Big Bang Fair-tail

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Questions:

1)   How many years ago did the Big Bang happen?

2)   Was the mass spinning really fast before the explosion, as we were told in grade school or has this changed?

3)   What is the location of the origin of the explosion of the Big Bang? Do we know the spot (x, y, z) of the explosion?

4)   How far away is the Earth located today from the original explosion spot?

5)   How fast was the mass travelling after the explosion? Was it at the speed of light? Slower, faster?

6)   When did time start to be in effect? Was there such a thing as time, before the Big Bang or was it a product of the explosion?

7)   When did the physical laws start to be in effect, before the bang or after the bang? Conservation of Energy, Momentum, F=ma...

8)   How much mass is there in the Universe?

9)   How big is the Universe? How many light years, is the furthest object from the center of the explosion.

10)   Where did all this mass come from? Since everything has a beginning and an end, how did it become into existence in order for the Big Bang to happen?

1) Let's first leave behind the "bang" idea. There was no explosion in any sense like you are probably thinking of. It was not a big pile of TNT or a thermonuclear weapon being detonated. With that in mind, we can use powerful telescopes that pick up electromagnetic wavelengths that are both very faint and WAY outside the visible light spectrum. With those telescopes, we can see things that are very far away. And, since we can determine empirically the speed of light, we can also determine that the things that are very far away are ALSO very old, otherwise the light from those very far away places would not have reached us yet. The furthest-away light comes from the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). That light was emitted about 13.7 billion years ago. Based on complicated mathematical models, it is thought that the CMB would not have been visible until a few hundred thousand years after the beginning of the universe.

2) Again, there was no explosion in the traditional sense. There was a rapid expansion. Also, "before the Big Bang" is not really a meaningful phrase, because time and space as we know it would have begun at that moment. Was the universe born spinning? Perhaps, but it's not necessary. Galaxies don't spin because they are in a spinning universe (in reading some of your replies, this seems to be an argument that you stand behind, hopefully I didn't misread). The warping of spacetime in the presence of mass does a pretty good job of setting things to spinning.

3) All of spacetime expanded. Again, it wasn't an explosion at a certain set of coordinates. It was a rapid expansion of everything. Everything, everywhere, expanded.

4) Earth is about 13.7 billion years away from the original spot, as is literally everywhere else in the known universe. We are displaced by time, not by space. The rapid expansion of the universe happened here in the space my back yard occupies, at your house, on the moon, at Alpha Centauri, and everywhere else in the universe at the same time. Of course, houses and moons and stars didn't exist at the time, but the SPACE that those things occupy existed, the coordinates have just grown further apart over time.

5) This question presumes there was mass at the birth of the universe. I don't believe that's a claim most who study cosmology would make. The universe was just too hot and dense for atoms to form for quite some time.

6) Time, as we know it, is thought to have begun at the birth of the universe. Could there be a multiverse, of which our universe is a part, that has a time dimension of its own? Sure. But it's not in the set of things that are knowable in our universe so it is a question that is, at present and possible forever, unknowable.

7) We can observe physics behaving in a way that makes sense for the most part going as far back as the CMB. It's impossible to see further back than that, because that is the earliest light that could actually travel. Anything prior to the CMB is tucked away behind a cosmic firewall that we don't have tools to see through.

8) Quite a lot. I don't know how much. Maybe there are estimates out there, I am not sure. In the known, observable universe, there are billions of galaxies, each with billions of stars. That's an awful lot of mass right there.

9) It could be infinitely large, but it might not be. But there's no center. This epicenter idea makes a lot of appearances in your questions and I think understanding why there was no epicenter would be very illuminating for you.

10) That is a great question. There's no definitive answer to it. There are some ideas, but anyone telling you they absolutely know the answer probably also has a bridge to sell you.

Well I have a hypothesis for you, the watermelon that you purchased from the supermarket is blue inside when it is growing on the plant. As soon as it is cut or if any outside entity touches it, it turns to red. Prove me wrong!!!! I have no evidence to support my hypothesis but all the farmers now about this and thus it must be true.

Imagine there is nothing. No time, no space and no humanity. But suddenly, from this nothing springs forth an entire universe, space, time, stars, galaxies, planets, creatures, humans, beauty from ultimate chaos. That is the Big Bang. Something so extraordinary and impossible that from that tiny ball of energy created from emptiness, a planet forms with exactly the right conditions for life to flourish. It's beautiful.

I don't see how that contradicts the Bible. God wants us to draw closer to Him, but He also wants there to be free will, so we can screw up and be shown His mercy. So why create a universe beyond doubt?

Even the Pope declared that the Big Bang theory doesn't contradict Christianity. (http://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/it/speeches/1951/documents/hf_p-xii_spe_19511122_di-serena.html, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_interpretations_of_the_Big_Bang_theory)

You can read his full dissection at the first link.

How do we know how long a day is in God's eyes? How can we pretend to know how He works?

