This blog is over the difference between the Judeo-Christian’s ‘Satan,’ ‘Lucifer,’ and ‘the Devil.’ Contrary to what people now believe in the United States, and in Western Civilization as a whole, these three names were not always interchangeable, and actually described 3 different entities. The information comes from these books:
A History of Hell by Alice Turner
The Prince of Darkness by Jeffrey Burton Russel
A Dictionary of Angels by Gustav Davidson
The Holy Bible (King James Version and Revised Standard Version)
Satan derives from the Hebrew word hassatan, which means ‘The adversary,’ and held no official title, it was merely a description of a person. It is generally accepted that ‘Satan’ merely happened over time after a scribe dropped the prefix ‘ha-.’ The first, and only, instance of the entity Satan that exists in the Old Testament is in the Book of Job. In ancient times, this Satan was not an evil entity, even though that’s how most people today perceive it. Instead, he is merely ‘the adversary of God’ when God says that Job is the holiest person on the planet. Satan simply says it is because of what God has done for him. Satan, here, is an angel of the class of ‘Watcher.’ These angels, go figure, watch over humanity, because God does not view the entire planet, does not know what is going on on the entire planet, and so has these angels go to Earth, and then report back to God, telling him what he wants to know about the happenings of humanity.
The word Lucifer appears only once in the entire Bible, and even then it’s a typo. This is because it exists only in the Latin Vulgate (an early translation of the Bible, in which the Greek Septuagint was translated to Latin). The King James Version (KJV) of the Bible, which is the most read version of all time, is an English translation of the Latin Vulgate. The KJV gives Isaiah 14:12 as saying “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!” It is the only translation that gives the word ‘Lucifer.’ Lucifer was actually the Roman God of the morning star, or Venus, which is so bright that it can sometimes be seen during the day. However, in the original Hebrew, the individual Isaiah 14:12 is talking about is King Nebuchadnezzar, not a fallen angel. But tradition dictates that Lucifer is Satan in Heaven, before the fall, but Lucifer became Satan when he reached Hell (even though, historically speaking, this is incorrect).
It is not until the New Testament that we get the Devil. Out of these three names/entities, the Devil is the only one who is inherently viewed as evil. About one to two centuries before the birth of Jesus, there came a notion of the Devil, an embodiment of evil, whose name was also given as Satan. This is the entity who tempts Christ (although this may or may not have been an evil act in and of itself), and the one spoken of in Revelations.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Holocaust Deniers
Micheal Shermer’s book , “Why People Believe Weird Things,” is both entertaining and enlightening. One of the books that I am currently, actively, reading, Shermer is the founder and an editor for ‘Skeptic’ magazine, and his book shows it. In it, he explains, and then debunks, topics including pseudoscience, creationism, cults, and holocaust deniers. The one that I chose to write this blog about is the Holocaust denier’s, because 1)I just finished the chapter about 15 minutes ago, and 2) I was fascinated by some of the things that I learned about the Holocaust that I didn’t previously know. Shermer, among other things, is a very well-regarded Holocaust historian, and has been on many shows in which Holocaust deniers lay their claims, and he is there to debunk them.
I feel that this is something that should be critically looked at, and not simply given up as a 'conspiracy theory,' because as long as there are a fairly large number of people who believe in something, it will persist. So instead of simply saying that those people are nuts (Holocaust deniers, 9-11 conspiracy thinkers, etc.), I prefer to look at their arguments and weight them against the counterarguments. So far, the conspiracy theories are nothing more than that, but I like to hear what someone has to say before fully disregarding what they have to say.
Holocaust deniers do not actually deny that the Holocaust happened, this is a media-induced misconception. Also, many of the Holocaust denier’s are not neo-Nazi’s, and many have advanced degrees in history from accredited schools, and other than these views, are well-respected in what they have written. What they do is define the Holocaust differently than history textbooks, and there are three things that they specifically take problem with, of which I will elaborate on each and explain why their views are wrong: 1) There was no Nazi policy to exterminate European Jews, 2) Gas chambers were not used to kill Jews, and 3) between 300,000 and 2 million Jews were killed in ghettos and camps, not the 5-6 million quoted by historians.
