"angelicusrex" <whisperindave@msn.com> wrote in message
news:bqb02l$1umeci$1@ID-168098.news.uni-berlin.de...
"Ian Braidwood" <diri.gini@virgin.net> wrote in message
Well, aren't I lucky I've got you to decide what is and isn't
valid...
Tell me, what time should I get up tomorrow and do you think a
spoon
or a fork goes best with Corn Flakes?
Be as glib as you like.
I was being ironic.
First of all the original argument was not even with
you. It was with others AGAINST me.
Well, you are being rather silly, dear boy.
So therefore I can easily say your argument is invalid.
Indeed, you can say whether you think my answer is invalid or not,
this is a free Usenet. I can say that your flibble has jabbleribbled,
but tht wouldn't make it true, would it?
But your CLOCK will tell you what
time to get up tomorrow and you can thank A CHRISTIAN for that.
He may also have had a moustach, but you wouldn't credit the whole if
science to facial hair.
If your position was simply to state that fact there would be no
arguement; but you want to say that the whole of western technological
progress owes its entire existence to it, as if it could not have
happended otherwise. This is just plain silly.
(Capitals are for emphasis, not screaming. Ed.)
If you want to emphasise without making other users think you're a
raving fool, use underscores (_) or astreisks(*) before and after the
word or phrase in question.
It's an orrery, and a pretty good one.
Orrey: A clockwork model of the planetary system. Great. It's basically a
mechanical astrolabe. So what? It does not tell hours, minutes and seconds.
Actually it does.
And as far as I have heard, the Antikythera's real properties have never
been discovered. But let us agree that it is a clockwork model of the
planetary system.
Here is the article by Derek DeSolla Price from Scientific American,
June 1959: http://www.giant.net.au/users/rupert/kythera/kythera3.htm
As you can see, the mechanism's function has been well known now for
quite some time. I suspect those people who claim it is mysterious,
also believe in pyramid power and other irrational nonsense.
Until more evidence of use of orreys as clocks in Rome, Greece or
earlier, it will have to suffice that this anomaly was made by someone for
some other purpose than chiming the hours.
As De Solla Price's paper reveals, clocks emerged from Orreys with
telling the time a subsidiary function. So it seems your entire
position is just plain wrong. It's amazing what a little research can
do, isn't it?
So other people are too stupid to look up 'Antikythera Mechanism'
for
themselves? We are fortunate to have you here.
I didn't say that. You did.
More of my irony. I'm sure you'll learn to recognise it in time...
However, if one looks up the antikythera
mechanism, they will find it to be an enigmatic piece of machinery which is
undocumented in the histories of the Greeks and is not exactly "fully
understood."
Read the Scientific American article I linked to above.
How do you know it wasn't made by an Arab or a Jew or a Chinese
person?
It's not relevent to my arguement, the wreck dates to around 65BC,
making it and the mechanism pre-Christian.
What is its providence? These things are unknown at this time. It
therefore has no place in this discussion.
As you can see from the article, the mecahanism's _provenance_ (Note
the use of underscores, to emphasise my correction of your malapropism
:-) can be dated to a shipwreck, dated to 65BC, plus or minus 15
years.
The mechanism's function and pre-Christian origin are beyond doubt and
that places it dead centre of this discussion.
It was NOT a mechanical clock. It was a "clockwork device" MAYBE.
No maybe about it. It was clockwork _and_ it told the time.
The Orrey was named after the Earl of Orrey, a Christian.
Nominally, it was invented by George Graham, who was under the
patronage of the Earl of Orrey. However, we now know that it was
invented a long time before, don't we?
Christians have done their fair share of oppression, for instance:
Copernicus, Gallileo, Campanella...
Those men were all Christians. BTW. They weren't oppressed by
Christianity
but by a sect of Christians called the Catholic Church.
Very funny, calling Catholicism a sect, but I think that even you will
admit that all Catholics are Christians and since there is no dispute
that Catholics oppressed these men, then it follows that Christians
did. QED.
Now I'm not saying that _all_ Christians did the oppressing, but
neither am I saying that all Catholics did.
What if, in order to uplift Humanity, it is necessary to destroy
religion, including Christianity?
Destruction is never uplifting. Changing through reason is. By the time you
have to go destroy someone, you have unleashed madness on the world.
Hopefully the world recovers.
Destruction was your word. However, I never said that I'd destroy
_anyone_, I said that I'd destroy _Christianity_ and my chosen method
is peacefully persuading Christians to give up their superstitions.
I don't despise Christians. I have no problem with Christians who
show
a bit of respect.
And I have no problem with atheists, if they would first of all stop calling
me a Christian, which I am not.
What are you then?
And realize I am trying to give Christianity some respect
here. They did things, good things which cannot be denied. But
right now all you are defending is a shrewd and devious troll
named P. Diddy, who put a lot of hokum on your site, crossposted
it to my NG and got us all enraged at one another over a silly
clock. He laughs at all of us...
Well, Mr Diddy doesn't matter to me and I think that when all things
are considered, Christianity sucks.
he was the one telling all of us that Jesus had come to his NG and
had been rejected! Then he suddenly changed into an atheist.
We've been trolled, that's all.
Trolls are nothing if not liars, so what makes you so confident he's
even a he, leave alone an atheist?
As for your brand of atheism, it focuses on the negative. So I really cannot
make you be positive.
I really don't need you to make me think positively, thank you. I can
and do it all on my own.
Atheism is only the lack of belief in gods, so to develop a philosphy
of life we just move beyond this simple stance. Since that isn't the
subject of this thread, I haven't told you the first thing about what
I _do_ believe, which is lots of very positive stuff.
In summary: You don't know me, so you're not in a position to judge.
Clear?
Therefore you can be as right as you like. But don't
think for one moment that you outsmarted anyone or that your ideals are
better than anyone else who just thinks they are right.
I don't, which is why I _like_ to discuss things with other people.
What I won't accept is propaganda masquarading as history, which is
the sort of Christian apologetics you're pedaling here.
(-: Ian :-)
.
