Tammy Bruce: Miracles? Ha! Jesus Was Nothing But a Trickster

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Miracles? Ha! Jesus Was Nothing But a Trickster

First it was prayer, now it's Jesus himself. The Worshippers of the Atom are at it again.

Scientists Decide Prayer Doesn't Help

Posted by Tammy · April 4, 2006 04:07 PM · Permalink
Leftists | Religion | Science & Technology

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Seeing that Jesus walked on water, I'm sure he could have walked on ice also. That Nof is a bloody genius !

Posted by: Carpediem at April 4, 2006 06:37 PM

Well, of course. We all know how much easier it is to walk on a "floating patch of ice" coverd with water than it is to just walk on plain ol' water.

And they want us to believe there just happened to be a two-day cold spell at just the right moment over 2,000 years ago.

I haven't laughed this hard all day!

Posted by: Tink at April 4, 2006 06:38 PM

Professor Nof [upon arriving at the pearly gates]: I can't believe it's real! It's all so beautiful! Am I really in heaven?

Lucifer: Psych!

Posted by: The Ugly American at April 4, 2006 06:44 PM

Seems to me that it's a bigger trick to be there at just the right time. Not to mention, to be able to stand, let alone walk on a thin piece of floating ice is really something, too. So either way, it should count as a miracle.

Posted by: Evil Roy at April 4, 2006 08:19 PM

As I remember there was a storm going on at the time....

Posted by: political_junkie at April 4, 2006 09:29 PM

Yeah, that's the ticket...simple science has the answer once again.

RIIIIIIGHT.....(smell that? That's sarcasm!)

Posted by: RagingBullmoose at April 5, 2006 03:49 AM

I have no quibble with the sillyness of speculation on events 2000 years ago. But would like to quibble when Tammy sometimes says, "Nobody has ever seen an atom."

Dunno what qualifies for Tammy as 'seeing an atom', but here is an IBM site with pretty pictures of atoms, made with scanning tunneling microscope--
http://tinyurl.com/q6gm6

This one explains the tech a bit, and has more pitchers of atoms--

There are multiple ways to image atoms. Rosalind Franklin took a pretty good picture of DNA in 1952 using rather primitive X-Ray diffraction. I can't find a direct link to that seminal picture, but if you are interested you can find it several places on the web, embedded in longer articles, by googling some likely phrase such as "Rosalind Franklin Photo 51 x-ray diffraction".

Posted by: jcjr at April 5, 2006 07:26 AM

JC--what qualifies as seeing an atom is...seeing an atom, as scientists have described it since declaring its existence. IBM has shown us little bumps about which they declare "Ooh, look! The atom!" They might as well point to a table and say, "Ooh look! An atom!" Those little bumps don't look like the atom that's been hailed by scientists. I want to see the atom as it has been described. Now, if the atom really looks like little bumps they have some 'splainin to do.
Clearly we're seeing, once again, what they say are *results* of atoms. When you can show me a picture of a little thing with little things revolving around it just like a tiny solar system, then we'll talk.
That's never going to happen though because it's all still a hypothesis, and no one has ever seen it because, IMHO, whatever is holding everything together, it's not a silly tiny solar-system thingy. Personally, if I have to believe in the creations of science, I like the idea of multiple string theory, not that we'll ever see that either.

And...don't talk about "different ways of imaging" the atom. Give me a break. How science today breaks down DNA is *not*, I repeat *not* a picture of the atom. Nor is anything else, unless, of course, you want to accept scientists saying, well, atoms are in there and here is the thing they're in, so this is a picture of the atom, blah, blah, blah. That's not good enough for me and it shouldn't be good enough for you, either.

Posted by: Tammy at April 5, 2006 08:29 AM

"whatever is holding everything together, it's not a silly tiny solar-system thingy".....oh Tammy. Would you like to explain to us what it is then?? You say you wont believe in atoms unless you see one, but you seem quite content to beleive that there is a magic, invisible man who lives in the sky, creates universes in 7 days, and somehow managed to populate the planet with only two people. When I see a picture of THAT, I will beleive it.

Posted by: johntx at April 5, 2006 12:19 PM

I thought that it was an apostle (Paul or Peter) who walked on water and fell through when Jesus pointed out to him what he was doing. The need to walk on water under his own faith did him in.

Posted by: ahwatukeejohn at April 5, 2006 01:12 PM

Ahwatukeejohn--- Here's the way I know it.

It was after the feeding of the 5,000 with the bread and fish. Christ had sent the diciples on ahead of him to cross the Sea of Galilee so he could have some time alone to pray. A big storm hits and they're afraid. In the dark of night they see someone walking toward the ship. They're so out of their mind with fear they don't recognize him. He calls out to them and says "Don't be afraid." That wasn't enough to calm them, so Peter says "If it's you Lord command me to come to you on the water." So Christ does, but the moment that Peter takes his eyes off the Lord he falls in. Christ picks him and and they climb onto the ship and the storm stops.

It's a great analogy for one of the principles of the Christian life. --Focus on the spiritual solution (the person and Word of the Lord), not the problem (life's troubled circumstances).

Posted by: Tink at April 5, 2006 01:48 PM

"Clearly we're seeing, once again, what they say are *results* of atoms."

But nothing you ever perceive is actually directly the object of your perception itself. It's a sensation (whether of sight, touch, etc.) that exists as a chemical/electrical reaction in your brain, i.e., the "results" of something. That doesn't mean it doesn't materially exist, but then again, it does lead one into all the old philosophical conundra summed up by "if a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?"