Quote from: InFlatEarth on August 03, 2017, 12:36:20 AM

Quote from: Tessa Yuri on August 02, 2017, 03:26:15 PM

Imagine there is nothing. No time, no space and no humanity. But suddenly, from this nothing springs forth an entire universe, space, time, stars, galaxies, planets, creatures, humans, beauty from ultimate chaos. That is the Big Bang. Something so extraordinary and impossible that from that tiny ball of energy created from emptiness, a planet forms with exactly the right conditions for life to flourish. It's beautiful.

I don't see how that contradicts the Bible. God wants us to draw closer to Him, but He also wants there to be free will, so we can screw up and be shown His mercy. So why create a universe beyond doubt?

Even the Pope declared that the Big Bang theory doesn't contradict Christianity. (http://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/it/speeches/1951/documents/hf_p-xii_spe_19511122_di-serena.html, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_interpretations_of_the_Big_Bang_theory)

You can read his full dissection at the first link.

How do we know how long a day is in God's eyes? How can we pretend to know how He works?

The problem with Heliocentric and Evolution, is that you have Death before Adan and Eve sin. A true God, does not need to create things that need to die in order for the best to survive. A true God, creates everything perfect from the start.

Have you read the Pope's dissection? Because it explicitly disagrees with you on every point there. Furthermore, this world isn't perfect. People still sin and die and there is still evil. So things aren't perfect, which is all in God's design.

Quote from: InFlatEarth on August 03, 2017, 12:46:20 AM

Well I have a hypothesis for you, the watermelon that you purchased from the supermarket is blue inside when it is growing on the plant. As soon as it is cut or if any outside entity touches it, it turns to red. Prove me wrong!!!! I have no evidence to support my hypothesis but all the farmers now about this and thus it must be true.

If you make a claim, scientifically, the onus is on you to prove it, not on others to disprove it. So that argument is invalid. No one has to prove you wrong, you are wrong because you haven't proven your own statement.

OK, you make a claim that time and space expanded with the Big Bang. So please provide citation of an experiment in a lab that creates this effect that any scientist can conduct to validate it.

If not, then your statements of time and space expanding is invalid. I am using your standards.

Quote from: InFlatEarth on August 03, 2017, 12:54:52 AM

OK, you make a claim that time and space expanded with the Big Bang. So please provide citation of an experiment in a lab that creates this effect that any scientist can conduct to validate it.

If not, then your statements of time and space expanding is invalid. I am using your standards.

http://www.columbia.edu/~vjd1/Hubble%20Lab%20Ex.html

The Hubble constant is a hotly contested quantity in astrophysics

A trickier task is to determine a galaxy's distance, since we must rely on more indirect methods. One method for determining intergalactic distance is to assume that all galaxies of the same type are approximately the same physical size, no matter where they are.

Quote from: Edge_Loop on August 02, 2017, 01:31:49 PM

Inflatearth, why not just be satisfied with telling yourself we are all heretic fools that will burn in hell for all eternity?

Why place so much religious importance on the earth being flat when the bible hardly even mentions it?

Is it possible that you are questioning your own belief and seeking to re-affirm it through the agreement of others?

If so then maybe you should go talk to a priest rather than posting on here...

The earth being flat not mentioned, well let's see what is mentioned in the bible.

It talks about the earth not moving, being on pillars which God created its foundations. That sounds like flat to me

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The Earth is Still
1 Chronicles 16:30 - Fear before him, all the earth: the world also shall be stable, that it be not moved.

Psalm 93:1 - The Lord reigneth, he is clothed with majesty; the Lord is clothed with strength, wherewith he hath girded himself: the world also is stablished, that it cannot be moved.

Psalm 96:10 - Say among the heathen that the Lord reigneth: the world also shall be established that it shall not be moved: he shall judge the people righteously.


Earth is on Pillars
1 Samuel 2:8 - He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill, to set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne of glory: for the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, and he hath set the world upon them.

Job 9:6 - Which shaketh the earth out of her place, and the pillars thereof tremble.

Psalm 75:3 - The earth and all the inhabitants thereof are dissolved: I bear up the pillars of it. Selah.


Foundations
Job 38:4 - Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.

Isaiah 48:13 - Mine hand also hath laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand hath spanned the heavens: when I call unto them, they stand up together.

Can anyone tell me what a

Fair-tail

is?

I'm still wondering!

Quote from: Tessa Yuri on August 02, 2017, 03:26:15 PM

Imagine there is nothing. No time, no space and no humanity. But suddenly, from this nothing springs forth an entire universe, space, time, stars, galaxies, planets, creatures, humans, beauty from ultimate chaos. That is the Big Bang. Something so extraordinary and impossible that from that tiny ball of energy created from emptiness, a planet forms with exactly the right conditions for life to flourish. It's beautiful.

I don't see how that contradicts the Bible.

The Biblical creation story was obviously written by somebody who thought that earth is a major part of the universe.

Quote from: Tessa Yuri on August 03, 2017, 12:48:16 AM

Quote from: InFlatEarth on August 03, 2017, 12:46:20 AM

Well I have a hypothesis for you, the watermelon that you purchased from the supermarket is blue inside when it is growing on the plant. As soon as it is cut or if any outside entity touches it, it turns to red. Prove me wrong!!!! I have no evidence to support my hypothesis but all the farmers now about this and thus it must be true.

