I could not discern what the point of the blog was. If you think they are all wrong then come right out and say so, and give the reasons why you think so.

But ancient people observing a bright star has nothing to do with the birth myth or its alleged timing. Why do you think that scientists finding an event around the same time, and which could be what they saw, must be a rationalization of the whole myth? Some of the historical attempts clearly are, but all of them?

The militant mystic is on a 'downvote' spree again. Obviously, evidence of a big flood is not evidence of the mythology.

Your faith is not the standard. No one has to prove a negative. What matters here is the repetitive, obnoxious shoving it in our faces as if it matters cognitively. Take your religious proselytizing somewhere else. It does not belong here.

If you can prove it didn't happen, more power to you. But ask yourself this: since you don't believe it happened, why does it matter?

I have no idea what your point is.

Right now, I am reading The Philosophical Breakfast Club: Four Remarkable Friends Who Transformed Science and Changed the World by L:aura j. Snyder (Broadway Books, 2011). Charles Babbage, William Whewell (who invented the word "scientist" in an argument with Samuel Taylor Coleridge), William Herschel, and Richard Jones fell out with each other after 50 years largely over religious interpretation. Everyone accepted that species come and go. The fossils that were revealed fiirst by coal mining then by canal building established that. Does God create each new species? Babbage the computer maker said that God made a programmable universe that changes its actions according to a scheme invented once and left to run: "the divine clockmaker" of the Enlightenment. They had a hard time giving up the idea of God. Darwin - a frequent guest of Babbage's - eventually did.

"People did see things that were real, and wove them into their myths." Agreed. One interpretation of the "floating rocks" seen by the Argonauts is that it was ice, a phenomenon unknown to the Greeks. "Walrus" means "foreign horse" and "hippopotamus" is "river horse" and the rhinoceros became the "unicorn." The historical Jesus is less well established than those.

"Real events from history that may be confirmed have no implications for a claimed validity of the rest ..." George Washington did not throw a silver dollar across the Potomac, but maybe he did throw a piece of slate across the Rappahnnock. In any case, we are pretty firm in our acceptance of the reality of George Washington. That brings us back to the historical Jesus. As far as I know, the only existing manuscripts - copies of copies - of Josephus Flavius's "History of the Jews" have been altered and re-altered so that no trace of the original can be detected. So, I have no opinion beyond that on the question of who was born when.

"Do you think they are all attempts at rationalization?" Yes. All kinds of things are always haopening in the sky. According to the two different accounts in the New Testament, the range of dates is 4 BCE to 6CE. Use your sky calendar to find your favorite interpretation. Note also, that astronomy aside, modern scientists offer different constellations as being indicative of the Jews: Aries or Pisces? Or was it in the constellation of the Virgin? Take your pick. The first "son of God" born on the Solstice was Octavius Caesar. That was just one element of pagan religion that was adopted into Christianity.

But for personal reasons, aesthetic reasons, from the context of an amateur astronomer who goes out in the backyard with his telescope, I found it more satisfying to write it as I did, versus saying "All you guys are wrong."

It's worse than that: trying to rationalize that the mythical "wise men" were astronomers while claiming evidence from the Bible is itself a real lemon.

The "big picture" was to live for the supernatural and do your duty to the edicts of a god. That does not "translate" to "being productive, inventive and honest with self and others" or rational self interest.

The "emerging consciousness" line is the usual meaningless New Age nonsense. Humans during that era already were fully conscious and aware of themselves. How else do you think they left a record of what they were thinking? But there is no record that they had any concept of or talked in terms of the "automatic brain"; they were torn in a false alternative between range of the moment irrational feelings and following their authoritarian duty because they had no understanding of Aristotelian rational thought and egoism that came later or not recognized or ignored. Today we know how the subconscious is 'programmed' by one's choices in thinking and that emotional reactions are responses to values accepted consciously or by default.

We know that miracles ceased to be taken at face value. What do you think the validity is for the proposed scientific explanations of an astronomical event that was claimed to be observed long ago? Why do the claimed events have to be accepted or rejected on faith or its rejection, separately from the package deal? People did see things that were real, and wove them into their myths. Real events from history that may be confirmed have no implications for a claimed validity of the rest, but not everything in the stories need be made up and in principle it is possible for scientific methods to confirm what they referred to. Why do you say the attempts to find out are attempts to "force fit" events in the sky? Do you think they are all attempts at rationalization?

