little behind a group of cars that all slid off an icy stretch of Interstate 89 in Vermont when one of them made a wrong move sending everyone who turned their wheel into a spin. We stopped to help push a few out of ditches, and one guy looked about and commented, "There must be 50 cars off the road." There were maybe 8 to 10. We figured by the time he reached the ski lodge it was up to a couple hundred.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
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arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1344 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 4 of 29 (198188)
04-10-2005 11:43 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Citizzzen
04-10-2005 10:41 PM


shouldn't a golf ball come down with a force proportional to its peak height?
i forget, it's been a while since i took calculus.
but yeah, i agree. people need their bullshit detectors reinstalled.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Citizzzen, posted 04-10-2005 10:41 PM Citizzzen has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 7 by Citizzzen, posted 04-11-2005 11:40 AM arachnophilia has not replied

  
berberry
Inactive Member


Message 5 of 29 (198191)
04-10-2005 11:53 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Citizzzen
04-10-2005 10:41 PM


If you're talking about that certain gullibility that seems to go along with religious devotion then I agree. I see it all the time. Hell, we all see it; look at the commercials for amazing new pills that make you lose weight and regrow hair and tighten your abs while you sleep. Enough people are buying that crap - in the belief that it will actually work - that the pushers are able to afford ad budgets that get the name of their product into our faces several times a day. It wasn't so long ago that you almost had to go looking for that kind of stuff. You could find it late at night maybe, on low-rated talk radio stations, but not on mainstream tv networks. That's changed, and I think it's a by-product of our new faith-based society.
Come to my town and show me someone who believes in ghosts and is scared of pentograms. I'll show you a born-again Christian.

Keep America Safe AND Free!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Citizzzen, posted 04-10-2005 10:41 PM Citizzzen has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 8 by Citizzzen, posted 04-11-2005 11:50 AM berberry has replied

  
Rrhain
Member
Posts: 6351
From: San Diego, CA, USA
Joined: 05-03-2003


Message 6 of 29 (198211)
04-11-2005 3:35 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Citizzzen
04-10-2005 10:41 PM


Let's not forget that our general entertainment has a lot to do with this.
How many times have we watched a movie where a guy gets shot and the force of the bullet is so much that the guy goes flying.
Now, think about it. Newton's law applies: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. If the bullet is packing enough of a wallop to knock a 180 pound man flying backwards, what about the poor schmoe who was firing the gun? Why didn't he get tossed back, too? Why does he have a just a little flick in his wrist?
But, just to check, the guys at Mythbusters decided to check this out. They hung a pig from a hair drop. Any significant pressure on the corpus would make it fall off the hook.
No matter what, though, that pig stayed on the hook. Nine millimeter, .22, .357, .44, rifles, nothing could get that pig to fall off. Only when they started getting into machine guns could they get the pig to budge...and then it did only that: It budged. It fell off the hook straight down, no dramatic blast back.
With so many people not doing any sort of practical physics and with movie physics so horrendously bad, I'm not that surprised that people manage to have absolutely no idea what is considered reasonable for a physical action.

Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Citizzzen, posted 04-10-2005 10:41 PM Citizzzen has not replied

Replies to this message:
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Citizzzen
Inactive Member


Message 7 of 29 (198279)
04-11-2005 11:40 AM
Reply to: Message 4 by arachnophilia
04-10-2005 11:43 PM


F=MA
High School AP physics remembered...
The force the ball lands with is indeed directly related to the height from which it falls. But keep in mind the mass of a Golf Ball is not that much. The acceleration fore of gravity is 32 ft/second/second (or, what was it, 9.8 meters/second/second). Also, we are talking about transferring that force through dirt/sand/grass, etc.
Anyway, it was an example of the kind of lack of logical deduction/knowledge of how the world works that bothers me about a lot of EvC issues. I just thought that creationists should know at least one motivation for evolutionists, a desire to reduce ignorance in all fields.
Citizzzen

The message is ended, go in peace.

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 Message 4 by arachnophilia, posted 04-10-2005 11:43 PM arachnophilia has not replied

  
Citizzzen
Inactive Member


Message 8 of 29 (198281)
04-11-2005 11:50 AM
Reply to: Message 5 by berberry
04-10-2005 11:53 PM


That certain gullibility...
Berberry,
"...If you're talking about that certain gullibility that seems to go along with religious devotion then I agree..."
Yes and no. I agree that Literal Fundamentalists tend to make some pretty amazing claims... (Everything from the speed of light changing speeds to account for distant stars, and George Washington being "arrow proof" because God had big plans for him...) And they repeat them to each other, so that there is this little insular society that "knows" all of the same things, and uses each other as confirmation.
However, to be fair to literal fundi's, I don't think it's limited to religious adherents. Like you said, some of the products being pitched today (For weight loss, hair restoration, sexual enhancement, etc.) seem to appeal to a secular crowd. It seems like there is a growing education gap in this country, just as there is an economic gap. It's like the educated get more educated, and the less educated keep falling farther behind. In this regard, I am disturbed about the rise in people pursuing tech degrees with only core classes, and bypassing humanities, and other "liberal arts" courses. I think it's the non-major classes that round out a person's education...
"...Come to my town and show me someone who believes in ghosts and is scared of pentagrams. I'll show you a born-again Christian..."
I had to laugh at this... We should compare notes sometime, I am in Colorado Springs, a pretty notorious town when it comes to fundamentalist thought...
Citizzzen

The message is ended, go in peace.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 5 by berberry, posted 04-10-2005 11:53 PM berberry has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 9 by berberry, posted 04-11-2005 12:04 PM Citizzzen has replied
 Message 11 by StormWolfx2x, posted 04-12-2005 5:42 AM Citizzzen has not replied
 Message 25 by Rrhain, posted 04-23-2005 6:43 AM Citizzzen has not replied

  
berberry
Inactive Member


Message 9 of 29 (198288)
04-11-2005 12:04 PM
Reply to: Message 8 by Citizzzen
04-11-2005 11:50 AM


Re: That certain gullibility...
Citizzzen writes me:
quote:
However, to be fair to literal fundi's, I don't think it's limited to religious adherents.
No, and I see I was a little vague. What I meant was that when a culture is trained to believe in things that are impossible - global floods, the sun stopping in the sky, virgin births, etc. - it is much easier to fool the people within that culture into believing in things like miracle pills that make you lose weight while you sleep. Americans are not taught to be skeptical.
I agree with you about the tech degrees that don't require studies in the humanities. Definitely part of the problem.

