Why I Am A Geocentrist

Robert the Pilegrim · Feb 2, 2006

jleslie48 said:
That would mean that the bible translation is in error. I would then argue that it is entirely likely that other parts of the bible have also been misenterpreted/mistranslated, and have been so for many 1000's of years.

Give the man a kewpie doll!

So tell me, is anybody's salvation affected by whether one translates that word as circle or sphere?

Robert the Pilegrim · Feb 3, 2006

ThaiDuykhang wrote:

shernren wrote:

Yes, and whether one "takes the reference frame of the Earth" or "the reference frame of the Sun" one finds that the center of rotation of the Solar System is a whole lot closer to the Sun than to the Earth, hence making it far more accurate to say that "the Earth moves around the Sun" and not vice-versa.

Pop quiz: is the Earth accelerating? In what direction?

2) how large solar system is hasn't been clearly observed.

How is that even vaguely relavent to what shernren wrote?
(and with respect to mass it does seem clear that the vast majority of the mass is contained by the Sun and the gas giants.)

_Paladin_ · Feb 3, 2006

This is obviously a parody of YECs by TE's to make creationists look bad.

LewisWildermuth · Feb 3, 2006

_Paladin_ said:
This is obviously a parody of YECs by TE's to make creationists look bad.

I am sorry that you seem to think that we TE's are somehow evil monsters, but I doubt that this is the work of TE's since most of us thought geocentricism died long ago. Why would we post as a geocentrist here when we didn't think any existed? Why even bother with pretending to be a geocentrist when all YEC's we have talked with seemed to agree with us on the issue?

PaladinValer · Feb 3, 2006

_Paladin_ said:
This is obviously a parody of YECs by TE's to make creationists look bad.

Obviously? Oh you wish...

Sorry, but I think we TEs deserve an apology for this one.

chaoschristian · Feb 4, 2006

_Paladin_ said:
This is obviously a parody of YECs by TE's to make creationists look bad.

No, unfortunately not.

Go down to the open to all members section, Creation & Evolution Debate forum and look at the poster 'dad' for the model of a true parody (IMO).

And to imply that the TEs have somehow banded together in a conspiracy to create such a parody?

Again, if we were so compelled, I believe 'dad' would be a better example and . . .

the TEs, on this board at least, don't even have a common statement of belief. We just happen to be a random assortment of people, who more likely than not have never encountered one another in the real world, who share in come some elements of a far ranging POV on scriptural and Creational revelation. We don't even have a "TE Club" as opposed to the "Creationist Club" found in the Creationist sub-forum.

So, yes, your statement is over the top and ought to be retracted.

KEPLER · Feb 4, 2006

_Paladin_ said:
This is obviously a parody of YECs by TE's to make creationists look bad.

This also presumes that everyone here who is arguing against NPP's hilariously silly OP is therefore a TE, which is patently untrue.

Good day...

Kepler

shernren · Feb 5, 2006

We TEs are not that desperate.

Robert the Pilegrim · Feb 8, 2006

ThaiDuykhang said:
GR assumes either can be considered immobile. either can be taken as an enertia frame since they both only under effects of gravity (which isn't a force in GR).

I'll not reply further on GR to you until you actually do some reading on it.

It is a measure of how inactive I have been with respect to General Relativity (GR) that it has taken me this long to remember the following.

One of the first things you (should) learn in a course teaching GR, even, or perhaps especially a physics for poets course, is that one of the basic tenets of GR is that from within a box without windows
one can not differentiate between
1) being in an elevator or rocket that is undergoing constant acceleration
and
2) sitting on the surface of a gravity producing object.

i.e. being under the force of gravity is indistiguishable from being under the affect of an accerating force.

shernren · Feb 8, 2006

While we're at it, a system under gravitational influence / under force acceleration cannot be considered an inertial frame because Newton's Laws cannot be shown to be valid in such a frame. For example, an object at rest and not subject to an external force does not tend to stay at rest in an accelerating frame.

RichardT · Jan 18, 2008

Geocentricity is not a fable for educated man.

busterdog · Jan 20, 2008

NarrowPathPilgrim said:
Finally, who will venture to place the "logic" of fallible man over of the authority of scripture?

You are arguing your point quite well.

