Geo-xcentricities; you too can be Galileo with just a pair of binoculars (and gaffer tape)

I once got into an e-mail argument with a geocentrist. I used Hipparcos measured parallax of nearby stars as evidence against geocentrism. He assured me that Hipparcos data was unreliable because communication channels weren't secure.

Hipparcos

Sungenis has been ranting about relativy for years. I would love to put him in a room with some of the DI folks and see how that would go....

All this proves nothing. When Galileo invited the church fathers to look through his telescope, they refused, knowing full well that anything seen through an infernal instrument could only be and illusion created by Satan.

The pillars of our faith are much stronger than the flimsy legs of your tripod.

Geez, you scientists, first you kill Tinkerbelle and now this.

"I don't have to match your pathetic level of detail!!111!!!eleven!!!!"

All this proves nothing. When Galileo invited the church fathers to look through his telescope, they refused, knowing full well that anything seen through an infernal instrument could only be and illusion created by Satan. The pillars of our faith are much stronger than the flimsy legs of your tripod.

RIY: Refute It Yourself! I would support this being a semi-regular feature!

First of all, for really eccentric (to put it nicely) ideas, take a look at the Wikipedia article on "Hollow Earth" under the heading "Concave hollow Earths":

"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollow_Earth#Concave_hollow_Earths"

The idea being that we, and the whole of the skies above us, are all inside the hollow earth.

Now, I am not a scientist of any kind, but I think that this provides a cautionary tale for those of us who would like to have a handy rebuttal to geocentrism.

What is interesting about this is that one can make a mathematical transformation between the inside of a sphere and the outside of a sphere, so that the two are indistinguishable. There is no way that one can "demonstrate" that we are on the outside of the spherical earth. Even though the idea is crazy - it says that when we go "up", we (and all of our measuring devices) shrink by just the right amount so that we can't tell that it is happening to us.

In a similar way, we can mathematically transform anything that happens in a Galilean universe to something happening in a geocentric universe. The laws of physics and the geometry become horrendously complicated, to be sure, but there is, in principle, no way to "demonstrate" that the earth is moving, given the existence of this transformation.

I don't know whether the geocentrists take this approach. My experience with eccentrics (if not geocentrics) is that they don't have the necessary dedication to consistency to do it. If they trusted rationality, after all, they wouldn't be geocentrists. But the point that I am trying to make is that it isn't all that easy to demonstrate the failings of geocentrism against a persistent supporter.

Some of the geocentrists do make an appeal to the General Theory of Relativity, in which just about any framework, including a framework which rotates and revolves with the earth (that is, moving in Galilean astronomy, but fixed in geocentric astronomy), is physically equivalent to any other such framework. It may be true that there are some unwanted complications in GR for geocentrism, but I suspect that it would take a specialist in GR to understand them. Possibly changes in the rotation of the earth (or, from the geocentric point of view, the rotation of the heavens) due to things that happen on earth (seasonal changes, earthquakes, or even tides) would be problematic for geocentrism (why should something that happens on earth today affect the motion of stars that are lightyears away, immediately?), but I'm not sure that that has been worked out.
Can they just respond with a "you can't explain the changes in the so-called rotation of the earth any better than I can explain the changes to the rotation of the heavens"? (Is there an expert on chronology who can help?)

As I said at the start, I'm not a scientist, so there may be something obvious that I am missing here, and I would be very glad to be corrected.

Tom S.,

You may want to visit the Bad Astronomy post on the same subject.* He talks in somewhat more detail about just the subjects you're interested in (mathematical transformation between the two, and use of relativity by geocentrists).

IMO your points bring up a teachable lesson about science: unlike religion, it isn't just about truth. Sometimes science is about useful approximations. If we were to discover tomorrow that the universe was geocentric, we'd still use heliocentric models to launch space probes. Why? Because the heliocentric math is easier. All reference frames may be metaphysically equal, but scientifically some are more useful than others.

*I'm not affiliated with Phil Plait or BA. But I do recommend his book. And I did stay at a holiday inn last night. :)

I think "modern" geocentrists argue that the earth is at the center of the universe rather than at the center of our planetary system.

They seem unmoved by the argument that all points in the universe appear to themselves to be the center.

TomS said: The idea being that we, and the whole of the skies above us, are all inside the hollow earth.

For connoisseurs of cranks:

Bio of Robert Sungenis

I suspect that our standard trolls are avoiding this thread. They may be nuts but they're not THAT nuts. We might get a posting from near-blatant jokers like "Higabu".

Here's my favorite crank anti-science site:

http://www.fixedearth.com/

-

Here's my favorite crank pseudo-science site:

http://www.holoscience.com/synopsis.php

I think “modern” geocentrists argue that the earth is at the center of the universe rather than at the center of our planetary system. They seem unmoved by the argument that all points in the universe appear to themselves to be the center.

Fantastic post. Thanks a lot!

Rolf Aalberg mentions the apparently paradoxical fact that when we look outward from earth in any direction, we are actually looking inward toward a smaller and smaller universe. All of the sightlines that originate at this time and place - or at any time and place in our universe - converge at the big bang. I first encountered a layman-friendly exposition of this elegant demonstration of the obvious reality of curved four-dimensional spacetime in Robert Osserman's fine little book, Poetry of the Universe. This is a great read for anyone who is, like me, awe-philic and math-phobic.

So perhaps the position of the Roman Catholic Church on heliocentrism really is the same as for evolution: Allowed, but not encouraged.

I suspect that our standard trolls are avoiding this thread.

Mike Elzinga said:

TomS said: The idea being that we, and the whole of the skies above us, are all inside the hollow earth.

Inside a “hollow Earth” there would be no net force of gravity. Pick a point somewhere inside the hollow sphere. From that point draw a solid angle that intersects the spherical shell. The mass of the spherical shell contained within that solid angle is proportional to the square of the distance of the shell from the chosen point. Its gravitational attraction drops off as the square of the distance from the chosen point. Now extend that solid angle from the chosen point in the opposite direction. The mass of the spherical shell contained within that opposite solid angle is also proportional to the square of the distance from the chosen point. And as before, the gravitational attraction of this opposite mass drops off as the square of the distance. Thus the inverse square law of gravity is exactly compensated by the square-of-the-distance increase in mass. The gravitational attraction due to the two spherical mass “caps” on opposite sides of the chosen point exactly cancels. The same goes for all opposite pairs of spherical caps contained within opposite spherical angles surrounding the chosen point. Thus all the forces due to the surrounding shell cancel.

Rolf Aalberg said:

I think “modern” geocentrists argue that the earth is at the center of the universe rather than at the center of our planetary system. They seem unmoved by the argument that all points in the universe appear to themselves to be the center.

Right, they’ve got it all backwards. I believe all and any points in the universe are at the periphery of the universe - if you happen to be at 'that' point. My reasoning is that wherever you might be in the universe, the light coming towards you will have left it source sometime in the past. Every point in the universe away from your own (four dimensional) spot is older; your spot is the newest in the expanding universe. That is, it represents the outer boundary of the universe if we consider the time dimension. You are at the present; the outer boundary of the time dimension.. Looking at the sky, we are looking back in time, all the way back to the big bang. The big bang must be at the centre of the universe, not at the outer boundary. It is not speeding away from us; we are speeding away from it. Whichever direction we look, wherever in the universe we might be, we would be looking towards the beginning. What is wrong with my model?

Olorin said: So perhaps the position of the Roman Catholic Church on heliocentrism really is the same as for evolution: Allowed, but not encouraged.

TomS said: In a similar way, we can mathematically transform anything that happens in a Galilean universe to something happening in a geocentric universe. The laws of physics and the geometry become horrendously complicated, to be sure, but there is, in principle, no way to "demonstrate" that the earth is moving, given the existence of this transformation.

Wheels said: RIY: Refute It Yourself! I would support this being a semi-regular feature!

FL said:

I suspect that our standard trolls are avoiding this thread.

If you mean "Christians are avoiding this thread", I can only say that a possible reason is that there's simply not much to say. Simply put, the Bible does NOT teach geocentrism, and in fact is quite silent about "centrisms" at all. B'dee b'dee that's all, folks! FL

Since all these results [parallax measurements of Mars and Venus] did not all agree with the Ptolemaic hypotheses I was urged afterward to put more and more confidence in the Copernican invention. The exceedingly absurd opinion that the Earth revolves uniformly and perpetually nevertheless made up a very great obstacle, and in addition the irrefutable authority of the Holy Scripture maintained the opposite view. [emphasis added]

...and in addition the irrefutable authority of the Holy Scripture maintained the opposite view. [emphasis added]

Philosophically geocentrism makes sense but it's relative to whomever is the speaker. Every religion considers itself infallible and the center of wisdom and truth, physical earth/universe centrism follows spiritual tenets.

Ancient cultures, and modern as well, consider/ed themselves geocentric, e.g., the Chinese, the Greeks, and Egyptians, et. al. The U.S. is the only superpower, we are the center of world power, until the Chinese overtake us of course, when their world view will supplant ours.

FL stated, "Simply put, the Bible does NOT teach geocentrism, and in fact is quite silent about “centrisms” at all."

It is implied if not explicitly stated that the bible is central to the world view, and anything else would imply fallibility, e.g., earth moves, the heavens are not immutable but change/evolve over time.

Sam Harris said in "The End of Faith:"

"Tell a devout Christian his wife is cheating on him or that frozen yogurt can make a man invisible, and he is likely to require as much evidence as anybody else, and to be persuaded only to the extent that you give it. Tell him that the book he keeps by his bed was written by an invisible deity who will punish him with fire for eternity if he fails to accept its every incredible claim, and he seems to require no evidence whatsoever."

The sun also rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it arose [my italics].

Matt Young said: I do not mean to feed the FL troll, but the Hebrew Bible makes at least a dozen references to a flat earth, and Koheleth says

The sun also rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it arose [my italics].

If that is not geocentric, I do not know what is.

heddle said: Of course the easier way to demonstrate that is by Gauss's law.

heddle said:

Matt Young said: I do not mean to feed the FL troll, but the Hebrew Bible makes at least a dozen references to a flat earth, and Koheleth says

The sun also rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it arose [my italics].

If that is not geocentric, I do not know what is.

Oh give me a break. You don't know what it is? Really? OK I'll tell you what it is: it's a friggin' figure of speech--the same sort of figure of speech you find in modern English. If I find a modern book that says something like: "it was noticeably hotter; the sun had moved directly overhead" does it mean that book teaches geocentrism? And gee, if people come from all four corners of the earth to attend a scientific conference, does that mean...

W. H. Heydt said:

heddle said:

Matt Young said: I do not mean to feed the FL troll, but the Hebrew Bible makes at least a dozen references to a flat earth, and Koheleth says

The sun also rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it arose [my italics].

If that is not geocentric, I do not know what is.

Oh give me a break. You don't know what it is? Really? OK I'll tell you what it is: it's a friggin' figure of speech--the same sort of figure of speech you find in modern English. If I find a modern book that says something like: "it was noticeably hotter; the sun had moved directly overhead" does it mean that book teaches geocentrism? And gee, if people come from all four corners of the earth to attend a scientific conference, does that mean...

You say it's a metaphor, but you insist that other parts of the book are literally true. Please provide an objective means of decide which passages are to be taken literally and which are not. A means that can be applied by anyone...believer or not. --W. H. Heydt Old Used Programmer

OK, I think this is a good reply. We decide which verses to take literally and which to take metaphorically based on our preferred understanding of something. Those we choose to take literally become Absolute Truth. Those who disagree do the schism thing, and form their own sect or denomination. And accordingly, Brahe was an apostate to Heddle's views.

But this begs another question: Why pick the bible to apply this personal and arbitrary set of interpretations to? Wouldn't it seem less obviously wrong if we started with Finnegan's Wake?

heddle said: ...

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

Oh give me a break. You don't know what it is? Really? OK I'll tell you what it is: it's a friggin' figure of speech

Many years ago, I read an article, maybe in TIME magazine, about a system astronomers had set up to teach kids about astronomy and get them all excited. They were presenting a geocentric model, which I found rather amazing.