1) There was no Nazi policy to exterminate European Jews. They claim that whenever a Nazi spoke of the “Final Solution to the Jews,” what they were actually meaning was that the Nazi’s were going to deport all of the Jews out of the Reich, which they did at the beginning of the war, when they were winning, but towards the end, when they were losing, they were forced to place Jews in camps and ghettos due to lack of funds and manpower.
They defend these points by quoting specific instances, but for the most part they take quotes out of context. They also completely ignore the Nuremburg Trial Confessions, because the defendants were scared for their lives, but whenever a quote comes up they can use, they do not hesitate to do just that. They question the definition of the German word ‘ausrotten,’ which means extermination, but they claim that during the time of WWII, it meant ‘movement,’ even though they are the only ones to accept this.
2) Gas chambers were not used to kill Jews. Instead, the gas chambers were only used for delousing clothes and blankets, and crematoriums were only used to despose of Jews that died of disease and starvation (something they claim is the fault of the allies, because we bombed supply lines) Deniers claim that there were shooting and hangings of Jews, but not from mass gassings.
Documents prove that large amounts of Zyklon-B (the gas used to kill Jews) were ordered to the camps, and there are countless eyewitnesses who verify that the Nazi’s did indeed kill Jews via gas chambers.
3) Only between 300,000 and 2 million Jews were killed in ghettos and camps, not the 5-6 million quoted by historians. Instead, the remaining Jews that are not accounted for at the end of the war, had simply emigrated to other countries.
This one is easy enough to debunk. Approximately 4 million people did not just emigrate with no paper trail, and without them coming out of the woodworks saying they are there. Again, deniers simply pick and choose the information they want to use.
While I do not accept anything that the Holocaust denier’s claim, I feel they do bring up some very valid points that very few of us accept, myself included. At one point, Shermer quotes a denier who uses Orwell’s ‘1984’ ‘Newspeak,’ using this to show how people in today's society can become truly ignorant without fully realizing it. As proof: the Nazi’s never made soap from the fat of Jews’. This is accepted by the Holocaust community, as no bar of soap has ever tested positive for human fat. It is all a myth. And yet I have grown up ‘knowing’ this as fact. Shermer admits this, but I still wanted verification. A brief google search helps to confirm this idea, from reputable sites. And yet I have been told this as truth since I was young. Stepping away from what I currently ‘know,’ (keeping in mind that I do not agree with anything they believe) what if the denier’s were actually right? How would I know? The simple fact is that I never would. I have grown up with an almost ingrained belief in what has happened, that I cannot possibly perceive of any way in which it is wrong. And yet what I was taught was wrong: soap made from the fat of murdered Jews never happened. I had the same overall feeling when I first read ‘1984,’ in which I started to look at things a little differently. I already had an innate skepticism of newspapers and television news programs, but when it comes down to it, does that really matter? So many people watch the news, and take it as the God’s Honest Truth. How many people pick and choose the information they ‘know’ on a day-to-day basis? At what point does history, knowledge, and information cease to be that, and instead turn into a Newspeak invention of doublethink?
I feel that this is something that should be critically looked at, and not simply given up as a 'conspiracy theory,' because as long as there are a fairly large number of people who believe in something, it will persist. So instead of simply saying that those people are nuts (Holocaust deniers, 9-11 conspiracy thinkers, etc.), I prefer to look at their arguments and weight them against the counterarguments. So far, the conspiracy theories are nothing more than that, but I like to hear what someone has to say before fully disregarding what they have to say.
Holocaust deniers do not actually deny that the Holocaust happened, this is a media-induced misconception. Also, many of the Holocaust denier’s are not neo-Nazi’s, and many have advanced degrees in history from accredited schools, and other than these views, are well-respected in what they have written. What they do is define the Holocaust differently than history textbooks, and there are three things that they specifically take problem with, of which I will elaborate on each and explain why their views are wrong: 1) There was no Nazi policy to exterminate European Jews, 2) Gas chambers were not used to kill Jews, and 3) between 300,000 and 2 million Jews were killed in ghettos and camps, not the 5-6 million quoted by historians.
1) There was no Nazi policy to exterminate European Jews. They claim that whenever a Nazi spoke of the “Final Solution to the Jews,” what they were actually meaning was that the Nazi’s were going to deport all of the Jews out of the Reich, which they did at the beginning of the war, when they were winning, but towards the end, when they were losing, they were forced to place Jews in camps and ghettos due to lack of funds and manpower.
