Geocentrism on C&E

[shernren]

Scripture tells us that the earth doesn't move, and that the sun goes around the earth. Scripture also tells us about the existence of the firmament, scripture also tells us that the moon, the sun, and stars are embedded in this firmament.

Scripture also tells us that motion is allowed within the firmament.

A concrete example of the danger of literalism.

 

[juvenissun]

A concrete example of the danger of literalism.

I do not see why is it "dangerous" as long as RichardT feels the understanding is adequate and comfortable to him.

Would you think the understanding of an uneducated farmer from a remote area "dangerous" also?

 

[gluadys]

I do not see why is it "dangerous" as long as RichardT feels the understanding is adequate and comfortable to him.

Would you think the understanding of an uneducated farmer from a remote area "dangerous" also?

I think there is a considerable difference between the limited understanding of an uneducated farmer in a remote area who describes reality as he experiences it and the deliberate rejection of experience by modern geocentrists.

The farmer, though his experience and education are limited, is responding to what he knows from sense and reason. Given the opportunity for wider experience and education, he would likely revise his opinion.

But a modern geocentrist is deliberately closing off the avenues of sense and reason in order to deny what he does not wish to believe and adhere to beliefs that have no support in material reality. It is like choosing to live inside a fantasy novel instead of in real life.

And yes, I do think that is dangerous, at least potentially so. One person living a fantasy can be dismissed as eccentric. But what happens when whole societies or large segments of society are persuaded to pursue fantasy rather than reality? To discard the tools of experience and intelligence in favour of somebody's script?

 

[chaoschristian]

No one who posts on the internet should be a geocentrist and not feel the irony as a constant trembling dissonance.

 

[juvenissun]

What is a geocentrist? Does it refer to a person who treats the earth as the center of everything operates in the universe? Or is there some other hidden meanings?

Whoever reply should know that I am asking for the definition of a term.

 

[chaoschristian]

A geocentrist is one who holds that the Earth is the physical center of the universe, that the sun, moon, and stars all move around the Earth.

 

[juvenissun]

A geocentrist is one who holds that the Earth is the physical center of the universe, that the sun, moon, and stars all move around the Earth.

How about "one who takes the Earth as the physical center of the universe"? Would it be the same?

 

[chaoschristian]

Depends on whether or not you want to split hairs over 'take' and 'hold.'

Man-on-the-street wise, they're the same I think.

 

[juvenissun]

Geocentric system (Ptolemaic system) works. It works 2000 years ago, it would work better today. We do not absolutely need a heliocentric system to calculate any orbit. We could use a geocentric system to do the same job. Modern computer could make the conversion in a breeze.

If so, what is wrong with a geocentric person? Remind you the definition we agreed upon: "one who takes the Earth as the physical center of the universe".

 

[chaoschristian]

'We' didn't agree on anything.

I thought I was helping you define what a geocentrist is, not get baited into a non-sensical debate.

There's nothing wrong with a geocentric person, so long as said person isn't a science teacher or a NASA engineer.

What's wrong is a geocentric theory of the universe, since it denies reality.

 

[juvenissun]

'We' didn't agree on anything.

I thought I was helping you define what a geocentrist is, not get baited into a non-sensical debate.

There's nothing wrong with a geocentric person, so long as said person isn't a science teacher or a NASA engineer.

What's wrong is a geocentric theory of the universe, since it denies reality.

Reality is a consequence of a successful practice.
As long as a system works, it is a reality.
Geocentric system could work, so it could also be a reality.

This is not a nonsensical debate, it is a debate about principle. The purpose of this debate is to let smart scientific people know an example of wisdom in the Scripture.

 

[shernren]

Reality is a consequence of a successful practice.
As long as a system works, it is a reality.
Geocentric system could work, so it could also be a reality.

This is not a nonsensical debate, it is a debate about principle. The purpose of this debate is to let smart scientific people know an example of wisdom in the Scripture.

A video of a stone being whirled around by a stationary boy clearly wouldn't "work" as well as a video of a boy being whirled around by a stationary stone. Why not? What does "reality" have to say about that?

 

[chaoschristian]

Reality is a consequence of a successful practice.

What? Are you saying that if you try really hard to make something happen that it will become reality? Aren't you putting the cart before the horse? Successful practice is a result of properly understanding reality.

As long as a system works, it is a reality.

As far as I understand, and I suppose we could always summon KerrMetric to set the record straight (just be sure that you stay within the protective circle), geocentrism doesn't work, so therefore it's not reality.