If you make a claim, scientifically, the onus is on you to prove it, not on others to disprove it. So that argument is invalid. No one has to prove you wrong, you are wrong because you haven't proven your own statement.

OK, you make a claim that time and space expanded with the Big Bang. So please provide citation of an experiment in a lab that creates this effect that any scientist can conduct to validate it.

If not, then your statements of time and space expanding is invalid. I am using your standards.

Quote from: boydster on August 02, 2017, 03:50:42 PM

Quote

Questions:

1)   How many years ago did the Big Bang happen?

2)   Was the mass spinning really fast before the explosion, as we were told in grade school or has this changed?

3)   What is the location of the origin of the explosion of the Big Bang? Do we know the spot (x, y, z) of the explosion?

4)   How far away is the Earth located today from the original explosion spot?

5)   How fast was the mass travelling after the explosion? Was it at the speed of light? Slower, faster?

6)   When did time start to be in effect? Was there such a thing as time, before the Big Bang or was it a product of the explosion?

7)   When did the physical laws start to be in effect, before the bang or after the bang? Conservation of Energy, Momentum, F=ma...

8)   How much mass is there in the Universe?

9)   How big is the Universe? How many light years, is the furthest object from the center of the explosion.

10)   Where did all this mass come from? Since everything has a beginning and an end, how did it become into existence in order for the Big Bang to happen?

1) Let's first leave behind the "bang" idea. There was no explosion in any sense like you are probably thinking of. It was not a big pile of TNT or a thermonuclear weapon being detonated. With that in mind, we can use powerful telescopes that pick up electromagnetic wavelengths that are both very faint and WAY outside the visible light spectrum. With those telescopes, we can see things that are very far away. And, since we can determine empirically the speed of light, we can also determine that the things that are very far away are ALSO very old, otherwise the light from those very far away places would not have reached us yet. The furthest-away light comes from the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). That light was emitted about 13.7 billion years ago. Based on complicated mathematical models, it is thought that the CMB would not have been visible until a few hundred thousand years after the beginning of the universe.

2) Again, there was no explosion in the traditional sense. There was a rapid expansion. Also, "before the Big Bang" is not really a meaningful phrase, because time and space as we know it would have begun at that moment. Was the universe born spinning? Perhaps, but it's not necessary. Galaxies don't spin because they are in a spinning universe (in reading some of your replies, this seems to be an argument that you stand behind, hopefully I didn't misread). The warping of spacetime in the presence of mass does a pretty good job of setting things to spinning.

3) All of spacetime expanded. Again, it wasn't an explosion at a certain set of coordinates. It was a rapid expansion of everything. Everything, everywhere, expanded.

4) Earth is about 13.7 billion years away from the original spot, as is literally everywhere else in the known universe. We are displaced by time, not by space. The rapid expansion of the universe happened here in the space my back yard occupies, at your house, on the moon, at Alpha Centauri, and everywhere else in the universe at the same time. Of course, houses and moons and stars didn't exist at the time, but the SPACE that those things occupy existed, the coordinates have just grown further apart over time.

5) This question presumes there was mass at the birth of the universe. I don't believe that's a claim most who study cosmology would make. The universe was just too hot and dense for atoms to form for quite some time.

6) Time, as we know it, is thought to have begun at the birth of the universe. Could there be a multiverse, of which our universe is a part, that has a time dimension of its own? Sure. But it's not in the set of things that are knowable in our universe so it is a question that is, at present and possible forever, unknowable.

7) We can observe physics behaving in a way that makes sense for the most part going as far back as the CMB. It's impossible to see further back than that, because that is the earliest light that could actually travel. Anything prior to the CMB is tucked away behind a cosmic firewall that we don't have tools to see through.

8) Quite a lot. I don't know how much. Maybe there are estimates out there, I am not sure. In the known, observable universe, there are billions of galaxies, each with billions of stars. That's an awful lot of mass right there.

9) It could be infinitely large, but it might not be. But there's no center. This epicenter idea makes a lot of appearances in your questions and I think understanding why there was no epicenter would be very illuminating for you.

10) That is a great question. There's no definitive answer to it. There are some ideas, but anyone telling you they absolutely know the answer probably also has a bridge to sell you.

All I have asked was some specific information with numbers and all you do is write essays. Literature majors write essays, scientist give numbers. Their was one person on this forum said that the mass traveled faster than the speed of light.

Which brings up the question, is the speed of light constant from the second the Universe was created? If no, then all your measurements are wrong. If yes, then how did that mass get to the outer region of space, and this fair-tail that both time and space expanded with the big bang, is the only way that you can keep your story going on.

Has their ever been an experiment in a lab, where they able to expand time and space, if no, then it's just a hypothesis.

Well I have a hypothesis for you, the watermelon that you purchased from the supermarket is blue inside when it is growing on the plant. As soon as it is cut or if any outside entity touches it, it turns to red. Prove me wrong!!!! I have no evidence to support my hypothesis but all the farmers now about this and thus it must be true.

Quote from: Edge_Loop on August 02, 2017, 12:28:46 PM

Guys, it's a story. It's a story written nearly 2000 years ago that even its followers can't agree on.

We aren't even sure the people that we think wrote the story are the ones that actually wrote the story.

