# Another Article Against Geocentrism



## Afterthought

A follow-up article to their original piece against geocentrism: http://creation.com/refuting-geocentrism-response


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## Justified

While I do not really have a dog in the fight, given that science by and large operates on a relativistic physic, it may well be the case-- with respect to absolute space-- that the earth is the center of the universe. I am not sure one could know without some sort of special revelation from without whether in fact the earth is so located. Thus, answering this question on a scientific basis seems to me null.

As far as the biblical data goes, I don't know and am not really too concerned.


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## MW

The author claims,



> once that universe was set up by God, everything should work according to a set of laws, for the Universal Lawgiver would have created the universe commensurate with His divine attributes. His unchanging nature means we have a universe that can be understood through unchanging scientific law (and of course the occasional miracle, an addition to natural law).



An universe commensurate with divine attributes would be invisible, infinite, and incomprehensible. Or, in reverse, it would mean that God, like the universe, is continually in space, time, and motion, and is subject to decay. And the claim to unchanging scientific law would remove the possibility of "the occasional miracle." This is not a sound theological basis on which to approach science.


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## Afterthought

Justified said:


> While I do not really have a dog in the fight, given that science by and large operates on a relativistic physic, it may well be the case-- with respect to absolute space-- that the earth is the center of the universe. I am not sure one could know without some sort of special revelation from without whether in fact the earth is so located. Thus, answering this question on a scientific basis seems to me null.


If the earth is at the center, then our physics says that the center of the universe must move (or wobble), since the earth moves. But yes, the absolute location of an object does not seem to be within the purview of physics.

One difficulty I've had in understanding the kinds of geocentrism is: what exactly is being defended?

Is it that the earth is at the geographical center of the universe?

Is it that the earth is at the center of mass of the universe?

Is it that the earth is at the coordinate center of the universe (i.e., one can pick a reference frame in which it is)?

Is it that the earth does not move in an absolute sense?

Is it that the earth does not move around the sun (rather, the sun moves around the earth) in an absolute sense?

Is it that the earth does not move around the sun (rather, the sun moves around the earth) in a relative sense?

Is it that the earth does not rotate on its axis?

Is the claim about reference frames?

Is the claim about kinematics or dynamics?


The propositions are related, but some of them are more problematic from the perspective of modern physics (and biblical exegesis) than others. Even with a relativistic physics, there are still absolute quantities and (in all likelihood, since a special and controversial cosmology that our universe does not seem to possess is required for the case to be otherwise) absolute motions.




MW said:


> An universe commensurate with divine attributes would be invisible, infinite, and incomprehensible. Or, in reverse, it would mean that God, like the universe, is continually in space, time, and motion, and is subject to decay. And the claim to unchanging scientific law would remove the possibility of "the occasional miracle." This is not a sound theological basis on which to approach science.


A good observation. This tends to be standard "creation science" stuff, which seems to be necessary for their distinction between operational (always trustworthy) and historical (not so trustworthy) science.


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## Justified

Afterthought said:


> One difficulty I've had in understanding the kinds of geocentrism is: what exactly is being defended?
> 
> Is it that the earth is at the geographical center of the universe?
> 
> Is it that the earth is at the center of mass of the universe?
> 
> Is it that the earth is at the coordinate center of the universe (i.e., one can pick a reference frame in which it is)?
> 
> Is it that the earth does not move in an absolute sense?
> 
> Is it that the earth does not move around the sun (rather, the sun moves around the earth) in an absolute sense?
> 
> Is it that the earth does not move around the sun (rather, the sun moves around the earth) in a relative sense?
> 
> Is it that the earth does not rotate on its axis?
> 
> Is the claim about reference frames?
> 
> Is the claim about kinematics or dynamics?


 Good questions. That is why I do not really worry myself with this particular question. I do not think people are idiots for holding the position, as some do; but rather I just do not worry about it. Still perhaps an interesting question to explore.


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## lynnie

I watched Robert Sungenis' lengthy DVD about the earth being at the center of the universe. It is packed full of scientific quotes from famous men that the evidence shows this, but since that is philosophically impossible and egotistical, we must look for alternate explanations for the evidence. Some of the alternatives seem pretty wild. 

This is one use of the term geocentricity- our earth, or solar system, or even our galaxy being at the center of the universe. The facts seem indisputable.

The second use of the term- and I think more common- is that the earth is at the center of the solar system and the visible heavens and sun rotate around it daily. The scientific evidence for this is sound as well....including questions about how the stars could rotate so fast. However, a heliocentric model also works, so unless you could go outside the solar system and look back, people can argue either way. Every great astronomer admits both models work. 

The geocentric model requires belief in the firmament, or aether, a dense substance in which visible heavenly bodies exist. Experiments based on this concept prove the model. Like radar, the speed of waves of the electromagnetic spectrum will be added or subtracted to an object moving away from you or towards you. By measuring these speeds you can tell for example how a submarine is moving underwater, or a bug if you are a bat. That the evidence showed the earth motionless was a dilemma for decades until Einstein postulated relativity. So now light speeds do not get added or subtracted to the speed of earth's rotation moving towards stars or away from stars.....and voila, the earth moves. 

Essentially, the geocentricity debate is a debate about the theory of relativity. That theory must exist for modern theories of the solar system to exist. Without it, and with visible light measurements behaving like radar waves (ie, add and subtract velocities), the models crash and the earth is at the center of the universe. 

It is a fascinating subject to spend a summer vacation on.


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## chuckd

You and another person are the only things that exist in the universe. You both wake up in a space suit and observe the other spinning head over foot. Who is fixed and who is spinning?

Geocentrism and heliocentrism are models. It just so happens that geocentrism is the _Biblical_ model which makes the earth fixed and everything else in motion. Newton's law of gravitation still works.


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## Taylor

chuckd said:


> Geocentrism and heliocentrism are models. It just so happens that geocentrism is the _Biblical_ model...



It is?


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## chuckd

Taylor Sexton said:


> chuckd said:
> 
> 
> 
> Geocentrism and heliocentrism are models. It just so happens that geocentrism is the _Biblical_ model...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> It is?
Click to expand...


I think so. The sun, moon, and stars move, the earth is fixed. This is what the Bible says. (Josh. 10:12-13, Ps. 19:6, 93:1, 96:10, Ecc. 1:5, etc.)


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## johnny

chuckd said:


> Taylor Sexton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> chuckd said:
> 
> 
> 
> Geocentrism and heliocentrism are models. It just so happens that geocentrism is the _Biblical_ model...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> It is?
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> I think so. The sun, moon, and stars move, the earth is fixed. This is what the Bible says. (Josh. 10:12-13, Ps. 19:6, 93:1, 96:10, Ecc. 1:5, etc.)
Click to expand...


I believe so as well. The scriptural record points that way, (although some try to prove otherwise) 

I also knew a man (now deceased) who worked for creation ministries and when I once praised CMI for its great work he gently reminded me saying "they don't have it all correct, they are not geocentric."


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## Ask Mr. Religion

I think verbal plenary inspiration of Scripture and the account of Joshua and the sun literally in our space-time existence standing still trumps the notions in the article. Seems the folks are ignoring the cosmology of Scripture in favor of using just science as an interpretive grid of Scripture. I find nothing in Scripture denying the sun is in motion relative to the earth. This may sound odd for someone with an engineering doctorate, but some may not be aware that science does allow for geocentric functions, as in navigation and even orbital dynamics. I know this simply because I was once led a team of engineers modeling the low-earth orbit Iridium satellite system while working at Motorola here in Arizona.


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## Afterthought

chuckd said:


> You and another person are the only things that exist in the universe. You both wake up in a space suit and observe the other spinning head over foot. Who is fixed and who is spinning?


1) The one who measures an acceleration in one's frame of reference is the one who is spinning.
2) There are other objects in our universe. The difficulty is that a frame with the earth at rest is not universal, i.e., you can tell which objects are moving relative to others by comparing what is seen in each reference frame.



lynnie said:


> However, a heliocentric model also works, so unless you could go outside the solar system and look back, people can argue either way. Every great astronomer admits both models work.


I could ask one at the University. But the difficulty is....



chuckd said:


> Geocentrism and heliocentrism are models. It just so happens that geocentrism is the Biblical model which makes the earth fixed and everything else in motion. Newton's law of gravitation still works.





Ask Mr. Religion said:


> This may sound odd for someone with an engineering doctorate, but some may not be aware that science does allow for geocentric functions, as in navigation and even orbital dynamics. I know this simply because I was once led a team of engineers modeling the low-earth orbit Iridium satellite system while working at Motorola here in Arizona.


....from the perspective of CMI, the question is not whether one can construct a geocentric mathematical model that works, neither is it about choosing a convenient reference frame. These are granted. The question is about _dynamics_, not _kinematics_. They claim to have falsified absolute geocentric dynamics, and so shown absolute geocentrism to be false.




Ask Mr. Religion said:


> I think verbal plenary inspiration of Scripture and the account of Joshua and the sun literally in our space-time existence standing still trumps the notions in the article. Seems the folks are ignoring the cosmology of Scripture in favor of using just science as an interpretive grid of Scripture.


This does seem to be the case. Perhaps a careful response (rather than their answer of phenomenological language) might be: The sun really moves relative to the earth, so that alleviates a little bit of difficulty with the Scriptures' cosmology; but when looking from a different reference point, which is basically every reference point that is not on the earth, the earth moves relative to the sun.


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## Taylor

chuckd said:


> I think so. The sun, moon, and stars move, the earth is fixed. This is what the Bible says. (Josh. 10:12-13, Ps. 19:6, 93:1, 96:10, Ecc. 1:5, etc.)



That's an extremely literalistic interpretation of those passages, it seems to me. I am not arguing against geocentrism, but I think it is very shaky to argue it from the language of the passages you cited.

First of all, speaking of the sun rising and setting is language that heliocentric weather forecasters use everyday on TV. That is simply a common way of saying that the observer's particular side of the earth has rotated to face away from the sun. I thought that was a commonly understood turn of phrase rather than a scientific assertion.

Secondly, and similar to the first point, I don't think saying the world is established and that it shall not be moved is making a scientific assertion. To say that they are is taking on a level of literalistic hermeneutic that is typically only seen in extreme fundementalist groups, and may not be a fair handling of Scripture.

Again, I am not arguing against the geocentric theory. Personally, I couldn't care less about what is at the center of our universe. However, what I am trying to say is that it seems to me that using passages that talk about the sun and moon standing still or riding and setting (which, again, are universal turns of phrase even among heliocentric people fir ease of speaking) and the earth being established of fixed is using Scripture for something for which it was not intended or to answer questions it is not posing.


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## MW

Taylor Sexton said:


> Personally, I couldn't care less about what is at the center of our universe.



What if it were shown that the Bible systematically adopts a geocentric perspective? Would that be something to care about? God created the heaven and the earth on day one. The sun was made on day four. There will be new heavens and a new earth, but there will be no need for the light of the sun. From beginning to end the Bible rejects the natural man's deification of the sun as the source of light and life. God sets the sun it in its place. God moves it in its course. God can stop it in its course when it serves His purpose. The Bible systematically presents the same picture of the sun in relation to the earth, and never suggests anything different. History, prophecy, law, poetry, all provide the same uniform view of the matter. Even the poetic descriptions only make sense on the understanding that the sun moves. There is never a hint that this is merely phenomenological language. It is reality as God has revealed it. That being the case, whence arises the suggestion that it is something other than literal? The suggestion comes from naturalistic science . A changing science at that. A science which self-consciously proclaims its findings in terms of hypothesis and probability. A science which already accepts that alternate models might be just as valid. A science which itself is geocentric, since all its preliminary findings are based on observations of and from the earth. What then? Are we seriously being asked to exchange the reliability of the consistent worldview of the Bible in order to conform to the unreliable and ever-changing probabilities of this so-called "science?"


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## Taylor

MW said:


> What if it were shown that the Bible systematically adopts a geocentric perspective? Would that be something to care about? God created the heaven and the earth on day one. The sun was made on day four. There will be new heavens and a new earth, but there will be no need for the light of the sun. From beginning to end the Bible rejects the natural man's deification of the sun as the source of light and life. God sets the sun it in its place. God moves it in its course. God can stop it in its course when it serves His purpose. The Bible systematically presents the same picture of the sun in relation to the earth, and never suggests anything different. History, prophecy, law, poetry, all provide the same uniform view of the matter. Even the poetic descriptions only make sense on the understanding that the sun moves. There is never a hint that this is merely phenomenological language. It is reality as God has revealed it. That being the case, whence arises the suggestion that it is something other than literal? The suggestion comes from naturalistic science . A changing science at that. A science which self-consciously proclaims its findings in terms of hypothesis and probability. A science which already accepts that alternate models might be just as valid. A science which itself is geocentric, since all its preliminary findings are based on observations of and from the earth. What then? Are we seriously being asked to exchange the reliability of the consistent worldview of the Bible in order to conform to the unreliable and ever-changing probabilities of this so-called "science?"



The problem is that I don't see Scripture as teaching one thing or the other. All evidence that has been presented to me from Scripture that people say supports the geocentric theory doesn't _have_ to be interpreted that way (in spite of the dogmatism of some). That is all I am saying.

That there will be a new heavens and new earth is perfectly clear. That I care about. Whether the earth or the sun is the axis of the revolution of the solar system or universe it apparently does not. All the passages I have seen presented can be taken either way with ease.


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## MW

Taylor Sexton said:


> All the passages I have seen presented can be taken either way with ease.



I think you may have facilitated that ease, and you have probably done so on the assumption that there is an "universe" in which the earth rotates around the sun as matter of "scientific fact;" but it would be worthwhile to re-investigate (1) the Bible on its own terms, and (2) what science now hypothesises regarding a "multiverse" and its implications.


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## Taylor

MW said:


> ...whence arises the suggestion that it is something other than literal?



Reading those passages as teaching a geocentric model has two issues:

1) It's not a literal reading, but a _literalistic_ reading. Nobody would ever interpret the weatherman speaking of the sunrise in this fashion to be affirm a geocentric model. I think something has to be said for the vantage point of us on earth, and how it has universally affected idiom.

2) These passages do not seem to have been written for the purpose of teaching the movement of planetary or solar bodies in space. To read it in such a fashion, in my opinion, is to read into the text questions it does not seek to answer.

Again, I am not arguing for or against the model. I really don't care either way. _All I am saying_ is that Scripture just simply isn't clear, and to be dogmatic about it is, in my opinion, rather silly.


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## Taylor

MW said:


> I think you may have facilitated that ease, and you have probably done so on the assumption that there is an "universe" in which the earth rotates around the sun as matter of "scientific fact;" but it would be worthwhile to re-investigate (1) the Bible on its own terms, and (2) what science now hypothesises regarding a "multiverse" and its implications.



I am looking at the Bible on its own terms now. And it seems that the passages can be taken either way.


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## MW

Taylor Sexton said:


> It's not a literal reading, but a _literalistic_ reading.



Is it literal or literalistic to interpret Genesis One as teaching there was alternating light and darkness on the earth for three days without the existence of the sun, and that the sun itself was set in the heavens, like the moon, as a light-bearer and time-administrator for the benefit of the earth?


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## Taylor

MW said:


> Is it literal or literalistic to interpret Genesis One as teaching there was alternating light and darkness on the earth for three days without the existence of the sun, and that the sun itself was set in the heavens, like the moon, as a light-bearer and time-administrator for the benefit of the earth?



Genesis 1 is a notoriously difficult passage to interpret, even by Bible-believing, conservative, inerrantist, godly (and thoroughly Reformed) people. I am in no position or of the desire (or time) to get into a debate. For the final time, all I am saying is that 1) Scripture is not clear on this issue, and it seems, as Calvin would say, that the Spirit has not seen it fit to reveal this to us, and 2) all the Scripture presented to me supposedly proving the geocentric model is hardly as conclusive as those who affirm the position claim they are. The foundation is shaky at very best, in my humble opinion, especially given the nature of concepts expressed through language. (Again, nobody would accuse the weatherman of propagating a geocentric model when he talks about the sunrise.)

That is it. I have no desire or interest in debate because (again) I am not arguing one way or the other. My whole point (again) is to say the issue is not clearly addressed in Scripture.


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## MW

Taylor Sexton said:


> My whole point (again) is to say the issue is not clearly addressed in Scripture.



I grant that may be the case according to your notoriously difficult interpretation of it.


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## Taylor

MW said:


> I grant that may be the case according to your notoriously difficult interpretation of it.



I think the whole point of what I have been saying is that the method of interpretation is not as cut and clear and some dogmatic persons would have one believe. I think that I have made no attempt at a positive interpretation of any passage presented is beyond clear.


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## MW

Taylor Sexton said:


> I think the whole point of what I have been saying is that the method of interpretation is not as cut and clear and some dogmatic persons would have one believe.



Can you recognise that you have made a very clear dogmatic point of distinguishing between literal and literalistic? and then can you recognise that you have made it very clear that you are dogmatically certain that Genesis One is notoriously difficult to interpret? If you can recognise this, then you must see that dogmatism works in more than one way, and that the ease with which you can interpret passages as being unclear is owing to a dogmatism which facilitates this ease.


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## Taylor

MW said:


> Can you recognise that you have made a very clear dogmatic point of distinguishing between literal and literalistic? and then can you recognise that you have made it very clear that you are dogmatically certain that Genesis One is notoriously difficult to interpret? If you can recognise this, then you must see that dogmatism works in more than one way, and that the ease with which you can interpret passages as being unclear is owing to a dogmatism which facilitates this ease.



I believe what I indeed said—if I am being read carefully and fairly, that is—is that I have made no attempt to _positively interpret_ any passage set before me, including Genesis 1. And, yes, I am dogmatic about the distinction between literal and literalistic, since to not do so would reduce language to have no meaning. Also, I am fairly certain (I do not know why you accuse me of rising to the level of dogmatism) that Genesis 1 is a difficult passage, otherwise its proper interpretation would not be disputed. That seams simple and demonstrable enough an assertion.

I would like to stress again that I am not arguing for or against any position (although I feel that I am being treated unfairly, since I get the feeling an interpretation is being put in my mouth, when no such thing has been asserted), because whatever body is in the geographic center of the solar system or universe has absolutely no bearing on my life—physical, spiritual, doctrinal or otherwise. I merely am saying that the evidence might not be as clear cut as certain ones would believe it to be—_for either position_. I know that such lack of black-and-white or cut-and-dry is uncomfortable for some on this board, but I cannot help that; it is just so. I, for one, refuse to bemoan the fact that Spirit did not see fit to make such questions clearly answered in Scripture.


