10148 replies to this topic

[nopeda]

Slave2Fate, on 21 November 2012 - 12:34 AM, said:

There is quite a difference between an omnipotent creator at the center of a religion and a high tech alien civilization that evolved on another planet. Aliens could be mistaken for Gods but not the reverse I'm afraid.

If God does exist he would pretty much have to be from a high tech alien civilization that evolved on another planet. What other options are you imagining there could possibly be???

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

nopeda, on 21 November 2012 - 12:35 AM, said:

You're telling me that it's common knowledge how ancient humans made all the structures they made, but this is the first I've been told that. Up until now I didn't think anybody knew, but according to you everybody knows. So, how did they cut hundred ton rocks, move them and stack them? Have you not seen the documentaries but just take it for granted that they explain everything? Why is there any question about how they did it? Or is there no question because everybody who cares knows how they did it?

No, I'm saying men and women who unlik us are experts in the field of history, archaeology and engineering, have using the tools we commonly believe were available to man then, repeated the feats of quarryong, preparing and transporting stones of the sacle seen in Stonehenge and the Pyramids.

The questions remain whether or not they used the presented techniques, for example I've seen three different programs with three different ways of transporting the Megalyths at Stonehenge. However, none of them resorted to sayimh "Merlin levatated them into place" or "it was aliens".

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

nopeda, on 21 November 2012 - 01:14 AM, said:

If God does exist he would pretty much have to be from a high tech alien civilization that evolved on another planet. What other options are you imagining there could possibly be???

well there is always the "He's God, supernatural creator of all, omnioptent, omnipresent, King of King etc etc".
But hey, that's just crazy talk.

[psyche101]

nopeda, on 21 November 2012 - 12:29 AM, said:

For one thing the matter composing the universe is in the condition and positions that it's in NOW so in order for your time travel fantasy to be as you imagine it, your "time machine" would have to be able to make all matter in the universe go back to the conditions and positions that it was in during the period you want to "return" to. That's the starting line on time travel. Can you get to the starting line with it? For another thing, IF a person were to operate their computer in the proper way they could do pretty much just as well by going back and reading the thread, unless it's been removed or editted or something. If a person were to do that they might notice that even then I was encouraging you to get to the starting line, and you couldn't get there.... And....

Have you ever considered improving your grammar?

You do not only have to make matter appear in the correct order, but the correct place, We are travelling through space constantly. Half an hour ago would leave you standing in free space, or perhaps the middle of a sun. And that might not at all alter the way of things if one could do so. Theories abound on time travel, and none have been proven, from the Grandfather paradox to the "Picture frame" explanation.
Do not encourage me, I have no desire to go backwards, and I have no desire to experience your personal "charm".

nopeda, on 21 November 2012 - 12:29 AM, said:

If I remember correctly you and other people gave me SEVERAL "explanations" about a couple of things but there's no way I could believe all of them. Also, and this part is significant from my pov even though not from yours, none of them seemed realistic enough to accept because they left too many questions for one thing. For another the  photos made/make the claims seem false, from my pov. But! I did challenge everyone to try to figure out which one explanation they felt I, and if I it should be everyone else TOO!, should try to accept. And that aspect is a sort of starting line too, now that we mention it. Toe up.

I and all other that have been unfortunate enough to make your acquaintance would all replace your word "Believe" up there with "understand" For some reason you seem to think your ignorance of the subject is somehow an advanced way of looking at the equation, however, you are alone in that thought.
Seem false LOL, where is your falsification of the concept? Karl Popper would be ashamed! Just saying "I do not get it" Is not falsification. It's a personal prompt.
You could have asked questions in a civil way and had a very productive conversation, but you seem happier otherwise. I guess you just enjoy upsetting other people? You would not be the first one I have met.

[psyche101]

nopeda, on 21 November 2012 - 12:31 AM, said:

No to begin with it's because if God exists he would have to be an alien imo. If you think you can explain how he could be native to Earth then lets hear it, but when you can't we're left with him necessarily having to be an alien. It goes on from there of course, but that's the starting line. Come to think of it, this isn't the first time I've encouraged you to try to get to the starting line, is it? I don't think so. Well, can you make it this time? If God exists, he would have to be an alien unless you can explain how he could be native to Earth. Try to get that far and THEN move on. Best of luck with this!

