The Universe: The Day the Moon Was Gone

If you've read this blog before you'll know that I have a low tolerance for stupidity in science education. Previously I raked National Geographic over the coals for a bit of idiocy entitled "When the Earth Stops Spinning" because they gave no rationale for such an event.

This time it's the History Channel (H2) in their series "The Universe".  This particular piece of lunacy (pardon the pun) is "The Day the Moon Was Gone". In which the Moon suddenly and inexplicably vanishes. It doesn't just leave orbit... it's just GONE, and its gravity with it.

I'm tempted to just throw my hands up and not rant, but damn it, this is a STUPID premise, and it's teaching people to regard stupidity with the same level of credulity as science. It's full of completely baseless fear-mongering, as when it claims that a huge tsunami would wash out the state of Florida, "putting nine million lives at risk".

Well, no. NO one is "at risk" because such an event is literally impossible.

I-M-P-O-S-S-I-B-L-E.

The Moon recedes from the Earth at a rate of mere centimeters per year. The retreat is so gradual that the Sun will burn out before the Moon escapes. And even as the Moon recedes, its gravity will decrease in accordance with square of the distance, very, very gradually.

There is a lot of value to be had in discussing what the Earth would be like without the Moon. The Moon does stabilize our axial tilt. This may speak directly to the possibility of, or stability of, life on other planets. But portions of this program are simply sensationalistic garbage.

Be assured that if the Earth did not have the Moon, none of the ecological disasters would come to fruition because any life here would have evolved under those conditions. So don't pity the poor crabs, or grunion, or salmon. And don't pay attention to this nonsense.



This is not to say that the show is completely without value... there is some accurate information here. In fact, there's an awful lot of it. But as is becoming the deplorable norm in such shows, it's buried under a thick layer of sensationalism, and it's the sensationalism that the producers lead with. The real science is relegated to the second half of the program. A giant raspberry to the producers, and writers for choosing to undermine reputable scientists in this fashion.

Producers, I seriously doubt you're getting so much as one single additional viewer with such tactics. But what you ARE doing is undermining your own credibility and saddling teachers with the completely avoidable task of cleaning up the mess you made. Do you actively hate the truth? Is it really too much trouble for you to stick to science? Is it? REALLY?

More About Pyramid Building

Way back in the long-ago I wrote a little paper on how to build a pyramid using nothing but ancient tools and techniques. It was a thought experiment, done without real research, but every bit of archaeology I've seen since then tends to support my initial thoughts in every important detail. For instance, My hypothetical pyramid would take around 20,000 people to build, including all support staff, from doctors to potters to cooks. The core number of builders was 15,000. My hypothetical pyramid would have been completed in 20 years.

Click to read "How To Build A Pyramid"

The Pyramid of Menkaure

There's a nice piece in Livescience.com that details how the builders of an actual pyramid (the pyramid of Menkaure) were fed. The article estimates a workforce of 10,000 builders.

Since the pyramid of Menkaure is a bit smaller than my hypothetical one, and mine is built on a more aggressive schedule, I'm quite pleased with my estimate of 15,000. I'm also still happy with my 5,000 man support staff. I'm sticking with both of those.

Re-reading my article, I note that I promised a follow-up, and I suppose I should write that. Before I do, though, I'd like to go ahead and answer a few observations and questions raised by a colleague of mine, Russell, in a theological article of his own. Then maybe I can turn my thought to those other matters I said I'd address.

Questions answered.

OBSERVATION: the units used in my calculations are purely arbitrary.

Answer: No, they're not. I used only one unit, the cubit, which was a well-attested Egyptian standard. However, the number of cubits is to a great degree, arbitrary. It always is. We're constrained by budget, ability, and desire. I started with 280 cubits in height, but I could have just as easily marked out acreage first. The end result is the same. Basically, I chose the height that I did for two reasons: My pharoah wants his pyramid to be taller than his dad's, and his architect picked a number that worked out to integer math.

Do not underestimate the value of that "integer math" requirement. Decimals were unknown back then, as place values and the zero hadn't yet been invented; and fractions and multiple units of measure are notoriously error-prone. You really don't want to deal with any of that on a large project.

QUESTION: Why did the Egyptians not roll the wheel 4 times or 6 times instead of 5? 

Answer: Experience. This isn't the first pyramid they built. These things didn't just jump into existence... there is a solid record of the evolution of Egyptian pyramids, which I'm about to show you. At each stage the Egyptians learned something that they applied to later constructions.

Build a pyramid too shallow and it's not impressive. Build it too steep and it crumbles. Shallow pyramids were the first to be built. They are now called "mastabas", but the ancient Egyptians called them by a word meaning "houses of eternity".  A mastaba resembled a bunker built over a shaft leading to the burial chamber.  The feature of a subterranean chamber was retained right up to the building of classical structures like the pyramids of Menkare and Khufu.

A mastaba and its structure

The Step Pyramid of Djoser was basically a series of mastabas sitting one atop the other. It had no "slope" per se. (BTW, step pyramids were quite common in the ancient world. They were called "ziggurats" in Babylonia).

