Why are atheists so hung up on this "pi" thing?

Question

"One of either the circumference or diameter is not rational.If you have a piece of string exactly 1 inch long and you make it into a perfect circle, the diameter of that circle will be an irrational value.You could try to measure it, but no matter how accurately you did measure it,it would still not be quite accurate enough.So you can never know exactly what the diameter is just by measuring.And if you took that string and made a diameter with it,the circumference would be irrational and you would never be able to measure the circumference accurately enough.Whatever you measured would be close but not exact.It's the same problem with a right angled triangle with short sides exactly 1 inch long:The long side is an irrational number.You can't find out what it is by measuring.You can get close,but it's still not exact.The only way to calculate the exact length of these things is with algebra."
http://mathforum.org/dr.math/


Are you seriously condemning Hiram for not doing algebra?

“In modern English, animals that ‘chew the cud’ are called ruminants. They hardly chew their food when first eaten, but swallow it into a special stomach where the food is partially digested. Then it is regurgitated, chewed again, and swallowed into a different stomach. Animals which do this include cows, sheep and goats, and they all have four stomachs. Coneys and rabbits are not ruminants in this modern sense.
However, the Hebrew phrase for ‘chew the cud’ simply means ‘raising up what has been swallowed’. Coneys and rabbits go through such similar motions to ruminants that Linnaeus, the father of modern classification (and a creationist), at first classified them as ruminants. Also, rabbits and hares practise refection, which is essentially the same principle as rumination, and does indeed ‘raise up what has been swallowed’. The food goes right through the rabbit and is passed out as a special type of dropping.

These are re-eaten, and can now nourish the rabbit as they have already been partly digested.
It is not an error of Scripture that ‘chewing the cud’ now has a more restrictive meaning than it did in Moses’ day. Indeed, rabbits and hares do ‘chew the cud’ in an even more specific sense. Once again, the Bible is right and the skeptics are wrong.
God, through Moses, was giving instructions that any Israelite could follow. It is inconceivable that someone familiar with Middle-Eastern animal life would make an easily corrected mistake about rabbits, and also inconceivable that the Israelites would have accepted a book as Scripture if it were contrary to observation, which it is not.
Addendum
After my article (above) was published in Creation magazine, I came across an article on the Internet with more detail than was possible in a family magazine. This article vindicates what I claimed, and backs it up with detailed lexical analysis.

The relevant section is below:
13. Rabbits do not chew their cud
LEV 11:6 And the hare, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.
[An obscure bibliosceptic called Meritt claims:]
Gerah, the term which appears in the MT means (chewed) cud, and also perhaps grain, or berry (also a 20th of a sheckel, but I think that we can agree that that is irrelevant here). It does not mean dung, and there is a perfectly adequate Hebrew word for that, which could have been used. Furthermore, the phrase translated ‘chew the cud’ in the KJV is more exactly ‘bring up the cud’. Rabbits do not bring up anything; they let it go all the way through, then eat it again. The description given in Leviticus is inaccurate, and that’s that. Rabbits do eat their own dung; they do not bring anything up and chew on it.
[Response by J.P. Holding:]
‘MT’ is the Masoretic text, which is a late Hebrew transmission of the OT.

Meritt is apparently quite proud of himself here, having gone—for the one and only time—to the original Hebrew for answers. (Guess translation issues are important after all.) Too bad he didn’t dig a little further.
Two issues are at hand: the definition of ‘cud’ and that of ‘chewing’. Let’s take a close look at the Hebrew version of both. Cuds first, chewies afterwards.
First, gerah (or gehrah) is indeed the word used here, and—this is important—it is used nowhere in the Old Testament besides these verses in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. We have only this context to help us decide what it means in terms of the Mosaic law.
Second, the process rabbits go through is called refection, and it is not just ‘dung’ that the rabbits are eating, which is probably why the Hebrew word for ‘dung’ was not used here. Indeed, contrary to Meritt’s assertion, that the word gehrah also means 1/20th of a shekel actually gives us a hint here! 1/20th of a shekel is of little worth, but it does have worth.

Where the word for ‘dung’ is used in the Bible, it implies something defiled, unclean, or useless. But in lapine terms, ‘dung’ is not useless: It contains pellets of partially digested food, which rabbits chew on (along with the waste material—UGH!) in order to give their stomachs another go at getting the nutrients out. (It’s an efficient way of getting more vitamins and nutrients, we’re told, but I think I’ll stick with my Flintstones chewables, thank you very much.) The pellets have some minute value, much as 1/20th of a shekel has some value.
Contrast this with what cows and some other animals do, rumination, which is what we moderns call ‘chewing the cud’. They regurgitate partially digested food in little clumps called cuds, and chew it a little more after while mixing it with saliva. (This also, presumably, helps them get the most out of their food, but I’m not trying it.)
So, let’s see … partially digested food. Partially digested food. Seems to be a common element here.

Could it be that the Hebrew word simply refers to any partially digested food? Could it be that the process is not the issue, just the object?
Our other key word provides us with some hints. Meritt is partially correct when he says that the phrase translated ‘chew the cud’ in the KJV is more exactly ‘bring up the cud’. (The full phrase is ‘maketh the cud to come up’.) By leaving it at that, he apparently wishes for us to believe that ‘bring up’ means, in an exclusive sense, regurgitation. Whoooooa, horsey. Back up. Let’s check those hooves for Hebrew words! The word here is ‘alah, and it is found in some grammatical form on literally (well, almost literally) every page of the OT! This is because it is a word that encompasses many concepts other than ‘bring up’. It also can mean ascend up, carry up, cast up, fetch up, get up, recover, restore, take up, and much more. It is a catch-all verb form describing the moving of something to another place. (‘maketh the gehrah to ‘alah’)