They defend these points by quoting specific instances, but for the most part they take quotes out of context. They also completely ignore the Nuremburg Trial Confessions, because the defendants were scared for their lives, but whenever a quote comes up they can use, they do not hesitate to do just that. They question the definition of the German word ‘ausrotten,’ which means extermination, but they claim that during the time of WWII, it meant ‘movement,’ even though they are the only ones to accept this.
2) Gas chambers were not used to kill Jews. Instead, the gas chambers were only used for delousing clothes and blankets, and crematoriums were only used to despose of Jews that died of disease and starvation (something they claim is the fault of the allies, because we bombed supply lines) Deniers claim that there were shooting and hangings of Jews, but not from mass gassings.
Documents prove that large amounts of Zyklon-B (the gas used to kill Jews) were ordered to the camps, and there are countless eyewitnesses who verify that the Nazi’s did indeed kill Jews via gas chambers.
3) Only between 300,000 and 2 million Jews were killed in ghettos and camps, not the 5-6 million quoted by historians. Instead, the remaining Jews that are not accounted for at the end of the war, had simply emigrated to other countries.
This one is easy enough to debunk. Approximately 4 million people did not just emigrate with no paper trail, and without them coming out of the woodworks saying they are there. Again, deniers simply pick and choose the information they want to use.
While I do not accept anything that the Holocaust denier’s claim, I feel they do bring up some very valid points that very few of us accept, myself included. At one point, Shermer quotes a denier who uses Orwell’s ‘1984’ ‘Newspeak,’ using this to show how people in today's society can become truly ignorant without fully realizing it. As proof: the Nazi’s never made soap from the fat of Jews’. This is accepted by the Holocaust community, as no bar of soap has ever tested positive for human fat. It is all a myth. And yet I have grown up ‘knowing’ this as fact. Shermer admits this, but I still wanted verification. A brief google search helps to confirm this idea, from reputable sites. And yet I have been told this as truth since I was young. Stepping away from what I currently ‘know,’ (keeping in mind that I do not agree with anything they believe) what if the denier’s were actually right? How would I know? The simple fact is that I never would. I have grown up with an almost ingrained belief in what has happened, that I cannot possibly perceive of any way in which it is wrong. And yet what I was taught was wrong: soap made from the fat of murdered Jews never happened. I had the same overall feeling when I first read ‘1984,’ in which I started to look at things a little differently. I already had an innate skepticism of newspapers and television news programs, but when it comes down to it, does that really matter? So many people watch the news, and take it as the God’s Honest Truth. How many people pick and choose the information they ‘know’ on a day-to-day basis? At what point does history, knowledge, and information cease to be that, and instead turn into a Newspeak invention of doublethink?
Black Holes
I was recently going through my book collection, and have realized all the things that I haven’t read in years, and how my memory of things has grown fuzzy. So, in the spirit of learning (or re-learning, which can be just as gratifying), my next few blogs will be over things from my non-fiction books.
This one will be elaborating on things from Stephen Hawkings’ ‘A Brief History of Time.” (Yes, I know, I am a nerd)
Black Holes
Chapter 6 goes through what is currently known, and what isn’t, about the concept and existence of black holes. The term ‘black hole’ was originally coined in 1969 by John Wheeler, but the concept of a star could have enough mass that its gravitational pull that even light could not escape was first offered by John Mitchell, all the way back in 1783. This is the actual definition of a black hole, it is neither black nor a whole, but simply a body of mass so great, that individual particles of light (theoretically the fastest that anything can physically move) would be sucked into the mass. This means that, if looked at, a black hole would simply look like a black spot in space, because it would emit literally no light, nor allow any light to pass by it for that matter (ignoring some really screwy equations in which the cone of light created by, uh, light, bends around the gravitational pull of the singularity if passing just beyond the event horizon).
