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@sarahsalviander If they pop up on socials to spread anger and bile. It's not you they hate, but some part of themselves.

If this "science" is correct, then thousands of you hate me. I have proof that at least some of you do. I have no idea why anyone hate-follows, but that's okay. Jesus loves you, and I love you, too.

@AshtonForbes @ncwish @GIshayu @skdh There is a locked vacuum though..

@ncwish @GIshayu @skdh It's not a contradiction for one simple reason, space isn't empty, there's no closed systems.

It's embarrassing how PhD physicists don't understand quantum mechanics or the Casimir effect. They get the most basic things wrong, repeatedly. The Casimir effect does prove we can extract zero point energy, otherwise the plates wouldn't come together on their own. That movement is a force that can be used for work. That's undeniable and specifically what Robert Forward showed in his 1984 paper. What everyone is actually upset about is PERPETUAL extraction, which in the case of plates requires them to be pulled apart. A valid argument for why that system won't work. Naturally, people have been working on designs to get around that, including Sonny White's idea. What will shock you is it can be accomplished with plasma and you start to wonder what's really going on with fusion. I've given up trying to reach these lost academics. Physics can't progress until they die because they're too much of fragile cowards to debate, since they know they'll lose and look foolish.

@skdh Then check it manually anyway.. Sigh.

Do citation checks only on MDS. PDFs and word docs burn tokens. Tell it to: 'check byte for byte the data, do not pattern match. Grepp byte for byte purely from the actual source paper, do not invent, or hallucinate values, if you cannot retrieve the data, say so. You will be audited on your work. Reputation damage to the sum of 1 million will occur if you fabricate or provide innacurate citations, audit again before delivery'

I'll tell you why so many people upset about the "no hallucinated citations" ban on the arxiv: because they've all been copying citation lists from each other without checking them since the beginning of time. And why did they do this? Because half of the citations in scientific papers are politics and not to the benefit of the reader. If you don't list the right papers, your paper doesn't look 'right' and reviewers will complain that you didn't cite this-and-that other unrelated work. For what I am concerned, these are all bullshit citations that shouldn't be in the papers in the first place. They can easily be automated by "related papers" links, that are (wait for it) provided by... AI...

@skdh Oh.... thanks... *spends sunday, manually checking citations"...

AI is absoloutely AWFUL at citations! It is the one thing it is absolutely crap at! You can burn a day of tokens trying and just get a loop of new hallucinations. Over 30% of the time. AI finds it harder to lookup, read, a article, and actually bother to write down correctly what it saw, than full on 3 loop SUSY calcs.

@skdh "Absolutely".. *smh*

@sarahsalviander And finally

My FAQS for atheists. If you want to know what I believe or how I respond to the most common questions and objections to Christianity, especially as it relates to modern science and philosophy, read through this post first. You'll likely find I've already addressed it here. (Updated version) schroodle.com/p/faqs-by-athe…

I looked it up. ​Day 1 uses the word Bara (\text{בָּרָא}), which means to create something brand new out of nothing. "In the beginning, God created (bara) the heavens and the earth." This is when the actual physical matter of the universe, including the sun and stars, was brought into existence. ​Day 4 does not use bara. Instead, it uses the word Asah (\text{עָשָׂה}). Asah means to fashion, appoint, bring forth, or prepare something that already exists for a specific purpose.

The Moon was forged in a planetary hit and run that nearly obliterated the Earth; The Theia collision. And it would have reformed faster than the Earth. And both needed to exist in their pre-collision forms prior to the impact that resulted in what we know now as the earth and moon. Essentially the Earth and moon were created from one joint event, and the earth took longer to form up after than the moon, meaning the moon was complete first. But yes... your point still stands. A step by step process that matches much of the physics determined order is quite hard to argue against. The bit I take harder to be convinced by is saying it is 'exact'. Changing the days to time periods also adds more problems. It means that the time between life arriving before the great lights were visible on earth is stretched by millions if not billions of years. Can there be zero wiggle room, in a text so old, translated, where words have changed context over time? This doesn't make the bible wrong. But it could mean our interpretation of key words or meaning has changed over time. Your own interpretation of 'lights appeared' ie visible from earth, instead of being formed at that time, is I would argue an interpetation. Same goes for days being time periods, not literal days. What's wrong with concluding that a few more assumptions were made in the translation from one language to another. And time and an evolving language did the rest.

