Is Bible the word of God?

Luke speaks of the ancestors of Jesus from Joseph to Adam in Luke 3:23-38. Matthew also speaks of the ancestors of Jesus from Abraham till his (step)dad Joseph in Matthew 1:2-16. Both Luke and Matthew has accurate lists from Adam to King David and Abraham to King David respectively.

But after that; the list of ancestors from King David (son of Jesse) till Jesus Christ given by Luke is not same as the Matthew’s list from King David to Jesus Christ.

Luke’s list from David to Jesus has 43 names: David, Nathan, Mattathah, Menan, Melea, Eliakim, Jonan, Joseph, Judah, Simeon, Levi, Matthat, Jorim, Eliezer, Jose, Er, Elmodam, Cosam , Addi, Melchi, Neri, Shealtiel, Zerubbabel, Rhesa, Joannas, Judah, Joseph, Semei, Mattathiah, Maath, Naggai, Esli, Nahum, Amos, Mattathiah, Joseph, Janna, Melchi, Levi, Matthat, Heli, Joseph and Jesus.

Matthew’s list from David to Jesus has only 28 names: David, Solomon, Rehoboam, Abijah, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Joram, Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, Manasseh, Amon, Josiah, Jeconiah , Shealtiel, Zerubbabel, Abiud, Eliakim, Azor, Zadok, Achim, Eliud, Eleazar, Matthan, Jacob, Joseph and Jesus.

Moreover, only 6 ancestors appear in both of these lists: David, Shealtiel, Zerubbabel, Eliakim, Joseph, Jesus. Shealtiel & Zerubbabel coincidentally appear in order in both of the lists. However Eliakim is way off by many generations when the two lists are compared.

Assuming that Luke is more credible because he was a scholar and better informed, could it be possible that Matthew did not mention 37 out of 43 names in his list of ancestors from David to Jesus, out of ignorance, and Luke added it later on, in his own version of the Gospel? But then why would Matthew add 22 totally unrelated names to his list?

Or assuming that Matthew is more credible because he was with Christ, could it be possible that Luke did not mention 22 out of 28 names in his list of ancestors from David to Jesus, because of some reason. But then why would he (Luke) add 37 unrelated names to the list of Jesus’ ancestors?

Or is it because, Matthew & Luke independently made up a false list to make up a connection between King David & Jesus so that Jesus’ stories could be made to fulfill the Emmanuel prophecy of Isaiah?

Many evangelists today claim that Bible is The Word of God and hence does not self contradict or give out erroneous claims. They are wrong, as you can see from the above observation. I bet many evangelists would now start claiming that Bible is just The Word of God and that they never claimed that it is inerrant. And that the errors exist in Bible because of the fact that, human beings were the instruments of God when his word was written. And that men are prone to mistakes. And that The Word of God must be taken figuratively and not in the literal sense. (Then what right do they have to encroach into matters of science?)

Anyways, errors of this magnitude i.e. 37 out of 43 names & 22 out of 28 names are too high to have caused by honest men when they try to communicate the word of God.

Cherry Picking

Using common sense to figure out what is literal and figurative in the bible as many evangelists do today, requires arbitrary line drawing. Don’t you see how this works? The universe is earth-centric… wait, science disproved that, so that must have been a metaphor. The earth (and universe) are only 6000 years old… wait science disproved that, I guess that must have been a metaphor too. I’ve got an idea… why not look at this like you would any other source of information: fairly. If the claims made in the bible show themselves to be wrong, then stop making excuses for it and treat it like it is: an unreliable source of information.

The only reason people started believing that the bible should be interpreted symbolically is because all of its claims turned out to be ludicrous… not because the bible states or implies that it should be interpreted this way.This is a dishonest and bias way to analyze data. If I came up with an explanation for something which was later disproved, you wouldn’t automatically assume that my data was just figurative would you? So why do people do this with the bible? If you look at anything in a figurative sense, you can make any crazy statement a truth.

