by corrie54 191 Replies latest watchtower scandals
Please, if all you are going to do is a copy-paste fest and imagine it passes as an argument or a discussion, don't bother.
Link to things that you believe back up your claims but only as part of explaining your position. A copy/paste of a web page is not an argument.
Determining the accuracy of the mayan calendar
http://www.webexhibits.org/calendars/calendar-mayan.html
Although there were only 365 days in the Haab year, the Mayas were aware that a year is slightly longer than 365 days, and in fact, many of the month-names are associated with the seasons; Yaxkin, for example, means "new or strong sun" and, at the beginning of the Long Count, 1 Yaxkin was the day after the winter solstice, when the sun starts to shine for a longer period of time and higher in the sky. When the Long Count was put into motion, it was started at 7.13.0.0.0, and 0 Yaxkin corresponded with Midwinter Day, as it did at 13.0.0.0.0 back in 3114 B.C.E. The available evidence indicates that the Mayas estimated that a 365-day year precessed through all the seasons twice in 7.13.0.0.0 or 1,101,600 days.
We can therefore derive a value for the Mayan estimate of the year by dividing 1,101,600 by 365, subtracting 2, and taking that number and dividing 1,101,600 by the result, which gives us an answer of 365.242036 days, which is slightly more accurate than the 365.2425 days of the Gregorian calendar.
(This apparent accuracy could, however, be a simple coincidence. The Mayas estimated that a 365-day year precessed through all the seasons twice in 7.13.0.0.0 days. These numbers are only accurate to 2-3 digits. Suppose the 7.13.0.0.0 days had corresponded to 2.001 cycles rather than 2 cycles of the 365-day year, would the Mayas have noticed?)
In ancient times, the Mayans had a tradition of a 360-day year. But by the 4th century B.C.E. they took a different approach than either Europeans or Asians. They maintained three different calendars at the same time. In one of them, they divided a 365-day year into eighteen 20-day months followed by a five-day period that was part of no month. The five-day period was considered to be unlucky.
When Europeans first discovered North America - kinda says all I need to know. It was 16th century Europeans who had civilisation advanced enough to make ocean-going boats that enabled them to sail thousands of miles, not the other way around.
1. Many of their cultures were matrilineal - why is this an achievement?! XD
This meant that men and women shared duties and power equally - no, a matrilineal culture means women have the power, inherited from mother to daughter.
4. They were innovative doctors - erm, okay ...
is an argument just blathering on with unsubstantiated opinions?
Europe and Native America both had ways in which one was superior. Killing off over 90% of natives essentially ended the competition so only comparisons made pre-genocide have any validity. Native Americans come off quite well in such a comparison.
European accomplishments are counterbalanced by genocides, unprecedented wars, weapons of mass destruction, destruction of biosphere, exploitation of rest of world's population, etc. etc. Progress? Certainly, but perhaps on the whole a pyrrhic victory.
So they did what every other civilization did - had a calendar based on the seasons and the sun. Being able to count days is far less advanced than building clocks to model the planets and tell the time accurately throughout the day and to determine your location accurately from astronomical observations.
You seem to have misunderstood the point - if I say that their civilization wasn't as advanced as others, it doesn't change things if you find something that was clever or could even be considered advanced. It still doesn't make their overall accomplishments anywhere close to those of other civilizations.
It's a fact North American civilization didn't accomplish as much and was not as advanced as many other civilizations, notably the Europeans.
Some of this is down to IQ, some is down to the accident of chance of them not having the ability to "industrialize" like other cultures did (they had no animals to provide power, unlike Europe and Asia).
Although the arrival of white europeans was devastating much of that was accidental and the inevitable consequence of two groups being split off for a long period finally re-uniting. Diseases were exchanged that impacted both cultures and killed many because neither had immunity built up.
Blaming Europeans for their Smallpox epidemic makes as much sense as blaming Asians for Flu and Black Death.
Europe and Native America both had ways in which one was superior. Killing off over 90% of natives essentially ended the competition so only comparisons made pre-genocide have any validity. Native Americans come off quite well in such a comparison.
The estimates of pre-columbian population of North America varies massively, from 2.1 million to 18 million (with some of those higher ones seeming to be revisionist based on ideology more than science).
The lower figures seem to have more backing in science and genetics and these also show that they had a large population decrease before whites arrived.
Europeans did not kill 90% of Native Americans. But most Native Americans killed 100% of those they conquered (except for the women of course who would be raped and taken as slaves). But obviously, they never did anything wrong, only white people do bad. Right?
Q. is it only white people responsible for wars and pollution? Even though white countries account for less pollution than many others? Do you only count the negatives and none of the positives? If you believe this then you just may be racist.
You seem to believe in collective guilt based on color.
I agree that someone is definitely missing the point.
Ignorance is bliss and willful ignorance is not worth arguing against.
I'm truly amazed at the state of humanity and the persistence of the "we" vs "them" mindset propped up by unsubstantiated "facts".
Whites (and maybe honorary whites) are the best! Our superiority cannot be denied!
Ignorance is bliss and willful ignorance is not worth arguing against - possibly some projection going on here, I reckon.
the persistence of the "we" vs "them" mindset propped up by unsubstantiated "facts" - It's a fact that black sprinters of W. African descent dominate sprint events. That's beyond dispute. It's also a fact that people of W. African heritage/descent have a higher mean % of fast-twitch muscle fibers than other ethnic groups. You may not like these facts but they're facts nonetheless.
It's not just racists or white people in general who know that there are differences between races. When I was at uni, I was friends with a Cameroonian student. We'd hang out and talk once in a while. She was a nice young woman. I remember we were chatting one time in the library and we must have been talking about exercising, and I asked her if she liked swimming. And she said, and I quote, "Phil, we can't swim!" ... 'we' meaning black people. I'd heard this before, a myth that black people were crap swimmers. And she believed this, too, and she's black herself. I don't know how true that is but the reason I mention this anecdote is that it's not just whites who know that there are differences between races.
Whites (and maybe honorary whites) are the best! Our superiority cannot be denied! - nonsense!
Whites aren't the superior race.
In fact, no race is superior to another.
The thing is....that is not really true. This would make sense if we were actually created by God, where he would somehow make us all the same.
Think is - it really is true.
Quote: There was amazing technical advance in ancient Egypt, China. but somehow nothing compares with the advancement that humankind has seen during the dominance of the pale race, including the jewish people of course.
This where these sort of arguments start to fall apart, This poster wants to describe Jewish people as "pale." If we accept (for a moment) Jewish mythological origin stories as true, Abraham is described as coming from Ur in Mesopotamia, which means that Abraham was likely a Sumerian or a Semite. Whether or not that story has an truth in it. the Jews can only be described as West Asian ( if it matters). To describe contemporary European Jews as belonging to 'pale skinned' group may be true now, but that situation could only have come about through intermarriage (even if it was only with local converts). The skin color of Jesus and his followers was most likely darker than that of any 'pale' group. And likely many of the contemporary Moslem people of Palestine had the same ancestors as Jesus. The only difference is that at some point in history they found it convenient to convert to Islam. And likely they are 'purer' ethnically than any of the contemporary Jews that rule modern Israel. Paradoxical isn't it?
Can we (yet) know for sure the skin color of any ancestral people? How many 'white' Europeans have Asian ancestors, as a result of the western migration of the peoples in and to the north of modern China?
What is really under discussion here are two things. What has been the impact of the modern nations that form Europe on the world? And, in the so-called Industrial revolution, how many things are genuinely new discoveries?