Chris Lawson said: heddle said:

Oh give me a break. You don't know what it is? Really? OK I'll tell you what it is: it's a friggin' figure of speech

Good try. Except the reason this is a figure of speech is *because* it is a Biblical phrase, not the other way around. For many more geocentric verses: http://hypertextbook.com/eworld/geocentric.shtml

FL said: Simply put, the Bible does NOT teach geocentrism...

Heddle, you can convince yourself that anything that is questionable is a metaphor but the fact remains the bible is full of explanations of how the people of the time might explain the world around them.

The fact is most people believed the Earth was the centre of the universe for most of history. That means that if you are correct then the "divinely inspired bible" was misleading in its wording at best.

The fact that you defend any easily refuted statement in the bible with "They didn't really mean it in that way" really speaks volumes about your intellectual honesty.

I respect much of what you say but every time you go down this road I cringe.

Chris Lawson is saying that "the sun goes down and hastens to the place where he arose" became a figure of speech in English because it's in the Bible. That the Bible actually means it literally, but it became metaphorical and figurative.

Well, he's right to say that the writers of the Old Testament were geocentrists. Everyone was, in 500 BCE. The first known heliocentric model was proposed by Aristarchus of Samos in the third century BCE, but Ptolomaic cosmology was practically universal until the 16th century CE. But if he is suggesting that the writers of the Bible meant that expression severely literally, I think he is contradicted by the words of the passage itself.

heddle is right. This is a figure of speech. The sun doesn't "hasten". That is personification, a metaphorical device. The passage quoted is poetical in form and substance. It is echoed by every person who ever spoke of the sun rising or sinking. I'll guarantee it was common in all languages long before the Bible was written, and if it remains common today it's because it's so ordinary a metaphor as to be unnoticed.

That is, I think the Bible uses it because it was (and remains) the common currency of language, not because the writers wished to inform the reader that the sun orbits the Earth. They were not writing a description of the orbital relationship between the Earth and the sun, they were writing poetry marvelling at the workings of a Universe they ascribed to God.

center of the universe or not, doesn't the "known universe" issue mean we are at a subjective center?

FL said: Simply put, the Bible does NOT teach geocentrism, and in fact is quite silent about "centrisms" at all. FL

This isn't just a coordinate choice as Ken G from BAUT often refers to. There are real implications in SR and GR. For example if the Earth was the centre of the universe and everything revolved around it then that would imply that gravity works completely differently then we think it does and it really doesn't have to do with mass as the Earth is CLEARLY not massive enough to cause galaxies billions of light years away to orbit the Earth in the way they do. It is bad enough that there is a rotation curve issue that we have to explain with "dark matter" on a Galactic scale but try to extrapolate that to the universe as a whole is just obscene.

I can accept it as a philosophical sense but if you try to claim that is what these geocentrist are claiming then your intellectual honesty is less then theirs.

If you want to talk about "look back time" then we are not really the centre but the actual edge.

I've actually worked with a man that believed the Earth was the centre of the universe, is flat and everything revolved around it because the bible told him so and rejected satellites, space travel, etc as government hoaxes to fool the masses. This despite the fact that he also flew on a plane with me one time over half way around the world.

These people do exist out there. I have a very good friend that says "I don't want to know anything that makes me question anything the bible says". She takes the bible quiet literal.

The fact is every spot in the universe is a subjective centre so why treat our subjective centre as any more important then any other?

Keelyn said:

FL said: Simply put, the Bible does NOT teach geocentrism, and in fact is quite silent about "centrisms" at all. FL

I'm not about to engage Floyd in an argument about what the Bible says or doesn't say, but clearly the Catholic Church taught a geocentric model for ...well, for some time. I have to wonder what prompted the Church to be so wrong for so long and why it didn't notice (or refused to notice?).

Keelyn said: I'm not about to engage Floyd in an argument about what the Bible says or doesn't say, but clearly the Catholic Church taught a geocentric model for ...well, for some time. I have to wonder what prompted the Church to be so wrong for so long and why it didn't notice (or refused to notice?).

I thought what I meant was clear. Saying that the geocentric verses of the Bible are just "figures of speech" does not take into account the fact that many of these phrases (e.g. "four corners of the earth") are figures of speech today *because* they are in Bible.

Furthermore, since a large number of Biblical verses imply a geocentric cosmos (and none imply anything else), it is rather difficult to argue that the authors of the Bible were anything other than geocentrists and flat-Earthers. I don't see this as an insult, really, given that most people of the time were geocentric flat-Earthers, but it does rather undermine the validity of Biblical literalists.

FL said:

I suspect that our standard trolls are avoiding this thread.

If you mean "Christians are avoiding this thread", I can only say that a possible reason is that there's simply not much to say. Simply put, the Bible does NOT teach geocentrism, and in fact is quite silent about "centrisms" at all. B'dee b'dee that's all, folks! FL

Matthew 4:8-10 8 Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

FL said:

...and in addition the irrefutable authority of the Holy Scripture maintained the opposite view. [emphasis added]

Tycho Brahe was certainly hooked on geocentrism, as demonstrated by your quotation. Seems totally convinced that the Bible taught geocentrism. The trouble would have started when somebody asked Brahe to **actually support and defend** the highlighted statement, using the Scriptures themselves. Then he'd be a-scramblin' hard, and quite unsuccessfully. FL

Keelyn said:

FL said: Simply put, the Bible does NOT teach geocentrism, and in fact is quite silent about "centrisms" at all. FL

I'm not about to engage Floyd in an argument about what the Bible says or doesn't say, but clearly the Catholic Church taught a geocentric model for ...well, for some time. I have to wonder what prompted the Church to be so wrong for so long and why it didn't notice (or refused to notice?).

Paul Burnett said:

FL said: Simply put, the Bible does NOT teach geocentrism...

Okay, explain this Biblical astronomical phenomenon: Joshua 10:12-13 - Then spoke Joshua to the Lord in the day when the Lord gave the Amorites over to the men of Israel; and he said in the sight of Israel, "Sun, stand thou still at Gibeon, and thou Moon in the valley of Aijalon." And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the nation took vengeance on their enemies. Is this not written in the Book of Jashar? The sun stayed in the midst of heaven, and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day.

The most fashionable apologists determine which Bible verses are to be taken literally.

Incidentally geocentrists happily accept scientific opinion on the shape of Earth.

I, Galileo Galilei, son of the late Vincenzo Galilei, Florentine, aged seventy years, arraigned personally before this tribunal, and kneeling before you, most Eminent and Reverend Lord Cardinals, Inquisitors general against heretical depravity throughout the whole Christian Republic, having before my eyes and touching with my hands, the holy Gospels -- swear that I have always believed, do now believe, and by God's help will for the future believe, all that is held, preached, and taught by the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Roman Church. But whereas -- after an injunction had been judicially intimated to me by this Holy Office, to the effect that I must altogether abandon the false opinion that the sun is the centre of the world, and moves, and that I must not hold, defend, or teach in any way whatsoever, verbally or in writing, the said doctrine, and after it had been notified to me that the said doctrine was contrary to Holy Scripture -- I wrote and printed a book in which I discuss this doctrine already condemned, and adduce arguments of great cogency in its favour, without presenting any solution of these; and for this cause I have been pronounced by the Holy Office to be vehemently suspected of heresy, that is to say, of having held and believed that the sun is the centre of the world and immovable, and that the earth is not the centre and moves. Therefore, desiring to remove from the minds of your Eminences, and of all faithful Christians, this strong suspicion, reasonably conceived against me, with sincere heart and unfeigned faith I abjure, curse, and detest the aforesaid errors and heresies, and generally every other error and sect whatsoever contrary to the said Holy Church; and I swear that in the future I will never again say or assert, verbally or in writing, anything that might furnish occasion for a similar suspicion regarding me; but that I should know any heretic, or person suspected of heresy, I will denounce him to this Holy Office, or to the Inquisitor and ordinary of the place where I may be. Further, I swear and promise to fulfill and observe in their integrity all penances that have been, or that shall be, imposed upon me by this Holy Office. And, in the event of my contravening (which God forbid!) any of these my promises, protestations, and oaths, I submit myself to all the pains and penalties imposed and promulgated in the sacred canons and other constitutions, general and particular, against such delinquents. So help me God, and these His holy Gospels, which I touch with my hands. I, the said Galileo Galilei, have abjured, sworn, promised, and bound myself as above; and in witness of the truth thereof I have with my own hand subscribed the present document of my abjuration, and recited it word for word at Rome, in the Convent of Minerva, this twenty-second day of June, 1633 I, Galileo Galilei, have abjured as above with my own hand.

Mike Elzinga said: Here, for example.

I, Galileo Galilei, son of the late Vincenzo Galilei, Florentine, aged seventy years, arraigned personally before this tribunal, and kneeling before you, most Eminent and Reverend Lord Cardinals, Inquisitors general against heretical depravity throughout the whole Christian Republic, having before my eyes and touching with my hands, the holy Gospels -- swear that I have always believed, do now believe, and by God's help will for the future believe, all that is held, preached, and taught by the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Roman Church. But whereas -- after an injunction had been judicially intimated to me by this Holy Office, to the effect that I must altogether abandon the false opinion that the sun is the centre of the world, and moves, and that I must not hold, defend, or teach in any way whatsoever, verbally or in writing, the said doctrine, and after it had been notified to me that the said doctrine was contrary to Holy Scripture -- I wrote and printed a book in which I discuss this doctrine already condemned, and adduce arguments of great cogency in its favour, without presenting any solution of these; and for this cause I have been pronounced by the Holy Office to be vehemently suspected of heresy, that is to say, of having held and believed that the sun is the centre of the world and immovable, and that the earth is not the centre and moves. Therefore, desiring to remove from the minds of your Eminences, and of all faithful Christians, this strong suspicion, reasonably conceived against me, with sincere heart and unfeigned faith I abjure, curse, and detest the aforesaid errors and heresies, and generally every other error and sect whatsoever contrary to the said Holy Church; and I swear that in the future I will never again say or assert, verbally or in writing, anything that might furnish occasion for a similar suspicion regarding me; but that I should know any heretic, or person suspected of heresy, I will denounce him to this Holy Office, or to the Inquisitor and ordinary of the place where I may be. Further, I swear and promise to fulfill and observe in their integrity all penances that have been, or that shall be, imposed upon me by this Holy Office. And, in the event of my contravening (which God forbid!) any of these my promises, protestations, and oaths, I submit myself to all the pains and penalties imposed and promulgated in the sacred canons and other constitutions, general and particular, against such delinquents. So help me God, and these His holy Gospels, which I touch with my hands. I, the said Galileo Galilei, have abjured, sworn, promised, and bound myself as above; and in witness of the truth thereof I have with my own hand subscribed the present document of my abjuration, and recited it word for word at Rome, in the Convent of Minerva, this twenty-second day of June, 1633 I, Galileo Galilei, have abjured as above with my own hand.

Another thing to consider is that Galileo had three children out of wedlock. You have to wonder why the Catholic Church didn't persecute him for that, rather than for this scientific work. I guess doing science was thought more sinful than sexual immorality?

E pur si muove.

You're wrong.

Here it is said that geocentric system is just as valid:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/09/14/geocentrism-seriously

And no wonder - Brahe's system is just an abstractly inverted heliocentric system, so they're fully equal in all observations. So you made a false claim of somehow refuting geocentrism when you've done no such thing.

"You say it’s a metaphor, but you insist that other parts of the book are literally true. Please provide an objective means of decide which passages are to be taken literally and which are not. A means that can be applied by anyone…believer or not."

Stop being stupid. One doesn't need to provide a unified general system of distinguishing metaphors to know that this one case is an allowable metaphor, especially as it's not even formally incorrect, since the Sun does literally rise if we take Earth as a frame of reference.

Dale Husband said: Another thing to consider is that Galileo had three children out of wedlock. You have to wonder why the Catholic Church didn't persecute him for that, rather than for this scientific work. I guess doing science was thought more sinful than sexual immorality?