The Step Pyramid of Djoser

The first true pyramids DID crumble... the pyramid of Djoser is surrounded by examples.

A failed pyramid.
This is what happens when you build them too steep.

In fact, we have a stable example of a case where they tried to use a different ratio... this is the "Bent Pyramid". Halfway through its construction it became evident that the slope was dangerous and unstable, and the builders corrected it.  That's the kind of permanent public embarrassment that no one ever wants to repeat.

THIS is what happens when you admit your mistakes.

The slope that was eventually used very nicely approximates the slope of a sand dune (and that at which the crumbling pyramids settled), while still using integer math. In other words, you heap stuff up and it tends to stay that way on its own, making this a very stable design.

BTW, the Egyptians weren't the only pyramid builders... the Ethiopians built many smaller pyramids with a steeper slope.

The steep pyramids of Meroe at Begarawiyah
Note the older ones crumbling in the background

Russell re-states the question a little more emphatically:

Question: Why is it NECESSARY to roll the wheel FIVE (5) times in one direction and FIVE (5) times in the opposite direction to yield the correct results?

Answer: As you can see above, it isn't, and from reading my article, you note that they did not measure multiples of five. Rather, the height was 280 and the base was half that number of turns, or 140*pi. That's 70 turns out from the center. Not five. So our 70 turns times the circumference of our one-cubit diameter odometer should give us about 220 cubits. It actually works out to 219.9 and change, which is so close to the integer answer as to not matter to our Architect.

The number five really has nothing to do with anything in this discussion. You can pick any height you want, but it's easiest if it's a multiple of four if you want this slope. That's purely because you'll be you'll be cutting the number in half for the total length of the base so it's structurally solid and aesthetically pleasing, and then in half again if you intend to measure out from the center. In other words, we're just sticking with integer math, that's all. But four fingers + one thumb gives my friend the "five" he needs for his theological discussion.

Remember that my article details what the builders most probably did do. If they had used a different slope, the "correct" results would have been different. However, the "correct" results that we actually see are strongly driven by experience and physics for a structure of this size. We've seen that smaller structures have completely different slopes, and we've seen that they structurally fail when scaled up. Nevertheless we do find reasonable variation in the slopes of all pyramids, which should curtail the argument that any particular ratio is "necessary".

Also note that myriad numerical coincidences and relationships would still have existed had they chosen a different slope... they'd just be different from the ones you have now. You'd just be focusing on those instead of the one you have, drawing similar theological conclusions and concluding that they are also somehow "necessary".  For instance, if we had divided the height by 3 instead of four (despite the resulting fractions), we'd have insisted on theological comparisons resulting from the number three (such as the trinity, or past-present-future). If we'd used five instead of four then we could use the same relationships my friend does now without having to refer to the fingers + thumb kludge. If it had been six, then we could invoke the Magen David and the six days of the Creation. And so it goes. Instead of pi, we could be discussing tau. Pick any number whatsoever, and you can construct a series of relationships, all of which are "important", "necessary", and "beyond coincidence".

Cherry-picking the numerical relationships that necessarily exist is closely related to the "anthropic principle".  The weak anthropic principle is an unremarkable tautology while the strong anthropic principle is a logical fallacy.

Question: His Pharaoh wanted a height of 280, nothing else.  They would have had a pyramid 20 diameters in height, but no demonstration of Pi had they chosen any other model than 5 rolls of the wheel.  Is Dave saying that the builders did not understand Pi (no advanced technology) and therefore found it by accident?  

Answer: Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. Furthermore, I'm saying they didn't even "find it" if by "find it" we mean that they realized its significance.  By the way, it doesn't matter how many rolls of the wheel we're talking about. The only thing that "encodes" pi into the design is that we're using a cubit both for the diameter of the wheel and for any other measurements we make, and that the builders prefer integer math. ONE roll of the wheel and ONE cubit height would still "encode" pi into the design. ONE roll and THREE cubits height would do the same. The only way to eliminate that "encoding" is to use some other wheel diameter, which means arbitrarily mixing units of measure, which is exactly what I did not do. A cursory reading of the Bible would give you a value of 3 for pi[*]. But there's no evidence that the ancient Egyptians understood pi as anything useful or special.

The Rhind Papyris

A primary use for pi is to calculate the area of a circle. But an ancient textbook the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus, does this (imperfectly) by a completely different method. In a compelling blog post, Jason Dyer has some more thoughts on that.  Pi is never acknowledged in the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus, but to the extent that it is implied, it would equate to 256/81, or about 3.16. Since the Egyptians' knowledge was actually written down, and we have a textbook, we know that any value more accurate than that is accidental.

Also, the "280, nothing else" isn't as dictatorial as it's made to sound. As I stated above, the pharoah would have arrive at this number through consultation with his Architect. He'd want it bigger than his predecessors', but still allowing for integer math.