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## MW

Taylor Sexton said:


> I would like to stress again that I am not arguing for or against any position



I acknowledge that you do not argue for or against any of the positions which are under discussion; but you do so by introducing another position. It is not as easy as saying the Bible is unclear. You have exegetical and dogmatic reasons for the position you are introducing. And I would like to stress this to you so that you do not simply adopt your position because it might seem to present an option out of the exegetical and dogmatic challenges that the other positions face. You are obligated to adopt and defend your position according to the exegetical and dogmatic standards which are imposed on the others positions.


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## Taylor

MW said:


> ...you do so by introducing another position.



Yes, the position that Scripture does not appear to address the issue as clearly as some would like it. That is my position.


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## MW

Taylor Sexton said:


> Yes, the position that Scripture does not appear to address the issue as clearly as some would like it. That is my position.



So now I can respond concerning your position, "that the method of interpretation is not as cut and clear as some dogmatic persons would have one believe." It works both ways. I don't accept that your "notoriously difficult interpretation" is as clear as you believe it is.


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## Taylor

MW said:


> It works both ways.



That is precisely the point I have been trying to make this entire time...


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## Ask Mr. Religion

Taylor Sexton said:


> Yes, the position that Scripture does not appear to address the issue as clearly as some would like it. That is my position.


Brother, how would we as Calvinists respond to this same statement made in the context of an anti-Calvinist response to our soteriological views? Would we let them "off the hook," as it were, versus pressing them to examine their unexamined assumptions? I think this is perhaps related to Rev. Winzer's questions of your position.


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## MW

Taylor Sexton said:


> MW said:
> 
> 
> 
> It works both ways.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> That is precisely the point I have been trying to make this entire time...
Click to expand...


I apologise, Taylor, if I have missed your point. Thankyou for taking time to consider the issues.


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## Taylor

Ask Mr. Religion said:


> Brother, how would we as Calvinists respond to this same statement made in the context of an anti-Calvinist response to our soteriological views? Would we let them "off the hook," as it were, versus pressing them to examine their unexamined assumptions? I think this is perhaps related to Rev. Winzer's questions of your position.



Simple. I would respond with the clarity of Scripture on the issue. On the doctrines of grace, unlike the spatial center on the solar system or universe, Scripture could not be more clear.


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## Jeri Tanner

Taylor, what challenged me on this issue was the realization (which I think came by way of it being pointed out in earlier PB discussions on this topic) is that this matter rises to the level of doctrine. 1) The Bible makes the claim that the sun (and the moon) stood still in Joshua 10. It's not phenomenological language, because the inspired writer of Scripture in this historical account clearly states that what Joshua commanded happened- "Then spake Joshua to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon. And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day. And there was no day like that before it or after it, that the Lord hearkened unto the voice of a man." 2) The denial that Scripture is veracious in Joshua 10 was, historically, the first salvo fired at the Bible that has so undermined the confidence of God's people in Scripture, and has also made the Bible seem antiquated both within and without the church. The widespread acceptance of the claim that we must have billions of years of age of the earth and evolution followed close behind. 

Having the reliability of God's word restored to one, by understanding that Joshua 10 can continue to be accepted as true, is a great blessing.


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## Taylor

Jeri Tanner said:


> The Bible makes the claim that the sun (and the moon) stood still in Joshua 10.



That seems to be question begging. I realize Scripture says this, but my point is that it cannot be proven to be setting forth a geocentric model. I have full trust in the reliability of God's Word, by the way. I do not appreciate it being insinuated that I do not simply because I recognize the universal idiomatic language of sunrise and sunset.


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## Afterthought

Taylor,

You may already know this, but if you wanted to look into this matter, _The Christian's Reasonable Service_ has a helpful systematic defense of geocentrism, along with an interesting exposition of Genesis 1. Matthew Poole also briefly discusses the matter in his commentary on Joshua. There are also a lot of past threads on the Puritanboard--some more lengthy than others--that contain helpful exegetical comments, including concerning relegating the text to phenomenological language.

From what I understand, the issue from an exegetical perspective is not so much heliocentric models (kinematic or dynamical), but either a reading back into the text what is not there (the text says the sun moves; it says nothing about the earth) or denying there is a sense in which the sun moves (since the text says the sun moves in the same manner the moon moves, not apparently moves). I am not sure whether geocentrists hold that extrapolating beyond that for the purposes of cosmology cannot really be done; there seem to be a variety of positions, as already noted in the thread, and I am not sure if--exegetically--it can be inferred that the earth must be the absolute center of the universe from the passages that indicate the sun's movement. If no extrapolation for cosmological purposes can be made, it would seem that either heliocentrism or geocentrism could be used to understand the event in Joshua...provided that the truth of the text is not denied or relegated to appearances only and provided that one is acknowledging to be making an "abstraction" from the text, rather than what the text says. (I would appreciate clarification from geocentrists on these matters)


Edit: Just saw Jeri's comment. Jeri actually didn't beg the question; she gave reasons why she did not believe the language was phenomenological.


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## Taylor

Jeri Tanner said:


> ...this matter rises to the level of doctrine.



That is utterly ridiculous. This is not the case until it can be proven beyond most doubt that 1) Scripture even addresses the issue and 2) Scripture speaks clearly and definitively in favor of one position completely over another.


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## Taylor

Afterthought said:


> Just saw Jeri's comment. Jeri actually didn't beg the question; she gave reasons why she did not believe the language was phenomenological.



She actually did, in a sense. She did not at all prove it is not phenomenological language. She merely asserted that it isn't and then quoted the cited passage. My point is that you can't prove your point by quoting the disputed passage. That is, to me, a form of question begging.

Also, I am familiar with à Brakel's position. In my opinion, his dogmatism over the issue is likewise in error. This is a helpful article by R. Scott Clark on the issue.

*I would like to point out for the final time that my point is not argue for or against any model, but to say that to argue it from Scripture is not as clear cut as we would like it to be, and thus it is shaky at best to argue for either model from Scripture.*


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## Justified

Taylor Sexton said:


> I would respond with the clarity of Scripture on the issue.





Taylor Sexton said:


> Also, I am fairly certain (I do not know why you accuse me of rising to the level of dogmatism) that Genesis 1 is a difficult passage, otherwise its proper interpretation would not be disputed.


 If being a "highly disputed" passage is a criterion of being unclear, then I fear that the gospel is unclear, the doctrines of grace, justification by faith alone, the resurrection of the body, etc. There are plenty of scholars-- even ostensibly Christian scholars-- who disagree on all these points.


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## Afterthought

Taylor Sexton said:


> She actually did, in a sense. She did not at all prove it is not phenomenological language. She merely asserted that it isn't and then quoted the cited passage. My point is that you can't prove your point by quoting the disputed passage. That is, to me, a form of question begging.


Perhaps I am too used to these arguments so that I understand the shorthand arguments and then read in the longer ones, but she said: "because the inspired writer of Scripture in this historical account clearly states that what Joshua commanded happened." That is an interpretive point. Maybe it doesn't constitute "proof," since some premises are missing, but if a reason beside the question is given, the question is not begged. Anyway, it seems silly to me to argue "she said/she didn't say," so I'll leave it there; at the very least, further argumentation on her end is needed since this argument did not grab you. 

Thanks for the R Scott Clark reference. I have read it before.

I'm not sure if your bolded comment is directed to my post. If it is, I understood your position fine. I was only commenting on the exegetical issues regarding arguing for or against geocentrism, since those are different positions than your own.


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## Taylor

Justified said:


> If being a "highly disputed" passage is a criterion of being unclear, then I fear that the gospel is unclear, the doctrines of grace, justification by faith alone, the resurrection of the body, etc. There are plenty of scholars-- even ostensibly Christian scholars-- who disagree on all these points.



That's not what I said. There are plenty of disputed passages that are quite clear. I never said that mere dispute is a criterion for being unclear. Rather, I am saying that Genesis 1, in terms of celestial mechanics, is unclear (simply because the passages doesn't seemed to be concerned with being a lecture on science), which in this case leads to dispute not between unbelievers and believers, and not even just between conservatives and liberals, but (as is seen on this board) between thoroughly Reformed, orthodox believers and scholars. Regardless, comparing Scripture's teaching (assuming there is such; and it is an assumption) concerning the particular arrangement of the heavenly bodies and their particular motions and the doctrines of justification by grace alone through faith alone (about which Paul could not be clearer) is beyond apples and oranges.

It seems I may have upset some people here, and I'm not even trying to argue for one position or the other! I am simply arguing that either position can be defended from Scripture, depending on one's presuppositions regarding regarding science and language, and now I am being implicitly suspected of denying by my methodology clear doctrines such as justification by faith alone. I had no idea arguing for balance and care when handling the Word of God—especially in matters about which Scripture's statements are few and up for various viable interpretations—was such a crime.


----------



## Edward

Justified said:


> If being a "highly disputed" passage is a criterion of being unclear, then I fear that the gospel is unclear, the doctrines of grace, justification by faith alone, the resurrection of the body, etc. There are plenty of scholars-- even ostensibly Christian scholars-- who disagree on all these points.



Do you agree or disagree with the following statement:

"All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all"


----------



## Toasty

Just out of curiosity, has any satellite been outside of our solar system and taken a video recording of our solar system?


----------



## Justified

Taylor Sexton said:


> Justified said:
> 
> 
> 
> If being a "highly disputed" passage is a criterion of being unclear, then I fear that the gospel is unclear, the doctrines of grace, justification by faith alone, the resurrection of the body, etc. There are plenty of scholars-- even ostensibly Christian scholars-- who disagree on all these points.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> That's not what I said. There are plenty of disputed passages that are quite clear. I never said that mere dispute is a criterion for being unclear. Rather, I am saying that Genesis 1, in terms of celestial mechanics, is unclear (simply because the passages doesn't seemed to be concerned with being a lecture on science), which in this case leads to dispute not between unbelievers and believers, and not even just between conservatives and liberals, but (as is seen on this board) between thoroughly Reformed, orthodox believers and scholars. Regardless, comparing Scripture's teaching (assuming there is such; and it is an assumption) concerning the particular arrangement of the heavenly bodies and their particular motions and the doctrines of justification by grace alone through faith alone (about which Paul could not be clearer) is beyond apples and oranges.
> 
> It seems I may have upset some people here, and I'm not even trying to argue for one position or the other! I am simply arguing that either position can be defended from Scripture, depending on one's presuppositions regarding regarding science and language, and now I am being implicitly suspected of denying by my methodology clear doctrines such as justification by faith alone. I had no idea arguing for balance and care when handling the Word of God—especially in matters about which Scripture's statements are few and up for various viable interpretations—was such a crime.
Click to expand...

Don't worry. You haven't upset me in the slightest. I myself do not have an opinion on the matter, but for a moment it seemed that you _were_ arguing that if something were disputed, it was unclear. Since you have cleared that up, you'll not hear from me.


----------



## Justified

Edward said:


> Justified said:
> 
> 
> 
> If being a "highly disputed" passage is a criterion of being unclear, then I fear that the gospel is unclear, the doctrines of grace, justification by faith alone, the resurrection of the body, etc. There are plenty of scholars-- even ostensibly Christian scholars-- who disagree on all these points.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Do you agree or disagree with the following statement:
> 
> "All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all"
Click to expand...


I certainly agree with that. Almost all of the above doctrines I believe _are_ clear because they are the central message of salvation in Christ, which our Lord has not made obscure or difficult to understand.


----------



## Afterthought

Toasty said:


> Just out of curiosity, has any satellite been outside of our solar system and taken a video recording of our solar system?


Voyager 1 has left the solar system. There is no video, but there is the Family Portrait.


----------



## Douglas P.

Toasty said:


> Just out of curiosity, has any satellite been outside of our solar system and taken a video recording of our solar system?



Although no satellite has ever exited the solar system to send back a video, all spacecraft navigation relies, in part, on measuring the Doppler shift of that satellite or spacecraft relative to earth. Since Earth is in motion, a spacecraft such as Voyager or Cassini constantly measures the velocity of Earth. Other spacecraft such as WMAP have also measured the velocity of Earth to an extremely precise value.

There's more to be said on this subject, which if i get some more time i will later, but in the meantime, here is an article on Spacecraft Navigation from the JPL. http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/basics/bsf13-1.php


----------



## Jeri Tanner

Afterthought said:


> Taylor Sexton said:
> 
> 
> 
> She actually did, in a sense. She did not at all prove it is not phenomenological language. She merely asserted that it isn't and then quoted the cited passage. My point is that you can't prove your point by quoting the disputed passage. That is, to me, a form of question begging.
> 
> 
> 
> Perhaps I am too used to these arguments so that I understand the shorthand arguments and then read in the longer ones, but she said: "because the inspired writer of Scripture in this historical account clearly states that what Joshua commanded happened." That is an interpretive point. Maybe it doesn't constitute "proof," since some premises are missing, but if a reason beside the question is given, the question is not begged. Anyway, it seems silly to me to argue "she said/she didn't say," so I'll leave it there; at the very least, further argumentation on her end is needed since this argument did not grab you.
> 
> Thanks for the R Scott Clark reference. I have read it before.
> 
> I'm not sure if your bolded comment is directed to my post. If it is, I understood your position fine. I was only commenting on the exegetical issues regarding arguing for or against geocentrism, since those are different positions than your own.
Click to expand...


I meant that normally, when reading the historical narratives, we take "at face value" what is reported by the "narrator" as having happened. But in this passage, where the narrator reports that the sun did indeed stop moving, and stood still, most want to say that it can't be taken at face value because we all know the sun doesn't move in that way. Since no one can observe what is really happening with the movements of the earth, the sun, etc, I think it best to refrain from scientific claims, but I do believe that however the motions of the heavenly bodies are occurring, the account in Joshua 10 can and should be taken at face value- the sun was moving, it stopped moving at Joshua's command, and began moving again afterward. That's all I'm saying.


----------



## MW

Taylor Sexton said:


> It seems I may have upset some people here, and I'm not even trying to argue for one position or the other! I am simply arguing that either position can be defended from Scripture, depending on one's presuppositions regarding regarding science and language, and now I am being implicitly suspected of denying by my methodology clear doctrines such as justification by faith alone.



Taylor, you are back to saying you have no position, though in fact you clearly state a position when you claim either position can be defended from Scripture. You must have come to some fairly solid exegetical and dogmatic conclusions in order to have arrived at this position. I think your conclusions require examination in order to test the credibility of them, because neither position holds the position that you do. In order to examine your conclusions we will need for you to plainly state the reasons for your position and be open to having them tested.

I don't see where anybody implicitly suspected your doctrine of justification by faith. It was simply observed as an analogy that this and other doctrines are disputed among Christians, and therefore the bare fact that two positions argue from the same Scriptures is not a solid reason for thinking that the Scriptures themselves are unclear.


----------



## MW

Regarding the way doctrines are affected by this issue, I refer back to the OP and my original response. It is quite clear that scientific conclusions have metaphysical components and one's view of ultimate reality will affect the way one understands biblical doctrines.


----------



## lynnie

Regarding satellites and spacecraft, in the geocentric model it fits perfectly well because of space rotating around the earth. There are all kinds of scientific discourses out there by geocentrists on this. You can't use that to prove either the geo or helio position. 

By the way, in case anybody does not know, in the accepted geocentric model which works perfectly ( ie retrograde motion, predicting eclipses, etc), the other planets orbit the sun, which rotates around the earth daily. The other planets do not have rings around the earth, but around the sun. Its rather fascinating to read the literature and the old science experiments.

MW made a very good point about accepting modern thinking. Now we don't live in a universe, we live in one universe among many of them, the multiverse, supposedly proved by quantum mechanics. Then there is the model where everything in the sky is on the surface of an expanding balloon. Honestly, when I watched the DVD by Robert Sungenis I realized how much simpler it is to just believe in a firmament and geocentricity, and classical physics instead of relativity. When you to try and figure out how to explain the observed phenomena without them it just gets more bizarre all the time. People think modern astronomy "works" with the observations. It does not.


----------



## Afterthought

MW said:


> Regarding the way doctrines are affected by this issue, I refer back to the OP and my original response. It is quite clear that scientific conclusions have metaphysical components and one's view of ultimate reality will affect the way one understands biblical doctrines.


Would you say my understanding below is correct? If not, how are various things shown, e.g., that the earth is at the center of the universe, based on the sun's motion?



> From what I understand, the issue from an exegetical perspective is not so much heliocentric models (kinematic or dynamical), but either a reading back into the text what is not there (the text says the sun moves; it says nothing about the earth) or denying there is a sense in which the sun moves (since the text says the sun moves in the same manner the moon moves, not apparently moves). I am not sure whether geocentrists hold that extrapolating beyond that for the purposes of cosmology cannot really be done; there seem to be a variety of positions, as already noted in the thread, and I am not sure if--exegetically--it can be inferred that the earth must be the absolute center of the universe from the passages that indicate the sun's movement. If no extrapolation for cosmological purposes can be made, it would seem that either heliocentrism or geocentrism could be used to understand the event in Joshua...provided that the truth of the text is not denied or relegated to appearances only and provided that one is acknowledging to be making an "abstraction" from the text, rather than what the text says. (I would appreciate clarification from geocentrists on these matters)





lynnie said:


> Now we don't live in a universe, we live in one universe among many of them, the multiverse, supposedly proved by quantum mechanics. Then there is the model where everything in the sky is on the surface of an expanding balloon.


Most agree that there is no empirical evidence of a multiverse. It is admitted by most of them that it is a speculation (motivated in part by quantum mechanics and string theory) with the intent of explaining "fine tuning." As for the latter, that is a misrepresentation of the theory of the expanding universe. Regardless of either, there is strong observational evidence that the earth is in a non-inertial reference frame and that "fictitious" forces that in all other known cases are the result of rotating objects appear in the earth's frame. From the perspective of modern science, these need to be explained in a universal, mathematical way for a dynamical geocentric model to take off. The only way I could see that happening is if there was some theory that had effects on earth only and was imperceptible to observation, so as to violate common sense on earth only and nowhere else. But if imperceptible, it is not empirical; so it would need to leave some other effects that we could detect.



lynnie said:


> Honestly, when I watched the DVD by Robert Sungenis I realized how much simpler it is to just believe in a firmament and geocentricity, and classical physics instead of relativity.


