Officially, in the United States, one’s religion is no barrier to office. Nonetheless, it’s hard to imagine that a non-Christian would have a serious chance of becoming president…it would simply scare too many people. Perhaps a Jew would have an outside shot.
But what if the next president had to be of a religion with a poor reputation? Which would you choose? (Yes, I know atheism’s not technically a religion.)
Loading …Perhaps I’m not up on my Bible reading. But if anyone can remind me what part of the Bible involved getting attacked by carrots, french fries, and salad dressing, that would be much appreciated.
Math and religion. Oh how long I’ve wanted a post that combines these two topics.
Anyway, some Bible skeptics like to criticize the Bible for claiming that pi is equal to 3 based on this reference:
(1 Ki 7:23 NIV) He made the Sea of cast metal, circular in shape, measuring ten cubits from rim to rim and five cubits high. It took a line of thirty cubits to measure around it.
The circular object is 30 cubits in circumference and 10 cubits in diameter. Thus the Bible says pi = 3, LOL. Right?
Well, it’s not LOL, and it doesn’t take some of the odd gymnastics Biblical apologists use to see why.
It’s all about significant digits. The concept of significant digits helps us determine how precise a number is and how precise we can expect any calculations to be.
For a real-world example, let’s say you’re driving to Houston, desperate to visit me. You see one of those signs that says “Houston 100″, indicating the city is 100 kilometers away. (Yes, I know it’s miles and feet in the US. I want to use metric. Hrmph.)
Imagine you step out of your car and stand by the sign. Then you take a step 1 meter backwards away from Houston. You wouldn’t say “I’m 100.001 km away from Houston now!” Why?
The sign has a precision to the nearest km. We can’t tell whether the sign is actually 100.1 km, 99.729 km, or somewhere in between. There’s a limit to how precise we can be.
Let’s go back to the Bible passage. The dimensions are 30 cubits and 10 cubits, both numbers with only one significant digit. Without any further information on the measurements’ precision, calculations can only be expected to be precise to one significant digit.
30 / 10 = 3. Pi to one significant digit is 3. The Biblical figure for pi is as accurate as it can possibly be given the measurements. Nothing to see here. There are enough questions about the Bible not to dwell on a non-issue.
Mainstream science holds that our universe originated with the Big Bang. A fundamentalist from one of the monotheistic faiths believes we were directly created by God. A number of people dip from both science and religion, believing God initiated the Big Bang.
If you think about it, these explanations can’t really “make sense”. They’re so far out of the realm of everyday reality, it’s impossible to have a good intuitive feel about what explanation is most likely to be right.
This is why we have to make the best possible judgment with the incomplete information we have. If someone thinks they can apply Occam’s Razor to the origins of the universe, they are dogmatic, don’t understand what Occam’s Razor is, or both.
I’m sorry to have to do this. Some of you will be very angry after reading this, but there are a handful of chess bloggers who have intentionally deceived the rest of us as to their motives for blogging.
Yes, it has to do with some members of the Knights Errant.
I had to pretend to become a worshipper of de la Maza to find out the hidden secrets of this mysterious order.
History:
The Knights Errant was founded in 1320, shortly after the fall of the Knights Templar. Like the Templar, they were created to search for “the Holy Grail” (which is really the bloodline of Jesus — read the Da Vinci Code if for some reason you don’t know this.) Unlike the Templar, they would remain small, practically invisible so they wouldn’t threaten the Church. They invented this game called “chess” and pretended that’s what they were interested in.
The Knights Errant and Freemasons are closely linked. Typically, the leaders of the two organizations have been the same person, except during times where they felt their secret would be compromised.
With the discovery of DNA’s structure in 1953, the Knights Errant realized the ability to clone Jesus was possible, as long as they could find his DNA. And then they could rule the world.
Recent History:
Man De La Maza and Sancho Pawnza are credited with “founding” the Knights Errant, but this was only to draw suspicion away from the true people in power. Did you ever wonder why Blue Devil Knight was considered such a dynamic, charismatic leader? It’s because of the powerful, demonic rituals he performed as Grandmaster of the Freemasons.