For a black hole to form, a star with a mass 30x or greater than the Sun must be formed from a protostellar cloud of gas and dust (a in human biological terms, a protostellar cloud would be a fetus) . When the star starts to run out of full, it begins to cool off, and contract in on itself. From here, there are four forms that the dying star can go into: a brown-dwarf, a white dwarf, a neutron star, or a black hole. (A supernova will generally leave behind a white dwarf or a neutron star, contrary to popular notion that a supernova fully obliterates the star)
The hardest thing that I find to grasp about black holes is how they affect time. According to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, time is completely relative to everyone’s individual perception. So if a person were falling towards a black hole, he would go on seeing time as we see it normally. But to someone watching the man fall towards the black hole, the closer he got, the slower he would fall, until he reached a point were he would stop falling altogether, at a point known as the event horizon. The hard thing for me to grasp, is that the person falling would have fallen through the event horizon at a certain point, but after he’s past that point, anyone watching him would see him as he was before reaching the event horizon. He would be in two places at once, all depending on who you asked!
A non-rotating black hole is, again theoretically, the only true sphere in the universe. It would have absolutely no marks on it, and would be perfectly spherical. However, since the odds of a star collapsing without moving is vitually zero, black holes should tend to bulge out at the center, like the Earth or the Sun.
There are also primordial black holes, which have existed since right after the Big Bang. After the explosion that created the universe, there were parts of space that held more matter than others, and in places where the matter was highly concentrated, a black hole could form.
This one will be elaborating on things from Stephen Hawkings’ ‘A Brief History of Time.” (Yes, I know, I am a nerd)
Black Holes
Chapter 6 goes through what is currently known, and what isn’t, about the concept and existence of black holes. The term ‘black hole’ was originally coined in 1969 by John Wheeler, but the concept of a star could have enough mass that its gravitational pull that even light could not escape was first offered by John Mitchell, all the way back in 1783. This is the actual definition of a black hole, it is neither black nor a whole, but simply a body of mass so great, that individual particles of light (theoretically the fastest that anything can physically move) would be sucked into the mass. This means that, if looked at, a black hole would simply look like a black spot in space, because it would emit literally no light, nor allow any light to pass by it for that matter (ignoring some really screwy equations in which the cone of light created by, uh, light, bends around the gravitational pull of the singularity if passing just beyond the event horizon).
For a black hole to form, a star with a mass 30x or greater than the Sun must be formed from a protostellar cloud of gas and dust (a in human biological terms, a protostellar cloud would be a fetus) . When the star starts to run out of full, it begins to cool off, and contract in on itself. From here, there are four forms that the dying star can go into: a brown-dwarf, a white dwarf, a neutron star, or a black hole. (A supernova will generally leave behind a white dwarf or a neutron star, contrary to popular notion that a supernova fully obliterates the star)
The hardest thing that I find to grasp about black holes is how they affect time. According to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, time is completely relative to everyone’s individual perception. So if a person were falling towards a black hole, he would go on seeing time as we see it normally. But to someone watching the man fall towards the black hole, the closer he got, the slower he would fall, until he reached a point were he would stop falling altogether, at a point known as the event horizon. The hard thing for me to grasp, is that the person falling would have fallen through the event horizon at a certain point, but after he’s past that point, anyone watching him would see him as he was before reaching the event horizon. He would be in two places at once, all depending on who you asked!
A non-rotating black hole is, again theoretically, the only true sphere in the universe. It would have absolutely no marks on it, and would be perfectly spherical. However, since the odds of a star collapsing without moving is vitually zero, black holes should tend to bulge out at the center, like the Earth or the Sun.
There are also primordial black holes, which have existed since right after the Big Bang. After the explosion that created the universe, there were parts of space that held more matter than others, and in places where the matter was highly concentrated, a black hole could form.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Alestorm
This is a band I have just found, and I'm now horribly addicted to their album 'Black Sails at Midnight.' They are a power/folk metal band (power metal focuses on fast guitar playing, folk metal uses folk songs/celtic songs in their outlining of the songs) but the band describes itself as "True Scottish Pirate Metal," which is actually a joke in reference to 'True Norwegian Black Metal). They hail from Perth, Scotland, and have been recording since 2004. They have two albums, the one I mentioned, and "Captain Morgan's Revenge."
I just love the album, because it doesn't take itself too seriously, and still manages some really good music, if you're into this rather obscure form of metal. The instrumental song "No Quarter" uses the basic tune of Hans Zimmers' compositions from "Pirates of the Carribean," adding their own style to it.