God is just the line in the sand which separates the known from the unknown. As science continues to answer these unknowns, the line keeps getting drawn further and further back until God becomes obsolete. The only important question left will be, “are you willing to let go?”i{content: normal !important}

Do Windows users dream of Confirmation Dialogs?

Vista is out in the open. My friends are all mesmerized by it. Never-seen-before nice GUI, better security through informed consent and everything else. I tell them, Mac OS X has been rendering desktops using graphics cards for 5 years now. They tell me, everyone is using Microsoft, so will we. I tell them, every other OS has had better (Unix based) security (even Mac OS X uses *nix kernel) than Windows for last 30 years and MS is just re-inventing it. They tell me, Windows has viruses just because it is so wide spread.

I bark, but the MS caravan moves on. After 6 years of barking, I realize the truth: People get what they deserve. They deserve inferior technology. They deserve to spend their lives scanning 300 GB hard disks for spy wares and viruses.

Clicking through endless confirmation dialogs, even for the most trivial task like copying text in Vista, they become zombies when faced with serious confirmation dialogs. They end up clicking the leftmost button without reading through the message. You have clicked Yes. Are you sure you want to do this? Yes, No, OK, Cancel, Abort, Retry?

I get what I deserve too. I don’t read security advisories because most of it is for Windows. Any security issues I have on Ubuntu is patched automatically and more quickly than Windows machines. Automatix helps me install everything I need to use files & hardware from Microsoft, Adobe, Apple, Sony etc. at the click of a button.

New hardware doesn’t require me to search for drivers. Recently, I plugged in a scanner to a Windows machine and it went on forever to search for a driver. The Linux machine at my workplace just worked well with the scanner. No prompts, no nothing, it just works. My new (bought on 22nd Dec 2006) iPod nano turns on the RhythmBox Music player on Linux, it does everything what iTunes can. The shared printer at the end of the hall in a Windows network just works, I don’t know how. I see my friend’s Windows based shared folders with no configuration. I install Java Mobile Edition applications I develop on Netbeans for Linux into Motorola SLVR by just plugging it and drag-dropping the file.

My friends who say Linux has no games, play in PSPs and Xbox 360s. They don’t get it. Who plays games on desktops these days? Only losers do.

Can Chess game states be thought to be elements in a vector space?

Recently, I read an article by M. Chaves of Universidad de Costa Rica titled CHESS PURE STRATEGIES ARE PROBABLY CHAOTIC. http://arxiv.org/pdf/cs.CC/9808001

From the article:
To describe a particular state in chess we use a 64 dimensional vector space, so that to each square of the board we associate a coordinate that takes a different value for each piece occupying it. A possible convention could be, for instance, the following: A value of zero for the coordinate of the dimension corresponding to a square means that there is no piece there. For the White pieces the convention would be: a value of 1 for the coordinate means the piece is a pawn, of 2 means it is a pawn without the right to the en passant move, of 3 that it is a knight, of 4 a bishop, of 5 a rook, of 6 a queen, of 7 a king, and of 8 a king without the right to castle. The values for the Black pieces would be the same but negative.

The question I have is:
Is he right? Shouldn’t vector spaces obey the laws of vector addition and scalar multiplication? Sticking to his description, adding two chess board configurations do not lead to another board configuration… Multiplying a board configuration matrix with a scalar does not lead to another board configuration.

To whomever it may concern:

This must be one of those really life changing moments, I’ve had. I am now a Permanent Resident of Singapore, and the process was finally complete last Monday, when I got an Identity Card.

I will become eligible for citizenship in 2009. Singapore citizens have benefits like cheaper education, health care, taxes etc. Singaporeans citizens also do not require a visa to enter the United States of America. Other added benefits include a free-trade agreement with the US and flexible company laws which make entrepreneurship easy. Citizens can also work for the Defense & related services.

I am planning to accept citizenship here and give up my citizenship with India, unless something really dramatic happens, like the ISRO letting me go to the moon or something…

Alone At Philips

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