I love cathedrals and Allegri Miserere. The videos are better viewed in HD.

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Playlist: NOVA: The Bible’s Buried Secrets

Archaeology and the Hebrew Bible.



More: the PBS website has very interesting additional information on its website. This includes an illustrated timeline that places the program's rather erratic timeline into correct order.

Deconversion:



More playlists about biblical errors and contradictions:
Bart Ehrman - 2007 lecture at Stanford
Misquoting Jesus - Edited Edition
>Transcription Errors in a Total Invention

holysinecure
Search for Truth about the Bible

More videos and playlists about deconversion
Another Great Escape : a series of videos by a Brit.
Dissonant Discomfort : a very good video that examines, within the framework of theoretical psychology, the emotional stages of deconversion.

Finally, a language that I can follow somewhat. I still have no way to determine whether Google's translator is grammatically accurate:

Apelando a la Galería, apelando a los números

Numeram Argumentum y argumentum ad populam y están estrechamente relacionados con las falacias de la lógica. Argumentos numeram falaz ad tomar la posición de que la veracidad de un argumento puede ser determinada por el número de personas que apoyan o creen que la proposición. Argumentos ad populam falaz intento de ganar la aceptación de un argumento por hacer un llamamiento emocional a un público lo más amplio posible.

Giorgio Dubaya Borgia y su administración utiliza los recursos hasta la saciedad emocional (miedo al terrorismo, Saddam Hussein ha asesinado a civiles iraquíes) para tratar de justificar una invasión de mérito muy dudoso. La mayoría de la gente no es tan tonto como para seguir siendo engañados para siempre, y los índices de aprobación Borgia han caído en picado.

Sin embargo, los políticos tienen éxito porque un gran número de personas que son engañados por las apelaciones a la emoción de propaganda, la realización de sus errores demasiado tarde. (Este es el principal problema con las democracias - la población es demasiado fácil engañar a votar por candidatos que luego no resultan, como lo hizo Bush, no tienen absolutamente ningún mérito.) Como resultado de la credulidad de USians que votaron por Bush, Al Qaeda ahora está funcionando en Irak cuando no operan bajo Hussein. Miles de soldados y civiles han sido innecesariamente matado o mutilado, y el Iraq se enfrenta a años de guerra civil antes de otro dictador hombre fuerte se hace cargo. La ventaja sólo de la estupidez de todo esto es que el valor de las acciones de Halliburton probablemente ha aumentado, y que no es un revés, salvo para los estadounidenses ávidos.

Dogmáticos religiosos sostienen que debido a que la mayoría de personas en los EE.UU. creen que Dios era su creador personal, entonces Dios debe existir y debe ser su creador. Esto, por supuesto, sólo demuestra que la mayoría de la gente ha dicho, desde una edad temprana, que hay un Dios que es su creador y han creído el cuento de la falta de pruebas de confirmación. A diferencia del caso de la lamentable historial de Bush, sólo la muerte podía confirmar ni negar la existencia de este creador supuesto, y los muertos no pueden informar a los aún vivos que fueron engañados ellos. Si el muerto pudiera hablar, estoy bastante seguro de que la tasa de aprobación de Dios se desplomaría casi a cero.

Falaz numeram ad argumentam o populam ad argumentam es particularmente dañino en manos de los políticos deshonestos, pero también es un problema general entre los que se niegan a creer en la validez, basada en el conocimiento empírico de las autoridades de creíbles.

Debido a que es sencillo y económico, ya formarse y mantener una opinión, no importa cuán mal informadas o ilógico que la opinión, las personas con prácticamente ningún conocimiento de un campo dogmáticamente que insistir en nociones ridículas que van en contra de la sabiduría recibidas de aquellos que son autoridades en basado en los hechos de su campo.

Así, las personas que no saben nada de la meteorología o atmosféricos decidirá de forma incorrecta que el calentamiento global es un mito, simplemente porque no quieren creer que debe modificar su comportamiento. Las personas que saben nada de la medicina, las ciencias biomédicas, la epidemiología o erróneamente decidir, por ejemplo, que fumar no es perjudicial, o que la vacunación de las causas del autismo.

Estos errores sólo daría lugar a la celebración de las opiniones infundadas por peope no suficientemente informados como para albergar cualquier opinión, sino porque los políticos de complacer a la opinión pública, la ignorancia del público se tradujo en acciones políticas perjudiciales o la inacción.

This playlist includes 11 of 12 parts of a BBC program examining the authorship of the Bible. An academic theologian examines some of the evidence. The revelations are marred only by the fact that apologists are given the opportunity to rationalize the evidence away. Balanced reporting would have permitted atheists to point out the glaring errors in their denials and excuses.

Ah well, at least the program discusses the fact that the Bible is a flawed human invention! Archaeology falsifies the historicity of the OT. Biblical scholars agree that authorship is not as it is presented (except some Pauline letters and James). The program does briefly mention that the Gospels contradict one another.

Much about biblical errors was omitted — accidental and deliberate transcription inaccuracies, widespread contradictions, and additions to the Bible that were made as late as the early 17th century. That is without even mentioning the alternate versions of Christianity that were practically erased from history by the victorious version of biblical fiction.

However, the program only runs less than 2 hours, and a complete exposé of all the problems would probably take weeks.

Pseudoscience masquerades as science, usually to promote some commercial scam or to promote religious beliefs for which there is not, nor ever will be, supportive evidence.

The subject matter of pseudoscientific claims ranges from astrology and the occult to anti-science, religiously motivated falsehoods.