Odds and Ends

A list of numerical coincidences follow Russell's questions, and most of them require the use of "pyramid inches". The problem with that is that "pyramid inches" are made up. The reason the coincidences occur is that the coincidence was assumed from the start, and the value of the pyramid inch was adjusted until its "correct" value was "deduced". There's no archaeological evidence for any such thing.

A man is entitled to his religion, so I won't discuss any of the theology on Russell's page. However, I can't resist asking a couple of questions and one observation of my own...

1. Why would the ancient Egyptians have any interest in recording or predicting the exact dates of the birth of Adam, the Exodus, or the birth, baptism, and crucifixion of Jesus?
2. If they call all that right in exacting detail, how did they manage to flub their entire pantheon, as well as the entirety of their cosmology and escatology?

These are far more difficult to answer than whether the builders used integer math and wheels.

As I mentioned in my original article, it is a perfectly valid rhetorical device to use a thing to illustrate an idea. We just shouldn't get so caught up in it that we mistake our illustration for the builders' intent. When we do, we run the risk of letting the minute details a carefully crafted cosmology detract from the bigger message.

----------------------

[*] of course, the Bible isn't a math textbook, and 3 is close enough for the narrative in 1 Kings 7:23-26 given all the talk of "hands-breadths" and fluted rims. Nevertheless there's almost a branch of apologetics devoted to this numerical "problem". Usually these involve using the "hand's breadth" thickness to take the outer diameter of the bowl and the inner circumference, these being the diameter and circumference of the mold. But the most inventive answer, sure to appeal to math geeks and gematria buffs, is this one.

Reality Check 2: More About Easter

We've had a rather lively discussion on Facebook regarding my last post. In short, there was some question as to origin of certain religious festivals. I proposed -- successfully I think -- that Passover is unique. Then this question was asked of me:

You're right, Passover is it's own thing.
What's your position on Easter; superimposed upon an ancient holiday or whole-cloth Christian?

That's a good question, and before we begin we should remind ourselves of the principle of human nature and remind ourselves of the nature of religion and spirituality. Also, let's keep focused on the discussion of the seasonal holiday... that being fertility rites, such as those for Ishtar or Eostre, or at least something that parallels the Christian observance.

Also, consider that this is a very different question from the one I asked originally... I asked whether Passover was derived from another holiday... here the questioner asks if Easter is superimposed upon another holiday. While acknowledging that I see the switch, I'll address both questions here with respect to Easter.

First, the obvious. 

It's no mystery that Easter very blatantly takes the spotlight from the ancient Jewish holiday of Passover in the Christian calendar,  though the calculation of the date was changed and standardized by the Nicene Council, and though some modern Christians have taken up observance of Passover, as there's nothing in Christianity to preclude it.

Regarding the Last Supper (which became the Eucharist)... while the season of the event was unquestionably that of Passover, there is legitimate doubt as to whether the Last Supper depicts a Passover celebration. Certainly it has little resemblance to the Seder. There are no bitter herbs, etc., and none of the traditional observance. It is reasonable to conclude that the Last Supper was simply a shared meal. In this sense, the Eucharist is not connected to Passover.

Update: My friend Mark points out: "It's hard to argue that the Last Supper wasn't a Passover Seder when the Haggadah hadn't been formalized yet. I'm not sure we have a solid idea of what a Seder looked like at that point in history. Granted, it's similarly hard to argue under those circumstances that the Last Supper *was* a Seder."  Mark's absolutely correct. However, we do know that the symbolism of the Eucharist is not that of the Seder. Whatever connection there might have been is broken. Update 2: Besides, John 19:42 says that Jesus was crucified on the Jews' preparation day, which would argue in favor of a standard meal. There's a healthy controversy on the subject.  

As the questioner notes himself, Passover is its own thing. Easter draws on Passover for the season and the culture. The entire story of the Christ is essentially Jewish, and draws heavily upon the writings of Old Testament Jewish prophets, notably Isaiah, Zechariah, and the Psalmists. Christian apologists will readily point you to the plethora of prophesies pertaining to every aspect of Jesus' ministry. The evangelists wrote that Jesus himself was aware of these prophesies and declared he had come to fulfill them. So HEAVY borrowing from Judaism is a given, though it really can't even be considered to be "borrowing" at all, as the earliest Christians were themselves Jews. Christianity is not a mystery religion.  ALL of the symbolism of the Passion is fully explained in the gospels, authored by** people who were or who knew witnesses. However accurate these accounts may be, it's not as though they were writing myths about their distant past. There was a teacher named Yeshua (Jesus), and he was crucified. A group of witnesses very strongly believed him to have risen from the dead.

This does raise the question, "since everything is there in Old Testament prophesy and contemporary Jewish practices, why would they need to borrow anything else?" And the answer is, of course, they didn't need to.

