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We've asked you many times before to stop conducting religious flamewars on HN. If you do it again we will ban your account.

Some of your comments on other topics have been quite good, but there is zero place for this here.

I will respect the rules here, I'd just really like to know what they are, specifically:

Does it mean that discussing the influence of the religious views (even, or especially? of very large groups or even most popular of them) on the topics discussed is not allowed?

Does it mean that it is not allowed writing personal view on such topics?

Is the goal to have only the comments that are never downvoted?

Is the goal to have only the comments that nobody finds "offensive"?

Is it allowed for somebody who is not religious to discuss the topics from his own point of view (the point of view of a person who certainly doesn't believe in any of the religion which can feel "offended")? To compare, would you allow a homosexual to discuss any topic from his homosexual point of view, even if some religions are "offended" by mere existence of homosexuals? If you give homosexual these rights, why not giving the same to atheists? Only because even more people can get offended?

I understand that the "rules" are something that grows with the use, so even if they weren't openly written, it would be nice if they were openly accessible and readable.

(I honestly don't see where I actually offended somebody (except for expressing a different view, I actually try to discuss to the facts)).

Thank you.

We're not bureaucrats or legalists, and I can't imagine anything more soul-destroying than trying to make HN's rules that specific. It would drive me mad.

Instead, try to internalize the spirit of this place. Religious flamewars are the last thing we want. Arguments about the falsehood of entire religions are sure flamewars. Please just don't go there.

It wouldn't really be a surprise if someone denied your eisegetical interpretation of scripture ("in the Bible Pi [is] exactly 3"). Those creating the "sea" in the passage usually referenced to this end clearly were able to do it, there's no reason for us to consider they didn't have as accurate a definition of the ratio as anyone else.

Of note is the tradition of numerology in Hebrew texts and the assertion that the passage on the sea includes an adjustment that renders a better approximation with a fractional percentage of error.

http://www.answering-islam.org/Religions/Numerics/pi.html for example.

>"Still no cigar, 3.139 is still not more a "final truth" than 3."

Were you expecting a casual observer to give a fully accurate (!) rendering of the exact measurements of an artefact; moreover were you expecting those measurements to reveal a more accurate rendering of pi when the units are "about as long as a forearm" and "about as wide as a hand"?

> Were you expecting a casual observer to give a fully accurate (!) rendering of the exact measurements of an artefact;

No, I surely wouldn't, but I would expect from all-knowing God to pass any fact that wasn't commonly known at that time as a proof of his all-knowledge (like, "there are atoms" or "the speed of light is..."). Irrational numbers or some really exceptional (for these times) approximation of some constant would also be a nice "touch". And not to put in one of 10 commandments slaves, women and donkeys together. But He surely knew his priorities.

And note that there are enough of people that really consider and study the Bible as the source of such "all-time truths."

Your tone seems quite petty. The Bible's purpose is not to be a treatise on science; it is seeking to communicate deeper truths, not the exact nature or value of Pi. Knowing that Pi is an irrational number has not removed war, greed, nor poverty.

Just out of curiosity, what deeper truths?

> Just out of curiosity, what deeper truths?

For the Christian bible? Well, ignoring any theological points for their own sake, I suppose it's generally accepted as attempting to imply that seeking power, riches, and glory for their own sake is futile at best if not evil and wrong, and that instead the noblest path consists of approaching the world using humility, self-sacrifice, and respect for the intrinsic dignity of one's fellow man (even strangers, foreigners, and one's traditional enemies) and one ought to pursue what is right regardless of the persecution and oppression one faces for doing so.

It supports these ideas most obviously through the headline New Testament events of the Incarnation, which puts a supreme omnipotent omniscient Divine Godhead who is purportedly worthy of all glory and honor into a dirty barn with the animals as a helpless infant, and the Passion, which flogs him brutally before crucifying him as a sacrifice for what the theology represents as the crimes of others.

However, there are also attempts towards these deeper truths in books like Wisdom and Ecclesiastes:

"I undertook great projects: I built houses for myself and planted vineyards. I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. I made reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees. I bought male and female slaves and had other slaves who were born in my house. I also owned more herds and flocks than anyone in Jerusalem before me. I amassed silver and gold for myself, and the treasure of kings and provinces. I acquired male and female singers, and a harem as well - the delights of a man’s heart. I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. In all this my wisdom stayed with me.

I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my labor, and this was the reward for all my toil. Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun."