I am not arguing with him. I followed up with a question because you had not responded yourself.

In my original published article, exerpted for a blog post in 2015, wrote:

"The U.S. Supreme Court has heard several cases involving so-called “creation science.” Those rulings defined the limits of what is permissible for public funds and religion. In 1971, the Supreme Court created “The Lemon Test” named for the plaintiff in Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1971). Writing for the Court’s unanimous (8 to 0) opinion, Justice William J. Brennan established a three-pronged test to determine whether or not government action in religious matters was allowable.
1. There must be no “excessive government entanglement” with religious affairs.
2. No law or action can either advance or inhibit religious practice.
3. Any government action must have a secular legislative purpose.

"The Supreme Court, and lower appellate courts, heard many such cases over the past 35 years. The Lemon Test stands the test of time. If your planetarium is publicly funded, then the “Star of Christmas” cannot be a December holiday show."

You can argue with Lucky all you want, but he did not write the article. MEM.

(1). For about 1500 years, the story of the Star of Bethlehem was accepted as historically accurate because it was divine truth. Miracles were not questioned. With the Renaissance, a new way of looking at the world evolved. Over the centuries, the Christmas Star has been explained as a comet, a meteor or meteor shower, but the conjunction theory has been the most popular.

(2) Rather than attempting to force-fit various events in the sky as seen from Earth, just accept or reject the story on faith or lack of it.

As for the middle part. Since many people are intetested in astronomy, I thought that the many attempts at a natural explanation were interesting on their own merits. A lot of that early research was done by hand. Back in 2010, another graduate student and I placed a book review in the Newsletter of the British Association for the History of Astronomy. We had several software products, including NASA sites, with which we could "run the clock back." It is still not that easy to get the various models to agree at a detail level.

Great piece, thank you.

I attended a presentation at a local planetarium which presented the same theory and which went into detail as to the timing and what happened and why it was significant and even walked through the astronomical calculations as to time/place. It was fascinating. I don't remember all the details, but it happened to be the appearance and positioning of a specific planet within a specific constellation over the course of several days/weeks. The "wise men" were astronomers (outside the Roman Empire) who tracked the motions of the stars and planets and assigned significance to the various positionings as portents, omens, signs, etc. This is further supported because when one reads the accounts in the Bible, neither the common people nor the Jewish leadership (Herod et al) were familiar with "the sign" - meaning it couldn't have been something as ostentatious and obvious as either a comet or supernova.

Actually, if one reads about "shepherds abiding with their flocks", it becomes very precise: late spring during lambing season - typically late March or early April.

Christmas was moved to December to coincide with pagan holidays during the reign of Constantine.

The "M" word is not "dreaded"; mysticism is false and anti-reason. An Ayn Rand forum is not the place to push it.

There is no such thing as "preconscious man" or "extended cognition" bypassing the base of knowledge through the five senses. That is mysticism, not science.

Finally read the article: Extended cognition reminds me of an experiment by Bruce Lipton, cellular biologist, inwhich he extracted the DNA from a single cell and found that the cell lived and functioned quite well without it, abet, only for a few days, (I think-it's been a while).
So, might this explain, Extended Cognition?...seems the information necessary to function is in the cell's membrane and the DNA only dictates what the parameters inwhich the cell exists...(purpose.)

But that doesn't explain how a like cell or species for that matter, on the other side of the planet picks up the new behaviors...for that, at least for now, we have the ether and quantumly entangled wave transfers to account for that.

We might observe similar behavior in preconscious man to some degree...a trait we may have lost or at least weakened extensively in most once we became Conscious or at least less dependent upon that connection and more individually competent...no longer part of the collective.
Sounds like natures rejection of "Liberation Theology"...laughing

We already know that some people make up stories. Mike Molnar is an astronomer who used astronomical data to confirm that historically there was a bright star in the sky that could account for why the stories of the time spoke of such an astronomical event. If the point of the blog was only that some people make up stories, why refer to that research? What was the conclusion supposed to be about that?

This is the way I see it: As more and more people started using the mind instead of acting, behaving, thinking out of fear of consequences from some unseeable force or what we call "Reason".

Thanks to the Greeks.