Nevertheless, let's dig some more

We've already discussed Ishtar and Eostre. There are secular aspects of Easter that lean heavily on Eostre, but that's normal for the season, explained by human nature, and don't have anything to do with the Christian observance of Easter Sunday. And by the Christian observance, I'm talking about the things you'd see in a church, not in a Wal-mart. That is, a recounting of the Passion, including the Last Supper,  the story of the women finding the empty tomb, Jesus revealing Himself, and his Ascension. None of this has the slightest to do with fertility rites. The closest you can come to this is that his resurrection is a parallel to the "rebirth" of the season. The problem there is that pagan rebirth is cyclical; whereas Jesus promises eternal life. These are fundamentally different concepts. These are the sort of things we must look for when we say that Christianity borrowed this holiday from another religion. (the "superimposed upon" question is a lot easier... you just look for another holiday at the same time and see if Easter stomps on it).

Looking a little beyond the holiday now, other figures "equated" with Jesus are the Egyptian Horus and the Zoroastrian Mithra, though I know of no writers who ever stated that they knew Horus or had dinner with Mithra.

Egypt?

HORUS  is floated as a precursor to Christ because of his death and re-birth. It's claimed that Horus was born of a virgin, though the actual tale is that his mother was a goddess, not a human, and she was impregnated by the phallus of the dismembered god Osiris. Though perhaps a supernatural birth, it's not virgin, and that's really more a discussion appropriate to Christmas, anyway. Commonly, proponents of the Horus "connection" conflate Horus and Osiris in claiming a resurrection. However, Osiris, having been dismembered into 12 pieces and re-assembled by Isis, was not restored to life, but became lord of the underworld.

Regarding Easter, the pertinent question here is, was Horus (or Osiris) connected with some festival involving resurrection or rebirth? In a way... Osiris' rebirth was linked to the annual flooding of the Nile river. This was central to all aspects of Egyptian culture. One big problem with claiming that Easter is a re-packaging of that is, of course, that the Nile floods in August.

It is true that, like the Egyptians, the Jews and Christians teach of an afterlife (as do almost all religions). Most ancient religions, however, teach either of an underworld, or reincarnation followed by another death, or a merging with the godhead; whereas the Judeo-Christian teaching is that of resurrection into a physical, incorruptible human body in a physical world, everlasting life, and retained individuality.

Babylonia?

MITHRA is floated as a precursor to Christ for a long list of reasons...

But first... for those that don't know, Zoroastrianism is a religion that was, prior to Islam, dominant in Persia and which developed around the same time as Judaism. Being further East, it has a particular "Indian flavor". There are still thousands of actively practicing Zoroastrians in the world, which ain't bad for a religion as old as this. Zoroastrianism teaches dualism, but is in some respects similar to Christianity and Judaism in its broad teachings, with some differences. For instance, Zoroastrianism stresses good works: Christianity teaches that salvation is achieved through grace, but that good works are the "fruit of faith". As James writes, "I will show you my faith by my works." Notably, Zoroastrians teach that at the end of days the dead will rise and a savior will renovate the world and the dead will be given immortality in perfect, incorruptible bodies. Sounds pretty similar, right? And Mithra is the Zoroastrian god of covenant, which would seem to perfectly place him as the final judge at the end of days (the "Frashokereti"). Except that Mithra is never identified as that savior, and the final judgement of the Frashokereti will be by ordeal... you'll have to walk across a river of molten metal, and wicked will be burned away.

But we're looking for Easter. There is no Zoroastrian analog to the Easter observance, or to the Passion, or even a Spring festival. The closest would appear to be Mehregan, but that's celebrated in October.

Roman Mithraism?

But that's not really the ONLY source of traditions about Mithra. The ROMAN empire adopted some of the features of Zoroastrianism into cultic practices known as the Mithraic Mysteries, or "Mithraism".  This has a similar relationship to Zoroastrianism as Christianity does to Judaism... you see the line of descent, but the details of the older religion are washed away in practice.

It is from HERE that that "long list of reasons" I spoke of is generally drawn. I'm not going to list or debunk them here, because this is going to be plenty long as it is, and someone else has already done it fairly and well:

So how does all this get us to a precursor to the Christian Easter? It doesn't. Observance of Christ's resurrection was the very first, most central practice of Christianity. It is the core of the religion. The Nicene Council standardized the date, but no one waited for that group before celebrating it... it was celebrated all the time, from the first. Remember that everything about the Christian liturgy is based on the scriptural gospels, and by word of mouth prior to that. All of the events reported there are intended to illustrate the fulfillment of Jewish prophecies. The Messianic movement was THE Big Deal for the Church founders, and this is where they expended their energy.

Mithraism lasted from the 1st through the 4th centuries of the common era. There's nothing said about them prior to Christanity. There is no reason for Christianity to have borrowed from them, and indeed nothing that they could have borrowed that wasn't already in Judaism.

The 800 lb Gorilla?

ISLAM didn't begin until the year 610, with the prophet Mohammed, so no connection is possible. (Here is an Muslim's view of the Middle East before Islam).

Besides, as with Soviet Russia, "You don't step on Islam..."

So WHAT, then?

