Tree/forest Question...(was Re: Can God...)

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>>>>> "George" == George Rimel <grimel@ibm.net> writes:

    George> Bill Clifton wrote:
    >>> One needs to clarify what sound is, as opposed to energy.
    >> If there is nothing there to translate this energy back to an
    >> audible input then "sound" was not produced. The energy was
    >> produced, the potnetial was there, but sound is not the energy
    >> wave in air but the responce of an organism to this energy. So
    >> the answer is no sound was produced only energy.

    George> Sound is a longitudinal wave (P-Wave) created by
    George> compression and expansion of gas molecules in the
    George> propagation medium (such as Air). Any action which
    George> compresses or expand a gas creates sound waves.

One of the real difficulties we face in trying to interpret the
scriptures today is semantic drift -- the change in meaning of a word
or phrase over a period of time.  One of my favorite Biblical examples
of this is the word "animal".  Modern biologists have taxonomically
divided the world of living organisms into animals and plants.  The
division goes finer, into insects, reptiles, mamals, elasmobranchs,
teleosts, porphyra, coelenterates, etc. etc. etc.

Many of these things we call animals today would not have been called
animals when the KJV was translated, or when the original Hebrew or
Greek was written.

The definition of the word "sound" that has been debated these past
several days is a modern example.  Until we agree on definitions, we
are not even talking about the same thing, so we can never agree on
conclusions. 

It is not unreasonable to have context sensitive definitions,
especially in technological fields, or other domains of discourse
(such as religion) which have a jargon all their own.  Thus as as
horseman, I can talk about a "bit" and mean something totally
different than when I use the same word as a computer scientist.
Alas, even the word "word" has different meanings depending on what
you are talking about.

-- 
--------  "And there came a writing to him from Elijah"  [2Ch 21:12]  --------
Robert Jay Brown III rj@eli.elilabs.com  http://www.elilabs.com 1 847 705-0424
Elijah Laboratories Inc.;  37 South Greenwood Avenue;  Palatine, IL 60067-6328
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