>I would expect from all-knowing God to pass any fact that wasn't commonly known at that time as a proof of his all-knowledge //

Not wanting to extend this beyond the bounds of what is appropriate on HN but a simple (and simplistic) counter-argument is that this is exactly what God does - he reveals through inspiration of various people ideas that lead to revelation. So for example giving Newton the idea that white light was composite. We by our limitations seem necessarily to be unable to cope with a conception of the entire truth of the nature of the universe and so all our understanding is always going to be shadows on the cave wall. Revelation of the full truth of any one facet seems impossible? If the Bible said "there are atoms" then you might well argue, but it doesn't mention electroweak and strong forces, etc., etc. ad infinitum.

Revelations out of context, like telling a Phoenician what the permittivity of free-space is, would almost certainly be dismissed as nonsensical wittering. Indeed that's what happened to the Ancient Greek conception (wrong as it was) of atoms. Perhaps in a millennium or so man will look down on the atomic model as limited in the same way we look on the classical elements.

Re the 10th commandment, things you shouldn't wrongly desire (ie covet); given it's an short list of examples of things not to covet I can't see that there's much significance in those things being together other than that they're examples of things that people look at (even today) and think "I want that". Donkey (chamawr, https://www.blueletterbible.org/niv/exo/20/1/t_conc_70017) is as likely chosen for the alliteration with (chamad). If I say to you "don't look at your neighbours beautiful wife, his truck [ox] or flash car [donkey], his servants or friends [the word used in Exodus can mean either] and lust after them for yourself instead" will you accuse me of considering the things desired for to be equal somehow.

Yes, yes, "god works in mysterious ways," "people aren't ready" "they can't never know the truth anyway" etc. Doesn't hold water: religious people were quite good in preserving through the centuries a lot of material that they didn't understand.

The "ten commandments" were given from the God "in stone" and it is claimed that the texts in the Bible are the preserved words received directly from the God (not to mention that Muslims claim that the whole Quran are all the direct words of Allah).

Only whatever people preserved turned out to be trivial, never "deep" for our current knowledge. And often not only trivial, but flat-out wrong (like in Islam, that semen is produced "between the backbone and the ribs," really) so much that now the religious must claim that most of that "knowledge" was not meant to be verbatim anyway.

>so much that now the religious must claim that most of that "knowledge" was not meant to be verbatim anyway //

You know that's a very recent turn to read scripture literally? The idea that figurative interpretation is somehow a reaction to scientific challenge would be easy for you to dispel with a modicum of research.

>it is claimed that the texts in the Bible are the preserved words received directly from the God //

Not by mainstream Christianity or the Bible itself (which claims scripture is inspired by God).

> You know that's a very recent turn to read scripture literally?

Yes, and if you read my first now unfortunately gray comment, I addressed exactly the literal readings as those that limit what's easy to pass in the US: I wrote that Pi "doesn't question the literal interpretation of the Bible, 6000 years and all that. So let's celebrate that innocent number." It's right there.

> >it is claimed that the texts in the Bible are the preserved words received directly from the God //

> Not by mainstream Christianity or the Bible itself

I've meant the texts of the "ten commandments" in the Bible (you've cut the first part of my sentence, it's obvious it's about the ten commandments and I've mentioned the whole Quran as the exact words as believed by Muslims(!)) not the whole Bible, of course! If you're a believer, do you consider the text of the "ten commandments" (e.g. in Deuteronomy 5:4–21) as the actual words of God or not? Were these words exactly preserved or are they already "corrupted" in the Bible?

> US has the Pi day

The US has a 'Pi day' in the same way it has a Jedi holiday on May 4th, a bunch of geeks said it for a while then more people just started saying it.

As in, the US doesn't have a 'Pi day', making the rest of your post a pointless rant against something you don't like that wasn't related until you tried to relate them.

> the US doesn't have a 'Pi day'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi_Day

"On March 12, 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a non-binding resolution (HRES 224),[4] recognizing March 14, 2009 as National Pi Day.[10]"

The easy common acceptance versus some other possibilities is still telling. I actually don't consider it "more US" than the "Black Friday" for which I've received an equivalent number of the sales/promotion mails.

The US House also recognized Ramadan so your politically safe assertion continues to fall apart.

A non-binding resolution btw, does not turn it into a National observance. It's a recognition of more people saying it.

> The easy common acceptance versus some other possibilities is still telling.

Only to you because it supports your viewpoint.

> to you because it supports your viewpoint.

Please excuse me this time for trying to support my viewpoint, even if you seem not to have expected it, I usually do try exactly that, to present the arguments in support of my viewpoint. I apologize.

> The US House also recognized Ramadan so your politically safe assertion continues to fall apart.

How? Isn't that "recognition" (inviting for a dinner there) even weaker than the Pi Day one?

I still claim (as in my grayed post above) that the "Pi Day" is one of convenient days to which it's easy to have an agreement in the US, even among the religious, and that sadly it would be harder for a lot of newer science. And that that is the main reason why on the Pi Day we have articles like the one we comment, "Why Pi matters."