Keep America Safe AND Free!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 8 by Citizzzen, posted 04-11-2005 11:50 AM Citizzzen has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 10 by Citizzzen, posted 04-11-2005 12:18 PM berberry has not replied

  
Citizzzen
Inactive Member


Message 10 of 29 (198297)
04-11-2005 12:18 PM
Reply to: Message 9 by berberry
04-11-2005 12:04 PM


Re: That certain gullibility...
"...I agree with you about the tech degrees that don't require studies in the humanities. Definitely part of the problem..."
I am reminded of my old computer science days... There were a lot of programmers better than me, but sometimes they would fail a simple assignment, because they didn't understand the real word application. For example, the logic to figure payments on a loan is pretty simple, but you do need to know the principal, the interest rate, the length of the loan and the frequency of payments... If you don't understand a little bit about finance, all the programming skill in the world won't help...
Citizzzen

The message is ended, go in peace.

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StormWolfx2x
Inactive Member


Message 11 of 29 (198466)
04-12-2005 5:42 AM
Reply to: Message 8 by Citizzzen
04-11-2005 11:50 AM


Re: That certain gullibility...
"However, to be fair to literal fundi's, I don't think it's limited to religious adherents."
I much as I hate the religious fundamental train, of thought, it certainly does apply to liberal fundamentals as well, and they have their own set of propaganda and yes men to fall back on for all sorts of issues including..
Recycling (big one)
Other environmental hysteria
Banning Smoking
Gun control
Multiculturalism
Safety equipment and liability lawsuits
Alien abductions
Feng shui
Animal rights movement (P.E.T.A in particular)
The list goes on and on, if anyone wants to debate one of these issues (I think they all would make a great topic) please speak up and Ill write up a topic request.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 8 by Citizzzen, posted 04-11-2005 11:50 AM Citizzzen has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 12 by contracycle, posted 04-12-2005 6:34 AM StormWolfx2x has replied
 Message 15 by Trae, posted 04-13-2005 2:49 AM StormWolfx2x has not replied

  
contracycle
Inactive Member


Message 12 of 29 (198479)
04-12-2005 6:34 AM
Reply to: Message 11 by StormWolfx2x
04-12-2005 5:42 AM


Re: That certain gullibility...
quote:
The list goes on and on, if anyone wants to debate one of these issues (I think they all would make a great topic) please speak up and Ill write up a topic request.
Shrug, most of these bar Feng Shui. I mean, where do you get off elling the worlds scientific community that they are wrong about environmental issues here? Its the opponents of these well developed and supported positions that are dogmatic fantasists. your very presentation of such issues as "dogma" is itself a dogma.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 11 by StormWolfx2x, posted 04-12-2005 5:42 AM StormWolfx2x has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 13 by StormWolfx2x, posted 04-12-2005 1:22 PM contracycle has replied

  
StormWolfx2x
Inactive Member


Message 13 of 29 (198640)
04-12-2005 1:22 PM
Reply to: Message 12 by contracycle
04-12-2005 6:34 AM


Im not saying we should outright abandon recycling.
Im not saying everyone should smoke.
Im not saying there should be no resrictions on guns.
Im not saying that any of those issues have no credibility whatsoever. (even Feng Shui has some interior decorating credibility)
what I am saying is that each thing I mentioned has people that belive in them so entirely that they dissconnect themselves from the reality of the facts. Like I said if you don't belive me pick a topic and Ill writeup the request, if your going to resort to childish namecalling, then by all means don't bother.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 12 by contracycle, posted 04-12-2005 6:34 AM contracycle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 16 by contracycle, posted 04-13-2005 4:59 AM StormWolfx2x has replied

  
Trae
Member (Idle past 4306 days)
Posts: 442
From: Fremont, CA, USA
Joined: 06-18-2004


Message 14 of 29 (198844)
04-13-2005 2:43 AM
Reply to: Message 6 by Rrhain
04-11-2005 3:35 AM


Funny, just today on one of the 'trial' shows on TV (something like Cold Case Files) they had a jury ignore what the experts presented, do their own reenactments to decide how a gun would land during a suicide.
Two things struck me as interesting about the show. The police and ME claimed the gun was planted because blood was splatted under and on top the gun and the gun was too close to the body.
The defense expert stated that the blood would be under pressure and traveling faster and the hand would release after the bullet entered. He then went on to talk about the myth of bodies being blown backwards from the force.
It really did seem that the jury voted more on the way they thought things should be then what was reported to them in court.

This message is a reply to:
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Trae
Member (Idle past 4306 days)
Posts: 442
From: Fremont, CA, USA
Joined: 06-18-2004


Message 15 of 29 (198845)
04-13-2005 2:49 AM
Reply to: Message 11 by StormWolfx2x
04-12-2005 5:42 AM


Re: That certain gullibility...
quote:
Alien abductions
Wait, it is the liberal pig farmers getting anal-probed by aliens?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 11 by StormWolfx2x, posted 04-12-2005 5:42 AM StormWolfx2x has not replied

  
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