Ghrom said: You're wrong. Here it is said that geocentric system is just as valid: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/09/14/geocentrism-seriously And no wonder - Brahe's system is just an abstractly inverted heliocentric system, so they're fully equal in all observations. So you made a false claim of somehow refuting geocentrism when you've done no such thing.

Ghrom said: "You say it’s a metaphor, but you insist that other parts of the book are literally true. Please provide an objective means of decide which passages are to be taken literally and which are not. A means that can be applied by anyone…believer or not." Stop being stupid. One doesn't need to provide a unified general system of distinguishing metaphors to know that this one case is an allowable metaphor, especially as it's not even formally incorrect, since the Sun does literally rise if we take Earth as a frame of reference.

Dale Husband:

"Ghrom, I read that blog entry all the way through. It seems you only read the bits you understood or agreed with. What an idiot."

Hey, asshole, if you cannot grasp relativity (which requires that there be no objectively preferred frame of reference), it's your own mental problem.

"Then by what frame of reference do we affirm the truths of the Genesis creation myths?"

Again, it's your own problem as to how you affirm the truth of your myths. Just don't make silly pronouncements while trying to look like some sort of an enlightened genius while you don't even know the first principles of modern science.

Once again, in simple words (for the mentally deficient types, some of which may be around here).

1. Some geocentric models (the ones that are used by modern geocentrists) are observationally indistinguishable from the heliocentric models.

2. This posting tries to disprove all geocentric models with the help of observations.

3. FAIL.

Ghrom said: "You say it’s a metaphor, but you insist that other parts of the book are literally true. Please provide an objective means of decide which passages are to be taken literally and which are not. A means that can be applied by anyone…believer or not." Stop being stupid. One doesn't need to provide a unified general system of distinguishing metaphors to know that this one case is an allowable metaphor, especially as it's not even formally incorrect, since the Sun does literally rise if we take Earth as a frame of reference.

Matthew 4:8-10 8 Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

Re: metaphor vs literal. When the bible says the "sun stood still", it is rather irrelevant of 21st century people to debate whether that is literal or not. The important point is that the people of the time would have thought it to be an accurate description regardless of whether or not they thought the sun standing still was figurative or literal. To them, the earth stood still, the sun did the moving, and that was the way things were interpreted pretty much until 500 years ago.

If God had inspired the bible, why not have him dictate "so that the sun appeared to stand still"?

Incidentally, there are over 80 verses referring to the earth shall not be moved, the earth stands firm, etc. Dr. Gerald Buow, who is also listed on the geocentric page, has a fascinating site here: nwcreation.net/geocentricity.html

and one of links lists all the verses (read it last year sometime when having a discussion about this very topic).

His definition of geocentricity is the earth is center of the universe, but does move and does orbit the sun, putting him in conflict with some of the speakers of the conference who state the earth is stationary. Now that'd be a debate that would be fun to see.

I note some of his links to his own work no longer exist, but he's also linked to multiple sites including some really extreme geocentric sites--on the other hand he's also linked to talkorigins take on geocentricity too.

heh--see the fixedearth.com site: A stereotypical crackpot site complete with capital letters, different fonts, different highlighting, different coloured lettering and sizes...hmmm, only saw 3 exclamation marks though. Thought there'd be more. :)
--dan

Ghrom said: Dale Husband: "Ghrom, I read that blog entry all the way through. It seems you only read the bits you understood or agreed with. What an idiot." Hey, asshole, if you cannot grasp relativity (which requires that there be no objectively preferred frame of reference), it's your own mental problem. "Then by what frame of reference do we affirm the truths of the Genesis creation myths?" Again, it's your own problem as to how you affirm the truth of your myths. Just don't make silly pronouncements while trying to look like some sort of an enlightened genius while you don't even know the first principles of modern science.

Wayne Francis, who said that I should have an explanation for that? Listen, the Bible is a bunch of fascinating old myths mixed with history. It doesn't mean you have to go all moonbat on select passages.

The Bible does contain purely geocentric verses - the ones that indicate that the Earth does not move at all. It doesn't make "everyday" phrases like "Sun rises" geocentric. Or, rather, they are, but so are we, who are using these very phrases. And we're not wrong either, because we're simply selecting a frame of reference.

"If God had inspired the bible, why not have him dictate “so that the sun appeared to stand still”?"

Um, why not otherwise?

"Gerald Buow"
Gerardus Bouw

FL said:

I suspect that our standard trolls are avoiding this thread.

If you mean "Christians are avoiding this thread", I can only say that a possible reason is that there's simply not much to say. Simply put, the Bible does NOT teach geocentrism, and in fact is quite silent about "centrisms" at all. B'dee b'dee that's all, folks! FL

"This isn’t a frame issue. It isn’t a coordinate issue. Saying everything revolves around the Earth has implications about the Earth’s location and the space time around it."

The problem for you is that everything does revolve around the Earth if you choose your FoR carefully. The question of why anybody would want to do this is a whole other issue. But yes, it is a frame of reference issue. And given the infinity of the Universe, one can also arbitrarily choose the "center", so the location question becomes rather irrelevant.

Anyway, be that as it may, it still is a frame of reference issue in at least in regard to this posting, which achieves much less than it claims.

Ghrom said: Wayne Francis, who said that I should have an explanation for that? Listen, the Bible is a bunch of fascinating old myths mixed with history. It doesn't mean you have to go all moonbat on select passages. The Bible does contain purely geocentric verses - the ones that indicate that the Earth does not move at all. It doesn't make "everyday" phrases like "Sun rises" geocentric. Or, rather, they are, but so are we, who are using these very phrases. And we're not wrong either, because we're simply selecting a frame of reference.

Ghrom said: "This isn’t a frame issue. It isn’t a coordinate issue. Saying everything revolves around the Earth has implications about the Earth’s location and the space time around it." The problem for you is that everything does revolve around the Earth if you choose your FoR carefully. The question of why anybody would want to do this is a whole other issue. But yes, it is a frame of reference issue. And given the infinity of the Universe, one can also arbitrarily choose the "center", so the location question becomes rather irrelevant. Anyway, be that as it may, it still is a frame of reference issue in at least in regard to this posting, which achieves much less than it claims.

heddle said:

W. H. Heydt said:

heddle said:

Matt Young said: I do not mean to feed the FL troll, but the Hebrew Bible makes at least a dozen references to a flat earth, and Koheleth says

The sun also rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it arose [my italics].

If that is not geocentric, I do not know what is.

Oh give me a break. You don't know what it is? Really? OK I'll tell you what it is: it's a friggin' figure of speech--the same sort of figure of speech you find in modern English. If I find a modern book that says something like: "it was noticeably hotter; the sun had moved directly overhead" does it mean that book teaches geocentrism? And gee, if people come from all four corners of the earth to attend a scientific conference, does that mean...

You say it's a metaphor, but you insist that other parts of the book are literally true. Please provide an objective means of decide which passages are to be taken literally and which are not. A means that can be applied by anyone...believer or not. --W. H. Heydt Old Used Programmer

Why must I do that? Can you you tell which are supposed to me literal and which are not? If not, then neither you nor anyone else can claim with any certainty that the provided verses teach geocentrism. Or is there is some law of the universe of which I am unaware that states: unless you can determine objectively which verses should be taken literally and which are figures of speech you must, under pain of death, take all verses literally.

Welcome to the wonderful world of text criticism. Fun for everyone.

W. H. Heydt said: Unless you can propose some means of determining which are literal and which are not, a means that can be independently verified to be correct, then any or all verse may be taken as myth, allegory, metaphor, fiction, legend, idle speculation, or drug induced hallucinations.

Ghrom said: Hey, [pointless insult redacted], if you cannot grasp relativity (which requires that there be no objectively preferred frame of reference), it's your own mental problem.

Wayne Francis said: Heddle, you can convince yourself that anything that is questionable is a metaphor but the fact remains the bible is full of explanations of how the people of the time might explain the world around them. The fact is most people believed the Earth was the centre of the universe for most of history. That means that if you are correct then the "divinely inspired bible" was misleading in its wording at best. The fact that you defend any easily refuted statement in the bible with "They didn't really mean it in that way" really speaks volumes about your intellectual honesty. I respect much of what you say but every time you go down this road I cringe.

Heddle --

The problem is that the Bible contains scores of verses that imply geocentrism and Flat Earthism and no verses that imply any other cosmic model. One can certainly overlook a few statements like "the sun rose", just as one can in any modern text, but when the Bible consistently and repeatedly makes reference to geocentrism and a flat earth, even in passages that are not obviously metaphorical, then I think it's fair to say that the authors were geocentric Flat Earthers.

As for the question of whether the Old Testament prophets meant to teach geocentrism as a lesson, well I agree that that's not really important. What is important is that there are people today who teach geocentrism to their kids based on the verses in the Bible. And there are many more who want to teach Biblical creation stories as biological facts based on Biblical inerrancy, but don't want the embarrassment of admitting that the Bible was written by geocentrists. As such, critiques of the Bible's geocentrism are perfectly reasonable even if the prophets weren't trying to write an astronomy text.

Well, everything. Starting (or ending) with the assumption that the big bang happened at a point. It happened everywhere. The big bang is not, as you say, at the center of the universe–there is no such place.

Ghrom said: Dale Husband: "Ghrom, I read that blog entry all the way through. It seems you only read the bits you understood or agreed with. What an idiot." Hey, asshole, if you cannot grasp relativity (which requires that there be no objectively preferred frame of reference), it's your own mental problem. "Then by what frame of reference do we affirm the truths of the Genesis creation myths?" Again, it's your own problem as to how you affirm the truth of your myths. Just don't make silly pronouncements while trying to look like some sort of an enlightened genius while you don't even know the first principles of modern science.

Ghrom said: Once again, in simple words (for the mentally deficient types, some of which may be around here). 1. Some geocentric models (the ones that are used by modern geocentrists) are observationally indistinguishable from the heliocentric models. 2. This posting tries to disprove all geocentric models with the help of observations. 3. FAIL.

37Then(V) Jacob took fresh sticks of poplar and almond and plane trees, and peeled white streaks in them, exposing the white of the sticks. 38He set the sticks that he had peeled in front of the flocks in the troughs, that is, the(W) watering places, where the flocks came to drink. And since they bred when they came to drink, 39the flocks bred in front of the sticks and so the flocks brought forth striped, speckled, and spotted.

Were they inspired to write, as a scientific statement

btw, this is typical weaseling on your part, since of course they could not have written ANYTHING as a scientific statement.

They couldn't have written about spaceships, either.

First of all, of course I don't for a moment think that there is anything to this "concave hollow earth" thing. I choose it as an example of maybe the stupidest idea in cosmology that anybody ever had.

Now, if somebody is a believer of the CHE, do you think that bringing up the physics of gravity is going to make a bit of difference? These are people who think that the whole solar system is small enough to fit inside the sphere of the earth, that people when they go up in airplanes or climb mountains become smaller, and you're going to prove them wrong because of the behavior of gravity inside a shell?

To be more technical about it, make any of your calculations for any of the forces of nature, and then transform the calculations and the laws so that outside is changed into inside, and inside to outside. Gravity, for example, is no longer an inverse-squared force, but something more complicated. Or one may have to introduce new "forces" (think of the Coriolis "force"). I don't even care whether the transformation is continuous or differentiable (the behavior of the point at infinity being swapped with the center of the sphere may be problematic, for example): it will work.

Dale Husband said: 1. Bull$#it. 2. It did. 3. LIAR!

Ghrom said: Hey, asshole, if you cannot grasp relativity (which requires that there be no objectively preferred frame of reference), it's your own mental problem.

I'm not contending that the coordinate system fixed on the earth is an inertial system. But it very well may be a system which can be treated by the General Theory of Relativity. Or maybe not - I'm not at all adept at GR, and I'm willing to be corrected. Additional forces may be needed - so be it. That is small potatoes compared with Neptune making a daily orbit of the earth at greater than the speed of light (not to mention what the stars must be doing), which the geocentrists obviously don't flinch at. That obviously requires some special force.