As we've previously discussed, the Christian festival of Easter doesn't borrow from any pre-existing pagan fertility rite. It is named after the ancient Saxon name of the month. The liturgy has nothing whatsoever to do with fertility, and it is impossible for Easter to fall on the vernal equinox, known to European pagans as Ostara. Therefore it's not derived from those celebrations. However, the trappings of Spring fertility festivals have been grafted on to secular Easter, though that's not the doing of the Church. Eostre is no longer worshiped because her entire religion has been abandoned. Yet this festival survives, though we never celebrate it on the day of Ostara, the vernal equinox. In this sense, Easter replaces Ostara, though it is not superimposed upon it. We continue the celebration of Spring as Anglo-Saxons have before their recorded history.  This coexists with the Christian religious festival. One takes place outside the church; the other inside.

Also, as I mentioned above, there was a Messianic movement in those days before and after the life of Jesus of Nazareth. These messianic beliefs were documented by the Essenes of Qumran. According to Josephus Essenes were common and widespread, and it's reasonable to assume that their beliefs would have been broadly known at that time and place, as the ideas espoused by Jesus most closely resemble theirs. Many would-be "messiahs" showed themselves [pdf], but important to this question at hand, absolutely none of them qualify as having been the subject of an "ancient holiday".

Also, it's pretty obvious that Zoroastrianism and Judaism were informed, if not by the same source, then by similar philosophy. This is to be expected in the same region, at the same time. But the time in question -- as early as the 14th century BCE -- is so far removed that we have no way of determining which was first, or whether they both derive from an even older source, or even if a couple of guys talked it over and went in different directions to flesh out their ideas. But there's no ancient analog to Easter in Zoroastrianism; therefore it's impossible to conclude that Easter was derived from or superimposed on anything from that religion.

We should keep in mind that these earliest of these possible formative dates approach the very beginning of civilization, and there's a limit to how far back the "borrowing" can go. While there is undeniably a common thread to the history of mankind, and every culture is informed by those around it, the idea that all cultures steal from older cultures isn't a terribly realistic one, nor does it make a great deal of sense when we comprehend that -- contradicting the anonymous author of Ecclesiastes -- in all things SOMEBODY had to be first. Certainly in this age of nuclear power and electronics, Big Bang theory and evolutionary biology, we're not so naïve as to believe there's nothing new under the sun.

Conclusion

Whole cloth, though woven with the same thread as used by other religions.

At the same time, I have no problem with it being considered superimposed on both Passover and Eostre.


** Update: originally "authored by"

Reality Check: Is Easter a Hijacked Pagan Holiday?

Happy Easter, folks. It's that time of year when Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. However, you may have seen claims that Easter is "actually" a pagan celebration, usually purported to be that of Ishtar, a Babylonian goddess.

Here's one formulation of that assertion, seen on Facebook:

and here's another: 

Happy Easter. Don't forget the reason for the season; Sex & Fertility.
At least that's what people celebrated before the popes hijacked it.

There are problems with both of these, primarily that they're false. (And in fairness, the second assertion was made jokingly, but I include it here because it succinctly states an attitude that some take seriously. BTW, I'm deliberately not linking to the sources because I'd like to discuss the ideas here and leave personalities out of it)

Ishtar

Let's tackle the "Ishtar" claim first. Easter is called "Easter" in Germanic speaking countries (including England) because it is named for the month in which it most often fell. In Saxon England, this was called "Eostermonath" which in turn was named for a goddess of the dawn called Eostre. This is according to Bede, writing in the 8th century. The resemblance to the word "East" is not accidental... the words share their etymology. 

In other Germanic-speaking countries, this month was named "ostermanoth", or some other variation of that spelling, which in turn was named for the goddess "Ostara". This is according to Jacob Grimm.  

Now, there are some who claim that Bede is not a reliable source, even though he is for any number of other subjects. They claim he made it up.  The first problem with that is that you can count the number of 8th-century English historians on one finger, and he's the sole and earliest source of this etymology... which means that if he did make it up, then everyone else is copying him, and it's a difference that makes no difference. Secondly, in the year 731, when Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People was completed, this may very well have been common knowledge, and we know of no one who bothered to contradict him.  The third problem with that criticism is that Bede's etymology is given weight by the fact that the name of the holiday, and of the month, is similar in Germanic countries, but not those closer to ancient Babylonia. Note that in non-English-speaking Orthodox Christianity the festival is called "Pascha" (from the Hebrew and Aramaic word for "Passover"). If the link to Ishtar were valid, you'd expect it to be stronger, not weaker, in Eastern lands.

Nor is it of any great concern to Christians that the name "Eostre" is associated with the month. Here's an exact parallel:  Americans most commonly refer to the celebration of their country's independence and the establishment of their Republic by the name "Fourth of July". This is named for the month in which it falls, which in turn is named for Julius Caesar, the man who usurped the Republic of Rome and became its dictator. Using the logic of the "Ishtarians", when you celebrate the fourth of July, you're actually paying homage to Julius Caesar and the downfall of Democracy. Obviously this is incorrect. The "Ishtarians" are mistaking a word for a thing, a rather simple mistake.