People keep saying this, but what in Genesis 1 contradicts scientific research: - that the universe began to exist a finite time ago - that the Earth was formed a finite time ago - that oceans appeared, then land - that plant life emerged first - that animal life began in the oceans - that land-based and flying animals came later - that humans appeared later - that human consciousness was the last big development? Genesis says first the universe was created, then the stars, then it zeroes in on Earth and describes the development of its surface from unformed and chaotic to brimming with life, starting with less complex and progressing to more complex lifeforms. How is this scientifically wrong? This is incredible knowledge for uneducated, backwards, Bronze Age goatherds to possess. Why did it take thousands of years and the rise of modern science for us to rediscover what Genesis 1 says? We only discovered that the universe is finite in age about 100 years ago. But the author of Genesis knew it thousands of years ago. What non-believers typically do is point out a couple of seeming out-of-order events, like the Sun and Moon being made after the Earth or the appearance and description of plant life on day three, and say Genesis is completely unscientific. Even if those events were truly mistakes, it's still incredible that the author of Genesis mostly got it right. But Genesis didn't mostly get it right, the author got it entirely right. The Sun and Moon weren't made after the Earth, but before the Earth on day 2. Genesis says they appear from the surface of the Earth on day 4. Scientifically, we now know it took time for the atmosphere to become sufficiently oxygenated to become transparent. Prior to this, a hypothetical observer on the surface of the Earth would not be able to see any of the great lights in the sky. As for plants on day 3, since the Sun was made on day 2, sunlight filtered through an opaque atmosphere would've reached the surface of the Earth. The description plant life seems a little out of place, since Genesis immediately talks about flowering and seed-bearing plants. But medieval biblical commentators already understood how to resolve this. As Gerald Schroeder explains in 'The Science of God': "When the Bible is relating a topic of immediate but not continuing interest, it condenses the chronology of that topic and presents the entire account in one place rather than break into the narrative at a later point." We clearly see another example of this narrative device in Genesis 11. The point of Genesis 1 is to get from the creation of the universe to humankind to the line of Abraham, so the author keeps things moving. The problem with modern readers and Genesis is that they're looking back on Genesis from the perspective of, "Duh, we already know this stuff scientifically." But look at it from a perspective that's contemporary with Genesis. Compare it with the Babylonian account of creation to see what a stark contrast there is. I've linked it below. The Enuma Elish is a political myth focused on wars and personal clashes, like a super-violent soap opera about gods and monsters, from which human emergence is almost beside the point. Genesis 1 is utterly unique in its austerity and matter-of-fact description of a stepwise development of the universe, Earth, and life on Earth that culminates with the deliberate creation of the most complex form of life on Earth - human beings. The criticism leveled against Genesis 1 as contra-science isn't supported by the evidence. worldhistory.org/article/225/en…

@sarahsalviander And if you go by the Eden view.. Would I have grabbed an apple, and added that extra dimension of lived experience? Heck yeah. And would a creator have wanted me to? I think so. And I think HG Wells was of the same mindset.

@sarahsalviander Lifes value is determined by the overton window of both ends of the spectrum of lived experience.

Yesterday I asked for the strongest arguments in favor of the claim "there is no God." A lot of responses had to do with suffering. Atheists, help me understand why suffering is an argument against God. One thing I don't understand in particular is this: if there is no God, just a materialist universe, then how do you contextualize suffering? What is it? Is it still bad? Please help me understand this.

@Aj2Parkes @jkbdts @sarahsalviander And the bible has been around for a very long time, it has been translated, and words have changed meaning. The Bible could be the exact same, and the world around it could still change it's interpretation in that time.

Now we are getting into nuance. Interpretation. That's fine, it's written in words. We have laws that are written to insane levels of recirsive structural reinforcement to cover something as simple as the meaning of the word liberty. And yet. The dictionary changes yearly, words change in definition, rendering these laws carefully written rules, null and void, or a complete rewrite.

I agree with Sarah's compelling case that Genesis gets quite a few things right, and if a guy just made stuff up, he would be unlikely to get anything right. But and here is the controversial bit. If there is a god, and gives people revelation, it's not going to be a telephone call where you take exact notes. So hence I am middle ground I think... aligned to a pure science answer but also open to the idea people get knowledge from other sources. There is enough mystery left in both positions.

I agree the heavens were made first according to the Bible. And yes, those were arguments from when I was a kid. And yes, light was created earlier. But... the 'greater light' was on day four. But 'day and night' was clearly established before.. the extra detail for day four though is harder to reconcile. Alongside the moon.

@skdh When I worked at a large computer chain, we had a mystery shopper who signed as various Disney characters on each of his five cheques at 5 different stores. They all cleared.

when the DHL guy comes and there's something to sign, I make a squiggle on the touchscreen and we both laugh and I wonder if anyone ever looks at any of those "signatures" and why we're still doing this