It seems to me that the most difficult part of geocentrism is the variation in (what we galileans call) the rotation of the earth. Geocentrists, it seems, must say that the stars change their speed around the earth according to events that happen on earth: earthquakes, tides, seasonal changes. Has a change in the earth's rotation been actually observed and measured as a result of an earthquake or other "local" event?

Ichthyic said: They couldn't have written about spaceships, either.

heddle said:

Wayne Francis said: Heddle, you can convince yourself that anything that is questionable is a metaphor but the fact remains the bible is full of explanations of how the people of the time might explain the world around them. The fact is most people believed the Earth was the centre of the universe for most of history. That means that if you are correct then the "divinely inspired bible" was misleading in its wording at best. The fact that you defend any easily refuted statement in the bible with "They didn't really mean it in that way" really speaks volumes about your intellectual honesty. I respect much of what you say but every time you go down this road I cringe.

That's irrelevant. It doesn't matter whether the biblical writers believed the earth rested on the back of a giant turtle. What matters is what they were inspired to right. Were they inspired to write, as a scientific statement, that the earth was at the center of the universe? They were not. Again, even if I believe in geocentricism and I write "the sun rose" I am not teaching geoctricism.

…But to affirm that the sun is really fixed in the center of the heavens and that the earth revolves very swiftly around the sun is a dangerous thing, not only irritating the theologians and philosophers, but by injuring our holy faith and making the sacred scripture false.

TomS said: It seems to me that the most difficult part of geocentrism is the variation in (what we galileans call) the rotation of the earth. Geocentrists, it seems, must say that the stars change their speed around the earth according to events that happen on earth: earthquakes, tides, seasonal changes. Has a change in the earth's rotation been actually observed and measured as a result of an earthquake or other "local" event?

TomS said: Additional forces may be needed - so be it. That is small potatoes compared with Neptune making a daily orbit of the earth at greater than the speed of light (not to mention what the stars must be doing), which the geocentrists obviously don’t flinch at. That obviously requires some special force.

One problem with relativistic solutions, is there is no privileged reference frame, geocentric is the same as heliocentric, Cytherian centric, Joviancentric 3753 Cruithne-centric, Gliese 581C-centric if you think that's pretty mind boggling, imagine we are all screaming around the sky of HD209458b in a HD209458b-centric system.

(for convenience we will ignore pesky details like Coriolis force, Foucault pendulums, watching exoplanets orbiting their suns and the like)

Daniel J. Andrews said: Re: metaphor vs literal. When the bible says the "sun stood still", it is rather irrelevant of 21st century people to debate whether that is literal or not. The important point is that the people of the time would have thought it to be an accurate description regardless of whether or not they thought the sun standing still was figurative or literal.

I am not familiar with the geocentrists, what they are really claiming. Just making a guess, I wouldn't be surprised that they are split into many different beliefs, or that they don't go into the details of special and/or general relativity, or that they aren't much concerned with having a coherent position.
So, I suspect, much of our discussion is rather quite irrelevant to geocentrism as it is actually proposed, but is rather against some kind of "ideal" geocentrism that a rational person might try to argue for, and such people don't exist. It can be, in a playful sense, a tool to explore physics and mathematics. I find it interesting what our current knowledge is on the variations in the rotation of the earth, for example.

heddle said:

Matt Young said: I do not mean to feed the FL troll, but the Hebrew Bible makes at least a dozen references to a flat earth, and Koheleth says

The sun also rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it arose [my italics].

If that is not geocentric, I do not know what is.

Oh give me a break. You don't know what it is? Really? OK I'll tell you what it is: it's a friggin' figure of speech--the same sort of figure of speech you find in modern English. If I find a modern book that says something like: "it was noticeably hotter; the sun had moved directly overhead" does it mean that book teaches geocentrism? And gee, if people come from all four corners of the earth to attend a scientific conference, does that mean...

Wayne Francis said:

heddle said:

Wayne Francis said: Heddle, you can convince yourself that anything that is questionable is a metaphor but the fact remains the bible is full of explanations of how the people of the time might explain the world around them. The fact is most people believed the Earth was the centre of the universe for most of history. That means that if you are correct then the "divinely inspired bible" was misleading in its wording at best. The fact that you defend any easily refuted statement in the bible with "They didn't really mean it in that way" really speaks volumes about your intellectual honesty. I respect much of what you say but every time you go down this road I cringe.

That's irrelevant. It doesn't matter whether the biblical writers believed the earth rested on the back of a giant turtle. What matters is what they were inspired to right. Were they inspired to write, as a scientific statement, that the earth was at the center of the universe? They were not. Again, even if I believe in geocentricism and I write "the sun rose" I am not teaching geoctricism.

I understand they where inspired to write, in your view by "God", in others views there are other motivations. The point I'm making is 1) They believed the Earth was the centre of the universe 2) They where human and prone to mistakes and misunderstandings 3) They translate this misunderstandings into parts of the stories of the bible. To claim that they didn't is hand waving away many points claiming that #1 & #2 where true that #3 would not logically follow and any inference that #3 might have occurred is us not reading the bible correctly is obscene. This is fully ignoring the parts of the bible where there is even less wiggle room. There is a reason we have the phrase "corners of the world" and it isn't because ancient people knew the world was a sphere and thought that the phrase is funny.

Ian -- if you want to really make us spin, you can't go past pulsar Ter5ad and its 716 Hz rotation.

But I'm going to take issue with the idea that all FoRs are interchangeable in relativity. Only inertial frames are.

heddle --

If your point is that the Old Testament was not intended to be a textbook, then you need to be telling that to the literalists out there, not the pro-science community. I don't think anyone here has claimed that the authors of the OT (and some of the NT) were *stupid* for being geocentrists and flat earthers.

Some people today do use Biblical text as a science textbook for their children. And quite a few want to make it a standard textbook. Pointing out the geocentrism in the Bible is a good argument against literalism.

I don't feel any need to dissect errors in the Sumerian cosmos (the universe is enclosed by a tin dome!) while reading Gilgamesh. But then, there aren't many fundamentalist Sumerians around any more.

"Next consider the principle that the collective consensus of the Fathers, when they all accept in the same sense a physical proposition from Scripture, should authenticate it in such a way that it becomes an article of faith to hold it. I should think that this at most ought to apply only to those conclusions in which the Fathers discussed and inspected with great dilligence and debated on both sides of the issue and for which they then all agreed to reject one side and hold the other. However, the earth's motion and sun's rest are not of this sort, given that in those times this opinion was totally forgotten and far from academic dispute and was not examined, let alone followed, by anyone; thus one may believe that the Fathers did not even think of discussing it since the scriptural passages, their own opinion, and popular consensus were all in agreement, and no contradiction by anyone was heard. Therefore, it is not enough to say that all the Fathers accept the earth's rest, etc., and so it is an article of faith to hold it; rather one would have to say that their failure to reflect upon it and discuss it made them leave it stand as the current opinion, but not as something resolved and established. I think that I can say this with very good reason: for either the Fathers reflected upon this conclusion as if it were controversial or they did not; if not, then they could not have decided anything about it, even in their minds, nor should their failure oblige us to accept those principles which they did not, even in intention, impose; whereas if they examined it with care, then they would have condemned it had they judged it to be erroneous; but there is no record of their having done this."

Galileo, Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina

page 108 in:
The Galileo Affair: A Documentary History
ed. and translated by Maurice A. Finocchiaro
U. of California Press, 1989

Web pages at

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/galileo-tuscany.html

Chris Lawson said: heddle -- If your point is that the Old Testament was not intended to be a textbook, then you need to be telling that to the literalists out there, not the pro-science community. I don't think anyone here has claimed that the authors of the OT (and some of the NT) were *stupid* for being geocentrists and flat earthers. Some people today do use Biblical text as a science textbook for their children. And quite a few want to make it a standard textbook. Pointing out the geocentrism in the Bible is a good argument against literalism. I don't feel any need to dissect errors in the Sumerian cosmos (the universe is enclosed by a tin dome!) while reading Gilgamesh. But then, there aren't many fundamentalist Sumerians around any more.

Just a small reminder:

Phenomenological language = / = geocentrism

It's also = / = metaphor/parable/allegory

FL

heddle said: All in all I find biblical literalists more reasonable when it comes to considering the possibility that some verses were not intended to be taken literally...

--far more willing to consider the genre, context, translation errors, etc. than your average "pro science" PT commenter. Once many-a "pro science" PT commenter finds a verse that they like, like the unicorn verse, they will hold on to it with a death grip and refuse to consider any explanation.

Dale Husband said:

Mike Elzinga's comment ...

By the way, Galileo went completely blind near the end of his life, which could have been seen as God's punishment on him.

stevaroni said:

heddle said: All in all I find biblical literalists more reasonable when it comes to considering the possibility that some verses were not intended to be taken literally...

Um, then they're not... well, literalists. They're "This is sometimes religious allegory-ists".

eddie said:

W. H. Heydt said: Unless you can propose some means of determining which are literal and which are not, a means that can be independently verified to be correct, then any or all verse may be taken as myth, allegory, metaphor, fiction, legend, idle speculation, or drug induced hallucinations.

What a strange world some people live in. Either meaning must be 'scientifically' fixable, or all language is indeterminate. Any form of communication must be very difficult in such a universe. Fortunately, a few of us have discovered a parallel world where good scholarship and research enable the literal/figural/otherwise debate to be settled to our satisfaction. Now if only I could invent some sort of meter to shine on the appropriate passages and convert them to numbers. Perhaps that would satisfy the more scientifically inclined.

Simply changing reference frames by shifting one’s position or velocity; or doing some kind of conformal mapping and flipping “zero” with “infinity” (i.e., “turning the world inside out”, so to speak) is not going to do it.

There are fundamental forces involved; gravity being one of the primary ones. And it is not sufficient to simply add “new forces” to explain the effects in the transformed system.

Part of the problem in Galileo’s time was that accelerations were not taken into consideration in changing reference points. Those sorts of things were not considered until Newton. The issues about why things stayed in circular (conical section) orbits could not be adequately addressed in Galileo’s time.

But gravitational potential wells are important in this universe. They have the shape necessary for nucleosynthesis. Things falling into gravitational wells lose total energy, but gain kinetic energy as they probe deeper and deeper into the well. That doesn’t happen for wells arising from forces that go as rⁿ where n is greater than or equal to -1.

So just flipping the universe “inside out” is a bit more complicated than just a geometrical mapping.

FL said: Phenomenological language = / = geocentrism It's also = / = metaphor/parable/allegory

W. H. Heydt said:

eddie said:

W. H. Heydt said: Unless you can propose some means of determining which are literal and which are not, a means that can be independently verified to be correct, then any or all verse may be taken as myth, allegory, metaphor, fiction, legend, idle speculation, or drug induced hallucinations.

What a strange world some people live in. Either meaning must be 'scientifically' fixable, or all language is indeterminate. Any form of communication must be very difficult in such a universe. Fortunately, a few of us have discovered a parallel world where good scholarship and research enable the literal/figural/otherwise debate to be settled to our satisfaction. Now if only I could invent some sort of meter to shine on the appropriate passages and convert them to numbers. Perhaps that would satisfy the more scientifically inclined.