Fertility

"OK, then," you may say, "whatever they called it, and wherever it was, it was named for a fertility goddess and hijacks a previous pagan celebration of sex and fertility!"

Again,  this is historically inaccurate. As we've already seen, Easter was named for the month, not the goddess. But more than that, it has nothing to do with hijacking an existing pagan holiday.

It replaces a pre-existing JEWISH holiday.

Passover is the commemoration of the deliverance of Jews from the Angel of Death, and from their bondage in Egypt, as recounted in the book of Exodus (called Shemot ("the names") in the Tanakh). This is a movable feast, based on a lunar calendar.  Pagan celebrations of Spring are not. Rather, they are tied to the vernal equinox, based on a solar calendar.

As the Christian Easter is tied in tradition and culture to Judaism, the Passion having fallen on that holiday, Easter is likewise a movable feast. And it's no secret that this is the case. There has never once in history been any credible controversy about the origins of Easter in the Jewish Passover. This is well-documented history. The first Christians were Jews. They didn't have a fertility rite to replace.

So the issue here isn't with the Christian holiday at all. There's nothing in the Christian liturgy about eggs and bunnies. Nothing whatsoever.

It IS true true, however, that many of the secular symbols we now associate with Easter, which were not originally part of the celebration... the bunnies, the eggs, the Springtime flowers... are derived from more ancient pagan practices. However, this is a case of the pagans jumping on and hijacking a Christian holiday, not the other way around.

In other words, you can't blame "the popes" for this one, boys and girls.

And while most Christians indulge in the hiding of Easter eggs and fantasize about the Easter Bunny (just as they put up Yule trees), these are secular activities of Spring which are not for them tied to any religious observance. 

Some Christians prefer to call Easter "Resurrection Day" or "Resurrection Sunday" because of the pagan misconceptions that have been tacked on to the holiday. Far from being usurpers of paganism, they don't want the bunnies and eggs. Others actually have tried to "hijack" the pagan symbolism that has hijacked their holiday. They use a carton of plastic eggs filled with tiny tokens of the Passion and the Resurrection (called "Resurrection Eggs") to illustrate the Biblical story for small children. Both of these are minority practices.

Oh, and another thing...

I've also seen the following claim:

The pagan Easter celebrates happiness and life. The Christian Easter consecrates suffering and death.

Wrong. Dead wrong, if you'll pardon the expression. The Christian Easter celebrates the Resurrection of the body and the defeat of Death. The writer confuses the Passion with the Resurrection. The Passion did not occur on Easter, but days prior. Christians commemorate the Passion so they may appreciate the sacrifice  is necessary to put the achievement of the Resurrection in proper context.  You know those "Resurrection Eggs" I mentioned earlier...? The last one is empty. It symbolizes the empty tomb... there's no death to be found here.

Whether you believe in this or not is immaterial to this discussion... it's simply ignorant, incorrect, and culturally insensitive to characterize Easter as being other than what it is... a festival intended to give thanks for the promise of resurrection and eternal life.

The Universe: Living in Space

Here's one I never thought I'd be writing about. The History Channel has presented a science documentary series called "The Universe".  I watch it.... a lot. I'm a subscriber. I was a little surprised to find something questionable enough here to warrant a comment from me. Particularly when it wasn't just an off-hand comment, but a thoroughly thought-out segment. And particularly not when the idea was floated by Dr. Michio Kaku, one of the most successful popularizers of science since the late, lamented Carl Sagan.

Questionable Judgement

The thing that perked my ears was the suggestion that Mars colonists would benefit from asteroid mining. The depiction here basically took the form of deflecting an iron asteroid out of its orbit so that it lands on Mars. Then, of course, the colonists would simply take the iron from it at their leisure.

It's not that the science here is bad. It's pretty sound reasoning as far as it goes. No, it's that the judgement is really, really questionable.

All other difficulties aside (such as coming up with the energy to accurately deflect a rock of that size moving at that prodigious speed), there's the obvious danger factor. An asteroid of the size discussed (about a kilometer across), would land with kinetic force rivaling the most powerful nuclear weapons. Surely you'd want your mine close enough to your colony to make the commute reasonable, but it's a fine needle you'd have to thread to not wipe out your colony with the delivery.

Better Options

It's not like they need to do that. Mars is "The Red Planet" for a reason; that reason being that it's literally covered with rust. Iron oxide. On Earth we reduce that to iron by heating it with carbon. That doesn't exactly work on Mars, as elemental carbon is rare as unicorn farts, but it's still do-able in a couple of ways.

First, Mars does have water, at the poles. Electrolysis of the water would yield hydrogen gas and oxygen (and this makes it a ready source of oxygen for breathing). The hydrogen thus released could be used to smelt iron, as iron oxide combined with hydrogen yields elemental iron plus water (Fe2O3 + 3H2 -> 2Fe + 3H2O). So for the expenditure of some energy you get oxygen to breathe, iron to build with, and you even get your water back! With a bit of work, you might even be able to construct a roving foundry that spits out iron bars and breathable air from the sand it scoops up and recycled water. Fanciful, I know, but it's no more fanciful and it's a lot safer than pelting your colony with giant space bullets.