Progressive Theology
In one of my previous posts I discussed apoctastasis, and claimed that it was my personal choice for an explanation of theodicy, but have since come across what has become known as 'progressive theology.' I learned about this in my activities with the on-campus group 'Atheist-Theist Connection,' in which a reverend who also attends the meeting brought it up. Progressive theologians/Christians have an open willingness to question contemporary tradition. The main tenet of progressive theology is that there is no way to successfully explain how God can be all-knowing, all-loving, and all-powerful simultaneously, and instead argue that God is not, in fact, all-knowing. They use the Bible to verify this, especially the Old Testament, in which God seems to either not know about something (The Book of Job in which he seems ignorant to the happenings of Earth outside the Jews), or changes his mind (Genesis where he decides to not kill Noah and his family.
Progressive theology also takes a more "liberal" standpoint on other issues, encouraging an acceptance of human diversity, an emphasis on social justice, care for the poor and oppressed, and being environmentally green. Progressive Christians focus more on Jesus' teaching of 'Love one another,' than on any other part of the Biblical teachings.
Source: Reverend Charles Allen; progressivetheology.wordpress.com
Progressive theology also takes a more "liberal" standpoint on other issues, encouraging an acceptance of human diversity, an emphasis on social justice, care for the poor and oppressed, and being environmentally green. Progressive Christians focus more on Jesus' teaching of 'Love one another,' than on any other part of the Biblical teachings.
Source: Reverend Charles Allen; progressivetheology.wordpress.com
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Google Search: Digital Philosophy
Digital philosophy is a form of philosophy and cosmology proposed by some mathematicians and physicists. It argues that most physical theories are consequences of cellular automaton.
Digital philosophy tries to explain certain problems philosophy has in regard to physics and the like, such as a newer interpretation of the Copenhagen theory in regards to new discoveries in quantum theory. The main argument of this is that all existence and thought consists of nothing but computations, reality and mental activity being digitized information.
There are five main conclusions that digital philosophy describes:the world can be resolved into digital bits, with each bit made of smaller bits, these bits form a fractal pattern in fact-space, the pattern behaves like a cellular automaton, the pattern is inconceivably large in size and dimensions, although the world started simply, its computation is irreducibly complex.
Digital philosophy tries to explain certain problems philosophy has in regard to physics and the like, such as a newer interpretation of the Copenhagen theory in regards to new discoveries in quantum theory. The main argument of this is that all existence and thought consists of nothing but computations, reality and mental activity being digitized information.
There are five main conclusions that digital philosophy describes:the world can be resolved into digital bits, with each bit made of smaller bits, these bits form a fractal pattern in fact-space, the pattern behaves like a cellular automaton, the pattern is inconceivably large in size and dimensions, although the world started simply, its computation is irreducibly complex.
Google: Digital Car
This linked me to an article by Josh Clark, entitled "What makes a digital car digital?" He talks about how television shows have had shows with intelligent automobiles. In 1965 there was "My Mother the Car," which is about a man who discovers his mother is reincarnated as his 1928 Porter automobile. (side note: TV Guide named this the 2nd worst show of all time.) He then describes a more successful show, "Knight Rider." Instead of being a reincarnation, this car had AI instead: K.I.T.T. (Knight Industries Two Thousand). KITT's partner is Micheal Knight, played by David Hasselhoff.
Today, new breakthroughs have allowed for cars to come closer to KITT, what with wireless communication and compressed data storage, which is now in certain vehicles.
Clark then argues that the difference between a car and a digital car is intelligence. Before, a car was simply a mode of transportation. Now cars have hard drives, and more electronics than some people can possible realize. Cars are now being equipped with technology to help avoid collisions all together, called precollision systems, and cameras to look for traffic ahead and what's behind the car.
Information:
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/under-the-hood/trends-innovations/digital-car.htm
Today, new breakthroughs have allowed for cars to come closer to KITT, what with wireless communication and compressed data storage, which is now in certain vehicles.
Clark then argues that the difference between a car and a digital car is intelligence. Before, a car was simply a mode of transportation. Now cars have hard drives, and more electronics than some people can possible realize. Cars are now being equipped with technology to help avoid collisions all together, called precollision systems, and cameras to look for traffic ahead and what's behind the car.
Information:
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/under-the-hood/trends-innovations/digital-car.htm
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