I have already told you that I am agnostic. IMHO, Jesus was a carpenter who tried to make the world a better place, and individuals will measure that success in varying degrees. There is more than enough solid outright proof of evolution. As Hawking said: God is not required.

Quote

"Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to ... set the Universe going."

Pop that in your starting line.

[psyche101]

nopeda, on 21 November 2012 - 12:53 AM, said:

Yeah, that's why public news groups have lost popularity imo. There you can say what you want, but in these moderated groups you can only say what whoever decides to let you say. So from my pov people who do forums should make the *majority!* of them open to people saying what they feel, but having "safe" forums where some people can go hide from the stuff they don't like if they can't handle the free zones. But that's just me, and apparently most people don't like the free zones. You folks don't have one at all, do you?

As a side note on profanity itself: When I first learned of the concept I immediately felt that it's not the words, and it's not the people using them, but the people who have problems with them that "are" the problem. Later I learned of languages in which there "is" no profanity. So does that mean that none of those people feel they're in a position that they should be telling other people what words they can and can't use? What else could it mean?

The concept of a civil manner is totally foreign to you isn't it?

[Imaginarynumber1]

nopeda, on 21 November 2012 - 12:58 AM, said:

The fact that so far no one has provided it causes me to suspect it still might be, but if you can provide it then why don't you?

It's not a difficult concept to grasp.

Quote

Said Redford, the image most people have of slaves being forced to build the pyramids against their will is incorrect. "The concept of slavery is a very complicated problem in ancient Egypt," he noted, "because the legal aspects of indentured servitude and slavery were very complicated." The peasants who worked on the pyramids were given tax breaks and were taken to 'pyramid cities' where they were given shelter, food and clothing, he noted.

According to Redford, ancient Egyptian quarrying methods -- the processes for cutting and removing stone -- are still being studied. Scholars have found evidence that copper chisels were using for quarrying sandstone and limestone, for example, but harder stones such as granite and diorite would have required stronger materials, said Redford. Dolerite, a hard, black igneous rock, was used in the quarries of Aswan to remove granite.

During excavation, massive dolerite "pounders" were used to pulverize the stone around the edge of the granite block that needed to be extracted. According to Redford, 60 to 70 men would pound out the stone. At the bottom, they rammed wooden pegs into slots they had cut, and filled the slots with water. The pegs would expand, splitting the stone, and the block was then slid down onto a waiting boat.
Teams of oxen or manpower were used to drag the stones on a prepared slipway that was lubricated with oil. Said Redford, a scene from a 19th century B.C. tomb in Middle Egypt depicts "an alabaster statue 20 feet high pulled by 173 men on four ropes with a man lubricating the slipway as the pulling went on."

Once the stones were at the construction site, ramps were built to get them into place on the pyramid, said Redford. These ramps were made of mud brick and coated with chips of plaster to harden the surface. "If they consistently raised the ramp course by course as the teams dragged their blocks up, they could have gotten them into place fairly easily," he noted. At least one such ramp still exists, he said.
When answering to skepticism about how such heavy stones could have been moved without machinery, Redford says, "I usually show the skeptic a picture of 20 of my workers at an archaeological dig site pulling up a two-and-a-half ton granite block." He added, "I know it's possible because I was on the ropes too." http://www.scienceda...80328104302.htm

If this man can replicate stonehenge in backyard by himself, I'm sure that a few tens of thousands of Egyptians could easily build the pyramids. Without alien intervention.

[Imaginarynumber1]

nopeda, on 21 November 2012 - 12:49 AM, said:

, but few if any stars are stationary relative to us so their velocity should be added to the velocity with which the light is emitted from them. It should also be subtracted when the stars are moving away from us.

Special relativity.

[psyche101]

Imaginarynumber1, on 21 November 2012 - 01:44 AM, said:

Special relativity.

I would be surprised if that very answer has been offered to that very poster less than 30 times.