None have found a way to believe in such without creating enormous mathematical headaches and complicated explaining away of experimental data. The firmament theory is also speculation still: including from an exegetical perspective, I think. I also do not recall any of them having gotten a universal dynamics that puts all the mathematical pieces together (they may have; it has been a while; I remember the "firmament" "dynamics," but there were no real equations used; neither were equations used to show how a rotating space produces the same effects as something rotating in space). The dynamics of classical physics may be more intuitive, but that is it, so far as this issue is concerned. From CMI's perspective, the issue again is dynamics.



lynnie said:


> By the way, in case anybody does not know, in the accepted geocentric model which works perfectly ( ie retrograde motion, predicting eclipses, etc), the other planets orbit the sun, which rotates around the earth daily.


The CMI article claims this Neo-Tychonian model, although theoretically dynamical, reduces to kinematics, If I recall correctly.



lynnie said:


> People think modern astronomy "works" with the observations. It does not.


This is partially true. It works in the solar system very well. And it seems to work elsewhere pretty well. But there are some discrepancies outside the solar system, although none are sure how to fix all of them or the source of the discrepancies (some invoke "dark matter" quite confidently while leaving "dark energy" up for grabs).


----------



## MW

Afterthought said:


> Would you say my understanding below is correct? If not, how are various things shown, e.g., that the earth is at the center of the universe, based on the sun's motion?



I am not a scientist, so I can't offer comment on different theories. I do know that science requires certain metaphysical assumptions, and that these assumptions cannot be proven one way or the other. I also know that "naturalistic" science works on the basis of some precarious rules so far as matter and time are concerned. I remain a sceptic so far as naturalistic science is concerned, especially as it aims to give an ultimate explanation of life.

I would say that biblical cosmology matters. It's not poetic or mythic. It's a real world. Everything the Bible teaches is suspended on that real world and has ethical implications for our life in the real world in the light of judgment to come. Heaven and earth are the Bible's reality, and must therefore be the reality we accept in order to understand what the Bible is teaching. If we make void the cosmology of the Bible its truths become esoteric, psychic, idealist, or gnostic, because they cease to have real meaning for space and time as we know it.

I think if one accepts Copernicus he is bound to the scientific principle of mediocrity. An older theologian, John Edwards, recognised that point; and all the naturalistic theoretical scientists are really functioning on that principle. If the mediocrity principle were accepted we would have to regard the Bible as of little worth. I am not willing to diminish the authority of the Bible in order to accommodate a spurious metaphysic which has no certain basis and offers no certain results.


----------



## Afterthought

MW said:


> I think if one accepts Copernicus he is bound to the scientific principle of mediocrity. An older theologian, John Edwards, recognised that point; and all the naturalistic theoretical scientists are really functioning on that principle. If the mediocrity principle were accepted we would have to regard the Bible as of little worth. I am not willing to diminish the authority of the Bible in order to accommodate a spurious metaphysic which has no certain basis and offers no certain results.


While it is certainly true that some take the "lesson" of Copernicus to be the "principle of mediocrity," I think the one of the big concerns is whether the laws of physics stay the same no matter where you are in the universe. If one rejects this, one will only be able to metaphysically justify having a bunch of disjoint and chaotic mathematical equations with no explanation behind them (i.e., the universal information that binds them together is lost), which also leads to being unable to discover new phenomena. Perhaps this too is an unprovable metaphysical assumption, but wouldn't common sense say if we see something universal behind particulars, the universal must have reality (with some probability)? Isn't this just the way human observation works? And this metaphysical assumption has allowed the categorizing and explanation of much observable phenomena by just a few universal equations.

Part of the metaphysical resistance to the dynamics of the geocentrist models is that they "work" only when one is on the earth; that they need to pretend the modern model is correct in order to make predictions about phenomena without adding things to their theory ad hoc; that they require there to be things that are exceptional about the earth's physics when compared to all other heavenly and earthly bodies; and that it violates inferences from common sense observations: there are universal features associated with rotating bodies on earth, and we see those same features occurring to the earth (i.e., the earth looks like it is rotating). There are also universal features associated with two bodies on earth spinning around each other that allow us to mathematically quantify whether our eyes will see one body orbiting the other or whether we cannot tell which orbits which, and these features say that if we somehow looked at the earth and sun from a distance with our own eyes, we would see the earth moving around the sun.

(There is also the metaphysical issue in geocentrist models of things like earthquakes on the earth forcing the entire universe--however far away--to adjust almost instantaneously. But this is not related to the metaphysical principle that we are discussing.)



MW said:


> I would say that biblical cosmology matters. It's not poetic or mythic. It's a real world. Everything the Bible teaches is suspended on that real world and has ethical implications for our life in the real world in the light of judgment to come. Heaven and earth are the Bible's reality, and must therefore be the reality we accept in order to understand what the Bible is teaching. If we make void the cosmology of the Bible its truths become esoteric, psychic, idealist, or gnostic, because they cease to have real meaning for space and time as we know it.


I agree. I'm just uncertain how much biblical exegesis commits one to in the realm of cosmology. I can agree the Bible teaches the sun moves. But is anything else required? And is there a problem with biblical cosmology if one takes the modern relativist physics as metaphysically correct (with some probability), if the relativist physics acknowledges that on the earth, the sun moves?



MW said:


> I also know that "naturalistic" science works on the basis of some precarious rules so far as matter and time are concerned. I remain a sceptic so far as naturalistic science is concerned, especially as it aims to give an ultimate explanation of life.


What rules do you mean? Do you have some works/papers in mind that discuss them?


----------



## MW

Afterthought said:


> but wouldn't common sense say if we see something universal behind particulars, the universal must have reality (with some probability)?



"Common sense" is geocentric. Go into outer space and your common sense is not going to work for you. Jumping in the air will fling you on a path; you will not drop back down.



Afterthought said:


> these features say that if we looked at the earth and sun from a distance, we would see the earth moving around the sun.



What distance? According to physics the universe is expanding and time is in flux. How long is a piece of string? Any finding could only be relative.



Afterthought said:


> And is there a problem with biblical cosmology if one takes the modern relativist physics as metaphysically correct (with some probability), if the relativist physics acknowledges that on the earth, the sun moves?



According to modern relativist physics matter is eternal and infinite. According to the Bible there is a beginning of things and these are quantifiable. According to the relativist theory there might be multiple realities. According to the Bible there can only be one, of which there can only be one God. Although on this last point there are those who point to the improbability of multiple realities it is still regarded as a theoretical possibility.



Afterthought said:


> What rules do you mean?



Here is Neil deGrasse Tyson's rule number one:



> (1) Question authority. No idea is true just because someone says so, including me.


----------



## Taylor

MW said:


> Taylor, you are back to saying you have no position, though in fact you clearly state a position when you claim either position can be defended from Scripture.



Where did I say I have no position? I thought I stated my position regarding this dispute quite clearly—multiple times, in fact.


----------



## Taylor

MW said:


> "Common sense" is geocentric.



Common sense told me air was invisible until the atom was presented to me.


----------



## MW

Taylor Sexton said:


> Where did I say I have no position? I thought I stated my position regarding this dispute quite clearly—multiple times, in fact.



And yet you object to anyone testing the reasons for your position on the basis that you are not arguing for one position or the other. If you acknowledge you hold a position then you are bound to the same standards of examination as the other positions.


----------



## MW

Taylor Sexton said:


> MW said:
> 
> 
> 
> "Common sense" is geocentric.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Common sense told me air was invisible until the atom was presented to me.
Click to expand...


And when the medium of presentation was taken away did the air become visible to you? could you now miraculously see atoms everywhere? I will take a guess and say that common sense told you afterwards precisely what it told you before.


----------



## Taylor

MW said:


> And when the medium of presentation was taken away did the air become visible to you? could you now miraculously see atoms everywhere? I will take a guess and say that common sense told you afterwards precisely what it told you before.



Of course not. Surely you are not about argue that because I needed to aid my vision with a microscope the fact that the air is indeed visible is no less true. If so, you are truly grasping at straws.

No, my previous common sense, like all sense, became informed by evidence and conformed to it.


----------



## MW

Taylor Sexton said:


> No, my previous common sense, like all sense, became informed by evidence and conformed to it.



If the presentation of the atom made no difference to your inability to see the air, your common sense remained the same sense which is experienced by all men in common.


----------



## Taylor

MW said:


> If the presentation of the atom made no difference to your inability to see the air, your common sense remained the same sense which is experienced by all men in common.



Nonsense. Grasping at straws is what you're doing now. It totally made a difference. The fact that I need an external apparatus to see the air in no way means that I cannot see it. I now have the ability, just not with the naked eye. It doesn't make air any less visible.

The point: Air was proven to be visible. And get this: contrary to Jesus' words in John 3 (only if taken literalistically), we even can see where the wind is coming from and where it is going thanks to meteorological equipment!


----------



## MW

Taylor Sexton said:


> MW said:
> 
> 
> 
> If the presentation of the atom made no difference to your inability to see the air, your common sense remained the same sense which is experienced by all men in common.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Nonsense. Grasping at straws is what you're doing now. It totally made a difference. The fact that I need an external apparatus to see the air in no way means that I cannot see it.
Click to expand...


The fact you need an external apparatus to see it means it is not "common." How you reason about it might differ, but the sense itself is as common as it ever was.


----------



## Taylor

MW said:


> The fact you need an external apparatus to see it means it is not "common." How you reason about it might differ, but the sense itself is as common as it ever was.



False. My common sense, being informed, tells me that air is visible, just not to the naked eye, thanks to the microscope. I refuse to play your semantics games.


----------



## MW

Taylor Sexton said:


> False. My common sense, being informed, tells me that air is visible, just not to the naked eye, thanks to the microscope. I refuse to play your semantics games.



I only require that you use the term according to an accepted definition. By your understanding you would have to say there is no such thing as common sense because men reason differently about what is sensed.


----------



## Taylor

The point is this:

Either theory can be defended from Scripture (whether you like it or not; it is simply so). I know that's difficult for the "Truly Reformed" to accept at times. It's still so. Passages that are presented as proof for the geocentric model, while certainly viable evidence, are yet certainly no proof. The fact is that they do not have to be interpreted that way. Only a dogmatic literalistic (not literal) hermeneutic that denies all possibility of figurative or phenomenological language demands it.

That is my point, and I must leave it at that. I simply cannot stay up all night and argue over things about which Scripture is not clear and, frankly, have no bearing on the Christian walk or (gasp) one's view of Scripture's inspiration. I am open to either position and, since I cannot get a clear answer from Scripture (since it apparently is not trying to answer the question), I am perfectly happy to wait until heaven to be shown the answer.


----------



## MW

Taylor Sexton said:


> The point is this:
> 
> Either theory can be defended from Scripture (whether you like it or not; it is simply so).



I disagree, and I think your position is based on very faulty exegesis and poor dogmatics; and I could just as easily say, "whether you like it or not; it is simply so," but it would accomplish nothing.


----------



## Taylor

MW said:


> I disagree, and I think your position is based on very faulty exegesis and poor dogmatics; and I could just as easily say, "whether you like it or not; it is simply so," but it would accomplish nothing.



The fact that you disagree with me, as well as the fact that this very online community, let alone the broader Reformed community both past and present, is divided over this silly issue, proves my very point that the fact that either position is defensible is indeed so.

Good night.


----------



## MW

Taylor Sexton said:


> Good night.



The sun hasn't gone down here as yet, but good night to you.


----------



## Taylor

MW said:


> The sun hasn't gone down here as yet, but good night to you.



I see what you did there.


----------



## earl40

Taylor Sexton said:


> MW said:
> 
> 
> 
> The sun hasn't gone down here as yet, but good night to you.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I see what you did there.
Click to expand...


Literally.


----------



## Douglas P.

lynnie said:


> Regarding satellites and spacecraft, in the geocentric model it fits perfectly well because of space rotating around the earth. There are all kinds of scientific discourses out there by geocentrists on this. You can't use that to prove either the geo or helio position.



Lynnie,

I was not talking about satellites or spacecraft in orbit around Earth, or how we see them from Earth. I was talking about deep space spacecraft, launched at essentially a strait trajectory, _and how they view Earth from deep space._

Toasty is right, if we could get outside the solar system, we could observe whether or not Earth is in motion around the Sun. Although this has never been done with a video camera and visible light, it has been done, and is being done all the time, with radio wave signals from satellites such as Voyager 1 or Cassini.

I drew two pictures to help explain this.

Deep space satellites communicate with Earth via radio signals. These signals are waves, and thus, we can measure the length of the wave (which the satellites do constantly). If the Earth was in motion, we could measure this motion based on the changing length of the waves. This is called Doppler Shift. As it turns out, Earth is in motion, and we do measure a change in the wave length as the Earth orbits the Sun.








If however, all of space revolved around earth, we would never detect a change in wave length from a satellite. As the picture below illustrates.






Earth's motion is an observable, provable fact.


----------



## Jonny.

How are we to understand Neh 7:3? Was Nehemiah waiting for the sun to reach an acceptable temperature? Or is it legitimate to interpret this as a figure of speech?


----------



## Taylor

Jonny. said:


> How are we to understand Neh 7:3? Was Nehemiah waiting for the sun to reach an acceptable temperature? Or is it legitimate to interpret this as a figure of speech?



It all depends on how literalistic (not literal) one's hermeneutic is.


----------



## Jeri Tanner

Jonny. said:


> How are we to understand Neh 7:3? Was Nehemiah waiting for the sun to reach an acceptable temperature? Or is it legitimate to interpret this as a figure of speech?



The difference in the passages is that the Scripture is not telling us, through the writer/narrator of the account, that the sun became hot. Nehemiah is being quoted (and is obviously using a figure of speech for the day progressing to a certain point, when the gates could be opened). In Joshua 10 however, the writer/narrator is speaking, and is telling us that the sun stopped in its course. In effect, Scripture is telling us that the sun stopped in its course.


----------



## Taylor

Jeri Tanner said:


> The difference in the passages is that the Scripture is not telling us, through the writer/narrator of the account, that the sun became hot. Nehemiah is being quoted (and is obviously using a figure of speech for the day progressing to a certain point, when the gates could be opened). In Joshua 10 however, the writer/narrator is speaking, and is telling us that the sun stopped in its course. In effect, Scripture is telling us that the sun stopped in its course.



That is dangerously close to—if not all the way—denying the organic inspiration of Scripture, and leans toward a mechanistic view. In such a sceme all biblical writers are stripped of their human qualities, prohibiting them the opportunity to themselves use figures of speech. The narrators are just as human as those about which they narrate.


----------



## MW

Taylor Sexton said:


> That is dangerously close to—if not all the way—denying the organic inspiration of Scripture, and leans toward a mechanistic view. In such a sceme all biblical writers are stripped of their human qualities, prohibiting them the opportunity to themselves use figures of speech. The narrators are just as human as those about which they narrate.



The miracle consisted in a man commanding the sun to stand still in the sight of all Israel and the sun obeyed him.

If the earth stood still on a heliocentric model the people and everything on it would have become missiles. I don't think Israel would have been avenging themselves on their enemies that day. If they were miraculously kept from being launched into the air they would have felt the force of it and realised soon enough that the earth stood still that day.


----------



## Taylor

MW said:


> If the earth stood still on a heliocentric model the people and everything on it would have become missiles. I don't think Israel would have been avenging themselves on their enemies that day. If they were miraculously kept from being launched into the air they would have felt the force of it and realised soon enough that the earth stood still that day.



I find the fact that this is used as a serious argument to be a little sad and quite humorous. In fact, I don't even think I am going to respond to it. Letting it stand on its own isn't far more effective in this case, I believe.


----------



## MW

Taylor Sexton said:


> In fact, I don't even think I am going to respond to it.



According to you either position can be defended from Scripture, so you obviously don't have anything to respond to it. As soon as you respond to it you will expose your exegetical and dogmatic position to examination.


----------



## Ask Mr. Religion

Taylor Sexton said:


> MW said:
> 
> 
> 
> If the earth stood still on a heliocentric model the people and everything on it would have become missiles. I don't think Israel would have been avenging themselves on their enemies that day. If they were miraculously kept from being launched into the air they would have felt the force of it and realised soon enough that the earth stood still that day.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I find the fact that this is used as a serious argument to be a little sad and a quite humorous. In fact, I don't even think I am going to respond to it. Letting it stand on its own isn't far more effective in this case, I believe.
Click to expand...


Brother, it is a narrative account. Where in this account is the exegetical warrant to read into the account accommodation to error by the writer and/or the viewers of the account or claims of phenomenological wording? Rev. Winzer's _reductio ad absurdum_ is not out of place here. I am eager to be edified by anyone when it comes to understanding Scripture. Can you offer up an analysis of the passages describing the account in question such that we can examine how you view this narrative?


----------



## Taylor

MW said:


> ...either position can be defended from Scripture...



That is precisely my position, with the addition that this is because Scripture does not make it an interest to speak _didactically_ to such an issue as the motions of heavenly bodies. And, when it makes mention, the language can be taken either way with ease, hence the varied positions within Reformed, Bible-believing orthodoxy. I don't know how many times I have to say it or how much clearer I can make it. I think my English is more than plain.


----------



## Jeri Tanner

Taylor Sexton said:


> Jeri Tanner said:
> 
> 
> 
> The difference in the passages is that the Scripture is not telling us, through the writer/narrator of the account, that the sun became hot. Nehemiah is being quoted (and is obviously using a figure of speech for the day progressing to a certain point, when the gates could be opened). In Joshua 10 however, the writer/narrator is speaking, and is telling us that the sun stopped in its course. In effect, Scripture is telling us that the sun stopped in its course.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> That is dangerously close to—if not all the way—denying the organic inspiration of Scripture, and leans toward a mechanistic view. In such a sceme all biblical writers are stripped of their human qualities, prohibiting them the opportunity to themselves use figures of speech. The narrators are just as human as those about which they narrate.
Click to expand...


Well, sure. And the very human Joshua (assuming him to be the author) reports that the sun stopped moving.


----------



## MW

Taylor Sexton said:


> MW said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...either position can be defended from Scripture...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> That is precisely my position
Click to expand...


And yet when you comment you aim your rhetorical ridicule and dogmatic judgments against those who advocate one particular position. You certainly do not act as if either position can be defended from Scripture.


----------



## Taylor

Ask Mr. Religion said:


> Can you offer up an analysis of the passages describing the account in question such that we can examine how you view this narrative?



I am not trying to present a view point. For the final time...