I love the sound of a missed point whooshing past... Our resident creations (e.g Byers, FL, heddle) insist that some parts of the Bible are literally true, while other parts are metaphorical, or otherwise not to be taken literally. A reasonable person could agree. There is supporting evidence for some of the historical statements in the Bible, but not for others. The question then becomes, if one insists that any unsupported Biblical passage must be true, what means is to be used to distinguish it from one that may be "interpreted"? These issues have been brought up to the creationists repeatedly, and every time, they refuse to answer. I simply propose to raise the issue every time such claims are made. (If they wish to retreat into "it's a matter of faith", that's fine for them, but then they shouldn't expect anyone else to accept that answer "on faith" any more than they would accept the word of a scientist that they're dead wrong "on faith".) --W. H. Heydt Old Used Progammer

Let's not lose sight of the root cause of the argument. The discussion regarding geocentrism must take into account the religious strife of the times. When teaching, we used to refer to it as "to save the phenomena," i.e., ancient "revealed" wisdom coupled with inaccurate observations was not to be tampered with (geocentrism) versus heliocentrism. Any number of epicycles could be used to satisfactorily explain planetary motion, but there was no physical basis for them. Copernicus had proposed his heliocentric system (somewhat flawed), but nonetheless staunchly heliocenetric in concept. But this was a time when Protestants and Catholics were struggling for religious supremacy. Luther stated, according to Scripture, that "... Joshua bade the sun and not the earth to stand still." Others quoted the Psalms and Ecclesiastes: "... the earth stands eternally, the sun rises and sets." For Protestants then (and today) strict literal validity of the Bible was the basis of faith, whreas the Catholic Church claimed the right of interpretation, and was later changed to reject Copernicus's concept. Tycho Brahe tried to ease the Copernican system's adoption by modifying it, placing the earth at the center, the moon and sun circling the earth, and the remainder of the planets circling the sun. To make a long story short, what they were trying to do was to explain the non-uniform motions of the planets with epicycles, e.g., connecting circles within circles, to explain this motion. Kepler, with his ellipses, showed how this could be done without the epicycles, Newton refined that view, and Einstein refined it even further. Ironically, the arguments from Biblical inerrancy still garner support, even today.

Mr Heydt, you are confusing the literal with the true.

The bible can be literal about a worldwide flood without there having been such an event. You did not ask for a means of determining truth from falsity but of the literal from the metaphorical.

This latter is a matter of good textual scholarship. The former lies with which ever discipline wishes to have a stake in what is being claimed.

No point was missed, but ironically your words failed to communicate the literal truth you intended.

Stanton said:

Keelyn said:

FL said: Simply put, the Bible does NOT teach geocentrism, and in fact is quite silent about "centrisms" at all. FL

I'm not about to engage Floyd in an argument about what the Bible says or doesn't say, but clearly the Catholic Church taught a geocentric model for ...well, for some time. I have to wonder what prompted the Church to be so wrong for so long and why it didn't notice (or refused to notice?).

Martin Luther was also adamant that the idea of a heliocentric universe was devil-inspired superstition.

For Protestants then (and today) strict literal validity of the Bible was the basis of faith

I have said, that Moses does not here subtly descant, as a philosopher, on the secrets of nature, as may be seen in these words. First, he assigns a place in the expanse of heaven to the planets and stars; but astronomers make a distinction of spheres, and, at the same time, teach that the fixed stars have their proper place in the firmament. Moses makes two great luminaries; but astronomers prove, by conclusive reasons that the star of Saturn, which on account of its great distance, appears the least of all, is greater than the moon. Here lies the difference; Moses wrote in a popular style things which without instruction, all ordinary persons, endued with common sense, are able to understand; but astronomers investigate with great labor whatever the sagacity of the human mind can comprehend.

heddle said: I assume you agree that Calvin was Protestant. Here he is writing, if I may paraphrase, that we should not discard science's discovery of Saturn--bigger than earth's moon, because we have previously taken Gen 1:16 to mean, literally, that the moon is the second biggest object in the heavens.

Once again, in simple words (for the mentally deficient types, some of which may be around here). 1. Some geocentric models (the ones that are used by modern geocentrists) are observationally indistinguishable from the heliocentric models.

2. This posting tries to disprove all geocentric models with the help of observations.

FL -

I have a serious question for you.

If geocentricism is not true, then some parts of the Bible cannot be interpreted literally. That's clear enough.

So, then, exactly which parts of the Bible contradict the theory of evolution - exact passages please - and why should they be interpreted literally?

Right. So then, the way that we can tell which parts of the bible are metaphors and which parts are literally true is to simply say that anything that turns out not to be factually correct was simply a metaphor. Got it. So much for the creation metaphors.

heddle said:

Chris Lawson said: heddle -- If your point is that the Old Testament was not intended to be a textbook, then you need to be telling that to the literalists out there, not the pro-science community. I don't think anyone here has claimed that the authors of the OT (and some of the NT) were *stupid* for being geocentrists and flat earthers. Some people today do use Biblical text as a science textbook for their children. And quite a few want to make it a standard textbook. Pointing out the geocentrism in the Bible is a good argument against literalism. I don't feel any need to dissect errors in the Sumerian cosmos (the universe is enclosed by a tin dome!) while reading Gilgamesh. But then, there aren't many fundamentalist Sumerians around any more.

You are half right. And I do tell it as much as I can to the bible literalists. But you are wrong about the science community--in as much as it is represented by, say, PT commenters. Because it is on here (as evidenced by this thread) were you find the most ardent biblical literalists--were biblical figures of speech are offered as irrefutable evidence of statements of scientific error. It is also the "pro-science community" (again, as represented by PT commenters) that are among the most ardent King-James-Only proponents--as evidenced by the insistence in a thread--a month or so back, that the bible teaches that unicorns existed--because there it is in the KJV! All in all I find biblical literalists more reasonable when it comes to considering the possibility that some verses were not intended to be taken literally--far more willing to consider the genre, context, translation errors, etc. than your average "pro science" PT commenter. Once many-a "pro science" PT commenter finds a verse that they like, like the unicorn verse, they will hold on to it with a death grip and refuse to consider any explanation.

JASONMITCHELL

You must have me confused with some combination of a Young Earth Creationist (I'm not), an evolution denier (I'm not), or someone who doesn't support solid science teaching (I do--I'm a physicist and a physics professor for crying out loud.)

By the way, the way you attempt to judge, in a scholarly manner, is to recognize the genre of the biblical text--is it written as plain text? Hebrew parallel poetry? apocalyptic? historic? Then you reexamine the translation--is there a tense involved in the Greek that doesn't even exist in English? Are there viable alternative words the translators could have selected or at least considered if they knew what we know now? Is the context always what has been assumed? That's what you attempt--but for the N'th time there is no objective way to judge. Ultimately it is an informed Occam's razor sort of deal.

I knew someone would ignore everything that I wrote and spew the same-old same-old brain-dead blah, blah, blah, whatever is wrong is a metaphor, blah blah blah–OK Got it tactic.

If the above is not a fair representation of your approach to the Bible, please feel free to enlighten me with clarification. To save you time, I apologize in advance for being an idiot, cretin, moron, buffoon, dullard, and jackass. So all you have to do is explain your actual view.

FL said: Simply put, the Bible does NOT teach geocentrism, and in fact is quite silent about "centrisms" at all. B'dee b'dee that's all, folks! FL

heddle said:

stevaroni said:

heddle said: All in all I find biblical literalists more reasonable when it comes to considering the possibility that some verses were not intended to be taken literally...

Um, then they're not... well, literalists. They're "This is sometimes religious allegory-ists".

Um, then… well, nobody is a literalist, given that nobody takes every verse literally.

heddle said: All in all I find biblical literalists more reasonable when it comes to considering the possibility that some verses were not intended to be taken literally…

Um, then they’re not… well, literalists. They’re “This is sometimes religious allegory-ists”.

Heddle, why do you engage in evasion, deception, and equivocation? You acted the same way on the unicorn not being in the bible discussion and such appears to be your MO with regard to such discussions.

heddle said: DS

Right. So then, the way that we can tell which parts of the bible are metaphors and which parts are literally true is to simply say that anything that turns out not to be factually correct was simply a metaphor. Got it. So much for the creation metaphors.

I knew someone would ignore everything that I wrote and spew the same-old same-old brain-dead blah, blah, blah, whatever is wrong is a metaphor, blah blah blah--OK Got it tactic. Congratulations--you're that idiot.

Please provide an objective means of decide which passages are to be taken literally and which are not. A means that can be applied by anyone…believer or not.

The passage is to be taken literally unless the text -- or the context -- indicate otherwise.

FL said:

Please provide an objective means of decide which passages are to be taken literally and which are not. A means that can be applied by anyone…believer or not.

Sure. I don't know what your definition of "objective" is, but I can tell you three standard hermeneutical rules across the board. When you read a particular Bible text: (1) The passage is to be taken literally unless the text -- or the context -- indicate otherwise. This isn't just for the Bible; you would do this for ANY ancient (or even contemporary) literature, whether you are religious or irreligious. For example, when Jesus says, "The kingdom of heaven is like...", well, that word "like" is a dead giveaway. The text is going to be a simile, period. Not literal. RAgain, rmember when Jesus talking about following Him and "hating one's mother and family"? That's where you would watch out for the larger context. (Remember Jesus also said love thy neighbor--so you can't love thy neighbor while also hatin' yo momma, right? So the larger CONTEXT would tell you that Jesus is not telling you in that one discipleship text to literally start hatin' on yo momma. Threfore not a literal text.) (2) You would want to familiarize yourself with the standard figures of speech. If you see one of those standard figures of speech in a text, then voila! You found one. Your text may not be literal. But if you do NOT see it there in the text, you can NOT arbitrarily act as if one is there anyway. Not even if "Darwin Sez So." Here are a couple good lists of figures-of-speech to watch for. Basic: http://www.raystedman.org/leadership/smith/ch7.html Advanced: http://rhetoric.byu.edu/Figures/Groupings/by%20Author/Bullinger.htm (3) Finally, as mentioned before, phenomenological language (something described as seen from the perspective of an observer on the ground) is NOT metaphor/parable/allegory, and it is NOT geocentrism (not even in Joshua chapter 10--the specific details of the text make that clear). We all say "sunrise" and "sunset"--even back in the Bible times, it seems. It's not a big deal. Anyway, you don't have to be a Christian to follow these steps. FL

Again, remember when Jesus talking about following Him and “hating one’s mother and family”? That’s where you would watch out for the larger context. (Remember Jesus also said love thy neighbor–so you can’t love thy neighbor while also hatin’ yo momma, right? So the larger CONTEXT would tell you that Jesus is not telling you in that one discipleship text to literally start hatin’ on yo momma. Threfore not a literal text.)

So are you saying geocentrism / Adam’s creation / Noah’s flood / Joshua’s stopping-the-sun are “metaphor / parable / allegory”?

FL said:

So are you saying geocentrism / Adam’s creation / Noah’s flood / Joshua’s stopping-the-sun are “metaphor / parable / allegory”?

No. I'm saying that ground-observer-based wording like "sunrise" "sunset", is NOT geocentrism. Joshua chap. 10, which uses that kind of ground-observer wording in the "Battle of The Five Kings" account, is NOT an example of geocentrism. Also that wording is not metaphor, not parable, nor allegory. FL

Sigh. I’ve already repeated myself too many times. In no place did I say something as simple as: if science says it’s wrong, then it is a metaphor! Ain’t that easy! I said, in a nutshell, a) when faced with a science-theology conflict it is reasonable and desirable to examine your theology as the possible source of the conflict (and vice versa) and b) in the response to JASONMITCHELL at 12:49, I outlined how one might determine whether it is proper to take a verse as non-literal–and that it is not willy-nilly. That’s my response–read as you like–distort it as you did–but don’t ask me to give it again.

In this case, the context should obviously be the real universe we live in.

harold said: Heddle -

Sigh. I’ve already repeated myself too many times. In no place did I say something as simple as: if science says it’s wrong, then it is a metaphor! Ain’t that easy! I said, in a nutshell, a) when faced with a science-theology conflict it is reasonable and desirable to examine your theology as the possible source of the conflict (and vice versa) and b) in the response to JASONMITCHELL at 12:49, I outlined how one might determine whether it is proper to take a verse as non-literal–and that it is not willy-nilly. That’s my response–read as you like–distort it as you did–but don’t ask me to give it again.

However, I take it that you never resolve the conflict by deciding that science is wrong, and that Biblical passages which contradict science (not descriptions of one time miracles that can't be ruled out, but stuff like "four corners of the earth", "God created all the animals on the same day", and so on) are correct. So in fact, you do exactly what others have said - if something in the Bible contradicts physical reality, or seems to advocate behavior that is unacceptable but modern standards, you assign it a metaphorical meaning. As I said, there is nothing terribly unusual about this and I have no objection to it. Too bad creationists won't do it.

Okay… Points 1 and 3 eliminate the 6-day creations of Gen 1 & 2.

FL said:

In this case, the context should obviously be the real universe we live in.