A second way is to use the carbon dioxide that composes the bulk of the Martian atmosphere. Throw some serious heat at it and it breaks up into carbon monoxide and oxygen. Once again we have oxygen to breathe, and in this case the carbon monoxide reacts with the iron to form elemental iron and more carbon dioxide (Fe2O3 + 3CO -> 2Fe + 3CO2). Since I don't much like carbon monoxide, and it's tricky to separate it from the oxygen so the latter can be used safely, I prefer what I think is the safer hydrogen reaction, above.

Be sure that either of these options is better than dropping an island on your head, so I'm really confused as to why this flight of fancy ever entered the conversation. Despite that bit of puzzling speculation, I still recommend the series and this episode. HERE IT IS.

Junk Science on YouTube

Sometimes I post about "junk science" on the various science channels. I usually leave the Internet alone because it so full of such idiocy that it's hardly worth the effort. Today I came across this piece of work on YouTube, though: a 2006 Russian documentary simply entitled "Water".

I single this film out due to the fact that it actually has pretty high production value and is so entirely sincere in its presentation that you could easily think it was describing legit phenomena. It's not. Yet this bit of dross received three television awards, including one for the best documentary film.

How exactly do you get a "best documentary" award when you begin with statements like this: "No scientist has been able to explain, for example, why water's density increases below the freezing point, and becomes less above freezing." The answer is because that's not what happens. Frozen water's density is less, which is why ice floats. And that's because the shape of the molecules is such that when they join into their characteristic hexagonal crystals, they take up more room than they do when at liquid temperatures. They then rightly state that water expand when frozen, which makes it the more puzzling why this mis-statement wasn't left on the cutting room floor.

Every time you hear the phrase "scientists can't explain" in this film, it's fairly safe to assume that scientists have explained whatever it is they're talking about... minus the stuff that is made-up B.S. Keep in mind that anomalous does not mean mysterious.

Here's a link to unusual properties of water that science can explain: http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/the-unusual-properties-of-water-molecules.html
Here's another: http://www.freedrinkingwater.com/resource-water-chemistry.htm
And another: http://www.chem1.com/acad/sci/aboutwater.html

Pity the poor scientists who are quoted in this film. Nobel laureate Kurt Wüthrich is quoted simply as saying that water has been extensively studied and has unusual properties. By pasting in perfectly reasonable statements from perfectly reputable researchers, next to discredited snake-oil salesmen like Masaru Emoto and quack physicians, the filmmaker imply that these scientists support the conclusions of the film as a whole. But what might that be?

That water has memory.

As this is a central proposition of homeopathy, I've heard this magickal line of thought before (although the pretense here is that it was just "discovered". To be fair to homeopaths, even they haven't gone so far as to claim that you can turn water into a super-cure-all entirely by wishful thinking. This crowd has basically increased the profitability of homeopathy by removing the labor of all of that pesky swishing and diluting.)

We're less than seven minutes into the film and already some pretty shoddy thinking has gotten us to this point. For instance... some people were working together in Southeast Asia, supposedly to develop bacteriological weapons. They got sick at a meeting with "symptoms of food poisoning". The water was tested and found to be just plain water. Now a reasonable person would then continue to look elsewhere for a solution -- perhaps some bacteria that produced similar symptoms among these people who work with bacteria -- but these folks conclude that the plain water was poisonous, AND that it wasn't poisonous because it contained poison, but because it simply remembered to be poisonous. Of the investigative "dead-ends" encountered, plain H₂O wasn't one. *sigh*

What follows is a barrage of mixture of fact, speculation, and nonsense presented as fact. For instance, water clusters (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_cluster) are real. They only last for minute fractions of a second, and they're constantly changing, and don't exhibit the properties claimed here.

Here's some more debunking: http://www.chem1.com/CQ/clusqk.html

Among the claims of this film:

• Salt water can be made fresh by wishing it to be fresh.
• Love "increases water's energy levels".
• Aggressive emotions "reduce the energy".
• You can affect the shape of an ice crystal by saying "thank you" and "excuse me" to the water before freezing it.
• You absorb a liter an a half of water when you take a bath or shower. (that's a little over three pounds... next time you bathe, weigh yourself.)
• Water that flows through pipes is "deformed" so that the "crystals" it contains (in the liquid form, mind you) do not have symmetry or beauty.
• "Devitalized" water will "steal" your "energy".
• Water remembers "violence" that is done to it.
• Water is a giant universal computer that contains "biological programs".

This is punctuated by "mean music" when discussing anything man-made whatsoever, and "nice music" when discussing streams and oceans.