There is ZERO contemporary corroborative historical data outside of the bible to suggest Jesus even existed.

Believe whatever religious stories you want and I will respect your beliefs. But try to say that these beliefs are in any way supported by genuine verifiable historic data and my tolerance grows thin I'm afraid.

Either you are ignorant or you are a liar. The ignorant part I can help you, put being a liar, well that is something that only God will take care of.

https://probe.org/ancient-evidence-for-jesus-from-non-christian-sources-2/

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Evidence from Tacitus

Although there is overwhelming evidence that the New Testament is an accurate and trustworthy historical document, many people are still reluctant to believe what it says unless there is also some independent, non-biblical testimony that corroborates its statements. In the introduction to one of his books, F.F. Bruce tells about a Christian correspondent who was told by an agnostic friend that “apart from obscure references in Josephus and the like,” there was no historical evidence for the life of Jesus outside the Bible.{1} This, he wrote to Bruce, had caused him “great concern and some little upset in [his] spiritual life.”{2} He concludes his letter by asking, “Is such collateral proof available, and if not, are there reasons for the lack of it?”{3} The answer to this question is, “Yes, such collateral proof is available,” and we will be looking at some of it in this article.

Let’s begin our inquiry with a passage that historian Edwin Yamauchi calls “probably the most important reference to Jesus outside the New Testament.”{4} Reporting on Emperor Nero’s decision to blame the Christians for the fire that had destroyed Rome in A.D. 64, the Roman historian Tacitus wrote:

Nero fastened the guilt . . . on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of . . . Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome. . . .{5}
What all can we learn from this ancient (and rather unsympathetic) reference to Jesus and the early Christians? Notice, first, that Tacitus reports Christians derived their name from a historical person called Christus (from the Latin), or Christ. He is said to have “suffered the extreme penalty,” obviously alluding to the Roman method of execution known as crucifixion. This is said to have occurred during the reign of Tiberius and by the sentence of Pontius Pilatus. This confirms much of what the Gospels tell us about the death of Jesus.

But what are we to make of Tacitus’ rather enigmatic statement that Christ’s death briefly checked “a most mischievous superstition,” which subsequently arose not only in Judaea, but also in Rome? One historian suggests that Tacitus is here “bearing indirect . . . testimony to the conviction of the early church that the Christ who had been crucified had risen from the grave.”{6} While this interpretation is admittedly speculative, it does help explain the otherwise bizarre occurrence of a rapidly growing religion based on the worship of a man who had been crucified as a criminal.{7} How else might one explain that?

Evidence from Pliny the Younger

Another important source of evidence about Jesus and early Christianity can be found in the letters of Pliny the Younger to Emperor Trajan. Pliny was the Roman governor of Bithynia in Asia Minor. In one of his letters, dated around A.D. 112, he asks Trajan’s advice about the appropriate way to conduct legal proceedings against those accused of being Christians.{8} Pliny says that he needed to consult the emperor about this issue because a great multitude of every age, class, and sex stood accused of Christianity.{9}

At one point in his letter, Pliny relates some of the information he has learned about these Christians:

They were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verses a hymn to Christ, as to a god, and bound themselves by a solemn oath, not to any wicked deeds, but never to commit any fraud, theft or adultery, never to falsify their word, nor deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it up; after which it was their custom to separate, and then reassemble to partake of food–but food of an ordinary and innocent kind.{10}
This passage provides us with a number of interesting insights into the beliefs and practices of early Christians. First, we see that Christians regularly met on a certain fixed day for worship. Second, their worship was directed to Christ, demonstrating that they firmly believed in His divinity. Furthermore, one scholar interprets Pliny’s statement that hymns were sung to Christ, as to a god, as a reference to the rather distinctive fact that, “unlike other gods who were worshipped, Christ was a person who had lived on earth.”{11} If this interpretation is correct, Pliny understood that Christians were worshipping an actual historical person as God! Of course, this agrees perfectly with the New Testament doctrine that Jesus was both God and man.

Not only does Pliny’s letter help us understand what early Christians believed about Jesus’ person, it also reveals the high esteem to which they held His teachings. For instance, Pliny notes that Christians bound themselves by a solemn oath not to violate various moral standards, which find their source in the ethical teachings of Jesus. In addition, Pliny’s reference to the Christian custom of sharing a common meal likely alludes to their observance of communion and the “love feast.”{12} This interpretation helps explain the Christian claim that the meal was merely food of an ordinary and innocent kind. They were attempting to counter the charge, sometimes made by non-Christians, of practicing “ritual cannibalism.”{13} The Christians of that day humbly repudiated such slanderous attacks on Jesus’ teachings. We must sometimes do the same today.