But, I have to say, I am terrified of the idea of even looking at the notion of geocentrism.

Vance · Jan 20, 2008

But, Busterdog, you must get it now. You know from even a basic understanding of science that geocentrism is just bunk, that it has been entirely disproven, and shown to be incorrect, which is why you are rightly terrified of it.

And, yet, he is using exactly the same arguments to support geocentrism that YEC's use to support their position. He is using the same arguments against your YEC view as you would use against a theistic evolution view. And those arguments are wrong for him, and you know they are wrong, since you know that geocentrism is false.

So, WHY do you believe geocentrism is false even though he is able to make the same arguments you do? Because you think he is wrong about one particular thing: you think that he is reading the text too literally and that Scripture does not actually require geocentrism (even though a "plain reading" of the text points to geocentrism).

The fact that you deny geocentrism, and accept heliocentrism (like all other YEC's) is because you are correctly allowing the evidence from God's Creation itself (science) to inform and influence your interpretation of Scripture. You then can see where Scripture does not actually insist upon geocentrism, and you are right!

Now, for the essential epiphany: TE's are saying the same thing about the YEC position! Just as a "plain reading" may seem to point to geocentrism, but that is actually not the correct interpretation, so a "plain reading" seems to point (to our Modern ears) to a young earth, but that is equally the wrong interpretation.

juvenissun · Jan 21, 2008

Vance said:
Now, for the essential epiphany: TE's are saying the same thing about the YEC position! Just as a "plain reading" may seem to point to geocentrism, but that is actually not the correct interpretation, so a "plain reading" seems to point (to our Modern ears) to a young earth, but that is equally the wrong interpretation.

According to the style you write, you seems to be a logic person. How come you still make critical logic error?

Just as a "plain reading" may seem to point to geocentrism,

A plain reading DOES NOT point to geocentrism. It was "interpreted" as geocentrism. This is a BIG difference.

Try to read a few verses in the Bible which "point to" geocentrism and see if they say literally that "the sun orbits the earth". No. nowhere in the Bible says that literally. The Bible only says the sun rises from the east and falls to the west. That is a fact and is NOT geocentrism. One could develop the geocentrism from it. But that is the mistake of man, not the Bible.

I challenge you (and anyone else) to quote me a verse in the Scripture that literally says stars "rotate" around "the earth".

If you could not, then shut up with that stupid geocentrism argument.

Vance · Jan 21, 2008

OK, you are almost there. I agree completely that the Bible never actually requires a geocentric universe. Exactly right.

BUT, the entire Church, for hundreds of years, read it exactly like the original poster here: they insisted (incorrectly) that proper reading of Scripture was geocentric. And YOU would have read it the same way were it not for your scientific understanding of what REALLY is going on, and but for the Church's modern acceptance of those scientific realities and subsequent change in its reading of Scripture. It would be presumptuous of you to act as if you would have reached the correct reading of Scripture without that scientific knowledge when everyone else was insisting that the plain reading was geocentric. You have your scientific knowledge of the correct science as 20/20 hindsight, so it is easy for you to start there and then point out that Scripture is entirely consistent with that.

The point is that your approach to geocentrism matches EXACTLY our approach to Young Earth Creationism. We don't think that Scripture is pointing to a young earth any more than you think it is pointing to geocentrism. We see the geocentric argument and the young earth argument as making exactly the same mistake: reading certain texts too literal and not in the proper context.

busterdog · Jan 21, 2008

Vance said:
But, Busterdog, you must get it now. You know from even a basic understanding of science that geocentrism is just bunk, that it has been entirely disproven, and shown to be incorrect, which is why you are rightly terrified of it.

And, yet, he is using exactly the same arguments to support geocentrism that YEC's use to support their position. He is using the same arguments against your YEC view as you would use against a theistic evolution view. And those arguments are wrong for him, and you know they are wrong, since you know that geocentrism is false.

So, WHY do you believe geocentrism is false even though he is able to make the same arguments you do? Because you think he is wrong about one particular thing: you think that he is reading the text too literally and that Scripture does not actually require geocentrism (even though a "plain reading" of the text points to geocentrism).

