Atheist "church" in London.

[Aegrus]

Am I the only one who likes this thing? It looks like a joke-church to me, making a point. Like someone rich saw an old Chuch for sale/hire and thought it would be funny to have an "Atheist Church." Stinks of satire to me.

I live in North-West London, so I might go check it out, if I can find it.

I can't make up my mind about it. If it's satire, great. But I find myself worrying that it isn't. . .

[Confused Ape]

You're not hearing me Ape. The astrology theory at the time regarding planetary motions was Ptolemaic epicycles. That's easy to reproduce using gears since it simplifies very nicely. They're not claiming that the device didn't reproduce the epicycles. They're pointing out the flaw in the astrology of the time that thus resulted in any device like this actually being flawed in its representation of celestial motion for bodies in our solar system.

I am hearing you but I'm listening to what everyone else is saying.

Have you found an article written by scientists which proves that the device wasn't used to make calculations?

Computer History Pre-1945

An example of an abacus, a digital computer driven by fingers instead of electricity which has been used for over 2,000 years.

The Antikythera Mechanism - A Roman-Era Analog Computer (2,000 years ago)

If you scroll down the page to the diagram of the dials you'll see that some of them relate to eclipse prediction.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

I've read and liked some of Alain De Botton's musings, but this is utterly retarded.

It paints atheists as an easy target for theists looking to create a par of argument:

"Oh, those atheists just worship science/Darwin as their god instead! Look, they even have a church!"

*Shakes head*. For someone so smart, Alain De Botton can sure be utterly retarded. I'm not against the idea of atheists meeting up to say hi per se, but to meet up in a sort of quasi-organised fashion talking about things in a pseudo-religious language just destroys any notion that atheism has nothing to do with religion or the religious. For example:

""It's not a church, it's a congregation of unreligious people.""

That's fine, but 'congregation' uses a semantic word play that theists hyper-critical of atheism will just latch onto, and there's no real counter argument except to say "Well we're not all like that". and their response, of course, will be "so when you criticise religion, I can say 'well, we're not all like that either'". But it's missing the point, we're criticising and critiquing the religion, whereas this 'atheist church' will be used to by those who seek to criticise (and point out the flaws in) 'atheism', which isn't and should not be 'organised' in the same way that a religion is.

The only saving grace of this is that it's in the UK where religion (despite still having some considerable influence) is less influential and powerful than in, say, the US. But as this kind of thing transcends borders, I'm still worried about the long term effect it will have (Need I mention Atheism +?).

[NoraBrimstone]

Am I the only one who likes this thing? It looks like a joke-church to me, making a point. Like someone rich saw an old Chuch for sale/hire and thought it would be funny to have an "Atheist Church." Stinks of satire to me.

I live in North-West London, so I might go check it out, if I can find it.

I can't make up my mind about it. If it's satire, great. But I find myself worrying that it isn't. . .

All the more reason for me to go and have a look and find out.

[Angrboda]

You're not hearing me Ape. The astrology theory at the time regarding planetary motions was Ptolemaic epicycles. That's easy to reproduce using gears since it simplifies very nicely. They're not claiming that the device didn't reproduce the epicycles. They're pointing out the flaw in the astrology of the time that thus resulted in any device like this actually being flawed in its representation of celestial motion for bodies in our solar system.

I'm getting the impression that you don't actually know how a real computer works.

Having studied computers myself, and played with them for a long time, I think the definition of 'computer' is sufficiently vague that it could, arguably, embrace either point. It's certainly not a computer in the sense of a von Neumann style modern computer, but then not everything is. (See analog computers, for example.) I'd say that you are both right, given appropriate definitions; however, at this point, I've forgotten what the original question was. Is it an advanced mechanical device capable of operations that might reasonably called calculation? Likely, yes. Is it a computer in the modern sense? Likely no. What was the question again?

(For some strange reason I'm reminded of mercury tubes in early computers as an example of why one shouldn't judge too quickly about what is and is not a computer. As well as Turing oracles and quantum computers.)

[Confused Ape]

Is it an advanced mechanical device capable of operations that might reasonably called calculation? Likely, yes. Is it a computer in the modern sense? Likely no. What was the question again?

Aractus doesn't believe that the device calculated anything. The definition of computer used for the device is something that computes or makes calculations. At one time computers were biological devices. From the NASA website -

Human Computers

Virginia Tucker first received notice of her appointment at Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory while vacationing in California. A former high school teacher with a college degree in mathematics, she arrived the day after Labor Day 1935 to join four other women in Langley’s first “Computer Pool.” Before the development of electronic computers, the term “computer” referred to people, not machines. It was a job title, designating someone who performed mathematical equations and calculations by hand.