Evidence from Josephus

Perhaps the most remarkable reference to Jesus outside the Bible can be found in the writings of Josephus, a first century Jewish historian. On two occasions, in his Jewish Antiquities, he mentions Jesus. The second, less revealing, reference describes the condemnation of one “James” by the Jewish Sanhedrin. This James, says Josephus, was “the brother of Jesus the so-called Christ.”{14} F.F. Bruce points out how this agrees with Paul’s description of James in Galatians 1:19 as “the Lord’s brother.”{15} And Edwin Yamauchi informs us that “few scholars have questioned” that Josephus actually penned this passage.{16}

As interesting as this brief reference is, there is an earlier one, which is truly astonishing. Called the “Testimonium Flavianum,” the relevant portion declares:

About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he . . . wrought surprising feats. . . . He was the Christ. When Pilate . . .condemned him to be crucified, those who had . . . come to love him did not give up their affection for him. On the third day he appeared . . . restored to life. . . . And the tribe of Christians . . . has . . . not disappeared.{17}
Did Josephus really write this? Most scholars think the core of the passage originated with Josephus, but that it was later altered by a Christian editor, possibly between the third and fourth century A.D.{18} But why do they think it was altered? Josephus was not a Christian, and it is difficult to believe that anyone but a Christian would have made some of these statements.{19}

For instance, the claim that Jesus was a wise man seems authentic, but the qualifying phrase, “if indeed one ought to call him a man,” is suspect. It implies that Jesus was more than human, and it is quite unlikely that Josephus would have said that! It is also difficult to believe he would have flatly asserted that Jesus was the Christ, especially when he later refers to Jesus as “the so-called” Christ. Finally, the claim that on the third day Jesus appeared to His disciples restored to life, inasmuch as it affirms Jesus’ resurrection, is quite unlikely to come from a non-Christian!

But even if we disregard the questionable parts of this passage, we are still left with a good deal of corroborating information about the biblical Jesus. We read that he was a wise man who performed surprising feats. And although He was crucified under Pilate, His followers continued their discipleship and became known as Christians. When we combine these statements with Josephus’ later reference to Jesus as “the so-called Christ,” a rather detailed picture emerges which harmonizes quite well with the biblical record. It increasingly appears that the “biblical Jesus” and the “historical Jesus” are one and the same!

Evidence from the Babylonian Talmud

There are only a few clear references to Jesus in the Babylonian Talmud, a collection of Jewish rabbinical writings compiled between approximately A.D. 70-500. Given this time frame, it is naturally supposed that earlier references to Jesus are more likely to be historically reliable than later ones. In the case of the Talmud, the earliest period of compilation occurred between A.D. 70-200.{20} The most significant reference to Jesus from this period states:

On the eve of the Passover Yeshu was hanged. For forty days before the execution took place, a herald . . . cried, “He is going forth to be stoned because he has practiced sorcery and enticed Israel to apostasy.”{21}
Let’s examine this passage. You may have noticed that it refers to someone named “Yeshu.” So why do we think this is Jesus? Actually, “Yeshu” (or “Yeshua”) is how Jesus’ name is pronounced in Hebrew. But what does the passage mean by saying that Jesus “was hanged”? Doesn’t the New Testament say he was crucified? Indeed it does. But the term “hanged” can function as a synonym for “crucified.” For instance, Galatians 3:13 declares that Christ was “hanged”, and Luke 23:39 applies this term to the criminals who were crucified with Jesus.{22} So the Talmud declares that Jesus was crucified on the eve of Passover. But what of the cry of the herald that Jesus was to be stoned? This may simply indicate what the Jewish leaders were planning to do.{23} If so, Roman involvement changed their plans!{24}

The passage also tells us why Jesus was crucified. It claims He practiced sorcery and enticed Israel to apostasy! Since this accusation comes from a rather hostile source, we should not be too surprised if Jesus is described somewhat differently than in the New Testament. But if we make allowances for this, what might such charges imply about Jesus?

Interestingly, both accusations have close parallels in the canonical gospels. For instance, the charge of sorcery is similar to the Pharisees’ accusation that Jesus cast out demons “by Beelzebul the ruler of the demons.”{25} But notice this: such a charge actually tends to confirm the New Testament claim that Jesus performed miraculous feats. Apparently Jesus’ miracles were too well attested to deny. The only alternative was to ascribe them to sorcery! Likewise, the charge of enticing Israel to apostasy parallels Luke’s account of the Jewish leaders who accused Jesus of misleading the nation with his teaching.{26} Such a charge tends to corroborate the New Testament record of Jesus’ powerful teaching ministry. Thus, if read carefully, this passage from the Talmud confirms much of our knowledge about Jesus from the New Testament.

Evidence from Lucian

Lucian of Samosata was a second century Greek satirist. In one of his works, he wrote of the early Christians as follows:

The Christians . . . worship a man to this day–the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that account. . . . [It] was impressed on them by their original lawgiver that they are all brothers, from the moment that they are converted, and deny the gods of Greece, and worship the crucified sage, and live after his laws.{27}
Although Lucian is jesting here at the early Christians, he does make some significant comments about their founder. For instance, he says the Christians worshipped a man, “who introduced their novel rites.” And though this man’s followers clearly thought quite highly of Him, He so angered many of His contemporaries with His teaching that He “was crucified on that account.”

Although Lucian does not mention his name, he is clearly referring to Jesus. But what did Jesus teach to arouse such wrath? According to Lucian, he taught that all men are brothers from the moment of their conversion. That’s harmless enough. But what did this conversion involve? It involved denying the Greek gods, worshipping Jesus, and living according to His teachings. It’s not too difficult to imagine someone being killed for teaching that. Though Lucian doesn’t say so explicitly, the Christian denial of other gods combined with their worship of Jesus implies the belief that Jesus was more than human. Since they denied other gods in order to worship Him, they apparently thought Jesus a greater God than any that Greece had to offer!