The fact that you deny geocentrism, and accept heliocentrism (like all other YEC's) is because you are correctly allowing the evidence from God's Creation itself (science) to inform and influence your interpretation of Scripture. You then can see where Scripture does not actually insist upon geocentrism, and you are right!

Now, for the essential epiphany: TE's are saying the same thing about the YEC position! Just as a "plain reading" may seem to point to geocentrism, but that is actually not the correct interpretation, so a "plain reading" seems to point (to our Modern ears) to a young earth, but that is equally the wrong interpretation.

Well, brother Barrister,

Its like being in trial and having a co-defendant. No matter how good your argument is, you are afraid that the jury will associate your errors with his. Logically, that is not required and there is no reason for me to defend my view based on his. (And I don't want "my view" anyway, I just want what the Word says.)

One thing that happens is that once these ideas are associated, it becomes a lot more work for me to argue as I do, because I am arguing against this association as well as arguing against evolution. It is now a two front war.

From a literary point of view and being in the business of parsing language, I have no problem saying that the Bible does not announce a geocentrist position relative to the sun. Idiom is not "literal truth" for scripture any more than it is in the Fiddler on the Roof. (However, relative to the rest of the universe, it is more of an open question, and maybe Gen. 1 does suggest some centrist ideas regardless of what earth's orbit looks like..)

Not to diminish the care with which the brother put together his argument, and lets all recognize he did a good job, I am happy with heliocentrism. There are other ideas out there about how the rest of the heavens do have earth as a center. I am not entirely clear on how much his view overlaps with that.

With all this redshift out there, it appears everything has been stretched out relative to us. If you take the basic shape of the known universe as alleged in Big Bang, we seem to be the center of something --- perhaps a concave surface. That surface is defined by how far we can see and, in theory, is but a portion of the whole sphere defined by the Big Bang. (Please, no one bust my chops on my choice of terms, unless you can make a very good case that this simplistic language doesn't suffice for the illustration.) However, it does look as if we are the center to that extent.

Once you challenge Big Bang, at that point all sorts of possibilities emerge for what the shape of the universe really is. Can you argue that we are at the center? Many YECs here have rejected the idea that they need a case for a probable model of cosmology. Now, we have something that seems to suggest it does some aspects of that modelling, in that it models the shape of the universe. It sort of sounds like an exhausting argument, particularly on this board.

Either way, I am quite happy with an inerrant position in which the Earth's orbit is not defined or even alluded to in Scripture.

Even if you are motivated to do your literary analysis of scripture because of what science says, it is quite a leap to suggest that a literal view of Gen. 1 requires correction. One might as well get in bed with Bultman on the resurrection or the preterists for that matter, since prophecy itself is informed by the realization of what God was talking about as it unfolds.

Biblical language of the movement of the sun is the language of "apperance" and is much like the we all talk everyday. It says nothing about how the solar system works. The Church fathers were wrong about Israel's restoration as a nation and continuing identiry as Paul lays out in Romans 11. They were wrong about the need for Church authority to mediate salvation (the doctrine of the Nicolaitans). They were wrong on the Bible's position about celestial mechanics.

juvenissun · Jan 21, 2008

Vance said:
OK, you are almost there. I agree completely that the Bible never actually requires a geocentric universe. Exactly right.

BUT, the entire Church, for hundreds of years, read it exactly like the original poster here: they insisted (incorrectly) that proper reading of Scripture was geocentric. And YOU would have read it the same way were it not for your scientific understanding of what REALLY is going on, and but for the Church's modern acceptance of those scientific realities and subsequent change in its reading of Scripture. It would be presumptuous of you to act as if you would have reached the correct reading of Scripture without that scientific knowledge when everyone else was insisting that the plain reading was geocentric. You have your scientific knowledge of the correct science as 20/20 hindsight, so it is easy for you to start there and then point out that Scripture is entirely consistent with that.

The point is that your approach to geocentrism matches EXACTLY our approach to Young Earth Creationism. We don't think that Scripture is pointing to a young earth any more than you think it is pointing to geocentrism. We see the geocentric argument and the young earth argument as making exactly the same mistake: reading certain texts too literal and not in the proper context.

I see. However, there is STILL a logic error.

People in history (include me, if I go back in time) read the Bible words and made wrong interpretation so the idea of geocentrism appeared.