*ALL I AM SAYING IS THAT THESE PASSAGES CAN BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FROM A LITERALISTIC PERSPECTIVE OR FROM A PHENOMENOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE WITHOUT VIOLENCE TO THE TEXT.*

Furthermore, his so-called _reductio ad absurdum_ is hardly such, considering he is drawing from the science he apparently so vehemently questions (inertia, gravity, etc.). I think the only thing here shown to be absurd is the fact that either position is held so dogmatically to be _the_ Scriptural position.


----------



## Taylor

MW said:


> And yet when you comment you aim your rhetorical ridicule and dogmatic judgments against those who advocate one particular position.



False. I am critiquing holding one position to be _the_ Scriptural position. I don't care what position anyone holds, frankly. I do care if any position on this matter is feigned to be what Scripture in fact presents.


----------



## MW

Taylor Sexton said:


> Furthermore, his so-called _reductio ad absurdum_ is hardly such, considering he is drawing from the science he apparently so vehemently questions



It would not be a reductio if I took it from anywhere else.


----------



## MW

Taylor Sexton said:


> False. I am critiquing holding one position to be _the_ Scriptural position. I don't care what position anyone holds, frankly. I do care if any position on this matter is feigned to be what Scripture in fact presents.



You obviously do care otherwise you would not have spent so much time on this thread speaking against the arguments presented for one position. Your actions speak louder than your words.


----------



## Taylor

Jeri Tanner said:


> And the very human Joshua...reports that the sun stopped moving.



And the very human weatherman talks about the time of the sunrise and sunset, yet he is surely not presenting by that terminology a geocentric model.


----------



## Taylor

MW said:


> You obviously do care otherwise you would not have spent so much time on this thread. Your actions speak louder than your words.



Um, that's what I just said. I do care, not when someone holds to one view or the other, but when one position (either one, mind you) is presented as the exclusive teaching of Scripture, which is what is being done here. Are you reading my posts carefully?


----------



## Taylor

MW said:


> It would not be a reductio if I took it from anywhere else.



I think it just shows the inconsistency within the argument.


----------



## MW

Taylor Sexton said:


> Jeri Tanner said:
> 
> 
> 
> And the very human Joshua...reports that the sun stopped moving.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And the very human weatherman talks about the time of the sunrise and sunset, yet he is surely not presenting by that terminology a geocentric model.
Click to expand...


And here when one of the arguments is presented for understanding the Scripture in one particular way, you stand opposed to it, and you do so by utilising the argument which the other side would use. And you expect us to believe that you hold either position can be argued from Scripture?


----------



## MW

Taylor Sexton said:


> MW said:
> 
> 
> 
> It would not be a reductio if I took it from anywhere else.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I think it just shows the inconsistency within the argument.
Click to expand...


The argument would be inconsistent if I took it from anywhere else. Your understanding of a reductio is as poor as your understanding of "common sense."


----------



## MW

Taylor Sexton said:


> Um, that's what I just said. I do care, not when someone holds to one view or the other, but when one position (either one, mind you) is presented as the exclusive teaching of Scripture, which is what is being done here. Are you reading my posts carefully?



But you are presenting your view as the exclusive teaching of Scripture. Perhaps you should read your own posts more carefully.


----------



## Taylor

MW said:


> you are presenting your view as the exclusive teaching of Scripture.



Excuse me, but I have made it a point to not argue for either position, much less present one view as the exclusive teaching of Scripture. That is going against the very point of my argument. Please see below.



MW said:


> And here when one of the arguments is presented for understanding the Scripture in one particular way, you stand opposed to it, and you do so by utilising the argument which the other side would use. And you expect us to believe that you hold either position can be argued from Scripture?



I do not think you are understanding me, Rev. Winzer. Please, please try to understand me—what I am saying and what I am not saying. This conversation is really tiring me out. I am not opposed to anyone arguing for either model from Scripture. I see them both as being _equally_ viable. My exclusive issue is not when someone argues for a position from Scripture, but when they assert that one position is the *definitive* teaching of Scripture on the subject. Perhaps the reason I have opposed all geocentric arguments has not been made clear, and that is my fault. The reason is that I am reacting against a claim made in the beginning of this thread that the geocentric model is the _only_ biblical position. Thus, the reason I have opposed geocentric arguments after that is not to argue for a heliocentric model, but simply to show that both positions are viable solidly from the passages usually presented as teaching a geocentric model.

Perhaps that will clear this up.


----------



## MW

Taylor Sexton said:


> Please, please try to understand me



I understand you quite well, Taylor. By your criticisms of the geocentic position you have exposed your position to view; and at each point your position has met with a counter-argument to show the weakness of your view you have objected that you weren't setting forth a position.


----------



## Taylor

MW said:


> By your criticisms of the geocentic position you have exposed your position to view.



The only view I have presented is that either position has equal validity from Scripture. I have said that repeatedly and clearly. Any other view is merely imposed upon me unfairly and dishonestly. I have expressed clearly my particular rhetorical reason for opposing the geocentric view. Please see above if that needs clarification.


----------



## MW

Taylor Sexton said:


> I have expressed clearly my particular rhetorical reason for opposing the geocentric view.



That is correct, Taylor. You have insisted that the Bible speaks in phenomenological language, and that it is invalid to adopt a literalistic hermeneutic in the way it is adopted by the geocentric position. In other words, you have argued AGAINST the geocentric view being Scriptural and FOR the position which opposes the geocentric view.


----------



## Taylor

MW said:


> You have insisted that the Bible speaks in phenomenological language...



I don't think so. I have only tried to say that saying it does or can is not somehow a less honoring hermeneutic.



MW said:


> ...that it is invalid to adopt a literalistic hermeneutic in the way it is adopted by the geocentric position.



I don't believe I have said it is invalid. It is invalid to say that a literalistic hermeneutic is the only valid way to read Scripture. That is what I am trying to say.



MW said:


> ...you have argued AGAINST the geocentric view being Scriptural and FOR the position which opposes the geocentric view.



You are simply (and conveniently) not reading what I have been saying.


----------



## MW

Taylor Sexton said:


> MW said:
> 
> 
> 
> You have insisted that the Bible speaks in phenomenological language...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I don't think so. I have only tried to say that saying it does or can is not somehow a less honoring hermeneutic.
Click to expand...


Then why did you bring in the organic nature of inspiration? This was a dogmatic argument on your part.


----------



## Taylor

MW said:


> Then why did you bring in the organic nature of inspiration?



To show that phenomenological language is *a* viable option, along with interpreting the passages literalistically, which is also *a* viable option. Again, I thought I made my intentions rather clear in post #92 above.


----------



## Taylor

MW said:


> This was a dogmatic argument on your part.



Well, of course. The organic inspiration of Scripture certainly does not disallow a literalistic hermeneutic (which, again, is not my intention), but leaves both viable options open (which, as already has been said _ad nauseum_, is my intention).


----------



## MW

Taylor Sexton said:


> Well, of course. The organic inspiration of Scripture certainly does not disallow a literalistic hermeneutic (which, again, is not my intention), but leaves both viable options open.



And yet you disallowed it. You stated, "That is dangerously close to—if not all the way—denying the organic inspiration of Scripture, and leans toward a mechanistic view." You clearly do not leave "both viable options open." You assert a dogma in opposition to the geocentrist's interpretation.


----------



## Taylor

MW said:


> And yet you disallowed it. You stated, "That is dangerously close to—if not all the way—denying the organic inspiration of Scripture, and leans toward a mechanistic view." You clearly do not leave "both viable options open." You assert a dogma in opposition to the geocentrist's interpretation.



I disallowed it insofar as the interpretation is given on the belief that a literalistic hermeneutic is the _only_ viable hermeneutic. Context, context, context. The assertion was made in an attempt to strip the _human_ author of all _human qualities_, which was in that case done for the explicit purpose of excluding one possibility over the other. Hence the reason I disallowed it. Again, to argue for the organic inspiration of Scripture in no way disallows for a literalistic hermeneutic, but only forces us to acknolwedge the phenomenological view as viable, as well. Again, that and that alone is my intention.


----------



## MW

Taylor Sexton said:


> The assertion was made in an attempt to strip the _human_ author of all _human qualities_,



I don't believe that attempt was made at all. You have read this into the words, and you have done so on the basis of your dogmatic position concerning the nature of Scripture.


----------



## Taylor

MW said:


> I don't believe that attempt was made at all. You have read this into the words.



It most definitely was. The post was arguing that because "the sun standing still in the sky" was described by the biblical author and not a statement of a human character in the narrative (such as in the cited Nehemiah passage), that phenomenological language is therefore not possible, that it somehow made a difference that the biblical writer himself was describing an event, I assume because of a mechanistic view of inspiration.


----------



## MW

Taylor Sexton said:


> I assume because of a mechanistic view of inspiration.



Yes, you assume the worst of one position and the best of another. That exposes your position, though you try to conceal it from the view of others.


----------



## Taylor

MW said:


> Yes, you assume the worst of one position and the best of another. That exposes your position, though you try to conceal it from the view of others.



How convenient. You assert to know both my intentions and my motives without providing a shred of evidence or even an argument that my assessment of the post is somehow invalid. You simply assert that it is and expect your word alone to hold water.

I was simply addressing the argument presented with my own which, unless I have been mistaken this whole time, is a purpose of a forum, this one not being excluded. These lengths to which you are going to take stabs at me is, quite frankly, becoming quite amusing. You are trying your hardest to put words in my mouth and intentions in my heart in order to get some kind of leg up, and it is getting rather pitiful.

At no time have I said that one of the two positions is better than the other. I challenge you to find me saying such. I have stated something quite different, in fact, and that is that either position is validly argued from Scripture, and that neither one has a leg up given the Scriptural data we were given.


----------



## MW

Taylor Sexton said:


> You simply assert that it is and expect your word alone to hold water.



No, your own words bear witness.


----------



## Taylor

MW said:


> No, your own words bear witness.



Then demonstrate how. I issued a plain challenge in my post above. Either you can do it, or you cannot.


----------



## MW

Taylor Sexton said:


> MW said:
> 
> 
> 
> No, your own words bear witness.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Then demonstrate how. I issued a plain challenge in my post above. Either you can do it, or you cannot.
Click to expand...


I have already met the challenge. The thread speaks for itself. Your words speak for themselves.


----------



## Taylor

MW said:


> I have already met the challenge. The thread speaks for itself. Your words speak for themselves.



This is silly. It is plain you have made claims that you cannot substantiate, which is evidenced by your refusal (rather inability) to do so.


----------



## MW

Taylor Sexton said:


> This is silly.



Yes it is. I have already brought examples. The thread itself is the record. I will have to leave it there.


----------



## Taylor

MW said:


> Yes it is. I have already brought examples. The thread itself is the record. I will have to leave it there.



Seems to me you realize you have overstated your claims against me which, again, is evidenced by your inability to substantiate your claims. You have reached the end of your arsenal, and are resorting to silly, fabricated grievances which, until you can demonstrate how I have misrepresented or misinterpreted the post(s), remain fabrications. It is evident by your inability to defend you claims and made more evident by your sudden shortness with me.


----------



## Afterthought

MW said:


> "Common sense" is geocentric. Go into outer space and your common sense is not going to work for you. Jumping in the air will fling you on a path; you will not drop back down.


Common sense is what leads to the argument for the earth spinning and moving around the sun. How is the following not plain common sense (which I suppose is induction of a sort) applied to the phenomena?

1) Spinning objects on the earth exhibit certain unique phenomena.
2) Observed spinning objects in the heavens exhibit the same unique phenomena as spinning objects on earth.
3) The earth exhibits this same set of unique phenomena.
4) Therefore, the earth is probably spinning.

Or how about (although it involves more abstract entities, the reasoning is still genuinely inductive)?

1) Objects that move around each other on earth orbit a special mathematical point that we can calculate. This mathematical point tells us which objects appear to move around which objects when we look at them with our own eyes.
2) Objects in the heavens that move around each orbit the mathematical point that is calculated in the same way as on earth.
3) Calculating this mathematical point for the earth and sun, we find that the mathematical point is inside the sun.
4) So the earth probably moves around the sun and not the other way (in the sense that this is what we would see with our eyes).

It is certainly true that things are not always what we see ("bent" stick in water example); neither are things always in accord with common sense (your example of jumping in space); but these are phenomena that do not go away by a change of dynamical model (indeed, I think these observations are granted by geocentrists): they are observed, and there are ways to tell whether what we see is an illusion or not ("bent" stick in water example) and some ways to detect illusion exist in the case of geocentrism vs acentrism. I don't see how these observed phenomena could be explained in a geocentric dynamics without making the physics of the earth--as a body--behave completely differently from every heavenly and earthly body. I'm not saying it is absolutely impossible: that is too dogmatic from a scientific perspective. But from the perspective of common sense induction: if it behaves like it is rotating, it is probably rotating, unless someone can prove otherwise.

That is what I was talking about with the metaphysics of geocentrism seeming to destroy common sense: we have to deny that we can determine that something is rotating if it exhibits unique phenomena associated with rotation. If one was on another planet and saw this same phenomena, none would hesitate to conclude that the planet was rotating; likewise, if one was on a merry-go-round, one would observe the same phenomena and not hesitate to conclude that one was rotating, rather than the earth spinning around the person on the merry-go-round.



MW said:


> What distance? According to physics the universe is expanding and time is in flux. How long is a piece of string? Any finding could only be relative.


The piece of string does have an invariant length according to modern physics. While that length could be measured in different units, the length remains the same. By "distance," I mean far enough away to get a good perspective on the matter. But I think that all that is really required is to be in a position of space that does not share the motion of the sun and the earth and does not block the view of the earth-sun system.



MW said:


> According to modern relativist physics matter is eternal and infinite. According to the Bible there is a beginning of things and these are quantifiable. According to the relativist theory there might be multiple realities. According to the Bible there can only be one, of which there can only be one God. Although on this last point there are those who point to the improbability of multiple realities it is still regarded as a theoretical possibility.


Ah, good point. When I was speaking of the metaphysics of relativist physics, I was not intending to refer to all the extra metaphysical baggage that people add to the physics in an attempt to find an ultimate explanation of life. I was merely referring to the metaphysics of motion in the relativist physics. Since no objection was raised to the relativist physics on this ground (since it acknowledges that the sun moves when one is on earth), it would seem there is no conflict between this metaphysics and the truth of Scripture concerning the sun's motion?

(For those interested, an interesting comment by an expert in general relativity. However, it seems to me that the way "experts" interpret general relativity depend on prior metaphysical assumptions and assumptions about the philosophy of science; those with a less "realist" view of science tend to hold to a more "relative" view of general relativity. I have still not been able to get to the bottom of this difficulty yet.)



MW said:


> Here is Neil deGrasse Tyson's rule number one:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> (1) Question authority. No idea is true just because someone says so, including me.
Click to expand...

I don't see how this is a precarious view of matter and time. I may be missing the point.


----------



## MW

Raymond, If we go back to the atom illustration my common sense does not tell me I can see atoms. I now reason in relation to them, but it is not common sense to say that I now see them. The fact is, I can't see them. The same applies with your example of rotation. We have moved beyond the realm of common sense and are reasoning on the basis of relevant data.

You would feel your motion on the merry-go-round.

You are correct -- I have accidentally switched objects with my "precarious view" statement. Seeing it out of context has thrown me. Sorry about that. Particular examples in relation to matter and time would be things like expansion, space-time, multiverse, homogeneity, etc., which are all related to the metaphysical issues I had mentioned previously concerning the idea of eternity.


----------



## Parakaleo

Taylor Sexton said:


> I see them both as being equally viable. My exclusive issue is not when someone argues for a position from Scripture, but when they assert that one position is the definitive teaching of Scripture on the subject.



Mr. Sexton are you undergoing training and examination for ordained ministry? If so, I hope you know that the above is not an option for the one who would be shepherd of God's people. I don't mean this as a "slam" to you at all, just to hopefully make you aware that someone who presents multiple sides of an argument without coming down on a side is a lecturer, not a pastor. A pastor shepherds. He will guide the sheep, even with fear and trembling before God, according to what he believes is taught in God's Word. Saying it is a 50/50 chance that this is true or that the other is true is pastoral abdication.


----------



## Taylor

Parakaleo said:


> Saying it is a 50/50 chance that this is true or that the other is true is pastoral abdication.



For this issue, that's a load of absolute crock, first off because that is not what I am saying. Secondly, I will definitely explain my own position based on the evidence I see, and also defend my own position to my congregation, but I will also be quick to inform them that there are other viable views on this matter, and that that fact has no bearing on the reliability or clarity of God's Word. To lead anyone into thinking that only one of these views (keep in mind that I am only speaking of the issue immediately at hand) is _the_ biblical one is deceptive, not biblical confidence. That has been my contention this entire thread. I will land on a position, for sure, and even defend it, trying to convince others of it, but I will _not_ mislead others into thinking I have _the_ right interpretation when others are just as viable, and I will also hold my position on this matter, whatever it may be, with an open hand, ready and happy to change my view when convinced otherwise.

Seriously, some of you act as if one's view of the center of the universe (or solar system, or whatever) is the difference between orthodoxy and heresy. _People_: it is okay regarding this specific issue to believe that there are multiple viable views, since it is beyond clear that Scripture does not speak to the issue clearly and especially not didactically.

You are partly right on the distinction between a lecturuer and a pastor. A lecture does tend to make known as many views as possible on any given subject (although good preaching has to do this as well, because pastors have to teach). However, anyone who would try to assert to others that there is only one biblical position on a particular issue when for that issue it is in fact not the case is neither a pastor or a lecturer, but a liar.


----------



## Ask Mr. Religion

Taylor Sexton said:


> Ask Mr. Religion said:
> 
> 
> 
> Can you offer up an analysis of the passages describing the account in question such that we can examine how you view this narrative?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I am not trying to present a view point. For the final time...
> 
> *ALL I AM SAYING IS THAT THESE PASSAGES CAN BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FROM A LITERALISTIC PERSPECTIVE OR FROM A PHENOMENOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE WITHOUT VIOLENCE TO THE TEXT.*
> 
> Furthermore, his so-called _reductio ad absurdum_ is hardly such, considering he is drawing from the science he apparently so vehemently questions (inertia, gravity, etc.). I think the only thing here shown to be absurd is the fact that either position is held so dogmatically to be _the_ Scriptural position.
Click to expand...