Mike, you might appreciate this one: Talking about the automatic mode of the brain. Just doing stuff around the house, stuff one usually does everyday seems at times to get done without an awareness of doing them...some call this: "absent mindedness". But that couldn't be, because you obviously were IN you mind but not paying attention to what your brain nor your body was doing at the time.
So, I propose that we start calling these instances: "Absent Brainedness"!...laughing

Thanks Irshultis, hope you have a Lot Less Dr. visits...let 80 be the new 40...wouldn't that be nice.

Saved the article, but also skimmed it the once over. Similar, but perhaps better, to other articles I have read on animal evolution which seems to point to some connectedness, perhaps quantumly where a species, regardless of their distance, changes their behaviors. Two points, one, they are not aware of it, 2 it sure as hell didn't come from the brain as the article seems to point out. That observation for many is the dreaded "M" word, (mystical) but unless they have a "landline" connection, (laughing-reference-Avitar) there is no other way but the quantum, (ether) field that we know of.

Humans on the other hand, conscious ones anyway, are aware of these, let's say: Insights; and have a will to adapt or reject.

I will share if I have additional revelations when I properly digest the article.

Thanks again.

Here is an article that you may find useful dealing with where brains and perhaps minds might exist.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-th...

Have a good 2018. I am looking forward to, maybe, fewer doctor visits, but what can one expect while getting closer to 80.

You just repeated an Objecticist article of faith contrary to an array of known facts. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) did not "introduce" Aristotle to the Church. It was Gerbert d'Aurillac (946-1003) Pope Sylvester II who brought Greek learning back to Europe as a result of his studies among the Muslims of Spain. He also brought the astrolabe and "Arabic" numbers.

Your hatred for religion, rooted though it may be in reason, eclipses too much, not the least of which is that your highly valued Greeks and Romans were just as religious as the people of the Middle Ages. For the Greeks from about 650 BCE to about 300 CE from the Crimea to Spain and from Egypt to England, traditional religion did not have a monopoly on customary ethics. However, remember that Anaxagoras, Aspasia, and Socrates were all tried for impiety. Even after 400 BCE, Diogenes the Cynic engaged and challenged pious people in the streets. That he got away with it marks a change, but that was one full generation maybe a lifetime after your "Golden Age of Athens" in the time of Pericles - when Anaxagoras and Aspasia were tried for impiety.

We call it the Roman Catholic Church for a reason. If you know anything about the sociology of republican Rome you can see the root and rock of the Christian Church in the Vestal Virgins, the elected priests, and the fact that one of the titles of the Pope is "Pontifex Maximus" i.e., the head guy in charge of maintaining all the bridges. (Later, they said that he was a "bridge" between God and man, but that was not the origin of the title.) The very word religion a Latin word has LEX and then legio as a root: to bind, as in ligature. Nothing says "Rome" like "legion" and "law." Roman lictors carried the fasces in ceremonies.

Compared to that, the high Middle Ages were a wild and heady time of new ideas, new customs, new words, new ideas... including the fact that Aristotlean argument moved into the mainstream of Church doctrine via Thomas Aquinas. But there were other people - largely anonymous; some not - who advanced real learning and real science.

And some of it was religiously motivated. After 1000 AD it was clear that Jesus was not coming back anytime soon. ... But they had the means to project the calendar centuries into the future. And centuries later they could see the drift in the numbers. By the time of Thomas Aquinas - who as far as I know did not write about Astronomy - they measured and remeasured the precession of the equinox and the distance to Saturn. They worried about that not because of Christmas, but because of Easter. Until about 1000 AD, the best advice the Church could give was to ask. your Jewish neighbors when Passover is.

I could go on all day about this. Ayn Rand blew through the Middle Ages in two paragraphs of FNI. She had a point to make. But just like her opinions on Darwin and the hemlines of skirts, not everything ex cathedra is error free.

"Objectivists value the scientific method as the cornerstone of the engineering achievements of our civilization from structural trusses and direct current to alternating current and cybernetics. We too easily see the Middle Ages as a time of ignorance and barbarism in which learning was chained to (and by) theology. The reality is more complicated." -- "Science in the Middle Ages" here: https://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/2...

"In fact, because of the religious viewpoint, the very scale of the measurable universe and the comparatively small size of the (spherical; not flat) Earth, were substantiating evidence to the relative unimportance of Earthly affairs. Saturn's orbit was estimated to be 72 million miles from Earth. (McCluskey, page 203)."

Similarly, evidence of "great floods" have nothing to do with the Noahtic Flood.