Weather Forecasting Tricks Series: Timing a Front (2004) | Hacker News Reader

Weather Forecasting Tricks Series: Timing a Front (2004)

theweatherprediction.com

45 pointscbsks16 comments

In addition to this silly page, this website has a bunch of really cool technical details on weather prediction! I know nothing about weather forecasting, but I've enjoyed reading some random articles on it.

Here's an interesting one about how the timing of front affects the forecast: http://www.theweatherprediction.com/habyhints2/424/

Here's another one about forecasting ice on roads: http://www.theweatherprediction.com/habyhints/7/

Websites like this remind me why the Internet is great.

(re-posted at the invitation of dang)

Submitted title was "Does God Control the Weather? (2004)" and submitted URL was http://www.theweatherprediction.com/issues/3/.

As feared, the thread is getting derailed by God in the title (God regularly does that), so let's change to a less activating page. I've picked your first link there.

I like how it goes from rather simplistic ideas to rather nuanced ones as it gets to the last section. Reminds me of some of the fun philosophical chats one would have in high school and college.

Also seconding cbsks’ comment about the rest of this site being a great resource and a work of love, which appears to be still going from the Web 1.0 days

Does humanity-collectively == God? Then maybe someday yeah https://web.archive.org/web/19970429012543/http://www.au.af....

> … it would mean He chooses to hurt and kill people and that is bad.

For humans, hurting other humans is bad. Why would one presume the same applies to the creator of all things? Because God created all things, including all laws of absolute morality, everything he does is right and good. Not just causing harm but doing pretty much anything to humans is entirely within the authority of the creator of humans, since humans exist to fulfill the purpose of their creator (similar to how a programmer's program is created to fulfill the programmer's will).

Hurting other humans is wrong in most cases for other humans because we lack the authority. The Creator, by definition has that authority, not just to hurt but to cause all the good experiences of life.

That said, hurting people is not the same as evil. An Almighty creator who knows all and exists beyond the constraints of time and space has no need to resort to evil.

The Christian God I believe in , chooses to have good will and purpose towards humans even though he has the authority to not do so, because of his unchanging good character. Bad things happen to everyone, that is what justice is for. in it's time God will make all wrong right.

If you believe an almighty God who only does things people like and cannot prevent bad things from happenning,then you don't really believe in the almighty and all knowing part in my opinion.

Exactly. The 'God' discussed here seems to imply ethics which the creator of all things would not be subject to. Why would the creator of all things have an issue with killing folks via weather, since all humans die?

> Why would the creator of all things have an issue with killing folks via weather, since all humans die?

The argument here is generally that the Bible would be wrong in that case because the Bible claims that God is benevolent.

The point is to show that either one of two things is true: Either the bible is wrong or God does not exist.

> The point is to show that either one of two things is true: Either the bible is wrong or God does not exist.

Since the Bible says God exists, that's really “one of one things is true: the Bible is wrong”. But, since the Bible contradicts itself, you don’t need to go so far out of your way to prove that it is wrong.

You are applying your own understanding and rules of benevolence to an Almighty creator you cannot even begin to understand. Let me spin it to you this way, if humans do evil then should an Almighty and Benevolent God ignore such evil (become unjust) or prevent such things from happenning? (Take away free will). The very first chapters of the Bible tell you bad things are a consequence of free will applied in an evil way (sin). Directly or inderctly all these things you consider "bad" are a consequence of sin. Even bad things that happen to innocent people happen because such evil, like a disease was introduced into the world by humans.

> You are applying your own understanding and rules of benevolence to an Almighty creator you cannot even begin to understand.

Is there anything a God entity could do that would cause you to label it not benevolent? If there isn't, then it appears that the word has sorta lost all practical meaning.

I've always found the "all-powerful AND all-knowing" to be a contradiction in terms. Either God is capable of learning new things, and is thus not all-knowing; or God is all-knowing and incapable of learning new things, and is thus not all-powerful.

I disagree. It is the most reasonable conclusion that originating all things means the originator can do all things with those things and knows all there is to know about the orignated things.

If people are interested in this topic, I highly recommend that they explore the "Problem of Evil" page (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/evil/) on Stanford's Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

The problem of evil is generally considered the number one argument against the existence of a powerful benevolent God.

Does god control when I go to the toilet?

Yes.

So, Holy crap?

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