(In the context of cherry-picking Bible passages.)
In general, burning several thousand tons of oxygen will destroy a bunch of stuff. But funny enough, that's how you send a Saturn V rocket to orbit. And sending a rocket to orbit would seem to be a contradiction of the laws of gravity. Cherry-picking?
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Yes, since you're leaving out deeply relevant context, you are most definitely cherry-picking. Well done, you understand the concept.
Apart from the fact that putting objects into orbit depends on gravity, and if gravity was different it wouldn't work, your post is...
Still incredibly stupid. Are you cherry picking yourself, or truly that ignorant?
Confession time: I almost failed basic physics in school. Even I have to facepalm over your stupidity. Fuel on a rocket to space is not exploding, but burning - and neither does going into space violate the laws of gravity - as the only reason why we even need that fuel is to get over escape velocity from the gravity of this little tiny piece of mud we call our home are this law of gravity.
And what does this guy mean with cherry-picking? Is nature cherry-pciking the laws it sticks to? If so, I would like to fly.
OK, please tell me WTF you are talking about?
I really have to stop reading fstdt in the morning before I've had some caffeine.
Energy expended to overcome gravity ? check
no contradiction here, move along, nothing to see.
And sending a rocket to orbit would seem to be a contradiction of the laws of gravity.
An orbiting object follows the law of gravity perfectly - it's in free-fall. You should have paid attention in 6th grade science.
oxygen will destroy a bunch of stuff. But funny enough, that's how you send a Saturn V rocket to orbit.
You can drown in an inch of water, yet you have to intake a few quarts of water a day to survive.
That would seem to be a contradiction.
Cherry-picking?
(In the context of cherry-picking Bible passages. )
"In general, burning several thousand tons of oxygen will destroy a bunch of stuff. But funny enough, that's how you send a Saturn V rocket to orbit. And sending a rocket to orbit would seem to be a contradiction of the laws of gravity."
image
"Cherry-picking?"
Funny you should say that, Starshit Maxima. Which is exactly what Sakura Kinomoto (atop Optimus Prime's shoulder in the above pic) would say. And she'd be perfectly qualified to ask that, too. 'Sakura' is Japanese for Cherry Blossom.
I love the very next post on the thread:
I'm going to have to conclude that being divinely inspired doesn't grant people useful insights or make them better people, otherwise the Old Testament would have a lot more germ theory and a lot less genocide.
Oops. Looks like someone has never heard of basic rocket-science concepts like escape velocity, which says you need to travel at 11.2 km/s to leave Earth. Here's the thing about gravity, it sucks. Of the four forces that hold the Universe together, gravity is the weakest. It only works when no other force is acting on an object. Surely you've jumped in your life. Isn't that violating the laws of gravity?
Seeing as I've been following the thread that this was quoted from I will say this lacks context.
It's part of a much, much longer discussion trying to prove to Maxima that he is just as guilty of cherry-picking and pulling out of context as those who he accuses of not following the Bible's "true message".
And yes, this is one of Maxima's more brain-dead analogies but without the context it loses much of its flavour.
As someone who loves that site for multiple reasons (at least as useful as Wikipedia in many instances, or as a literature and scifi TV geek) my first reaction was "TV Tropes, nooooo! " I even have an account there, though under a different username.
Then again, I believe they've deleted this section at least once (I believe), so at least they are trying to avoid these kinds of arguments there.
TV Tropes is wonderful. The forumsor "fora" as they call them aren't.
The difference in sanity and rational-thinking between contributors to the wiki and forum is often striking. It almost seems like the the two have an entirely different set of users.
Funn(il)y enough, reality doesn't care what seems to be a contradiction of the laws of gravity to you. If we had the power to violate those laws, we wouldn't need to burn masses of fuel to get rockets into orbit.
This stupidity is so depressing.
The more you know about gravity, the easier it is to find ways to work around it, like the folks at NASA do.
The less you understand about the bible, the easier it is to work around it, like the Christian fanatics do.
@shykid:
They do, actually; there's almost no overlap between those who frequent the fora and those on the wiki. Plus, on the wiki other editors can try and correct some stupidity but a forum post isn't thumped purely for this kind of thing.
You're a moron, ain't ya?
@ Justanotheratheist :
Actually, yes, each stage of a Saturn V does burn oxygen. However, it doesn't burn just oxygen, it burns the oxygen with something else . The first stage burns liquid oxygen (LO2) with kerosene. The second and third stages burn liquid oxygen with liquid hydrogen (LH2).
Why? I'm glad you asked! LO2 + Kerosene gives more thrust than LO2 + LH2, but is less efficient. At the beginning of the launch, you need raw lifting power to get you off the launch pad and up above the atmosphere. Later on, you need greater efficiency so you can build up as much lateral velocity as possible. Only if you're 200 miles up and going 17,500 miles per hour sideways will you be in Low Earth Orbit.
When you "burn" something normally (a gallon of gasoline, a Bible, etc.), you're also burning oxygen with it -- the only difference is, in a bonfire you're getting the oxygen from the air, while in a liquid-fuelled rocket motor you have to carry the oxygen along with you.
Actually, the oxygen is not burning. Combustion is made up of two parts, the fuel, and the oxidant. The hydrogen or kerosene are the girl in the rocket engine, they are what burns. The oxygen does not burn.
Semantics ;-)
Actually, orbit only requires these things here:
I thought orbit was a rather simple concept. But then again, this is a fundie we're talking about.
However, with Newton's cannonball even a fundie should be able to understand:image
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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