Let’s summarize what we’ve learned about Jesus from this examination of ancient non-Christian sources. First, both Josephus and Lucian indicate that Jesus was regarded as wise. Second, Pliny, the Talmud, and Lucian imply He was a powerful and revered teacher. Third, both Josephus and the Talmud indicate He performed miraculous feats. Fourth, Tacitus, Josephus, the Talmud, and Lucian all mention that He was crucified. Tacitus and Josephus say this occurred under Pontius Pilate. And the Talmud declares it happened on the eve of Passover. Fifth, there are possible references to the Christian belief in Jesus’ resurrection in both Tacitus and Josephus. Sixth, Josephus records that Jesus’ followers believed He was the Christ, or Messiah. And finally, both Pliny and Lucian indicate that Christians worshipped Jesus as God!

I hope you see how this small selection of ancient non-Christian sources helps corroborate our knowledge of Jesus from the gospels. Of course, there are many ancient Christian sources of information about Jesus as well. But since the historical reliability of the canonical gospels is so well established, I invite you to read those for an authoritative “life of Jesus!”

Quote from: Albert Wesker on August 02, 2017, 10:53:03 AM

And if you must know Inflatearth, Lemaitres took Einstein's general relativity in its purest form(minus the cosmological constant) which implies a non-static universe, and Hubble's discovery of an expanding universe and deduced that an expanding universe would have been smaller and smaller in earlier times. So he posited that the universe began in a small, dense state which he referred to as the "primordial atom".

Einstein was an idiot that could not pass grade school!!!

The 'evidence' required by historians to consider a historical figure existed is far from scientific.

There is anecdotal evidence of the existence of Jesus. This is not scientific proof.

You are mixing together science/history and religion. They do not play well together.

It's silly to attempt to use history and religion as proof in an argument about science.

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Questions:

1)   How many years ago did the Big Bang happen?

2)   Was the mass spinning really fast before the explosion, as we were told in grade school or has this changed?

3)   What is the location of the origin of the explosion of the Big Bang? Do we know the spot (x, y, z) of the explosion?

4)   How far away is the Earth located today from the original explosion spot?

5)   How fast was the mass travelling after the explosion? Was it at the speed of light? Slower, faster?

6)   When did time start to be in effect? Was there such a thing as time, before the Big Bang or was it a product of the explosion?

7)   When did the physical laws start to be in effect, before the bang or after the bang? Conservation of Energy, Momentum, F=ma...

8)   How much mass is there in the Universe?

9)   How big is the Universe? How many light years, is the furthest object from the center of the explosion.

10)   Where did all this mass come from? Since everything has a beginning and an end, how did it become into existence in order for the Big Bang to happen?

1) Let's first leave behind the "bang" idea. There was no explosion in any sense like you are probably thinking of. It was not a big pile of TNT or a thermonuclear weapon being detonated. With that in mind, we can use powerful telescopes that pick up electromagnetic wavelengths that are both very faint and WAY outside the visible light spectrum. With those telescopes, we can see things that are very far away. And, since we can determine empirically the speed of light, we can also determine that the things that are very far away are ALSO very old, otherwise the light from those very far away places would not have reached us yet. The furthest-away light comes from the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). That light was emitted about 13.7 billion years ago. Based on complicated mathematical models, it is thought that the CMB would not have been visible until a few hundred thousand years after the beginning of the universe.

2) Again, there was no explosion in the traditional sense. There was a rapid expansion. Also, "before the Big Bang" is not really a meaningful phrase, because time and space as we know it would have begun at that moment. Was the universe born spinning? Perhaps, but it's not necessary. Galaxies don't spin because they are in a spinning universe (in reading some of your replies, this seems to be an argument that you stand behind, hopefully I didn't misread). The warping of spacetime in the presence of mass does a pretty good job of setting things to spinning.

3) All of spacetime expanded. Again, it wasn't an explosion at a certain set of coordinates. It was a rapid expansion of everything. Everything, everywhere, expanded.

4) Earth is about 13.7 billion years away from the original spot, as is literally everywhere else in the known universe. We are displaced by time, not by space. The rapid expansion of the universe happened here in the space my back yard occupies, at your house, on the moon, at Alpha Centauri, and everywhere else in the universe at the same time. Of course, houses and moons and stars didn't exist at the time, but the SPACE that those things occupy existed, the coordinates have just grown further apart over time.

5) This question presumes there was mass at the birth of the universe. I don't believe that's a claim most who study cosmology would make. The universe was just too hot and dense for atoms to form for quite some time.

6) Time, as we know it, is thought to have begun at the birth of the universe. Could there be a multiverse, of which our universe is a part, that has a time dimension of its own? Sure. But it's not in the set of things that are knowable in our universe so it is a question that is, at present and possible forever, unknowable.