Geocentric system could work, so it could also be a reality.

If you need to compensate for a bad system by fudging with the computer calculations (per your reference above) then it doesn't work. You're doing unnecessary work, because if you fudge the calculations then you are by definition correcting for error.

This is not a nonsensical debate, it is a debate about principle. The purpose of this debate is to let smart scientific people know an example of wisdom in the Scripture.

What wisdom is to be pulled from forcing a bronze-age understanding of cosmology upon a society that has the Hubble Telescope, has sent robotic probes to far off planets, and has debates on dark matter?

Is there wisdom in scripture? Yes.

Is this wisdom necessarily scientific understanding? No.

 

[Assyrian]

It is one thing to describe the motion of the sun in terms of a reference point on earth. It moves in a circle, well an ellipse anyway. It is quite another to describe the physics of a system that would fix the earth in place and whip the huge mass of the sun around the earth once a day. Perhaps if the earth had the gravitational pull of a black hole. But we would have noticed that.

 

[juvenissun]

It is one thing to describe the motion of the sun in terms of a reference point on earth. It moves in a circle, well an ellipse anyway. It is quite another to describe the physics of a system that would fix the earth in place and whip the huge mass of the sun around the earth once a day. Perhaps if the earth had the gravitational pull of a black hole. But we would have noticed that.

I thought the geocentric model only addressed the rules of orbiting. The origin of this concept does not involve the discovery and the principle of gravity force.

I certainly haven't tried the calculation of orbiting by using the earth as the center. However, I "think" it might work as well as using the heliocentric model. Yes, there will be a lot of more complicate calculations and corrections. But in this computer age, who cares about that? Let the computers do it. If someone suggested it won't work, then I would like to see a reference of it. In fact, I will be glad to see someone who can showthat the geocentric orbiting system does not work.

 

[Assyrian]

Like I said you can describe motion pf objects from any point of view. CGI can work out the apparent position of a church steeple seen from a camera in a helicopter looping around it. But any suggestion that the steeple (and the rest of the planet) are actually looping around the helicopter is crazy. The physics behind the actual motion is the aerodynamics of the rotor blades and the resultant forces accelerating the helicopter.

Being able to calculate relative motion does not tell you which object is actually changing its velocity. That is acceleration, and that is caused by force acting on the body. In the case of planetary motion, the force is gravity. Geocentrism can describe the sun moving in a circle around the earth, but it is the earth that is actually moving, as was demonstrate beautifully by Foucault in his 1851 pendulum experiment.

 

[flaja]

Where does the Bible say the earth doesn’t move or that the sun goes around the earth?

If you are referring to the passage in Joshua where he told the sun and moon to stand still, the Bible is only reporting what Joshua said. From Joshua’s viewpoint on earth the earth is stationary and it is the sun that appears to be moving. Even today astronomers, for the sake of convenience, take measurements of celestial motion as if the earth is stationary.

 

[Mallon]

Where does the Bible say the earth doesn’t move or that the sun goes around the earth?

Joshua 10:12, Psalm 19:4-6, Ecclesiastes 1:5, Habakkuk 3:11, among other places.

If you are referring to the passage in Joshua where he told the sun and moon to stand still, the Bible is only reporting what Joshua said. From Joshua’s viewpoint on earth the earth is stationary and it is the sun that appears to be moving.

You are saying that the Bible's cosmology was written from a phenomenological point of view, then (that is, that it was written from man's limited understanding and perpective).
So what's to say that the Bible's cosmogony (creation story) wasn't written that way as well?

 

[flaja]

Joshua 10:12, Psalm 19:4-6, Ecclesiastes 1:5, Habakkuk 3:11, among other places.

Joshua 10:12, Psalm 19:4-6, Ecclesiastes 1:5, Habakkuk 3:11,

How does Psalm 19:4-6 say that the sun stood still?

Ecclesiastes 1:5 The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose.

Do we not to this day speak of sunrise and sunset?

Habbakuk 3:11: Considering the context, this may very well be figurative language.


You are saying that the Bible's cosmology was written from a phenomenological point of view, then (that is, that it was written from man's limited understanding and perpective).
So what's to say that the Bible's cosmogony (creation story) wasn't written that way as well?[/quote]


The Bible says in several places (Genesis 15:5; 17:7 and Hebrews 11:12) that the stars in the universe are innumerable- meaning that no human can physically count all of the stars. Counting 1 star per second 24 hours a day would require 3000 years to count the estimated 1 billion stars exist just in the earth’s galaxy.