Taylor, I simply asked for your own interpretation of the meaning of the account. You admit a phenomological view can be taken. Why? Explain why you think it can be so to me. I really want to understand your _interpretation_ of the passage not your _conclusion_ about the passage.


----------



## Jonny.

Jeri Tanner said:


> Jonny. said:
> 
> 
> 
> How are we to understand Neh 7:3? Was Nehemiah waiting for the sun to reach an acceptable temperature? Or is it legitimate to interpret this as a figure of speech?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The difference in the passages is that the Scripture is not telling us, through the writer/narrator of the account, that the sun became hot. Nehemiah is being quoted (and is obviously using a figure of speech for the day progressing to a certain point, when the gates could be opened). In Joshua 10 however, the writer/narrator is speaking, and is telling us that the sun stopped in its course. In effect, Scripture is telling us that the sun stopped in its course.
Click to expand...


So, how are we to understand passages (e.g. Ex 3:17) where God describes Canaan as a land flowing with milk and honey? Do they necessitate rivers of milk or are they "obviously a figure of speech"?

What about what the narrator says in Mark 1:5. Does it include EVERYONE or can that be taken as a figure of speech? If so, why is it different from the Joshua passage?


----------



## MW

Jonny. said:


> If so, why is it different from the Joshua passage?



Joshua says in the sight of all Israel, "Sun, stand thou still." A person uses a figure of speech when he intends to refer to something other than the literal referent. For Joshua to use a figure of speech he must have thought that something else happens in order to give the appearance that the sun moves; and for the people of Israel to know that Joshua was using a figure of speech they must have thought so too. Now, what evidence is there that Joshua or the people thought that something else causes the sun to appear to move? There is none. There is therefore no evidence that Joshua intended his statement as a figure of speech.

Those who hold heliocentricity usually avoid the idea of "error" in this passage by saying that the passage is simply accommodated to the way people thought at that time; and now that we are supposed to know better we can understand what is said as speaking according to the senses. On that explanation, though, there is no figure of speech. It is understood to be a literal statement which speaks according to the way the senses perceive things.


----------



## earl40

MW said:


> Those who hold heliocentricity usually avoid the idea of "error" in this passage by saying that the passage is simply accommodated to the way people thought at that time; and now that we are supposed to know better we can understand what is said as speaking according to the senses. On that explanation, though, there is no figure of speech. It is understood to be a literal statement which speaks according to the way the senses perceive things.



This assumes that Joshua knew that the earth revolves around the sun and was using a figure of speech.


----------



## Logan

Parakaleo said:


> Saying it is a 50/50 chance that this is true or that the other is true is pastoral abdication.



Agreed, but should a pastor exposit a model of the solar system from this passage in the first place? Surely that's not the purpose of this record.

Anyway, this thread has become very cringe-worthy for a lot of reasons...


----------



## Taylor

Ask Mr. Religion said:


> Taylor, I simply asked for your own interpretation of the meaning of the account. You admit a phenomological view can be taken. Why? Explain why you think it can be so to me. I really want to understand your _interpretation_ of the passage not your _conclusion_ about the passage.



Because my purpose is not to argue for one position or the other. To do so, therefore, would simply dilute what I _am_ trying to argue, and that is that either position can be argued validly from Scripture, and that, hermeneutically sleaking, no one has _the_ biblical position in this matter. I do not know why that is so difficult to accept or understand.


----------



## Jeri Tanner

It seems to me that those who hold to the biblical, historical accounts of creation and the age of the earth as being literal (if that's the right terminology) have the same issues to face as do those who hold to a moving sun. The conclusions of modern-day science are overwhelmingly against both. We deem it right for a pastor to take a stand from the pulpit on the days of creation and the age of the earth- even deem it necessary because it is believed that this is what Scripture teaches and it has important theological ramifications. Why not the same with the teaching on the movements of the sun and earth? Does it only seem less important because it has been "settled" "science" for longer?


----------



## Jeri Tanner

There is also Isaiah 38:7-8 to contend with (or for, depending on one's position!)


----------



## Taylor

Jeri Tanner said:


> We deem it right for a pastor to take a stand from the pulpit on the days of creation and the age of the earth- even deem it necessary because it is believed that this is what Scripture teaches and it has important theological ramifications. Why not the same with the teaching on the movements of the sun and earth?



Don't hear what I am not saying. I fully believe it is good and right for a pastor (or any Christian) to take a stand on this issue, and even strongly defend it. I love and advocate for that. However, I think it is indeed wrong for a pastor (or any Christian) to move from defending a position on this issue to asserting that their position is _the_ biblical position (again, I am speaking only on _this particular_ issue), whether they be geocentrist, heliocentrist, or otherwise. To be honest, the same goes for the six days of creation. There are godly, Reformed biblical scholars on _each_ side of this issue, the six days of creation issue, and the age of the earth issue, and they all believe in salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, according to Scripture alone, to the glory of God alone. We keep speaking and acting as if these issues have massive doctrinal implications, yet not a one has been presented. I can't think of even one.


----------



## Taylor

MW said:


> There is therefore no evidence that Joshua intended his statement as a figure of speech.



Nobody here is arguing that Joshua is using a figure of speech. I certainly am not. Using a figure of speech for something requires the knowledge that what is being literalistically expressed is not so, which Joshua, living before the crafting of the heliocentric theory, could not have possessed. Phenomenological language in his case is different than figurative language, because he had no knowledge of any kind of heliocentric theory to make figurative reference to. From the phenomenological perspective, Joshua was not using a figure of speech, he was simply describing what he saw with his eyes, which is that the sun is moving, not him. Today, however, I could see how phenomenological language can be called a figure of speak, but it is (almost) universally accepted that when someone talks about the "sunrise," they have knowledge that what they are literalistically expressing is not so, but only shorthand for what, in their minds at least, is actually happening.


----------



## Jeri Tanner

Taylor Sexton said:


> We keep speaking and acting as if these issues have massive doctrinal implications, yet not a one has been presented. I can't think of even one.



These issues have doctrinal implications in that the passages concerning creation, the age of the earth, and the movement of the sun are passages in which Scripture is affirming something as true (I know you don't agree that this is true of the Joshua and Isaiah texts, and maybe you don't agree that it's true of the Genesis texts; but it was believed to be so for thousands of years, up until the times of Copernicus). I do believe that the texts concerning the movement of the sun are the same kinds of texts as others that everyone takes to be affirmation on Scripture's part; therefore I would expect a minister to affirm them as such (if he also saw it the same way, of course). If the affirmations of these texts can be categorized as figurative or phenomenological, or otherwise made to be anything but affirmations of reality, then so can many other texts; texts we wouldn't dare to change from inspired affirmations of reality to figurative or phenomenological.


----------



## Taylor

Jeri Tanner said:


> These issues have doctrinal implications in that the passages concerning creation, the age of the earth, and the movement of the sun are passages in which Scripture is affirming something as true.



I agree. But, the issue is _what_ they are affirming. If texts are taken literalistically, they are affirming one thing; if taken phenomenologically, they are affirming another. Also, we have to ask what questions the text is seeking to answer.



Jeri Tanner said:


> If the affirmations of these texts can be categorized as figurative or phenomenological, or otherwise made to be anything but affirmations of reality, then so can be many other texts; texts we wouldn't dare to change from inspired affirmations of reality to figurative or phenomenological.



Like what?


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## Afterthought

Why can't we have a calm, quality discussion on geocentrism on the PB? I understand that the idea is shocking to the modern mind, but it is a part of our Reformed heritage (both interpretive and in terms of hermeneutics), and part of the modern mind is allegedly open-mindedness. And this matter also concerns the philosophy of science, which is important to Bible believing Christians who are ridiculed for believing in miracles. If the issue bothers you, you don't need to tell us that it does, and if you are having difficulty communicating your ideas, you can always stop talking and wait until the next thread like this pops up on the PB. Indeed, if one sits and watches and listens one is less likely to read in one's own animosity into the comments of others and may soon be able to see that the issue is not as bad or shocking as it first seems to be; neither are most of those who advocate such questioning the eternal salvation of those who disagree or holding that those who disagree do not affirm the Bible properly (the issue is rather one of consistency and where positions might lead). Community takes time to build. Just saying....

While the doctrinal impact of geocentrism is not as obvious, the six day Creation issue confessionally affects our view of the Sabbath day. One cannot simply say it doesn't matter without confessional argumentation to that end. For what it's worth, those who believe that issues, on which there are firm believers in Scripture that disagree, cannot hold a view as _the_ biblical position, are always going to find matters such as geocentrism, six day creation, etc. as issues that one cannot hold a view on as _the_ biblical position...because those who hold such a position hold other, prior metaphysical and dogmatic commitments that consistently lead to such a position, since arguing about geocentrism or six day creation is fruitless until those dogmatic commitments have been examined and worked out. I wish we could work out the dogmatic commitments on another thread and leave this one for discussing the metaphysical and dynamical issues (and to some degree, exegetical issues/issues involving the relation of Scripture to scientific observation on this particular matter), but I know that all are free to post in this one, unless a moderator says otherwise.


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## Taylor

Afterthought said:


> Why can't we have a calm, quality discussion on geocentrism on the PB? I understand that the idea is shocking to the modern mind, but it is a part of our Reformed heritage (both interpretive and in terms of hermeneutics), and part of the modern mind is allegedly open-mindedness. And this matter also concerns the philosophy of science, which is important to Bible believing Christians who are ridiculed for believing in miracles. If the issue bothers you, you don't need to tell us that it does, and if you are having difficulty communicating your ideas, you can always stop talking and wait until the next thread like this pops up on the PB. Indeed, if one sits and watches and listens one is less likely to read in one's own animosity into the comments of others and may soon be able to see that the issue is not as bad or shocking as it first seems to be; neither are most of those who advocate such questioning the eternal salvation of those who disagree. Community takes time to build. Just saying....
> 
> While the doctrinal impact of geocentrism is not as obvious, the six day Creation issue confessionally affects our view of the Sabbath day. One cannot simply say it doesn't matter without confessional argumentation to that end. For what it's worth, those who believe that issues, on which there are firm believers in Scripture that disagree, cannot hold a view as the biblical position, are always going to find matters such as geocentrism, six day creation, etc. as issues that one cannot hold a view on as the biblical position...because those who hold such a position hold other, prior metaphysical and dogmatic commitments that consistently lead to such a position, since arguing about geocentrism or six day creation is fruitless until those dogmatic commitments have been examined and worked out. I wish we could work out the dogmatic commitments on another thread and leave this one for discussing the metaphysical and dynamical issues (and to some degree, exegetical issues/issues involving the relation of Scripture to scientific observation on this particular matter), but I know that all are free to post in this one, unless a moderator says otherwise.



Nicely said.

I think I have stated my case. My point of view regarding this matter has been clearly stated repeatedly. I know they will be misread, maybe deliberately, but I can no longer waste my time and hands constantly restating my point. My words are there. Let the honest reader deal with them.

I'm out.


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## Jeri Tanner

"I agree. But, the issue is _what_ they are affirming. If texts are taken literalistically, they are affirming one thing; if taken phenomenologically, they are affirming another. Also, we have to ask what questions the text is seeking to answer."

The Joshua 10 account and the Isaiah 38 account are historical narrative, a genre in which historical events are recorded in a reliable way by reliable historians. Joshua is a reliable historian- he is simply telling us what happened. There isn't a place in his account, under this genre, for figurative language or for us to ascribe his account to phenomenological language. Otherwise, many historical accounts in the Bible would become suspect. If you don't agree with this, then we'll just have to leave it at that.


"Like what?"

For different reasons, but all of them supposedly 'scientific,' all the eye-witness accounts of the miraculous deeds of God in the Bible are discounted by liberal theologians. Their arguments against miracles are based on the same presuppositions: science proves that such things are impossible, therefore the accounts of miracles are to be categorized as figurative. It comes down to sound, accepted principles of interpretation doesn't it. Those principles are vital to the health of the church and must be defended.


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## Jeri Tanner

Afterthought said:


> Why can't we have a calm, quality discussion on geocentrism on the PB? I understand that the idea is shocking to the modern mind, but it is a part of our Reformed heritage (both interpretive and in terms of hermeneutics), and part of the modern mind is allegedly open-mindedness. And this matter also concerns the philosophy of science, which is important to Bible believing Christians who are ridiculed for believing in miracles. If the issue bothers you, you don't need to tell us that it does, and if you are having difficulty communicating your ideas, you can always stop talking and wait until the next thread like this pops up on the PB. Indeed, if one sits and watches and listens one is less likely to read in one's own animosity into the comments of others and may soon be able to see that the issue is not as bad or shocking as it first seems to be; neither are most of those who advocate such questioning the eternal salvation of those who disagree or holding that those who disagree do not affirm the Bible properly (the issue is rather one of consistency and where positions might lead). Community takes time to build. Just saying....
> 
> While the doctrinal impact of geocentrism is not as obvious, the six day Creation issue confessionally affects our view of the Sabbath day. One cannot simply say it doesn't matter without confessional argumentation to that end. For what it's worth, those who believe that issues, on which there are firm believers in Scripture that disagree, cannot hold a view as _the_ biblical position, are always going to find matters such as geocentrism, six day creation, etc. as issues that one cannot hold a view on as _the_ biblical position...because those who hold such a position hold other, prior metaphysical and dogmatic commitments that consistently lead to such a position, since arguing about geocentrism or six day creation is fruitless until those dogmatic commitments have been examined and worked out. I wish we could work out the dogmatic commitments on another thread and leave this one for discussing the metaphysical and dynamical issues (and to some degree, exegetical issues/issues involving the relation of Scripture to scientific observation on this particular matter), but I know that all are free to post in this one, unless a moderator says otherwise.



Sorry! I was writing my last reply and didn't see this post. Good thoughts, and I'd like to see a thread go as you've proposed. I just prayed this morning and asked the Lord to bring this issue more to the light.


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## lynnie

Douglas, I appreciate your imput and drawings with wavelengths changing as something moves towards us and away from us. 

Maybe you missed my earlier post. When scientists measured the earth as it rotated, hurling towards a star and then away from a star six months later as it journeyed around the sun, expecting to see the velocity of the wavelengths of light less as it moves towards the star and more as it moves away ( velocity V being subtracted or added to C, the light speed), the EARTH DOES NOT MOVE. Period. 

It was a big mystery for decades, until Einstein postulated the speed of light not changing even if the earth is moving. Time Magazine's Person of the Century Issue in 2000 featuring Einstein comes right out and says that his greatness was in being able to overthrow the conclusions of the geocentric experiments. This is all laid out in detail in the better Geocentric literature.

So as I said, the debate now comes down to the theory of relativity. Classical physics and how waves are measured is tossed into the dustbin of history in favor of relativity. There is no other explanation. Light waves do not behave like radar waves and the doppler effect you so nicely tried to explain to me. The earth is motionless, or relativity is correct.

I found this subject to be so enormously wonderful to my faith in biblical inerrancy that I passionately love it, and have spend a lot of time on other threads discussing the science in more depth. However, I think at this point unless sceptical people spend time on serious consideration of the subject ( Sagnac and Michaelson Morley on the geocentric sites is a good start) it is a waste of time to pursue it. Einstein has deluded the masses as badly as Darwin has, and posting here is time consuming and not helpful. I am certainly not about to tackle the theory of relativity on Puritan board. But I do appreciate you trying to open my eyes.


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## lynnie

Minor addition, to clarify geocentric theory- some of them think the earth has a little spin. Not 24 hours, but a little from an asteroid hit at Noah's flood. They think the original year was 360 days and not 365.25. Not a big deal I suppose but I should be clear that they don't all think the earth is 100% motionless now.


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## Logan

lynnie said:


> Maybe you missed my earlier post. When scientists measured the earth as it rotated, hurling towards a star and then away from a star six months later as it journeyed around the sun, expecting to see the velocity of the wavelengths of light less as it moves towards the star and more as it moves away ( velocity V being subtracted or added to C, the light speed), the EARTH DOES NOT MOVE. Period.



Well that's strange, since my understanding is that astronomers have to account for this shift in their measurements regularly (e.g., barycentric correction).

Earth's orbital velocity: 30 km/s
Doppler equation:
f/f0=c/(c+ve) = 99.98999% (at most, measuring at a tangential point).

A very minuscule Doppler shift, but not zero. Your blue light will shift from say 450 nm wavelength to 450.05 nm. For reference, red light starts around 620 nm.

(note, I'm assuming stationary source)


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## Jonny.

Jeri Tanner said:


> The Joshua 10 account and the Isaiah 38 account are historical narrative, a genre in which historical events are recorded in a reliable way by reliable historians. Joshua is a reliable historian- he is simply telling us what happened. There isn't a place in his account, under this genre, for figurative language or for us to ascribe his account to phenomenological language.



What about Saul covering his feet in 1 Sam 24 or David sleeping with his fathers in 1 Kings 2?


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## Ask Mr. Religion

Taylor Sexton said:


> Ask Mr. Religion said:
> 
> 
> 
> Taylor, I simply asked for your own interpretation of the meaning of the account. You admit a phenomological view can be taken. Why? Explain why you think it can be so to me. I really want to understand your _interpretation_ of the passage not your _conclusion_ about the passage.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Because my purpose is not to argue for one position or the other. To do so, therefore, would simply dilute what I _am_ trying to argue, and that is that either position can be argued validly from Scripture, and that, hermeneutically sleaking, no one has _the_ biblical position in this matter. I do not know why that is so difficult to accept or understand.
Click to expand...

I understand your purpose, but I am asking for you to provide me with your interpretation of the passage in question. How is a request for someone to explain what they think a passage of Scripture means so out of bounds? It gives one an impression that there is something to hide or that one does not want their interpretation examined. This may not be the case for you, but what else can one conclude?


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## Ask Mr. Religion

Taylor Sexton said:


> We keep speaking and acting as if these issues have massive doctrinal implications, yet not a one has been presented. I can't think of even one.





Taylor Sexton said:


> MW said:
> 
> 
> 
> There is therefore no evidence that Joshua intended his statement as a figure of speech.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Nobody here is arguing that Joshua is using a figure of speech. I certainly am not. Using a figure of speech for something requires the knowledge that what is being literalistically expressed is not so, which Joshua, living before the crafting of the heliocentric theory, could not have possessed. Phenomenological language in his case is different than figurative language, because he had no knowledge of any kind of heliocentric theory to make figurative reference to. From the phenomenological perspective, Joshua was not using a figure of speech, he was simply describing what he saw with his eyes, which is that the sun is moving, not him. Today, however, I could see how phenomenological language can be called a figure of speak, but it is (almost) universally accepted that when someone talks about the "sunrise," they have knowledge that what they are literalistically expressing is not so, but only shorthand for what, in their minds at least, is actually happening.
Click to expand...