If atoms did not behave as physicists have been explaining them to do since the early years of the 20th century, then neither atom bombs nor nuclear power would be possible.

Posted by: Dave J at April 5, 2006 01:50 PM

Okay, let's see if I can reduce this to a meaningful summary. I believe in the atom, because the model of the atom has proved to have a predictive value. That is, it's a useful model. Is it entirely accurate? Only time will tell. In ancient days, the Earth was thought to be the center of the universe, so astronomers of the era modeled orbiting bodies as revolving around the earth. That model was good until the telescopes became accurate enough to notice that Earth wasn't quite in the center of the revolution. Eventually the model was updated with the better data, and it became clear that the Sun stood at the center of the local orbits. Nevertheless, the model with the earth at the center had been of value in its day. So the idea is we clarify and refine the picture as we go along. The model of the atom as we know it has brought us to this point of high technology. Perhaps some future plateau will have a more refined model. Quarks? String theory? I don't know!

The model of the atom as a little solar system is ancient and outdated. Get it out of your head! The fact is that quantum theory is so weird and warped and counter-intuitive that you can't really wrap your head around it. ("Quantum" is a reference to the smallest units, such as protons and electrons and neutrons. Prior to quantum physics, we had traditional Newtonian physics (named after Isaac Newton), which was more intuitive and applied to "big stuff". Newtonian physics works just fine, but it's absolutely meaningless when you try to apply it to electrons. Newton (one of the truly great geniuses the planet has ever produced!) had devised a brilliant working model, but it only went so far.) Anyway, here's the deal. You'll never "see" an atom, because light is too clumsy to resolve an atom. It's like asking King Kong to pick up an ant in his huge paw. Actually, it's even worse than that, because when you think of "seeing" an atom, you have to confront the question of not only what an atom is but what light is. An atom is mostly empty space, with the "big" particles (protons and neutrons) at the center. The electrons are the "small" particles, but they don't exactly orbit, and in fact it's misleading to think of them as particles at all. In a sense they are particles, but in another equally real sense they are waves. In a sense they exist in a fixed place, but in another sense they only "probably" exist in that vicinity, and "possibly" exist somewhere else entirely. So you might regard the electron as a probability cloud, defined only by the region it is likely to inhabit. Here, let me make up an example. Let's ask Sadie and Sydney to help with this. You put a sardine in the middle of the house and close your eyes, and when you look again, the sardine is gone. Who took it? You don't know! That didn't do much good, did it? Let's try again, only this time you pour some sand around the sardine so whoever took it will leave footprints. And the sardine again disappears, but you find footprints going in both directions! What could this mean? And then you think, sometimes Sadie or Sydney vomits, so maybe I'll go look for cat vomit or dog vomit, and then I'll know who took it! I'll run as many tests as I need to. Very clever! So you put out a bunch of sardines, one at a time. And a weird thing happens. Sometimes you find Sadie vomiting, and when you do, you go back and look and find that Sadie's prints are the only prints. Sometimes you find Sydney vomiting, and when you do, you go back and look and find that Sydney's prints are the only prints. And sometimes nobody vomits, and in those cases you either find both prints or no prints at all. Does this sound silly? Well, that's the way the quantum world works! Events that result in resolution are known; events that happen "unobserved" are undefined. It's not a question of whether it was Sadie or Syndey who got the sardine; the question actually has no answer. You see why quantum physics defies intuition? You see why even Einstein didn't believe it? This is why Einstein said, "God does not play dice with the universe." But Einstein was wrong.

I could go on, but this would only tempt the Editor to exercise his primary function. Perhaps slightly out of date, but here's a good book to bring you the basics of QM: In Search of Schrodinger's Cat.

Posted by: Talkin Horse at April 5, 2006 10:22 PM

Horse, I have to join in with Junkie's comment about your lack of use of the return key. :o)

I quit reading your longer comments a couple of months ago because of it. It's hard enough for me to follow you, and the style only makes it more difficult. Thanks!

Posted by: Tink at April 6, 2006 08:06 AM

I've two comments, one related and one not.
With regards to quantum mechanics and God not playing dice, you need to synthesize your understanding of the quantum world with chaos theory. This will help explain how randomness ceases to be random.

Now, related to a radio show on 4/8/06, the book of Judas cannot be taken seriously for several reasons, which can be researched by many credible historians.

First, the books in the New Testament were selected for two reasons, none of which have to do with the Catholic church deleting important books. The early church fathers left journals explaining which letters or books they considered to be apostolic; the council in the 4th century simply confirmed what had been know for centuries.

The NT gospels, letters, etc. paint a picture of Jesus that ties it to the Old Testament--there is one God and Jesus is God in the flesh. Jesus fulfills many OT prophecies, but expecially those of Isaiah. The NT books help to stamp out several early gnostic heresies, one of which is in this book of Judas. There cannot be two gods, so judas could not have seen the Divine. In the gospels Jesus clearly tell everyone, "If you've seen me, you've seen the Father." The terms Father & Son are not the titles, but analogies.

Second, the book of Judas assumes that Judas was necessary to fulfil God's plan. However, the gospels clearly show that plans were already in motion that did not require any betrayal. Again, the book shows a heretical view of Jesus & God which the scriptures and the writings of the early church fathers do not support.

Posted by: larryl at April 9, 2006 10:22 AM

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