And it just keeps going and going and going and gets worse and worse and worse.... the film claims that water itself burns. (In fact, water does not burn because it's already burnt. "Water" is our name for burnt hydrogen. In order to burn water, you would have to remove the oxygen so that you could then add oxygen. This cannot produce energy, as it would violate the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics). It actually states, "in order to burn anything whatsoever, there must be at least some quantity of water". Half-true misdirection. Water is formed as a result of burning hydrocarbons, but it does not have to be present for the combustion to occur.

This documentary really doesn't have anything to do with science at all. "Like all sculptures that have not been created are present in clay, so the images of all future living organisms were present in water. Water merely brought to life a pre-existing conception," the narrator intones. Once we realize that this film is merely a compendium of every pop-culture speculation of New Age faith, "legitimized" in a matrix of real and pseudo-science, it becomes a rather dull exercise to pick apart the truth from the fiction. Fact-checking is made easy with the knowledge that every statement containing the phrase "modern science" is complete horseshit.

Really, a documentary shouldn't make you do that. It should be educational and informative in its own right; its educational value shouldn't be measured by the amount of effort you're willing to put in to fact-checking each and every sentence.  But if you want to go through that exercise and have an hour and a half to kill, here's the show in its entirety:



I give this one a solid F. It might have gotten a D (for being pretty) if the few bits of real science weren't completely diluted by the useless crap.

Waging War on Truth

I saw this on Facebook today:

It's an... errr... interesting rhetorical device, but it's not exactly what the DOJ said. Prop 8 dealt with gay marriage. The DOJ stated that gays are not inherently inferior parents. But let's set aside for a moment the issue of gay marriage entirely, and deal directly with what this graphic says, and only that.

Let's look at the idea that a child has a "right" to a mother. Remember the TV show "My Three Sons"? Do you think it would be advisable for Mike, Robbie, and Chip to sue their dad, Steven Douglas (Fred MacMurray)? After all, we're talking about a household with two "dads" here. You think not? Don't you remember when Mike left and Ernie was adopted...? The court wouldn't allow it until Uncle Charlie stepped up and was declared "housemother".

That was in the 1960s. In 1960, two men could raise a houseful of children and audiences didn't think twice about it. They watched every week and enjoyed themselves. In the 1960s we insisted that those kids have full-time care, but the courts didn't hold some imagined "right" to ensure that it was one of each sex. Now, fifty years later, have children suddenly gained a right now that they didn't have then? Did fathers somehow lose a right to self-determination that they formerly had, and are now somehow obligated to remarry? Or maybe you think the preceding generation wasn't as decent? These are rhetorical questions: of course children don't have a "right" to a mother... God Himself deprives children of mothers every day.

What about all the other widowers and divorced dads with custody out there? Should we expect a barrage of lawsuits against them? If so, I narrowly dodged a bullet, in that I did re-marry. I do somehow resent the idea that I wasn't a loving, capable parent when it was just me and Will, though. As the parent who got custody, and did so because I was declared by a trained psychiatrist and marriage specialist to be the more capable parent, I'm so very glad that the court in my state did not subscribe to the notion that my ex had a "right" to the child she couldn't properly raise. I find that concept more than a little bit sexist... and so did the court. Children aren't property. It's good for my son that we had a judge that knew that.

Once you know what the DOJ actually said, it takes no imagination to invert the claim in the graphic and say the DOJ is waging a War on Men. That would be every bit as accurate, you know. But I wouldn't apply it to a widow who is doing her best to raise children without a father, as one of my childhood neighbors did. I wouldn't say it to a divorced woman raising children on her own as was my own mother before she re-married. And why was my mother divorced? I was there, and I can tell you that sometimes one parent is better than two, even if the two are man and wife. If you don't believe it I can put you into a room with a bunch of folks who can tell you stories of traditional marriages that will make you cry.

This infographic is just wrong. And if we think about it for five seconds or more, it becomes obvious that it's just so very wrong.

One small thing to add... I know what the author was trying to do, and I'm sure he thought he was being terribly clever. But as those of you readers who are responsible parents already know, when little Billy lies to you, you do not respond with, "Here! Have a cookie! What a clever lie you just told!"

That's because lies aren't clever.

I don't see eye-to-eye with this administration. But I have a very particular fondness for common sense, decency, and fairness; as well as a smattering of respect for the truth. Taking a statement out of context, twisting it to claim that it says something that wasn't said is un-Christian. It isn't fair, decent, or truthful; and it flies in the face of common sense. The fact that it's nonsensical is why I looked up the DOJ's argument. Please... there are enough offensive statements that this government actually makes that we do not have to go making stuff up. And if you want to target the gay marriage issue, fine, do that out in the open, but not with some garbage argument that implies that just because somebody's a man that he can't raise a child. I don't like bigotry, period. I don't like it when they do it, and I don't like it when you do it, even by accident. And I don't even know who you are.

--==//==--

By the way, bigot is an under-used word these days. That's a shame because it's incredibly useful. These days we use words like racist, sexist, homophobic, class-ist, age-ist, weight-ist, etc. There's an "-ism" for everybody, as if the target of a person's unreasoning hatred makes one bit of difference.

Keep it simple. It's BIGOTRY.