A couple years ago, he allegedly retired from chess blogging, but that was only because Dan Brown was watching him too closely. The Masons/Knights Errant decided to temporarily split up the leadership role. So he resigned from being the Secretary of the Knights Errant, but he was still the Grandmaster of the Masons.
The next couple secretaries, Glenn Wilson and Likesforests didn’t do much for several months. It was a pretty slick way to throw people off the trail, but I wasn’t fooled.
Evil Masonic rituals assured chessloser would be unhurt by poisoned arrows shot by enraged native tribesmen.The role of chessloser:
Didn’t anyone find chessloser’s trip to South America strange and suspicious? Well, I did and my investigation did not end up fruitless.
To realize their plans, the Knights Errant needed some secret ingredients found only in rare plants deep in the Amazon. But they couldn’t travel freely in South America due to opposition from the Catholic Church.
So, they decided to get a non-Knight to go down there. chessloser was the perfect agent. They bribed him with beer and porn magazine subscriptions to fight through masses of native Amazonian warriors and shrug off poison arrows to get the rare plants. And he did it.
Future plans of The Knights Errant
Conveniently, Blunderprone seems to want to pick up the mantle. It’s convenient because he lives in Massachusetts, which is pretty close to the Masonic-designed city of Washington, D.C. Once they get the DNA of Jesus figured out, Blunderprone can stop by and pick up the original Declaration of Independence, which has the secret formula to cloning Jesus written on the back. That way they can make the Antichrist in a test tube and start Armageddon so they can rule the world.
It’s pretty obvious, you just can’t trust anyone.
I will probably be dead when/if you read this
The Masons/Knights Errant will probably get this site taken offline and hire the Mafia to kill me off, so I am considering this my farewell. I gave this information to Dan Brown so it will be in his next book.
The Orthodox Jews of the Neturei Karta (“Guardians of the City”) believe that the true state of Israel cannot be established until the return of the Messiah. And “state” is actually a wrong word choice there. They not only believe today’s Israel is illegitimate, they do not even accept the concept of a Jewish state as being consistent with the Torah!
They consider Zionists to be usurpers of Judaism, and advocate the view that the Palestinians are rightful possessors of Israel’s land..
There’s some more history that I need to study, but this is not the only group who mentions that Zionism is a century-old movement only superficially interested in spiritual matters. Throw in the secularness of modern Israel and other circumstantial factors, the idea that Israel is far more a political than divine creation makes a lot of sense. Or, if you take the point of view that God is responsible for the state’s creation, it does not mean this state of Israel is the same Biblical Israel He made promises to.
Side note: to obtain the borders most traditionally accepted as granted by God (at least, in U.S. Baptist or similar type churches), Israel would need to conquer parts of Jordan, Syria, the Sinai (Egypt), and perhaps Lebanon.
More: About the Neturei Karta
Some atheists hold Richard Dawkins in such reverence, I wonder if they have not simply substituted one god for another.
“But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in My name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.” — Deuteronomy 18:20
It’s generally understood that Benny Hinn and Pat Robertson are false prophets, except by their committed followers. The verse above indicates God says the punishment for false prophecy is death.
So here’s a question: should Bible believers be actively working towards executing Hinn and Robertson?
Some would say the verse refers to a divine slaying, not humans carrying out an execution. But Hinn and Robertson have been falsely prophesying for decades without being struck by the apocryphal lightning bolt. And Robertson is already 79 years old, clearly enjoying a long life.
Most Christians would say the various death and stoning punishments in the Torah simply don’t apply today. Yet many will invoke the Ten Commandments. Both sets of laws were directed towards ancient Israel. If these handful of verses apply today, why not the whole Torah? What about the 4th commandment (not working on the Sabbath day), which is mostly ignored?
And this segues into wanting to post the Ten Commandments in U.S. schools and government buildings. Oh, dear. At best, it’s mere window-dressing indicating the U.S. is a nation full of nominal Christians. At worst, it’s a clear violation of the Constitution stating the government must be religiously neutral.
At around 2:00, Benny Hinn declares he is God. Those Norelco shavers must have done wonders on His beard.
Stories about “miracle” Mary sightings make me barf. But this one was worth it just to be able to write that headline.
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