why people who don't believe in God or pray,etc. feel ...

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OK, I am NOT going to claim any expertise here, but aren't you discussing a reference in a BC section of the Bible?

Wouldn't the use of "3" be a primitive rounding of pi? It isn't actual pi, is it? Just an early form of the concept?

Well, I felt it was an attack because I wasn't demanding anything that wasn't being freely given. I was not harassing the original poster in any way that I could see. And like I said before, she was freely giving an explanation and I was not able to understand it, so I repeatedly asked for clarification. She has since stopped posting about it and I have not been asking her privately nor publicly for further explanation. So I did, in fact, "back off." I feel you came to the defense of something that wasn't there. That is why I was offended by your post. And when you said "you must be a Christopher Hitchens fan," I felt that was a personal attack. It would be the same as if I said "Oh, well you must be a Christian, huh?" I took it as a blanket statement that ignored everything I said and assumed I was simply parroting another person. And while I do enjoy his books, I will freely admit that I think he is one of the more abrasive atheists in the public forum, especially after a few drinks... And I took offense at the comparison, since I don't feel I was acting that way. He also tends to swear a lot, and I didn't.
Am I wrong to keep asking for clarification on something if I don't understand or disagree with it? Again, I am not being sarcastic, I am genuinely asking.

The directions for constructing Solomon's Temple alegedly came directly from God. Now either God got it wrong, Solomon got it wrong, or the scribes who wrote the account got it wrong. No matter who it was, the Biblical value for Pi is incorrect and does not represent reality.

:: The Bible is in error when it comes to the value of Pi.

Last edited by Fnord on 12 Dec 2008, 2:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

That wasn't me. I didn't say that.

Does that help?

Now that I know you had all that connected, I understand better why you took things as you did.

Lol, I see your point.

But I don't take the Bible THAT literally.

While I don't think the Bible is a good source of anything, especially knowledge and truth, I have always felt that the "they got pi wrong" argument was a piss-poor one. We praise lots of ancient civilizations for getting other scientific and mathematical theories "close" and I think this is just nitpicking. The pyramids are *almost" perfectly square at the base, and the Egyptians are praised for that, for example.

My mistake on that point, sorry. I still feel that you were accusing me of badgering somebody when I wasn't, though.

Sadly, many people do. Even worse, many people use their own interpretations of the Bible as the means to justify bigotry, genocide, slavery, and other atrocities they commit on other people.

These are people who worship Religion instead of any super-natural being.

Have you ever seen a bowl? I have a bowl sitting beside me here. Now this bowl looks to be round and circular. I would not however say that it's a circle. I don't have a tape measure that measures exact distance from point A to point B to test to see if it is indeed a circle. Even if it turned out not to be a circle, I would still consider it round and circular. Adjectives are simply words to complement the noun.

As I said, lot of people have AS when it comes to religion.

I think part of the problem with people that take the Bible literally is that they haven't read 90% of it. The see the touchy feel-good parts and are fine with that. But what about the story of Jephtha, or the rules for slavery? Or (one of my favorites to point out) the part about how you can rape a woman, pay her dad some money, and she has to marry you? And I realize of lot of the bad stuff is in the OT, but what a lot of people don't realize is that Jesus says in several places, with no room for interpretation, that the OT is still the unalterable word of God and MUST be followed.

Of course I've seen a bowl! And of course I know that it is not precisely circular. But a 5% variance in it's diameter would be obvious to even the untrained eye, and the bowl would just as obviously be an ellipse.

In your example, you make no measurements, and you rely solely on your own subjective observations and opinions. Thus, your conclusion is not valid from an engineering or scientific standpoint. This is not to say that your conclusion is invalid for you and your intended purposes for the bowl - it is only a bowl, after all.

The value of Pi is approximately 3.1415926535897932384626433832795...

Here are a few common values for Pi and their percentages of accuracy to Pi's actual value:

The value of 355 ÷ 113 is 99.99999% accurate
(3.1415929203539823008849557522124...).

The value of 22 ÷ 7 is 99.96% accurate
(3.1428571428571428571428571428571...).

The value of 3.14 is 99.95% accurate.

While the value of 3 is only 95.5% accurate.

It may be useful to note that the value of Pi, when only 7 digits are used ("3.141593"), this is still sufficient to circumnavigate the Earth and arrive within 100 inches of your starting point!

Yes, I know that my observations are not on mathematical value. But my point still stands, I don't believe we can say that a round object has to be a circle though, nor the same with a circular object being a circle. To believe construction of objects during that time would be precise... yeah, I just can't imagine them doing it.

But if they were following instructions, which were provided by the Most Perfectly Precise Being Himself, then their results would have been equally precise.

The fact still remains that the Biblical value for Pi does not match the real-world value for Pi. Thus, the Bible is not the innerant and infallible instrument that it's believers claim it to be.

Yeah, it IS incredible that they believe that the current bible is innerant though NONE agree with one another(FACT), language translations are NOT precise(FACT), there have been typos(FACT), early ones were done 100% by HAND(FACT).

HECK, I know it is not from the bible, but an early document said something that looked like "sangreal"! They translated it as "san greal"(HOLY GRAIL)! WHAT is that? Does anyone TRULY know? It COULD have been "sang real"(royal blood)! Just a minor example. Hey, Compare the living bible to the NIV. YEAH, I KNOW the living bible is merely an interpretation, but it shows how things can change. Even the king james and niv have some differences. How much more different is the latin vulgate?

An interesting article on PI.. http://www.curiousmath.com/index.php?na ... cle&sid=90

Note that it says when you calculate pi by hand you get either 3.1 or 3.2

Which would have been the minimal standard in ancient times.