Now in the verses in question, ‘alah is used as a participle. Let’s look at the other verses where it is used this way (NIV only implies some of these phrases; where in parentheses, the phrase is in the original, sometimes in the KJV):
Josh. 24:17 It was the Lord our God himself who brought us and our fathers up out of Egypt. …
Isaiah 8:7 … therefore the Lord is about to bring (up) the burnt offering …
Nahum 3:3 Charging cavalry, flashing swords (lifted up), and glittering spears!
Isaiah 8:7 … therefore the Lord is about to bring (up) against them the mighty floodwaters of the River …
2 Chron. 24:14 When they had finished, they brought (up) the rest of the money …
Ps. 135:7 He makes clouds rise (up) from the ends of the earth …
‘maketh’ the previou2 Sam. 6:15 … while he and the entire house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouts and the sound of trumpets. (Similar quote, ! 1 Chr. 15:28)
OUCH! That last one would hurt if the word meant regurgitation.

No wonder people were shouting …
So what have we learned? The Hebrew word is question is NOT specific to the process of regurgitation; it is a phrase of general movement. And related to the specific issue at hand, the rabbit is an animal that does sly digested material to ‘come up’ out of the body (though in a different way than a ruminant does—as Meritt says, with rabbits, it comes all the way through; but again, the word is not specific for regurgitation!) and does thereafter does chew ‘predigested material’! The mistake is in our applying of the scientific terms of rumination to something that does not require it.”
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v20/i4/rabbits.asp

Answer 1

I dont know what youre talking about girl but judging by the responses, people are more emotional than they are rational.

Answer 2

To study is more or less to study mathematics itself, because the quest for an accurate value for has occupied the imaginations of men (and women) for longer than nearly any similar problem.

The Babylonians believed to be equal to 3 1/8 (within 0.53%). The Egyptians "improved" on this — they used 4 * (8/9)^2 (within 0.60%). Biblical references (such as they are) usually assign the value of 3. These values may be an accident of recorded history, since all one need do is measure the distance across an inscribed circle, and compare that measurement with the distance around the perimeter (the circumference).

While Europe apparently slept, in 500 A.D. the Hindus on the Indian subcontinent had a much better estimate of = 3 177/1250, or 3.1416 (within 0.002%). This is consistent with what we know of their mathematical and astronomical skills. The Chinese had arrived at similarly accurate results, leading one to the unavoidable conclusion that Europeans were, to put it simply, behind.

There are some historical issues having to do with , such as: is it irrational, i.e. is it a number than cannot be expressed as the ratio of two integers, and is it transcendental, i.e. is it a number that cannot be the root of an algebraic equation. Both these questions have been answered: is both irrational and transcendental.

This result has some interesting side effects. Irrational numbers never "round off" — no matter how accurately one calculates them, there are always more digits to resolve. Mathematicians have been trying to calculate , to increasing degrees of accuracy, for centuries.



It is important to note that has a special place in our lives only because the surfaces and space around us are relatively flat. In the same way, the sum of the internal angles of a triangle equals 180 degrees only if the triangle is drawn on a flat surface. Now imagine approaching a black hole, a place where space-time curvature becomes extreme. As one approaches the black hole's event horizon, the sum of the triangle's angles will increase beyond 180 degrees, and the measured value for will increase. In fact, according to current theory, a black hole is thought to have a finite circumference but a radius of zero. I

Answer 3

Some christians claim that their bible is infallible because the information in it was given to the writers by their god. The fact that the christian bible got the value of pi wrong is just one more indication that the writers did not have any special "guidance."

Also, the fact that bats are called birds, and rabbits are considered ruminants (cud-chewing). The list of errors, inconsistencies, etc. is pretty overwhelming for a book that's supposed to be "inspired." The value of pi is simply one example.

Answer 4

so as which skill you in addition to could have faith finished heartedly in Santa Claus? additionally the enamel Fairy? You for sure do no longer want information of something to have faith. There are some individuals who've the ability to think of on our very own and stay in actuality who want information. You telling me that there is a demon on my shoulder and to easily have faith that, would not make one there. are you able to confirm what we are all getting at? purely considering you think each and every of ways down on your tighty whiteys, would not make it so. And the difficulty with this is which you human beings are constantly attempting to transform the sensible ones who have been given away or tension your ideals on us or exchange our regulations, all considering you declare your God reported so. properly this is okay if that is so, yet then instruct to me your God exists and that i'll maintain on with the regulations you try to shove down my throat. Make experience now? probable no longer for a theist.

Answer 5

I find it a kind of trivial argument, but it is significant when some fundamentalist Christians argue that the Bible is completely and perfectly accurate in EVERYTHING that is in it. While that is a small group, they are very outspoken, so the Pi issue is one that is completely indisputable, and wrong in the Bible, thus invalidating the argument that everything in the Bible is perfect and correct.

Answer 6

Why do you blatantly ask questions towards atheist yet block all the atheist on this site.
Not very productive is it...or are you rather more interested in just getting responses from people that says "OMG you are so right...I am so glad you pointed this out."

Oh and to answer your question:
Oops sorry it makes no sense...am I condemning someone for doing algebra...no.

Answer 7

Can't you think for yourself? Practically every question you ask is backed up by some literary passage. Show some imagination!!

And i'm not hung up on "this pi thing" but as it happens 3.14 is my favorite number---how freaky is that??

Answer 8

I think you're confusing mathematicians for atheists. No doubt that many are, but I really don't see what "pi" has to do with atheism. What does any of this has to do with Hiram?

Answer 9

Not sure how to respond to your question, but did you see
the movie? Pi. I kinda liked it.
I Cr 13;8a

Answer 10

Everyone knows that Pi are square except for Granny's whose are round and tastes good