Isaiah 40:22 speaks of the circle of the earth, implying that the earth is spherical in shape at a time when the earth was thought to be flat. Psalm 103:12 is even more explicit: “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us”.

Matthew Maury, an American naval officer who sided with the South during the Civil War and then became the founder of the Confederate Navy read Psalm 8:8 The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas, and started looking for these paths through the seas. As a result he sent out expeditions designed to find and map these paths. In the process he founded the science of oceanography, for which he wrote the first textbook.

Job 38:6 mentions springs in the seas. For centuries now sailors have known about these springs in deep ocean waters. Spanish sailors used to replenish their drinking water from freshwater springs around the Azores/Canary Islands.

The Bible also knew about the water cycle long before it was supposedly first described in the 3rd or 4th century BC:

Ecclesiastes 1:6,7 The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits. All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.

Job 36:27, 28 For he maketh small the drops of water: they pour down rain according to the vapour thereof: Which the clouds do drop and distil upon man abundantly.

Amos 9:6 It is he that buildeth his stories in the heaven, and hath founded his troop in the earth; he that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The LORD is his name.

The Bible also shows an understanding of contagious diseases and the necessity of cleanliness in various passages in the Pentateuch.

Considering how accurate the Bible is as a scientific record in other matters, what makes you think it cannot be equally accurate when it addresses the issue of Creation?

 

[Mallon]

How does Psalm 19:4-6 say that the sun stood still?

It doesn't. Then again, I never said that it did. Psalm 19:4-6 demonstrates the geocentric assumptions of the Scriptural authors.

Do we not to this day speak of sunrise and sunset?

Yes. And it is scientifically inaccurate to say as much.

Habbakuk 3:11: Considering the context, this may very well be figurative language.

But how can you tell without reference to scientific observation?

The Bible says in several places (Genesis 15:5; 17:7 and Hebrews 11:12) that the stars in the universe are innumerable- meaning that no human can physically count all of the stars. Counting 1 star per second 24 hours a day would require 3000 years to count the estimated 1 billion stars exist just in the earth’s galaxy.

I'm afraid I don't see how this relates to the scientific accuracy of the Bible (in fact, there are a finite number of stars). Furthermore, why do you not also assume the Scriptural authors were not being metaphorical here?

Isaiah 40:22 speaks of the circle of the earth, implying that the earth is spherical in shape at a time when the earth was thought to be flat.

A circle is a 2-dimensional object. That is to say, it's FLAT. If Isaiah meant to refer to the earth as a sphere, he would have used the Hebrew word for "ball" (duwr), which is used elsewhere (not in reference to the shape of the earth).

Matthew Maury, an American naval officer who sided with the South during the Civil War and then became the founder of the Confederate Navy read Psalm 8:8 The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas, and started looking for these paths through the seas. As a result he sent out expeditions designed to find and map these paths. In the process he founded the science of oceanography, for which he wrote the first textbook.

I'm uncertain what this has to do with biblical cosmology/cosmogony.

Job 38:6 mentions springs in the seas.

Where? Job 38:6 mentions cornerstones and foundations, not sea springs.
For what it's worth, Job 38 also mentions the fact that the earth was formed like clay stamped under a seal. But you take that metaphorically, right?

The Bible also knew about the water cycle long before it was supposedly first described in the 3rd or 4th century BC:

I love Ecclesiastes 1. It lends excellent biblical support for uniformitarianism.
(For what it's worth, the Bible also says that rainwaters are stored in the "storehouses" beyond the firmament, released upon the earth only once the "windows of the heavens" are opened.)

The Bible also shows an understanding of contagious diseases and the necessity of cleanliness in various passages in the Pentateuch.

The Bible implies numerous times that disease is a result of demonic infestation, rather than bacterial or viral in nature.

Considering how accurate the Bible is as a scientific record in other matters, what makes you think it cannot be equally accurate when it addresses the issue of Creation?

But that's just it. The Bible isn't entirely accurate on scientific matters (for example, 1 Cor 15:40-41 states the sun is not a star). And nor does it claim to be. Why attribute something to the Bible that it does not attribute to itself?
When God inspired the writers of the Bible, He uttered spiritual truths in spritual words (1 Cor 2:13). To argue that He was trying to convey secrets of science is silly.