No, it's not like that. For the question, "Does the Bible teach geocentrism?", you have no rational choice but to find your answer from the Bible itself. So, when you're examining a particular Bible verse, that word "context" necessarily means: (1) the rest of the verses in that chapter, (2) the rest of the chapters in that book, (3) the rest of the books in the Bible. That's the context of a given Bible text. You have to be aware of each item. FL

Myths, and symbolic language - of which we find a lot of in the Bible, must be decoded, interpreted, understood. But in order to do that, we need to know how to identify a myth, we need to learn to appreciate and judge the Bible for what it is. The Christian churches have lost the key.

An eye-opener is required. I believe there is a passage in the NT where Jesus is said to have 'opened the eyes' of his disciples so they could understand the scriptures. Who opened your eyes, FL?

FL said:

Okay… Points 1 and 3 eliminate the 6-day creations of Gen 1 & 2.

When you have some time, please offer rational/Scriptural support for this particular claim concerning Points 1 and 3.

heddle said: JASONMITCHELL You must have me confused with some combination of a Young Earth Creationist (I'm not), an evolution denier (I'm not), or someone who doesn't support solid science teaching (I do--I'm a physicist and a physics professor for crying out loud.) By the way, the way you attempt to judge, in a scholarly manner, is to recognize the genre of the biblical text--is it written as plain text? Hebrew parallel poetry? apocalyptic? historic? Then you reexamine the translation--is there a tense involved in the Greek that doesn't even exist in English? Are there viable alternative words the translators could have selected or at least considered if they knew what we know now? Is the context always what has been assumed? That's what you attempt--but for the N'th time there is no objective way to judge. Ultimately it is an informed Occam's razor sort of deal.

tsig said:

heddle said: JASONMITCHELL You must have me confused with some combination of a Young Earth Creationist (I'm not), an evolution denier (I'm not), or someone who doesn't support solid science teaching (I do--I'm a physicist and a physics professor for crying out loud.) By the way, the way you attempt to judge, in a scholarly manner, is to recognize the genre of the biblical text--is it written as plain text? Hebrew parallel poetry? apocalyptic? historic? Then you reexamine the translation--is there a tense involved in the Greek that doesn't even exist in English? Are there viable alternative words the translators could have selected or at least considered if they knew what we know now? Is the context always what has been assumed? That's what you attempt--but for the N'th time there is no objective way to judge. Ultimately it is an informed Occam's razor sort of deal.

When you're doing this reexamination are you inspired by god? If not then I don't see how you can say your interpretation is any better than Ken Hams'.

heddle said: But I would have applied this method in that direction in the early 20th century--when the popular steady state cosmology flatly contradicted the bible's first verse, then one which speaks of a beginning.

When you’re doing this reexamination are you inspired by god?

If not then I don’t see how you can say your interpretation is any better than Ken Hams’.

Dale Husband said:

tsig said:

heddle said: JASONMITCHELL You must have me confused with some combination of a Young Earth Creationist (I'm not), an evolution denier (I'm not), or someone who doesn't support solid science teaching (I do--I'm a physicist and a physics professor for crying out loud.) By the way, the way you attempt to judge, in a scholarly manner, is to recognize the genre of the biblical text--is it written as plain text? Hebrew parallel poetry? apocalyptic? historic? Then you reexamine the translation--is there a tense involved in the Greek that doesn't even exist in English? Are there viable alternative words the translators could have selected or at least considered if they knew what we know now? Is the context always what has been assumed? That's what you attempt--but for the N'th time there is no objective way to judge. Ultimately it is an informed Occam's razor sort of deal.

When you're doing this reexamination are you inspired by god? If not then I don't see how you can say your interpretation is any better than Ken Hams'.

Simple, because one is guilty of fraud and the other is not. Ken Ham uses all sort of nonsense to justify his extremist crap. He puts the Bible, a man-made book, as the absolute standard of truth. No one who truly believes God made the universe itself should do that. Nothing man makes should be considered absolute truth or even a representation of God himself. That's actually idolatry and blasphemy.

heddle said: tsig,

When you’re doing this reexamination are you inspired by god?

I was not.

If not then I don’t see how you can say your interpretation is any better than Ken Hams’.

Why not? Of course it is subjective, if that's what you mean. Obviously I think my interpretation is better than Ken Ham's--otherwise I would abandon mine and adopt his. To me, my interpretation is more self-consistent. I can hold mine, as a scientist and a theist, with no cognitive dissonance. I could not do the same with Ham's. No doubt Ken Ham would say the same about his. Why does this matter? And surely it's not surprising?

FL said: No. I'm saying that ground-observer-based wording like "sunrise" "sunset", is NOT geocentrism.

tsig said:

heddle said: tsig,

When you’re doing this reexamination are you inspired by god?

I was not.

If not then I don’t see how you can say your interpretation is any better than Ken Hams’.

Why not? Of course it is subjective, if that's what you mean. Obviously I think my interpretation is better than Ken Ham's--otherwise I would abandon mine and adopt his. To me, my interpretation is more self-consistent. I can hold mine, as a scientist and a theist, with no cognitive dissonance. I could not do the same with Ham's. No doubt Ken Ham would say the same about his. Why does this matter? And surely it's not surprising?

What's surprising is that it reduces the Bible from the holy word of god to just a matter of interpretation from the fallible mind of man. It means your whole hope of salvation could be based on a lie.

Wasn't there some discussion of relegating FL to the Bathroom Wall? I thought that was an excellent idea.

Wolfhound said: Wasn't there some discussion of relegating FL to the Bathroom Wall? I thought that was an excellent idea.

heddle said:

tsig said:

heddle said: tsig,

When you’re doing this reexamination are you inspired by god?

I was not.

If not then I don’t see how you can say your interpretation is any better than Ken Hams’.

Why not? Of course it is subjective, if that's what you mean. Obviously I think my interpretation is better than Ken Ham's--otherwise I would abandon mine and adopt his. To me, my interpretation is more self-consistent. I can hold mine, as a scientist and a theist, with no cognitive dissonance. I could not do the same with Ham's. No doubt Ken Ham would say the same about his. Why does this matter? And surely it's not surprising?

What's surprising is that it reduces the Bible from the holy word of god to just a matter of interpretation from the fallible mind of man. It means your whole hope of salvation could be based on a lie.

Well that was always possible. Like Paul wrote: if there was no resurrection then we (Christians) are a bunch of first class losers. There is always a risk that bible simply is not true and the son of god was not incarnate. I would also point out that in spite of irreconcilable differences when it comes to creation, most YECs and I are in agreement that the bible teaches salvation by faith in the finished redemptive work of Jesus Christ, not salvation by arriving at the correct interpretation of Genesis One and Two. Or Revelation.

JASONMITCHELL said: I know I'm going off the tracks here.... but what IF there was no historical Jesus? Aspiring toward an ideal, to follow the wisdom of Jesus's teachings would still be noble in an of itself - even if Jesus never really existing in the sense that the Bible/Gospels are a historically accurate telling of events 2000 years ago- this is the true test of faith - can you be a good Christian, without a 'factual' Jesus - can you be a good Christian if the Gospels are Myth/Allegorical - I think you can be- I think it is MORE noble/right to behave based upon the wisdom of the teachings vs. the actual words in the book.

FL said:

In this case, the context should obviously be the real universe we live in.

No, it's not like that. For the question, "Does the Bible teach geocentrism?", you have no rational choice but to find your answer from the Bible itself. So, when you're examining a particular Bible verse, that word "context" necessarily means: (1) the rest of the verses in that chapter, (2) the rest of the chapters in that book, (3) the rest of the books in the Bible. That's the context of a given Bible text. You have to be aware of each item. FL

I am sorry, but the "you can be galileo" discussion will not dissuade the modern geocentricist, because they
are pushing a "modified Tychonic model", wherein the other planets and the celestial sphere orbit the common center of mass of the solar system, and that center of mass orbits the earth.

The Foucault pendulum and stellar abberation observations, as well as observations of Coriolis effects in the Earth's atmosphere further will not phase them, because of a one-liner from a conversation between Mach and Einstein, wherein Einstein asserted that if the universe were orbiting the earth, the intertial effects would be the same as if the earth rotates.

They view any fictitious forces resulting from such a choice of coordinate system to be real forces.

It's all wonderfully ad hoc.

Wolfhound said: Wasn't there some discussion of relegating FL to the Bathroom Wall? I thought that was an excellent idea.

heddle said:

Chris Lawson said: heddle -- If your point is that the Old Testament was not intended to be a textbook, then you need to be telling that to the literalists out there, not the pro-science community. I don't think anyone here has claimed that the authors of the OT (and some of the NT) were *stupid* for being geocentrists and flat earthers. Some people today do use Biblical text as a science textbook for their children. And quite a few want to make it a standard textbook. Pointing out the geocentrism in the Bible is a good argument against literalism. I don't feel any need to dissect errors in the Sumerian cosmos (the universe is enclosed by a tin dome!) while reading Gilgamesh. But then, there aren't many fundamentalist Sumerians around any more.

You are half right. And I do tell it as much as I can to the bible literalists. But you are wrong about the science community--in as much as it is represented by, say, PT commenters. Because it is on here (as evidenced by this thread) were you find the most ardent biblical literalists--were biblical figures of speech are offered as irrefutable evidence of statements of scientific error. It is also the "pro-science community" (again, as represented by PT commenters) that are among the most ardent King-James-Only proponents--as evidenced by the insistence in a thread--a month or so back, that the bible teaches that unicorns existed--because there it is in the KJV! All in all I find biblical literalists more reasonable when it comes to considering the possibility that some verses were not intended to be taken literally--far more willing to consider the genre, context, translation errors, etc. than your average "pro science" PT commenter. Once many-a "pro science" PT commenter finds a verse that they like, like the unicorn verse, they will hold on to it with a death grip and refuse to consider any explanation.

heddle said:

stevaroni said:

heddle said: All in all I find biblical literalists more reasonable when it comes to considering the possibility that some verses were not intended to be taken literally...

Um, then they're not... well, literalists. They're "This is sometimes religious allegory-ists".

Um, then… well, nobody is a literalist, given that nobody takes every verse literally.

Mike Elzinga said: Simply changing reference frames by shifting one’s position or velocity; or doing some kind of conformal mapping and flipping “zero” with “infinity” (i.e., “turning the world inside out”, so to speak) is not going to do it. There are fundamental forces involved; gravity being one of the primary ones. And it is not sufficient to simply add “new forces” to explain the effects in the transformed system. Part of the problem in Galileo’s time was that accelerations were not taken into consideration in changing reference points. Those sorts of things were not considered until Newton. The issues about why things stayed in circular (conical section) orbits could not be adequately addressed in Galileo’s time. But gravitational potential wells are important in this universe. They have the shape necessary for nucleosynthesis. Things falling into gravitational wells lose total energy, but gain kinetic energy as they probe deeper and deeper into the well. That doesn’t happen for wells arising from forces that go as rⁿ where n is greater than or equal to -1. So just flipping the universe “inside out” is a bit more complicated than just a geometrical mapping.

heddle said:

W. H. Heydt said:

eddie said:

W. H. Heydt said: Unless you can propose some means of determining which are literal and which are not, a means that can be independently verified to be correct, then any or all verse may be taken as myth, allegory, metaphor, fiction, legend, idle speculation, or drug induced hallucinations.

What a strange world some people live in. Either meaning must be 'scientifically' fixable, or all language is indeterminate. Any form of communication must be very difficult in such a universe. Fortunately, a few of us have discovered a parallel world where good scholarship and research enable the literal/figural/otherwise debate to be settled to our satisfaction. Now if only I could invent some sort of meter to shine on the appropriate passages and convert them to numbers. Perhaps that would satisfy the more scientifically inclined.