By my definition, to lay claim to being legitimately within the sphere of scientific knowledge, the claim must:
A) For physical evidence that is not subject to experimental verification: exist as tangible evidence that is uncovered under controlled conditions and is interpreted in accordance with current knowledge – for example, a paleontological fossil, an anthropological artefact, an archeological find. That same fossil, artefact, or ruin cannot be considered to fall within the realm of science when it has been unearthed without any attention to its context, or experimental verification of its associations and age.

B) For experimentally generated empirical data: the scientific method can be applied to physical data that is experimentally testable, repeatable, and, ideally, falsifiable. The experimental data must be logically interpreted in accordance with current knowledge.

Talking or writing about science is not science. Criticizing or critiquing science is not science. Elaborating mumbo-jumbo about supposed medical treatments without clinical testing is not science. Concocting falsehoods designed to protect unjustified belief in disproved Special Creation is definitely not science.

In order to ignorantly support illogical, indoctrinated religious mythology, creationists deny scientific knowledge, attack a straw man version of science, and falsify science as lie-oramas in the Fiction Lie-See-Um, or tout Misleading Pseudoscience for Dummies on junk tanks. " Creationism has been discredited, however, by indisputable physical evidence – carbon dating, for example."[SW]



External : Science Week editorials : Creationism vs. Sanity : SCIENCE POLICY: ON THE TEACHING OF PSEUDOSCIENCE :

Fundamentalist Christians have taken to calling themselves Evangelical Christians because "fundamentalism" excites deservedly negative sentiments. The name may have changed, but the problems remain the same.

I have decided to refer to rigid, right-wing, bigoted, Biblical literalist creationists as Fistians. These are the Christians who give Christianity a bad name because of their unJesusian lack of compassion and their obstinate ignorance in opposition to knowledge. (I considered coining the term Fustians, which does have the advantage of rhyming appropriately with "fusty". I opted to rhyme with Christians and with "fist". I reserve 'fundamentalists' for anti-modernist movements in various religions. Besottism refers to a subset of zealots.)

Fistians and pseudointellectual advocates of intelligent design creationism share the religiosity-motivated credulity that typifies LAME thinking in the Misinformation Explosion Age.

David Colquhoun addresses this problem of intellectual dishonesty and fuzzy illogic in a Guardian Unlimited article entitled the age of endarkenment.

The past 30 years or so have been an age of endarkenment. It has been a period in which truth ceased to matter very much, and dogma and irrationality became once more respectable.

Colquhoun is author of the Improbable Science blog in which he expands upon his exposition of the reasons that we should be concerned about the "New Credulity.":

This matters when people delude themselves into believing that we could be endangered at 45 minutes' notice by non-existent weapons of mass destruction.

It matters when reputable accountants delude themselves into thinking that Enron-style accounting is acceptable. It matters when people are deluded into thinking that they will be rewarded in paradise for killing themselves and others. It matters when bishops attribute floods to a deity whose evident vengefulness and malevolence leave one reeling. And it matters when science teachers start to believe that the Earth was created 6,000 years ago.

In my opinion, the root causes of this problem of fashionable ignorance lies in a number of failures:
● the failure of educational systems to teach critical thinking skills and to instil a love of learning and truth-seeking.
● the failure of the media to make it clear which competing position is valid, rather than boosting ratings by pumping up the volume on issues that supposedly have no clear right side and wrong side.
● the failure of experts to insist that expert knowledge should not be discarded simply because it is opposed by a vociferous, jeering, ignorant rabble of the religiously motivated.
● the failure of those in power – such as Giorgio Dubaya Bush – to eschew endorsement of religiously motivated ignorance.
● the failure of polite liberals to vigorously point out the deluded and deceptive content of creationist pseudoscience, misinformation, and unfounded attacks on scientific knowledge.
● the resultant failure of the lay public to doubt popular bandwagons and to realize that they must be cautious about what or whom to believe in this Misinformation Explosion Age.

And, very difficult or impossible to remedy:
● the failure of religious organizations to ensure that their ministers are well educated and not highly prejudiced (theological colleges are devoted to teaching apologetic deceptiveness).
● the failure of political organizations to ensure that those ministries that are tax exempt are not the religions that preach hatred, lies, and intolerance.
● the failure of search engines, websites providers, and publishers to assess the value of content (for example, search engines can determine whether a site is contaminated by spam and phishing, yet do not provide warning that content is false or unreliable.)

Because peer pressure is not confined to teenagers, the public, as Madison Avenue well knows, will respond to that side of an argument that is presented flashily, passionately, repeatedly, and with the appearance of certainty.

The public, particularly that in America, has been deluged with messages from religion, which is treated with dare-not-criticize protection. As a result, America ranks alongside Iraq in its level of religiosity despite its position as the standard population (IQ=100) against which IQ scores are standardized.

However, the price paid for holding religious belief sacrosanct (if you will excuse the pun) includes the confusion of students, the deterioration of educational standards, and the near demise of critical thinking, knowledge, and rationality.

Most people reduce their efforts to the minimum necessary to meet expectations. So, if we permit continued dumbing down of standards and lowering of educational expectations so as to protect self-esteem, intellectual standards will fall still further. So long as we present the implicit and explicit message that truth does not matter and that every opinion counts, we will maintain the ever decreasing standards.

In nations that value education and intellectuals, politicians who live down to the "average guy" image are not elected to the most powerful executive positions. As the world has recognized with disdain, Giorgio, purchased Ivy League degree or not, would not have appealed to voters. More particularly, he would not have appealed a second time to voters were they able to detect executive deceptions.


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