7) We can observe physics behaving in a way that makes sense for the most part going as far back as the CMB. It's impossible to see further back than that, because that is the earliest light that could actually travel. Anything prior to the CMB is tucked away behind a cosmic firewall that we don't have tools to see through.

8) Quite a lot. I don't know how much. Maybe there are estimates out there, I am not sure. In the known, observable universe, there are billions of galaxies, each with billions of stars. That's an awful lot of mass right there.

9) It could be infinitely large, but it might not be. But there's no center. This epicenter idea makes a lot of appearances in your questions and I think understanding why there was no epicenter would be very illuminating for you.

10) That is a great question. There's no definitive answer to it. There are some ideas, but anyone telling you they absolutely know the answer probably also has a bridge to sell you.

The fact that Inflatedselfworth won't even correct 'fair-tail' and uses it over and over again says it all really.

It indicates that he only cares about whatever he thinks is right, everything else is just noise.

I'd wager that If God appeared in front of him and wasn't as he thought God should be he would probably deny it was him.

Quote from: boydster on August 02, 2017, 03:50:42 PM

Quote

Questions:

1)   How many years ago did the Big Bang happen?

2)   Was the mass spinning really fast before the explosion, as we were told in grade school or has this changed?

3)   What is the location of the origin of the explosion of the Big Bang? Do we know the spot (x, y, z) of the explosion?

4)   How far away is the Earth located today from the original explosion spot?

5)   How fast was the mass travelling after the explosion? Was it at the speed of light? Slower, faster?

6)   When did time start to be in effect? Was there such a thing as time, before the Big Bang or was it a product of the explosion?

7)   When did the physical laws start to be in effect, before the bang or after the bang? Conservation of Energy, Momentum, F=ma...

8)   How much mass is there in the Universe?

9)   How big is the Universe? How many light years, is the furthest object from the center of the explosion.

10)   Where did all this mass come from? Since everything has a beginning and an end, how did it become into existence in order for the Big Bang to happen?

1) Let's first leave behind the "bang" idea. There was no explosion in any sense like you are probably thinking of. It was not a big pile of TNT or a thermonuclear weapon being detonated. With that in mind, we can use powerful telescopes that pick up electromagnetic wavelengths that are both very faint and WAY outside the visible light spectrum. With those telescopes, we can see things that are very far away. And, since we can determine empirically the speed of light, we can also determine that the things that are very far away are ALSO very old, otherwise the light from those very far away places would not have reached us yet. The furthest-away light comes from the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). That light was emitted about 13.7 billion years ago. Based on complicated mathematical models, it is thought that the CMB would not have been visible until a few hundred thousand years after the beginning of the universe.

2) Again, there was no explosion in the traditional sense. There was a rapid expansion. Also, "before the Big Bang" is not really a meaningful phrase, because time and space as we know it would have begun at that moment. Was the universe born spinning? Perhaps, but it's not necessary. Galaxies don't spin because they are in a spinning universe (in reading some of your replies, this seems to be an argument that you stand behind, hopefully I didn't misread). The warping of spacetime in the presence of mass does a pretty good job of setting things to spinning.

3) All of spacetime expanded. Again, it wasn't an explosion at a certain set of coordinates. It was a rapid expansion of everything. Everything, everywhere, expanded.

4) Earth is about 13.7 billion years away from the original spot, as is literally everywhere else in the known universe. We are displaced by time, not by space. The rapid expansion of the universe happened here in the space my back yard occupies, at your house, on the moon, at Alpha Centauri, and everywhere else in the universe at the same time. Of course, houses and moons and stars didn't exist at the time, but the SPACE that those things occupy existed, the coordinates have just grown further apart over time.

5) This question presumes there was mass at the birth of the universe. I don't believe that's a claim most who study cosmology would make. The universe was just too hot and dense for atoms to form for quite some time.

6) Time, as we know it, is thought to have begun at the birth of the universe. Could there be a multiverse, of which our universe is a part, that has a time dimension of its own? Sure. But it's not in the set of things that are knowable in our universe so it is a question that is, at present and possible forever, unknowable.

7) We can observe physics behaving in a way that makes sense for the most part going as far back as the CMB. It's impossible to see further back than that, because that is the earliest light that could actually travel. Anything prior to the CMB is tucked away behind a cosmic firewall that we don't have tools to see through.

8) Quite a lot. I don't know how much. Maybe there are estimates out there, I am not sure. In the known, observable universe, there are billions of galaxies, each with billions of stars. That's an awful lot of mass right there.

9) It could be infinitely large, but it might not be. But there's no center. This epicenter idea makes a lot of appearances in your questions and I think understanding why there was no epicenter would be very illuminating for you.

10) That is a great question. There's no definitive answer to it. There are some ideas, but anyone telling you they absolutely know the answer probably also has a bridge to sell you.

All I have asked was some specific information with numbers and all you do is write essays. Literature majors write essays, scientist give numbers. Their was one person on this forum said that the mass traveled faster than the speed of light.

Which brings up the question, is the speed of light constant from the second the Universe was created? If no, then all your measurements are wrong. If yes, then how did that mass get to the outer region of space, and this fair-tail that both time and space expanded with the big bang, is the only way that you can keep your story going on.

Has their ever been an experiment in a lab, where they able to expand time and space, if no, then it's just a hypothesis.

