Let's Talk Rainbows

[_SteelHead]

Here is a question for you sub, did it rain before the flood?

[_bcuzbcuz]

and yet the perch has found no hook, looks like only salad for you.
still waiting for the "misquotes"

As much as like to see my name in lights and that someone would choose to quote something I said, I must draw the line when misquoted. A quote out of context or purposely abbreviated to convey a different meaning is to misquote. I was under the understanding that conviction and belief were two different things. My complete statement was (and you can go back and check if you wish): I do not believe in anything....other than my conviction that all that we believe in today will likely be disproved in the future. I should have defined with more accuracy what I meant by "we" and "likely disproved".

My understanding of the words belief and conviction coincide with the person that wrote. "Everyone has beliefs. Everyone has convictions. These are two very different things. You may substitute the phrase “I believe” in front of anything and no one will question the validity of your belief. To believe requires nothing of us. I may believe whatever I would like to believe. For example: If I told you that I truly believed that I was an alien from another galaxy, you could not tell me that I was wrong, as it would be my belief.

The word conviction however, requires more of its user. If we say that we are convicted of something it usually has penal connotations. Even this definition has a value to our discussion. If these words were the same then why do we not just ask a judge if they believe or not if the person committed the crime. How does a person become convicted in a court of law? There must be evidence present to convict as they are innocent until proven guilty. Convicted evolved from the word convinced, which meant to refute or to prove. From convinced comes from the Latin convincere. Vincere means to conquer. Based up its etymolgy, when we think of the the definition of convicted, we must think of, in some way the words refute, prove, conquer, or convince because they are inextricably linked." (quoted from thepursuitoftruth.wordpress.com/2010/06/14/difference-between-belief-conviction/

However, I don't use English on a daily basis, especially not in deeper discussions, so what do I know. If you can explain belief and conviction in a better fashion I will stand corrected.

[_subgenius]

It isn't an assumption. It is a mathematical deduction based on much simpler and more fundamental assumptions that hopefully even you would not be inclined to deny. Physics is a connected whole and one cannot willy nilly suspend belief in individual bits and pieces on pain of making nonsense out of the whole thing. But then there would be a whole heck of a lot of explaining to do to account for the success of physics in everything from semiconductors to quantum optics, to the design of satellite GPS technology (which actually uses standard general relativity!).

By the way, do you have empirical evidence that shows that relatively pure liquid water (say rain water) was even transparent in the past? Do you just assume it? Perhaps it was as opaque as molten lead? (lol)

i have never claimed that i refrained from making assumptions, that is usually a source of criticism.
However, on the topic of rainbows, there is no actual evidence that they are universal and eternal. So, one must assume that they either have always been or have not always been.
For my part, i choose to make the assumption that they have not always been, and to support that choice i reference the scriptures.
For others, they have clearly chose otherwise, yet they offer no support for proof that a rainbow is anything but, maybe, a few thousand years old. And they clearly offer no actual support for one to "assume" that rainbows are universal and eternal.
That being said, i have seen no mathematical deduction that illustrates that a rainbow could have formed from sunlight and water vapor 6 million years ago. Even assumptions about gravity and the speed of light are being shown to be a little less concise as once was "assumed".

So, when someone blathers on about how physics is "connected as a whole" then it only brings 2 thoughts to mind....the first being -duh, of course it is because it is founded on the same paradigm, on the same fundamental assumption (which is why it has only one name - physics) - which is like saying math is connected as a whole because of numbers. Secondly, i think why do we insist that what works now surely will work forever and surely has worked forever for all things? As, an architect i see the reasoning for such assumptions being made about structural frames, and even then you should ask any engineer how such assumptions are cushioned with an abundance of caution (most structures are considerably over-designed, as in over-designed for what the "math" tells us).

[_subgenius]

Your opponents have offered plenty of evidence and well-reasoned arguments. All you've given in return is evasion. You're a poor partner.

says the poster whose responses are most often limited to snarky
i have attempted to respond to every legitimate post and proposed "evidence".
well-reasoned is often in short supply from most.
what evidence have i not directly refuted?

[_subgenius]

Here is a question for you sub, did it rain before the flood?

Well, the obvious answer is yes, right before and leading up to, for it was the cause.
As for any considerable time before the flood, my assumption is yes and i assume on more than one occasion.

[_Buffalo]

It isn't an assumption. It is a mathematical deduction based on much simpler and more fundamental assumptions that hopefully even you would not be inclined to deny. Physics is a connected whole and one cannot willy nilly suspend belief in individual bits and pieces on pain of making nonsense out of the whole thing. But then there would be a whole heck of a lot of explaining to do to account for the success of physics in everything from semiconductors to quantum optics, to the design of satellite GPS technology (which actually uses standard general relativity!).

By the way, do you have empirical evidence that shows that relatively pure liquid water (say rain water) was even transparent in the past? Do you just assume it? Perhaps it was as opaque as molten lead? (lol)

i have never claimed that i refrained from making assumptions, that is usually a source of criticism.
However, on the topic of rainbows, there is no actual evidence that they are universal and eternal. So, one must assume that they either have always been or have not always been.
For my part, i choose to make the assumption that they have not always been, and to support that choice i reference the scriptures.
For others, they have clearly chose otherwise, yet they offer no support for proof that a rainbow is anything but, maybe, a few thousand years old. And they clearly offer no actual support for one to "assume" that rainbows are universal and eternal.
That being said, i have seen no mathematical deduction that illustrates that a rainbow could have formed from sunlight and water vapor 6 million years ago. Even assumptions about gravity and the speed of light are being shown to be a little less concise as once was "assumed".