Where is the evidence, literary markers for example, for the phenomological view in the Joshua account? You continue to speak to it, yet have not explained from your analysis of the passage why phenomology is even warranted. What evidence exists to support a claim that there is some accommodation to perceptions by Joshua and/or the audience? Going down this road leads to the view that all miracles can be explained away. Joshua prayed for this event, God answered that prayer, and to doubt the fact of the prayer and what happened subsequently doubts the miracle.

If we assume the inspired writers of Scripture are mistaken concerning the workings of the world, what warrant do we have to know an actual miracle has taken place? Should we assume the inspired writers of Scripture are not having their errors suppressed and that their errors have made their way into the text? What then of plenary inspiration? How then do we discern between absolute truths of Scripture and just accommodation?

Is there not a challenge to our conceptions about the earth and the sun in the Joshua 10 account? What warrant do we have to ignore the challenge?

As you can see from the above, I see a host of doctrinal issues.


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## earl40

Ask Mr. Religion said:


> Where is the evidence, literary markers for example, for the phenomological view in the Joshua account? You continue to speak to it, yet have not explained from your analysis of the passage why phenomology is even warranted. What evidence exists to support a claim that there is some accommodation to perceptions by Joshua and/or the audience? Going down this road leads to the view that all miracles can be explained away. Joshua prayed for this event, God answered that prayer, and to doubt the fact of the prayer and what happened subsequently doubts the miracle.
> 
> If we assume the inspired writers of Scripture are mistaken concerning the workings of the world, what warrant do we have to know an actual miracle has taken place? Should we assume the inspired writers of Scripture are not having their errors suppressed and that their errors have made their way into the text? What then of plenary inspiration? How then do we discern between absolute truths of Scripture and just accommodation?
> 
> Is there not a challenge to our conceptions about the earth and the sun in the Joshua 10 account? What warrant do we have to ignore the challenge?
> 
> As you can see from the above, I see a host of doctrinal issues.



May I ask even if the phenomological view is espoused would not a miracle be assumed also?


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## Ask Mr. Religion

Taylor Sexton said:


> Jeri Tanner said:
> 
> 
> 
> We deem it right for a pastor to take a stand from the pulpit on the days of creation and the age of the earth- even deem it necessary because it is believed that this is what Scripture teaches and it has important theological ramifications. Why not the same with the teaching on the movements of the sun and earth?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Don't hear what I am not saying. I fully believe it is good and right for a pastor (or any Christian) to take a stand on this issue, and even strongly defend it. I love and advocate for that. However, I think it is indeed wrong for a pastor (or any Christian) to move from defending a position on this issue to asserting that their position is _the_ biblical position (again, I am speaking only on _this particular_ issue), whether they be geocentrist, heliocentrist, or otherwise. To be honest, the same goes for the six days of creation. There are godly, Reformed biblical scholars on _each_ side of this issue, the six days of creation issue, and the age of the earth issue, and they all believe in salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, according to Scripture alone, to the glory of God alone. We keep speaking and acting as if these issues have massive doctrinal implications, yet not a one has been presented. I can't think of even one.
Click to expand...




earl40 said:


> Ask Mr. Religion said:
> 
> 
> 
> Where is the evidence, literary markers for example, for the phenomological view in the Joshua account? You continue to speak to it, yet have not explained from your analysis of the passage why phenomology is even warranted. What evidence exists to support a claim that there is some accommodation to perceptions by Joshua and/or the audience? Going down this road leads to the view that all miracles can be explained away. Joshua prayed for this event, God answered that prayer, and to doubt the fact of the prayer and what happened subsequently doubts the miracle.
> 
> If we assume the inspired writers of Scripture are mistaken concerning the workings of the world, what warrant do we have to know an actual miracle has taken place? Should we assume the inspired writers of Scripture are not having their errors suppressed and that their errors have made their way into the text? What then of plenary inspiration? How then do we discern between absolute truths of Scripture and just accommodation?
> 
> Is there not a challenge to our conceptions about the earth and the sun in the Joshua 10 account? What warrant do we have to ignore the challenge?
> 
> As you can see from the above, I see a host of doctrinal issues.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> May I ask even if the phenomological view is espoused would not a miracle be assumed also?
Click to expand...

Setting aside the issue that demonstrating there are marks in the account to suggest phenomenology, I have to wonder about "miracles" that only occur at a phenomenological level. If what is naturally (the _nature_ of the thing) happening is but a chimera of _appearing_ to happen, what do we say about the _supernatural_? Is the supernatural simply something that appears to be "way beyond" the appearance? Further, how do we adopt a phenomenological view of the Joshua account without first _knowing_ how Scripture presents cosmology such that we can then claim something is _appearing_ to happen? For example, Scripture defines the earth as round and the sun moving about relative to the earth. Unlike science, which is ever evolving and resolving past contradictions as it makes new discoveries, Scripture is not evolving (i.e., it is closed) so we should not expect to find contradictions in our closed canon.


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## lynnie

Logan- I don't know the answer but I do know that the astrophysicist PhDs who are geocentric probably address it somewhere. I don't feel like looking around online.

I can say that if the measurement and shift was enough to prove heliocentricity, there would have been no need for Einstein's theory of relativity to solve the proofs that the earth is at rest. 

Perhaps the minuscule amount of movement is related to the theory that the year was 360 days at creation and either at the fall or the flood there was a minuscule amount of change to throw us into a 365.25 day year? Just speculating, I have no idea.


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## lynnie

By the way, entirely separate from the discussion of whether or not the sun rotates around the earth or the earth around the sun, is the subject of our location in the universe. Our solar system, our galaxy, however it is structured, is right smack in the middle and the ample evidence for this is so interesting. We are not on the edge of a galaxy out in some rather mediocre region of the universe, we are right smack in the middle. The earth is special. You can be heliocentric while still knowing our general location is central, and that is scriptural.


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## Afterthought

MW said:


> Raymond, If we go back to the atom illustration my common sense does not tell me I can see atoms. I now reason in relation to them, but it is not common sense to say that I now see them. The fact is, I can't see them. The same applies with your example of rotation. We have moved beyond the realm of common sense and are reasoning on the basis of relevant data.


Okay, I can grant that. But our reasoning skills are generally reliable. Why would we treat the earth so differently that we would say that although it looks like it is rotating, we cannot conclude that it probably is rotating?



MW said:


> You would feel your motion on the merry-go-round.


One actually does feel the earth's motion; we've just gotten used to it. Other ways to feel the earth's motion is to notice hurricanes. But anyway, if you grant that one would say the merry-go-round moves because we reason from the unique phenomena associated with it that it rotates, why not for the earth, given that the earth exhibits the same unique phenomena associated with rotation?



MW said:


> You are correct -- I have accidentally switched objects with my "precarious view" statement. Seeing it out of context has thrown me. Sorry about that. Particular examples in relation to matter and time would be things like expansion, space-time, multiverse, homogeneity, etc., which are all related to the metaphysical issues I had mentioned previously concerning the idea of eternity.


Could you explain how homogeneity is a precarious view to modern physics? While it cannot strictly be proven (since it is an average, large scale property), there is some evidence for it (insofar as cosmological models that agree with a variety of data sets count as evidence; I myself have some skepticism here), and it doesn't seem to do modern physics any harm. And also, how is space-time precarious? It does postulate a variety of absolute quantities.

Would you agree that the relativist physics, so far as motion is concerned, is not at variance with the Scripture's teaching that the sun moves? I know you aren't a scientist and don't claim to be, but I'm not trying to ask a scientific question: I'm trying to see what exactly the teaching of the Scripture on the sun moving requires of cosmology. If a metaphysics says that the sun moves when one is located on earth, is that sufficient? If the Scriptures do not give enough information about the sort of movement that the sun has in order to critique dynamical, scientific models, then it seems one has not objection that can be raised. Unless there is more that one can gather from the biblical text, it seems to me that so long as a scientific model is not reading its model back into the Scripture and not contradicting the Scriptures' teaching (as some have made use of heliocentrism to do), there is no conflict because the Scriptures' teaching on the sun's movement is not specific enough to cast doubt on the reality of modern models of motion.




lynnie said:


> By the way, entirely separate from the discussion of whether or not the sun rotates around the earth or the earth around the sun, is the subject of our location in the universe. Our solar system, our galaxy, however it is structured, is right smack in the middle and the ample evidence for this is so interesting. We are not on the edge of a galaxy out in some rather mediocre region of the universe, we are right smack in the middle. The earth is special. You can be heliocentric while still knowing our general location is central, and that is scriptural.


Yes, the physical location of the earth in the universe is definitely a different subject matter. That's partly why I asked early on in the thread what exactly geocentrism entails (and have asked what exactly the Scriptures' require to be believed concerning the matter).


----------



## MW

Taylor Sexton said:


> MW said:
> 
> 
> 
> There is therefore no evidence that Joshua intended his statement as a figure of speech.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Nobody here is arguing that Joshua is using a figure of speech.
Click to expand...


Jonny asked, "Does it include EVERYONE or can that be taken as a figure of speech? If so, why is it different from the Joshua passage?"

I responded to this question.


----------



## MW

Afterthought said:


> Okay, I can grant that. But our reasoning skills are generally reliable. Why would we treat the earth so differently that we would say that although it looks like it is rotating, we cannot conclude that it probably is rotating?



Physicists brace us for the impact of counter-intuitive conclusions. Once we learned that stars don't twinkle (contrary to the song we sang as children), we likely accepted that certain sensory information was subject to a different kind of verification.



Afterthought said:


> One actually does feel the earth's motion; we've just gotten used to it. Other ways to feel the earth's motion is to notice hurricanes. But anyway, if you grant that one would say the merry-go-round moves because we reason from the unique phenomena associated with it that it rotates, why not for the earth, given that the earth exhibits the same unique phenomena associated with rotation?



Are we still discussing my original point that common sense itself is geocentric? Are your questions aimed at confirming or denying that point? Or are you building on it to establish a case for rotation based on common sense experience?

I guess I don't feel like I do on the merry-go-round. If I did I probably wouldn't bother with the ride. 



Afterthought said:


> Could you explain how homogeneity is a precarious view to modern physics?



Note what Stephen Hawking said in his Brief History of Time (relative to isotropy but still relevant),



> In particular, it might seem that if we observe all other galaxies to be moving away from us, then we must be at the center of the universe. There is, however, an alternate explanation: the universe might look the same in every direction as seen from any other galaxy too. This, as we have seen, was Friedmann’s second assumption. *We have no scientific evidence for*, *or against*, *this assumption*. We believe it only on grounds of modesty: *it would be most remarkable if the universe looked the same in every direction around us*, *but not around other points in the universe*!



In other words, the principle is held and utilised for the express purpose of ensuring we do not take an advantaged geocentric viewpoint.

The same applies to space-time with a little variation. Space-time is ahistorical. You could not have meaningful history. According to the theory we are but a little pin on one corner of a day on the cosmic calendar.



Afterthought said:


> Would you agree that the relativist physics, so far as motion is concerned, is not at variance with the Scripture's teaching that the sun moves?



It would give us sufficient reason to argue that the geocentric presentation of the Bible cannot be regarded as conflicting with science. But the "relative" square in which you then start understanding Bible history might prove costly.


----------



## MW

earl40 said:


> MW said:
> 
> 
> 
> Those who hold heliocentricity usually avoid the idea of "error" in this passage by saying that the passage is simply accommodated to the way people thought at that time; and now that we are supposed to know better we can understand what is said as speaking according to the senses. On that explanation, though, there is no figure of speech. It is understood to be a literal statement which speaks according to the way the senses perceive things.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This assumes that Joshua knew that the earth revolves around the sun and was using a figure of speech.
Click to expand...


No, it assumes that what Joshua knew or did not know was irrelevant. While he was speaking according to his perceptions he was speaking truly. As other passages of the Bible speak perceptually this must be regarded as an acceptable standard of truth in context. I don't adhere to this explanation as sufficient for this passage, and find it insufficient to credit that a miracle actually took place, but I can accept that it meets truth-criteria in terms of sense-perception.


----------



## Afterthought

Hm. You bring up some interesting points that I will need to think about before responding. So I guess we'll continue the discussion on them on my Monday.  However, here are a couple points on which I can respond now.



MW said:


> Are we still discussing my original point that common sense itself is geocentric? Are your questions aimed at confirming or denying that point? Or are you building on it to establish a case for rotation based on common sense experience?
> 
> I guess I don't feel like I do on the merry-go-round. If I did I probably wouldn't bother with the ride.


I affirm your point that common sense itself is geocentric, so I am adjusting my original argument to meet the technicalities. That is, I am building on that point to establish a case for rotation based on common sense experience. Not only that, but I am also building the case on our inductive reasoning skills: these skills come as part of our a priori common sense mental equipment. So both common sense experience and inductive reasoning together are being used to make a case for rotation.

You had mentioned that you would feel your motion on the merry-go-round though. 




MW said:


> The same applies to space-time with a little variation. Space-time is ahistorical. You could not have meaningful history. According to the theory we are but a little pin on one corner of a day on the cosmic calendar.


Space-time is constructed so as to preserve causality, so I'm not sure why it is ahistorical or why one could not have meaningful history. So far as your second sentence, it seems to me that is additional baggage that is not inherent in space-time: rather, it is inherent with those who hold to long, cosmic ages for our universe.



MW said:


> It would give us sufficient reason to argue that the geocentric presentation of the Bible cannot be regarded as conflicting with science. But the "relative" square in which you then start understanding Bible history might prove costly.


Ah, this is what I thought. But if this is so, there is actually no need to search for a geocentric dynamics, since there is no conflict with science. You do mention that the "relative" square would harm one's understanding of Bible history, but I don't see why that is necessary. Relativist physics--insofar as it understand motion and the laws of physics--does not say "everything is relative." Only some things are relative: motion, what one measures as the time or distance between events. But there are also absolutes that are preserved, and as noted, causality is preserved (and the ordering of events that could possibly be causally connected is absolute), so history is still meaningful.


----------



## MW

Afterthought said:


> So both common sense experience and inductive reasoning together are being used to make a case for rotation.



Are we allowing or disallowing the luminiferous ether?



Afterthought said:


> Space-time is constructed so as to preserve causality, so I'm not sure why it is ahistorical or why one could not have meaningful history.



I guess you have to preserve causality, otherwise there would be no science. But the philosophers of science like Hawking recognise space-time's dependence on ideology and its importance for making our history insignificant -- what might be summed up in Sagan's "lost in space" metaphysics. And I can see important connections with "big-bang" cosmology (I had almost said "theology," and probably wouldn't be far off since it requires deification of the creature).



Afterthought said:


> Ah, this is what I thought. But if this is so, there is actually no need to search for a geocentric dynamics, since there is no conflict with science. You do mention that the "relative" square would harm one's understanding of Bible history, but I don't see why that is necessary. Relativist physics--insofar as it understand motion and the laws of physics--does not say "everything is relative." Only some things are relative: motion, what one measures as the time or distance between events. But there are also absolutes that are preserved, and as noted, causality is preserved, so history is still meaningful.



I'm currently reading Steven Weinberg's Explain the World, and he seems to leave the door open for this approach.


----------



## Justified

Aren't I correct that even if science operates with space and time in a relative manner, that does not exclude the fact that there might also be absolute space-time? I myself do not consider them exclusive. Relativity might make certain problems easier to solve, but it seems a bit hasty to build your metaphysic on it, as some philosophers do.


----------



## Afterthought

Justified said:


> Aren't I correct that even if science operates with space and time in a relative manner, that does not exclude the fact that there might also be absolute space-time? I myself do not consider them exclusive. Relativity might make certain problems easier to solve, but it seems a bit hasty to build your metaphysic on it, as some philosophers do.


Possibly. I know I was more confident of that when I was an undergrad, but I am not as certain now. The difficulty is how much metaphysics does a dynamical theory require of us? However, one could always take a non-realist stance, and the question won't matter anymore. I will say though that relativity defines time and space in an operational manner (i.e., time is what clocks measure; space is what rods measure). That might leave some wiggle room for a distinction between philosophical space and time and the relativistic space-time; at the very least, I think that philosophical space and time as conditions of the human understanding (or "intuitions," if you prefer) are not at odds with relativity's view of space-time.

Edit: I suppose a distinction might be drawn between the metaphysics of the dynamics and building a metaphysics on the dynamics? The former is inherent within the theory while the latter extrapolates based on pre-conceived philosophical opinions. I suppose though this assumes dynamics are metaphysical. I have never thought about dynamics in such a way before, so I'll need to give that one some thought.


----------



## earl40

MW said:


> No, it assumes that what Joshua knew or did not know was irrelevant. While he was speaking according to his perceptions he was speaking truly. As other passages of the Bible speak perceptually this must be regarded as an acceptable standard of truth in context. I don't adhere to this explanation as sufficient for this passage, and find it insufficient to credit that a miracle actually took place, but I can accept that it meets truth-criteria in terms of sense-perception.



So if I understand what you are saying is that Joshua is simply stating he asked and saw the sun to stop...and nothing more? In other words, words there is no reason to believe one way or the other if the sun revolves around the earth or vise versa? Of course I think I am not reading you correctly and even if either thing happened, sun vs. earth revolving around one or the other, I believe either necessitates a miraculous occurrence.


----------



## earl40

Ask Mr. Religion said:


> Setting aside the issue that demonstrating there are marks in the account to suggest phenomenology, I have to wonder about "miracles" that only occur at a phenomenological level. If what is naturally (the _nature_ of the thing) happening is but a chimera of _appearing_ to happen, what do we say about the _supernatural_? Is the supernatural simply something that appears to be "way beyond" the appearance? Further, how do we adopt a phenomenological view of the Joshua account without first _knowing_ how Scripture presents cosmology such that we can then claim something is _appearing_ to happen? For example, Scripture defines the earth as round and the sun moving about relative to the earth. Unlike science, which is ever evolving and resolving past contradictions as it makes new discoveries, Scripture is not evolving (i.e., it is closed) so we should not expect to find contradictions in our closed canon.



Well we have Jesus casting out devils described in a nominalistic sense in The Gospels. In other words, it is describing miracles that were perceived in a superstitious way.