Well I have a hypothesis for you, the watermelon that you purchased from the supermarket is blue inside when it is growing on the plant. As soon as it is cut or if any outside entity touches it, it turns to red. Prove me wrong!!!! I have no evidence to support my hypothesis but all the farmers now about this and thus it must be true.

Quote from: Tessa Yuri on August 02, 2017, 03:26:15 PM

Imagine there is nothing. No time, no space and no humanity. But suddenly, from this nothing springs forth an entire universe, space, time, stars, galaxies, planets, creatures, humans, beauty from ultimate chaos. That is the Big Bang. Something so extraordinary and impossible that from that tiny ball of energy created from emptiness, a planet forms with exactly the right conditions for life to flourish. It's beautiful.

I don't see how that contradicts the Bible. God wants us to draw closer to Him, but He also wants there to be free will, so we can screw up and be shown His mercy. So why create a universe beyond doubt?

Even the Pope declared that the Big Bang theory doesn't contradict Christianity. (http://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/it/speeches/1951/documents/hf_p-xii_spe_19511122_di-serena.html, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_interpretations_of_the_Big_Bang_theory)

You can read his full dissection at the first link.

How do we know how long a day is in God's eyes? How can we pretend to know how He works?

Bravo,
just wanted to add this to your post:
The reason "free will" is so important is because exactly that simple feature gives us a higher rank than angels.
why would God create a weak, slow and disobedient human being, when he could a much stronger, faster and always obedient angel?
The reason is our Free will...despite we have the freedom to reject God, we choose to believe in him and to obey him. That is what makes us much more valuable than angels.

Quote from: InFlatEarth on August 03, 2017, 12:31:37 AM

Quote from: Edge_Loop on August 02, 2017, 01:31:49 PM

Inflatearth, why not just be satisfied with telling yourself we are all heretic fools that will burn in hell for all eternity?

Why place so much religious importance on the earth being flat when the bible hardly even mentions it?

Is it possible that you are questioning your own belief and seeking to re-affirm it through the agreement of others?

If so then maybe you should go talk to a priest rather than posting on here...

The earth being flat not mentioned, well let's see what is mentioned in the bible.

It talks about the earth not moving, being on pillars which God created its foundations. That sounds like flat to me

Quote

The Earth is Still
1 Chronicles 16:30 - Fear before him, all the earth: the world also shall be stable, that it be not moved.

Psalm 93:1 - The Lord reigneth, he is clothed with majesty; the Lord is clothed with strength, wherewith he hath girded himself: the world also is stablished, that it cannot be moved.

Psalm 96:10 - Say among the heathen that the Lord reigneth: the world also shall be established that it shall not be moved: he shall judge the people righteously.


Earth is on Pillars
1 Samuel 2:8 - He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill, to set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne of glory: for the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, and he hath set the world upon them.

Job 9:6 - Which shaketh the earth out of her place, and the pillars thereof tremble.

Psalm 75:3 - The earth and all the inhabitants thereof are dissolved: I bear up the pillars of it. Selah.


Foundations
Job 38:4 - Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.

Isaiah 48:13 - Mine hand also hath laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand hath spanned the heavens: when I call unto them, they stand up together.

Aaaaand not one of those says the Earth is flat.

Thou shall not trolleth.

"This lab calculation, not experiment does not prove that space and time is expanding at all."
Time is not expanding? If it started 14 billion years ago, each day makes it longer since it started, so yes, it is expanding. If it started say 3000 years ago when a mystical God created everything, including dinosaur fossils, sea shells on mountain tops, faked eroded canyons that would take tens of thousands of years with river erosion, the same geological features on opposite sides of the oceans where Gondwanaland split into the current continents millions of years ago as per the rate of movement of tectonic plates, ice at the poles which can be analysed to have different air bubbles to provide a history of how the air was composed for thousands of years in the past, etc, then each day means that time is one day longer than the 3000 odd years the earth has been around, so time is expanding.
As for your whole set of big bang questions, maybe someday someone will be able to prove everything, but as for now it is beyond human capabilities, just like it is beyond FE'ers capabilities of providing one bit of evidence that actually supports their claim of a flat earth!

Quote from: InFlatEarth on August 03, 2017, 12:54:52 AM

Quote from: Tessa Yuri on August 03, 2017, 12:48:16 AM

Quote from: InFlatEarth on August 03, 2017, 12:46:20 AM

Well I have a hypothesis for you, the watermelon that you purchased from the supermarket is blue inside when it is growing on the plant. As soon as it is cut or if any outside entity touches it, it turns to red. Prove me wrong!!!! I have no evidence to support my hypothesis but all the farmers now about this and thus it must be true.

If you make a claim, scientifically, the onus is on you to prove it, not on others to disprove it. So that argument is invalid. No one has to prove you wrong, you are wrong because you haven't proven your own statement.

OK, you make a claim that time and space expanded with the Big Bang. So please provide citation of an experiment in a lab that creates this effect that any scientist can conduct to validate it.

If not, then your statements of time and space expanding is invalid. I am using your standards.

Obviously you don't understand the difference between theoretical physics and experimental physics.