I love the sound of a missed point whooshing past... Our resident creations (e.g Byers, FL, heddle) insist that some parts of the Bible are literally true, while other parts are metaphorical, or otherwise not to be taken literally. A reasonable person could agree. There is supporting evidence for some of the historical statements in the Bible, but not for others. The question then becomes, if one insists that any unsupported Biblical passage must be true, what means is to be used to distinguish it from one that may be "interpreted"? These issues have been brought up to the creationists repeatedly, and every time, they refuse to answer. I simply propose to raise the issue every time such claims are made. (If they wish to retreat into "it's a matter of faith", that's fine for them, but then they shouldn't expect anyone else to accept that answer "on faith" any more than they would accept the word of a scientist that they're dead wrong "on faith".) --W. H. Heydt Old Used Progammer

No I gave you an answer--you just didn't accept it. The answer is: there is no requirement on me to have an objective rule for determining what should be taken literally. I agree that one should not have a willy-nilly approach. But one can have a scholarly self-consistent approach which I have stated many times. I'll summarize it: 1) God has two forms of revelation. One is Special Revelation. That's the bible. 2) The other form of revelation is General Revelation. That's creation. 3) My presupposition is that god is not a god of confusion, so that properly understood these two forms cannot be in conflict. 4) Theology, a human endeavor, and therefore highly fallible, is an attempt to understand special revelation. 5) Science, a human endeavor, and therefore highly fallible, is an attempt to understand general revelation. 6) Given than neither theology nor science is infallible, when they conflict one or both must be wrong. And therefore... 7) It is perfectly reasonable to reexamine one's theology (including cherished biblical exegesis) in light of scientific advancement to explore the possibility that one's theology is wrong. (And vice versa.) This bothers some people because not only does it leave open the possibility of adjusting what one believes is literal in light of scientific advancement--it advocates doing so. It's a feature, not a bug.

heddle said: DavidK,

For Protestants then (and today) strict literal validity of the Bible was the basis of faith

Sorry that's just wrong. For both then and today. You could argue that innerancy of the scripture is bedrock for evangelical Protestants--but not "strict literal validity" of the bible. As mentioned earlier--even setting aside obvious metaphors, nobody--absolutely nobody--not even the most ardent fundamentalist--takes the bible strictly literally. Everyone is quoting Luther. But even in his time we have Calvin who wrote concerning Gen 1:16 (And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars.)

I have said, that Moses does not here subtly descant, as a philosopher, on the secrets of nature, as may be seen in these words. First, he assigns a place in the expanse of heaven to the planets and stars; but astronomers make a distinction of spheres, and, at the same time, teach that the fixed stars have their proper place in the firmament. Moses makes two great luminaries; but astronomers prove, by conclusive reasons that the star of Saturn, which on account of its great distance, appears the least of all, is greater than the moon. Here lies the difference; Moses wrote in a popular style things which without instruction, all ordinary persons, endued with common sense, are able to understand; but astronomers investigate with great labor whatever the sagacity of the human mind can comprehend.

I assume you agree that Calvin was Protestant. Here he is writing, if I may paraphrase, that we should not discard science's discovery of Saturn--bigger than earth's moon, because we have previously taken Gen 1:16 to mean, literally, that the moon is the second biggest object in the heavens.

you can't have it both ways! Biblical literalists / Creationists/ claim that the Biblical creation story is literally true - ... (obvious even to non- believers)

heddle said: JASONMITCHELL You must have me confused with some combination of a Young Earth Creationist (I'm not), an evolution denier (I'm not), or someone who doesn't support solid science teaching (I do--I'm a physicist and a physics professor for crying out loud.) By the way, the way you attempt to judge, in a scholarly manner, is to recognize the genre of the biblical text--is it written as plain text? Hebrew parallel poetry? apocalyptic? historic? Then you reexamine the translation--is there a tense involved in the Greek that doesn't even exist in English? Are there viable alternative words the translators could have selected or at least considered if they knew what we know now? Is the context always what has been assumed? That's what you attempt--but for the N'th time there is no objective way to judge. Ultimately it is an informed Occam's razor sort of deal.

heddle said: Well that was always possible. Like Paul wrote: if there was no resurrection then we (Christians) are a bunch of first class losers. There is always a risk that bible simply is not true and the son of god was not incarnate. I would also point out that in spite of irreconcilable differences when it comes to creation, most YECs and I are in agreement that the bible teaches salvation by faith in the finished redemptive work of Jesus Christ, not salvation by arriving at the correct interpretation of Genesis One and Two. Or Revelation.

John Vanko said:

Wolfhound said: Wasn't there some discussion of relegating FL to the Bathroom Wall? I thought that was an excellent idea.

We already have one certified whackaloon in the Bathroom now. Not sure we want another. On the other hand, if we could get them arguing with each other (premillennialist, amillennialist, postmillennialist sort of thing) we could lock the door and throw away the key!

FL said:

Okay… Points 1 and 3 eliminate the 6-day creations of Gen 1 & 2.

When you have some time, please offer rational/Scriptural support for this particular claim concerning Points 1 and 3.

W. H. Heydt said: If you stick strictly to the Bible, you are attempting what math does: create an internally consistent system with no required connection to reality. At least the mathematicians succeed in being self-consistent. --W. H. Heydt Old Used Programmer

I bet FL is really just a scientist who enjoys trolling you guys.

I bet FL is really just a scientist who enjoys trolling you guys.

Jimmy said: I bet FL is really just a scientist who enjoys trolling you guys.

At least the mathematicians succeed in being self-consistent.

(1) The passage (that is, any given Bible text) is to be taken literally unless the text – or the context – indicate otherwise. This isn’t just for the Bible; you would do this for ANY ancient (or even contemporary) literature, whether you are religious or irreligious. For example, when Jesus says, “The kingdom of heaven is like…”, well, that word “like” is a dead giveaway. The text is going to be a simile, period. Not literal. Again, remember when Jesus talking about following Him and “hating one’s mother and family”? That’s where you would watch out for the larger context. (Remember Jesus also said love thy neighbor–so you can’t love thy neighbor while also hatin’ yo momma, right? So the larger CONTEXT would tell you that Jesus is not telling you in that one discipleship text to literally start hatin’ on yo momma. Therefore it's not a literal text.)

(3) Finally, as mentioned before, phenomenological language (something described as seen from the perspective of an observer on the ground) is NOT metaphor/parable/allegory, and it is NOT geocentrism (not even in Joshua chapter 10–the specific details of the text make that clear).

Rational is easy…just study the universe around you. Rocks, fossils, animals. Things like that. Even tree rings are sufficient to rule out a 6K year old Earth. Using the Bible as self-referential support for the Bible is a circular argument: a logical fallacy. What you need is evidence outside the Bible to support (or disprove) it.

FL said: So, in a previous post, W.H. Heydt said that the following two points, the following two standards of Bible interpretation, "eliminate the 6-day creations of Gen 1 & 2." So here is point #1 again:

(1) The passage (that is, any given Bible text) is to be taken literally unless the text – or the context – indicate otherwise. This isn’t just for the Bible; you would do this for ANY ancient (or even contemporary) literature, whether you are religious or irreligious. For example, when Jesus says, “The kingdom of heaven is like…”, well, that word “like” is a dead giveaway. The text is going to be a simile, period. Not literal. Again, remember when Jesus talking about following Him and “hating one’s mother and family”? That’s where you would watch out for the larger context. (Remember Jesus also said love thy neighbor–so you can’t love thy neighbor while also hatin’ yo momma, right? So the larger CONTEXT would tell you that Jesus is not telling you in that one discipleship text to literally start hatin’ on yo momma. Therefore it's not a literal text.)

And here is point #3 again:

(3) Finally, as mentioned before, phenomenological language (something described as seen from the perspective of an observer on the ground) is NOT metaphor/parable/allegory, and it is NOT geocentrism (not even in Joshua chapter 10–the specific details of the text make that clear).

So, since it is clearly NOT self-evident that Points #1 and #3, as written, "eliminate the 6-day creations of Gen 1 & 2", I asked that the claim be rationally supported. W.H. Heydt thus replied:

Rational is easy…just study the universe around you. Rocks, fossils, animals. Things like that. Even tree rings are sufficient to rule out a 6K year old Earth. Using the Bible as self-referential support for the Bible is a circular argument: a logical fallacy. What you need is evidence outside the Bible to support (or disprove) it.

So here's the problem, Mr. Heydt. Yes, I understand that you do believe that "the universe around you" (rocks, fossils, etc) are sufficient "to rule out a 6K year old Earth." Got it. Understood. But that's NOT the point that you expressed earlier, and that's NOT the point that I subsequently asked you rationally defend. Remember, you specifically said that MY OWN Points # 1 and #3, those two interpretation rules as explicitly written, "eliminated the 6-day creations of Gen 1 & 2." THAT specific claim, is what I was (and am) asking you to rationally support and defend. You have not done that yet. Your disagreement with Gen. 1 and Gen. 2, clearly do NOT derive from Points # 1 and # 3 as you have claimed. Instead they derive from something separate---your own belief that the rocks and fossils (as interpreted by people who subscribe to uniformitarian and materialistic presuppositions) "rule out" a 6K year old earth. Do you see the difference there? You're appealing to something other than the two actual points (rules) themselves. ****** So indeed, W. H. Heydt's earlier claim about #1 and #3 is shown to be entirely without rational support, as of this time. But give Heydt some credit. Instead of whining about Bathroom Walls like Wolfhound, Heydt is sincerely engaging the response(s) given to the sincere inquiry he asked earlier. That's how a REAL Panda operates around here, boys. FL

Are you saying your have never read the first two chapters of Genesis and noted how they totally contradict each other? For example, which came first, animals or the first man?

FL said: But give Heydt some credit. Instead of whining about Bathroom Walls like Wolfhound, Heydt is sincerely engaging the response(s) given to the sincere inquiry he asked earlier. That's how a REAL Panda operates around here, boys.

See, "The Cosmology of the Bible," a chapter in the recently published work, The Christian Delusion.

Not that I'd want to put the conversation back on topic, but ...

Has anyone actually LOOKED at Venus or Jupiter, or the Sunspots ...

Ian Musgrave said: Not that I'd want to put the conversation back on topic, but ... Has anyone actually LOOKED at Venus or Jupiter, or the Sunspots ...

Heddle said: I have readily affirmed (on numerous occasions) that the biblical writers, living when they did, held to fatally-flawed primitive cosmologies. The point, again, is that they were not inspired to write their cosmologies into scripture as scientific fact. Just like if I were now inspired to write scripture I would not be inspired to write down the equations for String Theory–since ultimately they are are likely not the definitive truth about the structure of spacetime. Let’s grant that they believed in geocentricism. Were they inspired to write: The earth stands fixed at the center of the cosmos, unmoving–both transitionally and rotationally. The sun and planets circle about the earth, and the retrograde motion of the planets is due to God’s stopping them in their tracks and sending them backwards for a season” but they didn’t write anything like that. They wrote things like: the sun rose, and sat, and hastened to return which is a perfectly fine description of appearances–one that we might still use today–and a figure of speech regardless of their cosmology. And in fact perhaps some of the writers had no cosmology at all.

Ian Musgrave said: Not that I'd want to put the conversation back on topic, but ... Has anyone actually LOOKED at Venus or Jupiter, or the Sunspots ...

Jimmy said: I bet FL is really just a scientist who enjoys trolling you guys.

heddley sez:

there is no requirement on me to have an objective rule for determining what should be taken literally.

there is no rule that says anyone needs take you seriously, either.

nobody I've ever seen on any board you post on does.

does that never make you think, at all?

everyone independently concludes that you "you engage in evasion, deception, and equivocation"

it's not just here, it's also on Pharyngula, and everywhere else I've ever seen you post.

Is EVERYONE wrong about you? are you just a poor misunderstood sod? or perhaps, just perhaps, you are in fact communicating equivocally and rather dishonestly.

take a closer look at yourself sometime.

Wayne Francis said:

Ian Musgrave said: Not that I'd want to put the conversation back on topic, but ... Has anyone actually LOOKED at Venus or Jupiter, or the Sunspots ...

I look at Jupiter and Venus through a telescope all the time...don't have the filters for looking at the sun.

FL said:

Okay… Points 1 and 3 eliminate the 6-day creations of Gen 1 & 2.

When you have some time, please offer rational/Scriptural support for this particular claim concerning Points 1 and 3.