To no avail. It's the rest of the world you see. It is apparently the entire globe that "does not get it". Nor did Einstein, Newton, Kepler, and as for Hawking - pffffftttt fantasy and magic!
Once you realise that, the rest becomes crystal.

Edited by psyche101, 21 November 2012 - 02:09 AM.

[Big Jim]

We could go back and forth all day about whether aliens built this or that and never come to a conclusion that all could agree with.  But the one standout for me that cannot be explained without referring to alien intervention is Puma Punku.  The combined elements are, to me beyond explanation.  From the mass produced precision of the individual components to the powerful destruction it seems beyond the capabilities of man of any age, let alone primitives that predate most known civilisations.  Add to that the fact that it was built at an altitude where food doesn't grow so it would have been impossible to maintain the vast labor forces that are usually part of traditional scenarios used to explain massive construction projects.  Even if one were to somehow explain the transportation of huge slabs of rock how does one account for the daily transportation of food and supplies for an army of laborers in a culture that did not even possess the wheel?

[psyche101]

Big Jim, on 21 November 2012 - 02:20 AM, said:

We could go back and forth all day about whether aliens built this or that and never come to a conclusion that all could agree with.  But the one standout for me that cannot be explained without referring to alien intervention is Puma Punku.  The combined elements are, to me beyond explanation.  From the mass produced precision of the individual components to the powerful destruction it seems beyond the capabilities of man of any age, let alone primitives that predate most known civilisations.  Add to that the fact that it was built at an altitude where food doesn't grow so it would have been impossible to maintain the vast labor forces that are usually part of traditional scenarios used to explain massive construction projects.  Even if one were to somehow explain the transportation of huge slabs of rock how does one account for the daily transportation of food and supplies for an army of laborers in a culture that did not even possess the wheel?

Are you not contradicting yourself here? Food would be lighter and more manageable than neolithic stones. And food preparation areas have been discovered at the base of the pyramid at Puma Punku.

August Update Interactive Dig Site

Who taught the stone masons Their Skills?

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

Quote

Even if one were to somehow explain the transportation of huge slabs of rock how does one account for the daily transportation of food and supplies for an army of laborers in a culture that did not even possess the wheel?

How many people would have been needed to move the blocks? Lets say a hundred. Lets assume is for every two workers there's someone preparing their food and one person transporting the food (because of our friend the Llama doing the hard work). that's 200 men. Lets give them about a tenth of that as supervisors and another tenth or so as stone masons. 250 odd men out of a civilisation of what ... a couple of thousand? Doable IMO.

[burt_ie]

Why did the ancients build these huge monuments? Why not? It's not like they had a lot else to do, no computers, mobile phones, TV,  Internet or a million other things to distract them from achieving great things. Most of the general population were probably poor and uneducated so the prospect of working and being fed everyday was probably a good incentive.

[Oniomancer]

Big Jim, on 21 November 2012 - 02:20 AM, said:

We could go back and forth all day about whether aliens built this or that and never come to a conclusion that all could agree with.  But the one standout for me that cannot be explained without referring to alien intervention is Puma Punku.  The combined elements are, to me beyond explanation.  From the mass produced precision of the individual components to the powerful destruction it seems beyond the capabilities of man of any age, let alone primitives that predate most known civilisations.  Add to that the fact that it was built at an altitude where food doesn't grow so it would have been impossible to maintain the vast labor forces that are usually part of traditional scenarios used to explain massive construction projects.  Even if one were to somehow explain the transportation of huge slabs of rock how does one account for the daily transportation of food and supplies for an army of laborers in a culture that did not even possess the wheel?

http://pulitzercente...ation-pollution

https://docs.google....rTp5Is9nmxMbgvA

[Imaginarynumber1]

psyche101, on 21 November 2012 - 02:09 AM, said:

I would be surprised if that very answer has been offered to that very poster less than 30 times.

To no avail. It's the rest of the world you see. It is apparently the entire globe that "does not get it". Nor did Einstein, Newton, Kepler, and as for Hawking - pffffftttt fantasy and magic!
Once you realise that, the rest becomes crystal.

Well, I thought it was OBVIOUS that the 'global elite' was trying to brainwash and hide the truth from us. That's why I never bothered to mention in....