----------



## Jeri Tanner

earl40 said:


> Ask Mr. Religion said:
> 
> 
> 
> Setting aside the issue that demonstrating there are marks in the account to suggest phenomenology, I have to wonder about "miracles" that only occur at a phenomenological level. If what is naturally (the _nature_ of the thing) happening is but a chimera of _appearing_ to happen, what do we say about the _supernatural_? Is the supernatural simply something that appears to be "way beyond" the appearance? Further, how do we adopt a phenomenological view of the Joshua account without first _knowing_ how Scripture presents cosmology such that we can then claim something is _appearing_ to happen? For example, Scripture defines the earth as round and the sun moving about relative to the earth. Unlike science, which is ever evolving and resolving past contradictions as it makes new discoveries, Scripture is not evolving (i.e., it is closed) so we should not expect to find contradictions in our closed canon.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Well we have Jesus casting out devils described in a nominalistic sense in The Gospels. In other words, it is describing miracles that were perceived in a superstitious way.
Click to expand...


Earl, I've been thinking about this issue, discussed in earlier threads. I have thought about it since the last thread- I can't see a reason to see the NT statements regarding demons (statements from the narrators) as phenomenological any more than than the OT statements about the sun's movements. But yikes, that's material for a whole new thread. I would love for there to be some more discussion about that on another thread. I couldn't ever see the basis for it.


----------



## toddpedlar

lynnie said:


> By the way, entirely separate from the discussion of whether or not the sun rotates around the earth or the earth around the sun, is the subject of our location in the universe. Our solar system, our galaxy, however it is structured, is right smack in the middle and the ample evidence for this is so interesting. We are not on the edge of a galaxy out in some rather mediocre region of the universe, we are right smack in the middle. The earth is special. You can be heliocentric while still knowing our general location is central, and that is scriptural.



I hesitate to wade back into this fray again after years of avoiding such folly. But it is manifestly false to say we are in the middle of our galaxy. Sorry. This is just plain contrary to clear and very simple observation.


----------



## lynnie

Todd- sorry to not be more clear. I did not mean that earth is in the exact center of our galaxy. What I meant is that our region of observable space, such as our solar system or our galaxy, is in the middle/center of the universe. Our galaxy is not out in some fringe region of the vast heavens, it is in the middle. 

This is an important subject I think, because even if you are heliocentric it is worth reading the evidence that our solar system is in the center of the universe. Our galaxy is in the middle. The sun is not just one more mediocre star among billions of star, the galaxy is not just one more unimpressive galaxy among many.


----------



## earl40

Jeri Tanner said:


> earl40 said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ask Mr. Religion said:
> 
> 
> 
> Setting aside the issue that demonstrating there are marks in the account to suggest phenomenology, I have to wonder about "miracles" that only occur at a phenomenological level. If what is naturally (the _nature_ of the thing) happening is but a chimera of _appearing_ to happen, what do we say about the _supernatural_? Is the supernatural simply something that appears to be "way beyond" the appearance? Further, how do we adopt a phenomenological view of the Joshua account without first _knowing_ how Scripture presents cosmology such that we can then claim something is _appearing_ to happen? For example, Scripture defines the earth as round and the sun moving about relative to the earth. Unlike science, which is ever evolving and resolving past contradictions as it makes new discoveries, Scripture is not evolving (i.e., it is closed) so we should not expect to find contradictions in our closed canon.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Well we have Jesus casting out devils described in a nominalistic sense in The Gospels. In other words, it is describing miracles that were perceived in a superstitious way.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Earl, I've been thinking about this issue, discussed in earlier threads. I have thought about it since the last thread- I can't see a reason to see the NT statements regarding demons (statements from the narrators) as phenomenological any more than than the OT statements about the sun's movements. But yikes, that's material for a whole new thread. I would love for there to be some more discussion about that on another thread. I couldn't ever see the basis for it.
Click to expand...


This would indeed make a good thread in that I believe phenomenological sightings, or a persons view point, should be analyzed with the subject at hand, and how many think demons literary _directly_ controlled people like puppets.


----------



## MW

earl40 said:


> So if I understand what you are saying is that Joshua is simply stating he asked and saw the sun to stop...and nothing more? In other words, words there is no reason to believe one way or the other if the sun revolves around the earth or vise versa? Of course I think I am not reading you correctly and even if either thing happened, sun vs. earth revolving around one or the other, I believe either necessitates a miraculous occurrence.



You appear to be reading correctly. This is the method usually taken to defend the Bible against objectors. Louis Gaussen wrote in Theopneusty,

"The expression of appearances, provided it be exact, is then among men, a language philosophically correct; and is that which the Scriptures ought to adopt. Would you have the Bible speak to us of the scenes of nature otherwise than as we speak of them to one another in our social or domestic intercourse; otherwise even than the learned themselves speak of them to one another?"

I concur with this defence in general, though I cannot concur with it in this instance because it would serve to undermine the miracle.


----------



## MW

Justified said:


> Aren't I correct that even if science operates with space and time in a relative manner, that does not exclude the fact that there might also be absolute space-time? I myself do not consider them exclusive. Relativity might make certain problems easier to solve, but it seems a bit hasty to build your metaphysic on it, as some philosophers do.



Metaphysically we come to face the same problems as Heraclitus and Parmenides. Do things so move and change that we cannot speak of things existing? or are things so absolute that we cannot speak of things moving and changing? Popper seemed to recognise that space-time leaves us with Parmenides' problem. How do things move on this model?


----------



## lynnie

https://www.amazon.com/Geocentrism-101-Introduction-Geocentric-Cosmology/dp/1939856221

A nice introductory book. Both evidence of geocentricity of the earth in the solar system, and several chapters about the central position of the earth in the universe. You tube has videos that explain better visually some of the experiments involving motion.

DVD......https://www.amazon.com/Journey-Center-Universe-Scientific-Documentary/dp/1939856523

Same author but very detailed scientific history with more visuals. Really enjoyed it. 2 discs, 4.5 hrs, high quality.

I especially loved this book, my first intro to geocentricity in an appendix: 

https://www.amazon.com/Science-Agrees-Bible-Malcolm-Bowden/dp/0950604240 

It is mainly about geology and evolution and all sorts of science subjects but he has a nice little section for laymen on geocentricity.

Martin Selbrede of Chalcedon (the Rushdoony guys) has done some writing on this, and I used to have a VCR of him speaking on it. Not sure if it ever got put on a DVD.

Truly a fascinating subject. Even if you insist on a heliocentric model, you might want to consider reading about our place in the universe. Cosmic microwaves, galaxies, quasars, gamma bursts, the Planck probe refuting the Big bang model.....earth is at the center. Science tells me so, in addition to the bible.


----------



## Pmoon

I haven't read this entire thread. so I don't know who all has made this point. 

I'm not too learned on astronomy or physics, but I don't believe the Earth is the center of everything. A lot of people are referring to Joshua. Why couldn't God have simply stopped the earth from rotating/revolving? That works too, yeah? Or if not that, perhaps he could have made the Earth to spin at the same rate it revolves - similar to how the same side of the moon is always facing Earth.


----------



## lynnie

Pmoon said:


> I haven't read this entire thread. so I don't know who all has made this point.
> 
> I'm not too learned on astronomy or physics, but I don't believe the Earth is the center of everything. A lot of people are referring to Joshua. Why couldn't God have simply stopped the earth from rotating/revolving? That works too, yeah? Or if not that, perhaps he could have made the Earth to spin at the same rate it revolves - similar to how the same side of the moon is always facing Earth.



God can do anything. (This thread has had a few subplots all going at once.) I think most Christians do think that was actually a rotation stop. 

If you don't believe the earth was created on day one, and the sun moon and stars on day four, and instead hold to modern cosmology, you probably won't want to bother reading this thread. 

Any discussion of geocentricity invariably has to assume a young earth literal six day creation view. If you view Genesis as symbolic and poetical it isn't worth even joining the fray in my opinion. (There are of course many, if not the majority, of young earth creationists who do believe in a literal Genesis and think on day four God started up the heliocentric solar system.)


----------



## MW

Pmoon said:


> I'm not too learned on astronomy or physics, but I don't believe the Earth is the center of everything.



God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. Immanuel -- God with us. Size does not matter, contrary to the naturalist's principles, because there is One that is infinitely greater than all things. God's purpose and design is what makes things important. If one goes the way of naturalism, then all the best to him in his struggle with nature; I hope he has good genes. But I believe what God says: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth;" "and God said, Let us make man in our image;" "in the fulness of the time God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that are under the law." To believe the message of the Bible one is required to think in terms of special purpose and privileged place. Even if one regards the Bible as speaking poetically when it speaks of the centrality of the earth, he must still regard the earth as having a centrality which natural science rejects.


----------



## Afterthought

MW said:


> Physicists brace us for the impact of counter-intuitive conclusions. Once we learned that stars don't twinkle (contrary to the song we sang as children), we likely accepted that certain sensory information was subject to a different kind of verification.


Well, it is hard to say what is or is not counter-intuitive in this case. But if our conclusions work for heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, why not for the earth itself?



MW said:


> Note what Stephen Hawking said in his Brief History of Time (relative to isotropy but still relevant),
> 
> 
> 
> 
> In particular, it might seem that if we observe all other galaxies to be moving away from us, then we must be at the center of the universe. There is, however, an alternate explanation: the universe might look the same in every direction as seen from any other galaxy too. This, as we have seen, was Friedmann’s second assumption. *We have no scientific evidence for, or against, this assumption. We believe it only on grounds of modesty: it would be most remarkable if the universe looked the same in every direction around us, but not around other points in the universe!*
> 
> 
> 
> In other words, the principle is held and utilised for the express purpose of ensuring we do not take an advantaged geocentric viewpoint.
Click to expand...


I cannot find discussion of the Copernican principle/cosmological principle in a cosmology textbook I have, but I found some brief discussion in some lecture notes. The lecture notes do say that homogeneity is assumed because otherwise the earth would be at a special place. However, from what I recall, "special" merely means _special in a physical sense_. (Surely the earth can be special in other ways without being special in a physical sense?) In other words, the concern is that we don't expect the earth to be a different physical object than other planets, and we don't expect physical laws to behave differently on earth than elsewhere (or else the laws are not universal laws).

I was hoping to get Hawking's book at the library, but it closed before I got it, so I'll have to look at it later. It would not surprise me if by "special" in the above quotation you posted he means it in the usual manner, but he could be rhetorically exaggerating?

From the cosmology lectures notes and from my memory of the class, homogeneity was also assumed (aside from it making the equations easier to solve) because (1) one would otherwise expect to see rings centered around the earth (which we do not see) and (2) a homogeneous theoretical model fits the cosmological data better, i.e., there are empirical reasons to suggest homogeneity is a good assumption, although it cannot be proven.

This makes me wonder again whether some scientists are taking the science beyond the metaphysics that it requires and using it to further their own philosophical (and in many cases, theological also) agenda? I don't see how the assumption of homogeneity is necessarily a precarious assumption or necessarily makes the earth not special in any sense, unless I'm missing your point?



MW said:


> The same applies to space-time with a little variation. Space-time is ahistorical. You could not have meaningful history. According to the theory we are but a little pin on one corner of a day on the cosmic calendar.





MW said:


> I guess you have to preserve causality, otherwise there would be no science. But the philosophers of science like Hawking recognise space-time's dependence on ideology and its importance for making our history insignificant -- what might be summed up in Sagan's "lost in space" metaphysics. And I can see important connections with "big-bang" cosmology (I had almost said "theology," and probably wouldn't be far off since it requires deification of the creature).





MW said:


> Metaphysically we come to face the same problems as Heraclitus and Parmenides. Do things so move and change that we cannot speak of things existing? or are things so absolute that we cannot speak of things moving and changing? Popper seemed to recognise that space-time leaves us with Parmenides' problem. How do things move on this model?


I think I finally understand what your criticism of space-time is. The concerns are (a) it forces a "block" view of time and so nothing moves, and no events "take place," strictly speaking; and (b) it makes our history insignificant because our history is a small portion of the larger slice of space-time.

With regards to both though, I again wonder if more is being made of space-time than it actually requires in the scientific theory? And just because a slice of history is small does not mean it is insignificant, yes? The "block" view of time seems to be a literal interpretation of space-time though, so that may be a fair point. The only way around it is to understand space-time as a useful construct to show the connection between time and space that previous physics did not show, i.e., we should view the time direction of space-time as the direction in which objects unfold in time; hence, objects can move and history unfold. There probably is a way to get some "presentist" version of time that is consistent with the model too, but I am not sure, since I do not know what it is.



MW said:


> Are we allowing or disallowing the luminiferous ether?


Disallowing for the moment, since we have no empirical evidence for it (in the sense that, all observed predicted effects of that model are described by another theory that does not require the ether).




MW said:


> I'm currently reading Steven Weinberg's Explain the World, and he seems to leave the door open for this approach.


I got his book from the library. Do you happen to recall whereabouts he does this?


----------



## MW

Afterthought said:


> Well, it is hard to say what is or is not counter-intuitive in this case. But if our conclusions work for heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, why not for the earth itself?



If we are already committed to a counter-intuitive model we can't stop halfway through our free-fall and decide we would like to grab hold of something solid. We have to keep going and hope our chute opens like it should. 

The point here is that we have ceased working with anything of which we can form a mental image, and so it is transcending our rational experience. We are in the realm of faith and religion whether the physicist will admit it or not.



Afterthought said:


> However, from what I recall, "special" merely means _special in a physical sense_.



According to the materialist, that is all there is. And from the biblical viewpoint, if creation does not refer to the "physical," to what is it referring? some kind of hyper-physical or moral-physical sphere?



Afterthought said:


> we don't expect physical laws to behave differently on earth than elsewhere (or else the laws are not universal laws).



As with my first post, I take this to be a theological assumption. If we took the view that there is purpose and design for the benefit of life on earth we might think of "broader" and "minuter" things as being deliberately different like the back-stage is different from the front-stage. It may be that everything is counter-intuitive on one level so as to allow for intuition on our level.



Afterthought said:


> It would not surprise me if by "special" in the above quotation you posted he means it in the usual manner, but he could be rhetorically exaggerating?



For him there would be nothing else, so there is no room for exaggeration.



Afterthought said:


> This makes me wonder again whether some scientists are taking the science beyond the metaphysics that it requires and using it to further their own philosophical (and in many cases, theological also) agenda?



Probably "theosophic" would serve the purpose. The philosophy is driving the science and the science only allows that philosophical view to be expressed. Having excluded the personal God from the scientific method it necessarily arrives at a theory of everything which excludes a personal God. It is like Buddhism in that respect, and ironically with the same emphases.



Afterthought said:


> And just because a slice of history is small does not mean it is insignificant, yes?



Your lifetime is a "second" in spacetime. Now if we factor in the religion of spacetime -- "the cosmos is all there is, all there ever was, and all there ever will be" -- how significant are you?



Afterthought said:


> MW said:
> 
> 
> 
> Are we allowing or disallowing the luminiferous ether?
> 
> 
> 
> Disallowing for the moment, since we have no empirical evidence for it (in the sense that, all observed predicted effects of that model are described by another theory that does not require the ether).
Click to expand...


That is problematic. There is no evidence for the alternative, and it raises the problem of dark matter.



Afterthought said:


> I got his book from the library. Do you happen to recall whereabouts he does this?



"The Newtonian Synthesis," towards the end of the chapter, beginning with the paragraph, "The success of Newton's treatment." Also of interest is the unpublished reference to Tycho's system, and the way it would work in general relativity.


----------



## Pmoon

lynnie said:


> Pmoon said:
> 
> 
> 
> I haven't read this entire thread. so I don't know who all has made this point.
> 
> I'm not too learned on astronomy or physics, but I don't believe the Earth is the center of everything. A lot of people are referring to Joshua. Why couldn't God have simply stopped the earth from rotating/revolving? That works too, yeah? Or if not that, perhaps he could have made the Earth to spin at the same rate it revolves - similar to how the same side of the moon is always facing Earth.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> God can do anything. (This thread has had a few subplots all going at once.) I think most Christians do think that was actually a rotation stop.
> 
> If you don't believe the earth was created on day one, and the sun moon and stars on day four, and instead hold to modern cosmology, you probably won't want to bother reading this thread.
> 
> Any discussion of geocentricity invariably has to assume a young earth literal six day creation view. If you view Genesis as symbolic and poetical it isn't worth even joining the fray in my opinion. (There are of course many, if not the majority, of young earth creationists who do believe in a literal Genesis and think on day four God started up the heliocentric solar system.)
Click to expand...


To clarify:

I don't believe we are the center of the universe. I believe we revolve around a star, which revolves around the center of a galaxy - which itself is a terrifyingly insignificant molecule of matter in the grand scheme of things. But that said, I do believe that all of creation was made in 6 literal 24 hour days. I believe Adam was a real life individual in history who God literally made from the physical dust of the Earth. I've no problem believing both.


----------



## Megs

*Geocentricity Ordered Quotes For Anyone Who's Interested*

In light of all of the topics being raised and discussed in this thread, I thought some people might find these quotes of interest or help:

http://christian-wilderness.forumvi.com/t569-geocentricity-ordered-quotes


----------



## Afterthought

MW said:


> If we are already committed to a counter-intuitive model we can't stop halfway through our free-fall and decide we would like to grab hold of something solid. We have to keep going and hope our chute opens like it should.
> 
> The point here is that we have ceased working with anything of which we can form a mental image, and so it is transcending our rational experience. We are in the realm of faith and religion whether the physicist will admit it or not.


Heh.  The geocentrist model is also counter-intuitive though. At least in modern times, anyway, given that things like parallax have been observed.

It is a matter of faith and religion to determine whether one object moves around another? Or to determine if an object is moving relative to something? We can form mental images of bodies rotating and making other objects appear to rotate about it.



MW said:


> According to the materialist, that is all there is. And from the biblical viewpoint, if creation does not refer to the "physical," to what is it referring? some kind of hyper-physical or moral-physical sphere?





MW said:


> For him there would be nothing else, so there is no room for exaggeration.





MW said:


> Your lifetime is a "second" in spacetime. Now if we factor in the religion of spacetime -- "the cosmos is all there is, all there ever was, and all there ever will be" -- how significant are you?


Fair enough for the materialist or those who make a religion of spacetime (like Hawking). But I'm still not seeing how that religion is inherent in the theory; it seems like a particular interpretation of the theory, but not a necessary component of the theory.