Ian Musgrave said: Not that I'd want to put the conversation back on topic, but ... Has anyone actually LOOKED at Venus or Jupiter, or the Sunspots ...

Dale Husband said:

Ian Musgrave said: Not that I'd want to put the conversation back on topic, but ... Has anyone actually LOOKED at Venus or Jupiter, or the Sunspots ...

No, no, and no.

Indeed, you can't look directly at the sunspots because your eyes would literally be burned out.

Eight years ago I was watching a nice sunset. Just before it touched the horizon it entered a band of light clouds, which dimmed it just enough so that I could comfortably look at the disk for a short time. And there, right in the center, was a small black blemish.

On getting home that evening, I checked the solar observation websites and discovered that there was indeed a giant sunspot sitting in the middle of the disk (this one, in fact). So yes it is possible under the right conditions to view sunspots directly.

John Farrell said: Sungenis has been ranting about relativy for years. I would love to put him in a room with some of the DI folks and see how that would go....

Ron Okimoto said:

John Farrell said: Sungenis has been ranting about relativy for years. I would love to put him in a room with some of the DI folks and see how that would go....

What do you get your PhD in to become a bonafide geocentric scientist?

FL said: But give Heydt some credit. Instead of whining about Bathroom Walls like Wolfhound, Heydt is sincerely engaging the response(s) given to the sincere inquiry he asked earlier. That's how a REAL Panda operates around here, boys. FL

Ian Musgrave said: Not that I'd want to put the conversation back on topic, but ... Has anyone actually LOOKED at Venus or Jupiter, or the Sunspots ...

Ian Musgrave said: Not that I'd want to put the conversation back on topic, but ... Has anyone actually LOOKED at Venus or Jupiter, or the Sunspots ...

Keelyn said: [snip] Directly through the telescope? Sometimes. These days, it's convenient to select the target on TheSky(TM), let the scope slew to position, track, and start imaging. With technology like that easily available, who would ever want to spead a blanket out on a warm night, under coal black skies, gazing around with a pair of binoculars, catching the glimpse of an occasional meteor, ... ;)

Ian Musgrave said:

Wayne Francis said:

Ian Musgrave said: Not that I'd want to put the conversation back on topic, but ... Has anyone actually LOOKED at Venus or Jupiter, or the Sunspots ...

I look at Jupiter and Venus through a telescope all the time...don't have the filters for looking at the sun.

Use safe solar projection techniques, as illustrated for binoculars, and in the link.

That was a total solar eclipse BTW.

I think that geocentrism does present an occasion for some interesting thoughts about science. For example, did you know that if we represent the solar system as revolving around the earth once a day, that Neptune, at a distance of about 30 astronomical units, would average slightly above the speed of light?

One simple way of calculating this is if you remember that the sun, at 1AU, is about 8 light-minutes away. That means that 30AU is about 240 light-minutes, and the circumference of a circle of radius 240 light-minutes (the orbital path length for Neptune) is 2pi, more than 6 x 240 = 1440 light-minutes, or one light-day.

Now, recall the old Voyager 2 mission to Neptune? Somehow or other that rocket managed to accelerate in its travel to Neptune to a speed greater than the speed of light!

Yet there's more. We have telemetry data from Voyager 2 which did show (1) the actual distance it was from earth in light-minutes: the signal delay (2) the actual speed it was traveling at, as a fraction of the speed of light: Doppler effect on the signal. Of course, that is radial velocity, not circular (around the earth velocity), but still one wonders how it achieved that superluminal circular velocity, and how it managed the centripetal force from such a rapid rotation.

I know that I am naively accepting the reality of the news about Voyager 2 - I might as well believe that the Apollo astronauts walked on the moon! Yet somehow I find this fascinating. But still it amuses me, and I thought that it might amuse some of you.

I may be exposing my incredible stupidity here but isn't the the evident curvature of the Earth the simplest test for determining whether we're living on the inside surface of a hollow sphere versus the outside surface (whether hollow or not)?

Even centuries ago someone could stand on the beach at, say, Ramsgate in Kent, England, stare out to sea and see no other land mass, then scramble up the cliff to the top and do the same thing and see the coastline of France - thereby demonstrating unequivocally the curvature of the Earth's surface.

Even if the hollow Earth was unimaginably large that curvature would not be so readily demonstrable if indeed we were living on the inside surface.

Or am I missing something fundamental here?

AB said: I may be exposing my incredible stupidity here but isn't the the evident curvature of the Earth the simplest test for determining whether we're living on the inside surface of a hollow sphere versus the outside surface (whether hollow or not)?

Dale Husband said: Must I repeat my earlier question? OK, I will.

Are you saying your have never read the first two chapters of Genesis and noted how they totally contradict each other? For example, which came first, animals or the first man?

Until you deal directly with that issue, W.H. Heydt's point remains.

I. The Scriptures The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is the record of God's revelation of Himself to man. It is a perfect treasure of divine instruction. It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter. It reveals the principles by which God judges us; and therefore is, and will remain to the end of the world, the true center of Christian union, and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and religious opinions should be tried. The criterion by which the Bible is to be interpreted is Jesus Christ.

Wayne Francis said:

Ian Musgrave said: Not that I'd want to put the conversation back on topic, but ... Has anyone actually LOOKED at Venus or Jupiter, or the Sunspots ...

I look at Jupiter and Venus through a telescope all the time...don't have the filters for looking at the sun.

Altair IV said: Eight years ago I was watching a nice sunset. Just before it touched the horizon it entered a band of light clouds, which dimmed it just enough so that I could comfortably look at the disk for a short time. And there, right in the center, was a small black blemish. On getting home that evening, I checked the solar observation websites and discovered that there was indeed a giant sunspot sitting in the middle of the disk (this one, in fact). So yes it is possible under the right conditions to view sunspots directly.

Hypatia's Daughter said: I have read that this was how Galileo observed sunspots. It may also be why he went blind in his old age - he pushed his luck too far.

Hypatia's Daughter said: Yes.Yes. Yes (drew the sunspots for a month for the AL's Solar Club). Buy yourself some Baade solar film (really cheap) and make a filter for your binos or scope.

It is blasphemy to change a single word in their “perfect treasure of divine instruction.” Yet they have shamelessly done just that.

heddle said: jaycubed,

It is blasphemy to change a single word in their “perfect treasure of divine instruction.” Yet they have shamelessly done just that.

I have across some very intelligent commenters(sic) on PT and some not so intelligent commenters(sic). You just might be the rock dumbest. I thought so on a previous comment of yours but told myself: no, nobody is that thick. I was wrong. Just for fun, and I know I'll regret asking, but if the translators of, say, the ESV (arguably the best and most scholarly Engish(sic) translation--although the NASB is also very good) if they were going to do that--just disregard scholarship and change the wording to solve this "two-creation-accounts-problem" (which was never a problem to begin with--but let's pretend) why didn't they fix up some other problems? I mean what the hell--if they were just dishonest hacks out to clean things up they could have fixed the "bats are birds" problem. The "rabbits chew cud" problem. The "pi = 3" problem. Why didn't any of them fix any of those problems? What a missed opportunity! Oh--and how did that conspiracy work--how did the translators for the NASB, ESV and NIV get together (over decades) and decide to modify that passage in the same way? And why did they they change the Trinity proof text 1 John 5:7 that was in the KJV? That was very useful when arguing with JW's. Since according to your expert analysis they willy-nilly modified text--why did they do that? That change was not to our advantage. And, for completeness, were is your analysis that they KJV translation is the most faithful translation of the Hebrew of Genesis 2?

jaycubed said: Is your God such a total failure that he couldn't get his message across to either his "chosen people", the Jews, or to the Believers in your Christian sect? P.S. I only pointed out a single incident of this intentional misrepresentation. The one which demonstrates that you can't go from page 1 to page 2 in the bible without finding a glaring contradiction. There are many others, but only a single example is necessary to demonstrate their blasphemous actions.

I am not going to defend this, but this is the excuse given for changing the tense from the past "formed" to the past perfect "had formed":

Biblical Hebrew does not have tenses to the verb like English does. Rather it has "aspects". In this particular case the verb is in the perfect aspect, which means it describes an action as completed. This can be translated into English in various ways, either with the past tense or with the past perfect tense. The NIV translators chose to use the past perfect.

Now, one can argue that the context only makes sense if the animals were formed after it was noticed that Adam was alone, but this is a more nuanced argument. I recall, but unfortunately I didn't save the exact reference, that the famous 20th century commentator Umberto Cassuto in his commentary on Genesis dismissed this "past perfect" interpretation out of hand. (Cassuto is probably the most famous 20th century Hebrew scholar who continued to reject the Documentary Hypothesis, just to give an idea of how "conservative" his stance on the Bible was.)

AB said: I may be exposing my incredible stupidity here but isn't the the evident curvature of the Earth the simplest test for determining whether we're living on the inside surface of a hollow sphere versus the outside surface (whether hollow or not)?

TomS said: Hardly stupidity. At least not on your part. The actual response of the "inside the hollow sphere" people is that the atmosphere of the earth bends the light rays.

It is blasphemy to change a single word in their “perfect treasure of divine instruction.” Yet they have shamelessly done just that.

Dave Luckett said:

TomS said: Hardly stupidity. At least not on your part. The actual response of the "inside the hollow sphere" people is that the atmosphere of the earth bends the light rays.

Um... wouldn't that be rather easy to investigate, empirically?

TomS said:

AB said: I may be exposing my incredible stupidity here but isn't the the evident curvature of the Earth the simplest test for determining whether we're living on the inside surface of a hollow sphere versus the outside surface (whether hollow or not)?

Hardly stupidity. At least not on your part. The actual response of the "inside the hollow sphere" people is that the atmosphere of the earth bends the light rays.

And are the actual corrections in the right direction? I'm thinking that we can see the sun before "geometrical" sunrise because the diffraction of the atmosphere bends light rays "down" around the curvature of the earth, while the correction needed for a concave (or even a flat) earth to appear convex would have to bend light rays "up", woudn't it? I'm thinking that the correction makes the earth appear to be *less convex* because we can see around the curvature somewhat. Or am I mistaken?

TomS said: I am not going to defend this, but this is the excuse given for changing the tense from the past "formed" to the past perfect "had formed": Biblical Hebrew does not have tenses to the verb like English does. Rather it has "aspects". In this particular case the verb is in the perfect aspect, which means it describes an action as completed. This can be translated into English in various ways, either with the past tense or with the past perfect tense. The NIV translators chose to use the past perfect. Now, one can argue that the context only makes sense if the animals were formed after it was noticed that Adam was alone, but this is a more nuanced argument. I recall, but unfortunately I didn't save the exact reference, that the famous 20th century commentator Umberto Cassuto in his commentary on Genesis dismissed this "past perfect" interpretation out of hand. (Cassuto is probably the most famous 20th century Hebrew scholar who continued to reject the Documentary Hypothesis, just to give an idea of how "conservative" his stance on the Bible was.)

TomS said: Now, one can argue that the context only makes sense if the animals were formed after it was noticed that Adam was alone, but this is a more nuanced argument.

It does seem odd that geocentric adherents are still out there, though perhaps not surprising since flat-earthers exist still. Heck, they even have their own website. theflatearthsociety.org

FL said: Simply put, the Bible does NOT teach geocentrism, and in fact is quite silent about "centrisms" at all.

In special case astronomy amateurs can observe light-delay of variable eclipsing binary stars due to earth rotating around sun.

http://www.student.oulu.fi/~ktikkane/AST/helioc.html

This exludes also Tychonian model out. But only very few amateurs can achieve this level observation.

The real problem, unfortunately, is that with our current understanding of the universe, one of the things that we know is that the universe has no center. So the real problem is the claim that there is a center at all.

That said, what you are probably demonstrating is that, in some sense, the sun-centered system is closer to a large-scale inertial system than is the earth-centered one.

But all this will be lost on a "geocentrist" because such a person is not actually making claims about the physical world that can be tested in detail. There isn't that much thought involved in their claims.

The simplest, and most accurate answer to the geocentrists is, I think, "there is no center."