According to you, we now MAY also read the Bible words wrong, so the idea of YEC appeared.

But we do not HAVE TO make the same mistake. Historical people did not HAVE TO insist geocentrism if they can read it logically (which they could), but not scientifically (which they jumped into conclusion and ended wrong). They understood it wrong, but they did not have to be wrong because the Bible did not literally say that. Scientific or not, the mistake is a logic one and does not have to happen.

Now, YEC could be scientifically wrong. But it COULD also turn out to be scientifically right in the future. The difference this time is that the Bible "literally" says something about it, which is not so in the case of geocentrism. The possibility of logic (not scientific) error in the new case is slim. Unlike geocentrism, YEC could be 100% logically correct.

Vance · Jan 21, 2008

Busterdog said:

"Even if you are motivated to do your literary analysis of scripture because of what science says, it is quite a leap to suggest that a literal view of Gen. 1 requires correction. One might as well get in bed with Bultman on the resurrection or the preterists for that matter, since prophecy itself is informed by the realization of what God was talking about as it unfolds."

Oooh, you are pulling the same "co-defendant" tactic, very sneaky! :0)

But the degree to which the comparison between the two defendants in each case must be considered, and I think the geocentric is much closer to the YEC in that analysis. It is a not a question of WHETHER we allow scientific discoveries to inform our reading of Scripture, but HOW MUCH. The geocentric argument also points out that the YEC position ALREADY is allowing some scientific evidence to influence their reading of the text (away from geocentrism), but most of the time not even recognizing that they are doing that, as they point out that TE's and even OEC's are doing that.

But, of course, I came to my conclusion about how to read Genesis 1 and 2 even BEFORE my current conclusions about the science, based entirely on my studies in ancient ANE culture and literature (my undergraduate degree). I don't even think a "plain reading" sound like literal history any more.

juvenissum: But the point is that many don't think that the Bible DOES literally say something about it, as I point out above to Busterdog. I don't read the text as making any real assertion as to the timing or exact method of creation at all. So, to me Scripture is neutral on this point as on geocentrism, or photosynthesis for that matter. Remember that a person BEFORE the scientific discoveries about the earth and sun relationship would have been as convinced about what the Bible was literally saying as you are now about the Bible discussing the age of the earth, or the exact method of creation. In retrospect, the two issues look starkly different, but to them they looked the same, and to the rest of the non-YEC Christian community they look the same. To them, Scripture was clearly stating both geocentrism and a young earth. To us, Scripture is clearly NOT saying either. Only the YEC thinks it is saying one, but not the other.

busterdog · Jan 21, 2008

Vance said:
Busterdog said:

Oooh, you are pulling the same "co-defendant" tactic, very sneaky! :0)

Click to expand...

I understand that would a bit much, except that we are looking very narrowly at one argument, summarized as follows: If you change your view of "geocentrism" because of the "evidence," then you must change your view of YEC based upon the "evidence." My point was that this logic cannot be carried as far as seemed to be implied.

But the degree to which the comparison between the two defendants in each case must be considered, and I think the geocentric is much closer to the YEC in that analysis. It is a not a question of WHETHER we allow scientific discoveries to inform our reading of Scripture, but HOW MUCH. The geocentric argument also points out that the YEC position ALREADY is allowing some scientific evidence to influence their reading of the text (away from geocentrism), but most of the time not even recognizing that they are doing that, as they point out that TE's and even OEC's are doing that.

Click to expand...

OK. But, regardless of how you arrive at the need to re-examine scripture, as a YEC, you have to look at the scripture alone and be able to justify it on the basis of scripture. No particular reasoning process is taboo, as long as, having thought it through, you can let the scripture speak for itself.

(And now the question of whether scripture can speak for itself and whether there really is surface text.)

RichardT · Jan 21, 2008

Try to read a few verses in the Bible which "point to" geocentrism and see if they say literally that "the sun orbits the earth"

And Geocentrists don't say that the "sun orbits the earth" either. They say that the sun goes around the earth.

The difference this time is that the Bible "literally" says something about it, which is not so in the case of geocentrism.

What do you mean? By the way, have you heard of Ernst Mach?

Why I Am A Geocentrist

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