So, when someone blathers on about how physics is "connected as a whole" then it only brings 2 thoughts to mind....the first being -duh, of course it is because it is founded on the same paradigm, on the same fundamental assumption (which is why it has only one name - physics) - which is like saying math is connected as a whole because of numbers. Secondly, i think why do we insist that what works now surely will work forever and surely has worked forever for all things? As, an architect i see the reasoning for such assumptions being made about structural frames, and even then you should ask any engineer how such assumptions are cushioned with an abundance of caution (most structures are considerably over-designed, as in over-designed for what the "math" tells us).

You're in way over your head arguing with Tarski about physics. Best bow out now before you make yourself look even more stupid.

[_Buffalo]

Your opponents have offered plenty of evidence and well-reasoned arguments. All you've given in return is evasion. You're a poor partner.

says the poster whose responses are most often limited to snarky
i have attempted to respond to every legitimate post and proposed "evidence".
well-reasoned is often in short supply from most.
what evidence have i not directly refuted?

You've ignored a multitude of evidence. Example: various texts and paintings produced before the flood referring to or depicting rainbows

[_Tarski]

However, on the topic of rainbows, there is no actual evidence that they are universal and eternal. So, one must assume that they either have always been or have not always been.

No one goes around claiming that rainbows are universal and eternal. I am sure that 3 seconds after the big bang there were no rainbows and there will likely be none 10^100 years from now.

What we claim is that we know by massive evidence what the atmospheric conditions were for most of the last several million years on earth. In particular, we know there was rain in a usually transparent atmosphere and this is more or less all one needs to know to conclude that there was necessarily rainbows. Water droplets suspended in the air after a rainstorm make rainbows--period. No misguided BS about a changing speed of light will effect this at all.

Oh by the way, we know that there were clouds during Jurassic times too. Got direct evidence of clouds? Why not assume them away too just for fun?

The way it is supposed to work is this: We make assumptions of a general and simple nature and build them into our mathematical models. The assumptions are motivated by lots or rational considerations incuding experience and abstract general principles (such as symmetry etc.)
Then we make predictions and when the predictions keep paning out over and over and over --when we can progress in understanding more and more phenomena on the basis of our simple assumptions and theoretical constructs, then we conclude that our assumptions are true and that the theory reflects reality. The pattern is that we try to deduce the complex and particular from the simple and general.

For example, we can predict the color and reflective properties of gold by assuming an expected and plausible relativistic correction to Schrodinger's equations. (Without the relativistic correction the prediction is that gold would have the appearance of silver.) We add this tidbit onto the pile of support for our assumptions concerning Lorentz invariance.

We can also deduce inevitability of rainbows from the laws of optics together with what we know from multiple sources about the atmospheric conditions during previous epochs.

There just isn't any way out of this and also no repectable motivation for trying to weasel out of it anyway. You are left with pure fantasy and fiction. And for what? To save a literal interpretation of a books of primative traditions?
I also doubt that educated people even in Old Testament times (including the priests who compiled the Old Testament) thought that all of these stories were literally.

For my part, i choose to make the assumption that they have not always been, and to support that choice i reference the scriptures.

Here you just assumed a particular thing on an ad hoc basis. This is not science or even respectable adult cognition. It is utter silliness.

Why not go ahead and assume the earth was flat with 4 corners since the Bible uses language that suggests such?

[_subgenius]

No one goes around claiming that rainbows are universal and eternal. I am sure that 3 seconds after the big bang there were no rainbows and there will likely be none 10^100 years from now.

Actually the OP assumes that position.
but thanks to your admission here, it is possible that God brought them into existence at a certain point in time. Maybe not probable, but possible.
thank you

Oh by the way, we know ....

enuff said right here. you are deeply entrenched

For example, we can predict...

clearly we are talking about the past not the future. You are fortune-telling at a seance.

We can also deduce inevitability of rainbows from the laws of optics together with what we know from multiple sources about the atmospheric conditions during previous epochs.

i have never disputed the ingredients necessary for a rainbow, nor have i ever disputed that those ingredients were present or absent prior to Noah. I have only asked for empirical evidence that establishes a rainbow occurred 6 million years ago.
All that has been presented thus far is speculation, assumptions, and theory - all of which are ironically criticized as being used by those who consider the Flood Story to be true.

I also doubt that educated people even in Old Testament times (including the priests who compiled the Old Testament) thought that all of these stories were literally.

i have never claimed a literal stance. If anything the critics here hold steadfast to literal views on the scriptures as fodder for their misaligned skeptic cannons of critics.

Here you just assumed a particular thing on an ad hoc basis. This is not science or even respectable adult cognition. It is utter silliness.

not ad hoc at all, and even if it were it steps one above the contrary assumption of rainbows being eternal and universal without any evidence to either notion.

Why not go ahead and assume the earth was flat with 4 corners since the Bible uses language that suggests such?

It may suggest that to you, but to people who actually read and study the scriptures it clearly does not. I suggest you Google the Scriptures and take the time to read them before you levy such weak and cliché' criticisms against them.

[_Drifting]

i have never claimed a literal stance. If anything the critics here hold steadfast to literal views on the scriptures as fodder for their misaligned skeptic cannons of critics.

The Church teaches that the Global flood literally happened and di so circa 2-3,000 bc.

Do you disagree with the official Church teaching on this?