So far as the biblical viewpoint, we recognize that man is significant despite being less excellent in being (Psalm 8)? That there are other considerations besides "physical" for that significance, such as moral significance and the favour of the Divine?

Perhaps I was not clear enough by "physical." Creation refers to the "physical," yes, but by "physical" I was referring to things like (a) the material out of which the earth is made is not fundamentally (quarks, electrons, etc.) different from the material out of which other bodies are made, (b) the physical laws that the earth and bodies on earth obey are not different from elsewhere, (c) the location that earth occupies is not fundamentally different from another location, and (d) (since we were discussing homogeneity) what one sees on earth when looking at the distant stars is not different from what one sees when looking on the moon, or some other place in the universe. Supposing all these things to be true, what inherently about this makes history insignificant (or significant for that matter; inherently, these things say nothing about significance), seeing how history was made significant by God's decree and works? It only seems to be insignificant if one imports philosophical assumptions that this is all there is.



MW said:


> As with my first post, I take this to be a theological assumption. If we took the view that there is purpose and design for the benefit of life on earth we might think of "broader" and "minuter" things as being deliberately different like the back-stage is different from the front-stage. It may be that everything is counter-intuitive on one level so as to allow for intuition on our level.


Interesting. If one did assume physical law itself to differ throughout the universe (so there are no universal physical laws), then what metaphysical justification do we have for finding even localized laws? How are we not stuck with disconnected mathematical equations, since we have no metaphysical justification for believing they can be unified; for all we know, they may be unified in one way in the U.S. and another way in Australia; or maybe they cannot be unified at all, since each particular situation the mathematical equation covers may be the "universal" territory of that "law"?



MW said:


> Probably "theosophic" would serve the purpose. The philosophy is driving the science and the science only allows that philosophical view to be expressed. Having excluded the personal God from the scientific method it necessarily arrives at a theory of everything which excludes a personal God. It is like Buddhism in that respect, and ironically with the same emphases.


Interesting point on Buddhism. Why do you believe the science only allows a particular philosophical view to be expressed? Are these physicists and philosophers reading more into a theory than the theory itself expresses?



MW said:


> That is problematic. There is no evidence for the alternative, and it raises the problem of dark matter.


If one denies relativity, there is plenty of evidence for the earth's absolute movement and absolute rotation, ether or no ether. (e.g., Parallax, movement relative to the CMB, Focault's Pendulum, Coriolis forces, stellar aberration, doppler effect, the earth's bulge, ring-laser gyro)

Evidence for relativity includes the detection of gravitational waves, experiments and technology involving time dilation, Michelson-Morely (which I suppose could be repeated on a moving truck on the highway, if one wanted to give relativity another test), no indication of physical law changing in different reference frames, no discrepancies in the solar system or in a wide range of phenomena. I could go on. How do these not constitute evidence of the alternative?

Evidence for earth's movement and rotation when one is not on earth (indirect confirmation of relativity) includes the satellite evidence provided earlier in this thread, the motion measured in the CMB, the making use of earth's movement/rotation when NASA launches rockets from earth in order to give the rockets a speed boost, the correct movement of spacecraft in space that assume and take into account the earth's movement/rotation, the movement of the earth when viewed from space, "the frame dragging effect" (Gravity Probe B), the earth's bulge, ring-laser gyro, and constraints on a small rotation for the universe.

Yes, there is the issue of dark matter. However, the ether is undetectable, whereas dark matter has indirect evidence (e.g., Bullet cluster). Dark matter also has indirect evidence in the form of the model allowing for a single cosmological model to fit a number of different data sets better than its peers. Dark matter is also in principle detectable (just not visibly), whereas the ether tended to move in such a way that it could not be detected.



MW said:


> "The Newtonian Synthesis," towards the end of the chapter, beginning with the paragraph, "The success of Newton's treatment." Also of interest is the unpublished reference to Tycho's system, and the way it would work in general relativity.


Thanks! That is very interesting.


----------



## MW

Afterthought said:


> It is a matter of faith and religion to determine whether one object moves around another? Or to determine if an object is moving relative to something? We can form mental images of bodies rotating and making other objects appear to rotate about it.



What we observe by immediate sense and what we experience through mechanical instruments will differ in terms of consciousness. Direct objects of sense will behave differently to things observed by means of mechanisms, maths, and models. E.g., Feynman's "central mystery" of particles behaving like waves and vice versa. Once we strip off layers and look at things mechanically we will find sensory experience is inadequate, and rationality can form no mental image of the thing. One requires faith in the model in order to have a consciousness of the things perceived.



Afterthought said:


> But I'm still not seeing how that religion is inherent in the theory; it seems like a particular interpretation of the theory, but not a necessary component of the theory.



It is part of the Copernican principle. It was a religious principle which people accepted before there was sufficient scientific evidence to support it; and the models built on the basis of the Copernican principle provided the scientific evidence to support it.



Afterthought said:


> So far as the biblical viewpoint, we recognize that man is significant despite being less excellent in being (Psalm 8)? That there are other considerations besides "physical" for that significance, such as moral significance and the favour of the Divine?



This is the anthropic principle, and if you look at the science in the light of it you will find there is quite an amount of "physical" evidence for it, but to those who hold religiously to the "mediocrity" principle it would be "immodest" to accept any evidence for the anthropic principle.



Afterthought said:


> It only seems to be insignificant if one imports philosophical assumptions that this is all there is.



That is well perceived.




Afterthought said:


> or maybe they cannot be unified at all?



The commitment and methodology is religious by nature. You have to believe there is an unity and you must employ philosophical principles to connect things together into a coherent whole.



Afterthought said:


> Interesting point on Buddhism. Why do you believe the science only allows a particular philosophical view to be expressed? Are these physicists and philosophers reading more into a theory than the theory itself expresses?



The "cosmos is everything" religion is quite seductive in the way it self-validates the scientist as an "enlightened one" or "genius." Perhaps watch Carl Sagan's old cosmos series, or the one recently presented by Neil deGrasse Tyson. Or even watch both to see the trends working over a significant time period.



Afterthought said:


> If one denies relativity, there is plenty of evidence for the earth's absolute movement and absolute rotation, ether or no ether.



But don't you need relativity to remove the ether to begin with? What is the medium being disturbed to create waves? And can't your "evidence" for the alternative be used to support the existence of ether. And can't your secondary evidence for dark matter provide secondary evidence for the ether?


----------



## alexandermsmith

Um, hasn't the Earth been observed rotating by those in space?


----------



## lynnie

Meg- excellent.


----------



## Afterthought

alexandermsmith said:


> Um, hasn't the Earth been observed rotating by those in space?


I don't know if any have seen the rotation in real time. The tricky thing is that those in space that orbit the earth are, well, orbiting. However, there are a number of images and videos on the web that one can look into, including images of stars streaking from the ISS (like the photos one sees from earth). Here is a video from L1 sped-up: http://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/DSCOVR/

Of course, the absolute geocentrist (of the non-conspiracy theory sort) that does not hold the earth rotates would just say that's the ether spinning the earth or spinning the space (along with the rest of the universe) to which the satellite is attached.


----------



## MW

alexandermsmith said:


> Um, hasn't the Earth been observed rotating by those in space?



Place a camera on a fixed point of an aeroplane and film the land moving below.


----------



## Afterthought

MW said:


> What we observe by immediate sense and what we experience through mechanical instruments will differ in terms of consciousness. Direct objects of sense will behave differently to things observed by means of mechanisms, maths, and models. E.g., Feynman's "central mystery" of particles behaving like waves and vice versa. Once we strip off layers and look at things mechanically we will find sensory experience is inadequate, and rationality can form no mental image of the thing. One requires faith in the model in order to have a consciousness of the things perceived.




Alright. So from what I understand, the issue is not with the scientific theories themselves, but with the way they tend to be used, since the theories do not inherently contain the "theosophy" of their creators? The theories are "precarious" because they cause difficulties if one adds to them certain religious and philosophical assumptions?



MW said:


> The commitment and methodology is religious by nature. You have to believe there is an unity and you must employ philosophical principles to connect things together into a coherent whole.


True. But now we need a commitment and methodology that says the unity is localized and philosophical principles to determine the scope of the fundamental diversity of laws. To be fair, I know a few have advocated for the laws themselves changing over time. Perhaps it is not entirely unexpected for a few to advocate that the laws depend on spatial location also. Even supposing that the laws are localized though, the laws work in the heavens and on earth: they only cease to work for the earth itself, if one takes an absolute geocentrist view. Although I guess it is strictly an assumption, there seems to be evidence that the laws work for the region of space and time that are needed to answer the question of geocentrism or motion of the earth/sun.



MW said:


> But don't you need relativity to remove the ether to begin with? What is the medium being disturbed to create waves? And can't your "evidence" for the alternative be used to support the existence of ether. And can't your secondary evidence for dark matter provide secondary evidence for the ether?


Historically, yes, but the way experiments and theories have gone now, I am not entirely sure that relativity is needed to remove the ether. At the very least, the ether turned out to be undetectable both experimentally and in principle, so it would seem the ether is an empirically unnecessary object for determining motion. Indeed, that the earth turned out not to move through the ether would still need to be reconciled with the evidence I presented for the earth's motion and rotation; the existence of the ether would not automatically force that evidence to be indeterminate.

No medium is needed to create these kinds of waves. The electric and magnetic fields have their own independent existence. Of course, it may be asked: what is the evidence for this? I am not sure how much there is, but at the very least, the speed of light being the same in all reference frames supports it. A question could be raised as to how "aetherial" objects like fields can have energy, interact with things, and have their own independent existence. I suppose that is a fair question and one to which I have no answer except to point out that material objects also have wave properties, and yet we do not find it mysterious that they propagate without a medium. Otherwise, it seems to me (maybe someone else knows about better evidence) the only evidence that no medium is required is that no medium needs to be postulated in order to make the physics work: but this in turn seems to require Einstein's relativity....unless we postulate that the laws of physics are not the same in all reference frames (i.e., localized laws; odd how that idea has shown up here too).

Lorentz's ether is theoretically undetectable. I don't recall all of Bouw's ether except that it was omnipotent and seemed to conveniently do everything Bouw needed it to do (yet without proof that it could do so). Given the undetectability of the ether, it is difficult to see how any of the evidence I presented could be construed as evidence of the ether, although I am not entirely sure. If some ether theorist was able to prove (not just assert with words) that such things could also be understood as evidence of an ether that had consistent properties, then I guess such evidence for relativity would be equivocal. So far as I understand though, the ether is not necessary to explain the phenomena if relativity is correct; we see evidence for relativity; so the ether theory is unnecessary as an empirically detectable object; because it is unnecessary, I do not see how evidence for relativity can be construed equally as evidence for the ether. And in any case, the universe does not appear to be rotating, based on cosmological measurements.

So far as dark matter goes, the luminiferous ether just kind of sat there, originally. Then postulated to move in some ways. I don't recall it being able to interact gravitationally, so I don't see how evidence for dark matter could be construed as evidence for a luminiferous ether. As for other ether theories, I am not sure.

Having said all that, some sort of ether may be philosophically necessary, even if it is empirically undetectable. It is kind of strange to think of space and time being able to bend (if one interprets relativity in a literal manner), seeing how these space and time are supposed to be properties of objects. If one remembers the operational definition of space and time in relativity, perhaps this isn't an issue. But an obvious resolution is to postulate that "spacetime" in relativity is actually some sort of "ether." There is also an "absolute" reference frame in the CMB, and there is a "quantum vacuum" that could be thought of as an "ether." Perhaps it could also be demonstrated that a medium is philosophically necessary for light waves to travel. However, all of these ethers are very different from the sort that would be necessary to make the universe turn in such a way so that all our physical measurements make it seem like the earth is rotating and moving around the sun (absolute motion too, if relativity is disregarded), even though the earth is absolutely at rest and not rotating and not wobbling.


Interestingly enough, it appears that "creation science" now (recent article) has an "ether" theory of its own (with apparently some borrowing of ideas from string theory): http://creation.com/new-view-of-gravity


----------



## MW

Afterthought said:


> Interestingly enough, it appears that "creation science" now (recent article) has an "ether" theory of its own (with apparently some borrowing of ideas from string theory): http://creation.com/new-view-of-gravity



Thanks for the link. I will have a read of it early next week if I can.

Just to clarify, I'm not arguing for ether or any other theory. The point about the dark matter and ether is that it shows any "system" ends up with a great deal of unexplained matter. And just glancing over the page to which you have linked, I can see it is going to work on the susceptibility of gravity as something which has never really been explained. Physics will provide theories for how things work; it does not tell us what things are. For the nature of things we need metaphysics. And that is why I am confident I can hold by the Bible's description of things as valid in its own right.


----------



## alexandermsmith

MW said:


> alexandermsmith said:
> 
> 
> 
> Um, hasn't the Earth been observed rotating by those in space?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Place a camera on a fixed point of an aeroplane and film the land moving below.
Click to expand...


I have to say that's a rather silly response. There are time-lapse videos taken from space which seem to show the Earth rotating.

However, what's the big deal? Why is this important?


----------



## Douglas P.

Afterthought said:


> alexandermsmith said:
> 
> 
> 
> Um, hasn't the Earth been observed rotating by those in space?
> 
> 
> 
> I don't know if any have seen the rotation in real time. The tricky thing is that those in space that orbit the earth are, well, orbiting. However, there are a number of images and videos on the web that one can look into, including images of stars streaking from the ISS (like the photos one sees from earth). Here is a video from L1 sped-up: http://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/DSCOVR/
> 
> Of course, the absolute geocentrist (of the non-conspiracy theory sort) that does not hold the earth rotates would just say that's the ether spinning the earth or spinning the space (along with the rest of the universe) to which the satellite is attached.
Click to expand...


I've spent some time looking at the videos on that site, and I'm curious how the geocentrists would explain this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMdhQsHbWTs

Every geocentric model I have seen has the moon and sun rotating around the earth in the same direction. However, this video clearly shows the moon and sun rotating in opposite directions (if you assume the earth is standing still).

Am I missing something?


----------



## C. Matthew McMahon

As an observer of the thread, and having just read through the whole thing, and having not really considered everything to be considered on this subject, I have an observation and two groups of questions. 

Observation: the links of the videos so far don't show me anything that would hinder me from believing that everything else would be spinning around the earth. If the satellite a million miles away from the earth (L1) was spinning with the universe around the earth, the earth would, from the perspective of the satellite, be spinning. That doesn't help me conclude anything scientifically opposed to geocentrism. Whether the moon, or any other object in space, is spinning one way or another, doesn't change geocentrisms' stance based on what I've read or seen in the videos so far. (The radio waves was compelling though and no one has really dealt with that on the thread yet (unless I missed something)).

First questions: I'm interested in the question of the "earth stopped" so everyone would turn into a "flying bullet" and spin off the planet problem. If Joshua 10 is from the perspective of Joshua, and he commanded the sun to stop moving, and the earth stopped moving making it look like the sun stopped moving, and this would then cause everyone on the planet to be jettisoned into space, or something thereabouts, can we see or not see this happening with non-spinning planets in our own solar system or somewhere else that have apparent movement? In other words, if there are stationary planets anywhere that are moving around a star, is there anything flying off them anywhere into outer space? Or, are there spinning planets in our solar system, or in other places we can see, where they are not spinning, but don't have anything flying off from them?

Second group of questions, are the other planets in our solar system, based on geocentrism, necessarily not spinning around, and not spinning around the sun? Or are they all spinning, and spinning around the sun and geocentrism says that _only earth_ is not spinning and not rotating around the sun? Can we see other planets in other solar systems spinning? If they are spinning, and we can see that, and all the other planets in our solar system have a path around the sun, how would that whole model of our solar system impact a stationary earth? Would they in fact impact us at any time? Would the path the sun takes around the earth create a path for another planet to come close or hit out planet based on their spin? It would seem to me that the other 8 planets in our solar system with their wobbling paths around the sun, may come into exceedingly close view to our planet, or strike it, based on the manner the sun revolves around the earth, but the planets still revolving around the sun except for ours.

I hope I'm making sense in my questions.


----------



## Afterthought

Douglas Padgett said:


> Every geocentric model I have seen has the moon and sun rotating around the earth in the same direction. However, this video clearly shows the moon and sun rotating in opposite directions (if you assume the earth is standing still).


Good point. I do not know what they would say. Maybe someone else knows. Perhaps they might say there is a ball of ether rapidly rotating about earth so that the light from the moon and sun cause them to appear to go in the same direction. Astronomy is actually not something I have studied in-depth, so I do not know if something obvious is being missed. I could ask one of my Astronomy colleagues next week, if anyone wishes.



C. Matthew McMahon said:


> First questions: I'm interested in the question of the "earth stopped" so everyone would turn into a "flying bullet" and spin off the planet problem. If Joshua 10 is from the perspective of Joshua, and he commanded the sun to stop moving, and the earth stopped moving making it look like the sun stopped moving, and this would then cause everyone on the planet to be jettisoned into space, or something thereabouts, can we see or not see this happening with non-spinning planets in our own solar system or somewhere else that have apparent movement? In other words, if there are stationary planets anywhere that are moving around a star, is there anything flying off them anywhere into outer space? Or, are there spinning planets in our solar system, or in other places we can see, where they are not spinning, but don't have anything flying off from them?


I think you are asking: Do people fly off of planets that spin or orbit? I do not know of any planets that spin or orbit without spinning that are causing things to fly off them. I think that the reductio to which you refer actually is referring to the stopping of the spinning causing people to fly off: not the spinning itself causing people to fly off. If the earth is spinning and was suddenly stopped, then barring a miracle, people would fly off. Furthermore, if the earth is orbiting and suddenly stopped, then people would also fly off. In both cases, appeal as to what would happen is based on a modern understanding of science, which would also say that objects would not fly off of rotating or spinning planets if other forces (like gravity) were strong enough to hold them down. I suppose if those other forces were strong enough, then people would not fly off if an object stopped spinning or orbiting; however, they would definitely feel the force of the object stopping.

Suddenly stopping spinning would be like a slingshot. Or if you want to observe it, you could place a penny near the edge of a disk, get the disk spinning quickly, and then suddenly stop it (I know there are videos of something like this somewhere on the internet); the penny will fly off. The case of the earth orbiting and suddenly stopping is more like braking hard while in a car.




C. Matthew McMahon said:


> Second group of questions, are the other planets in our solar system, based on geocentrism, necessarily not spinning around, and not spinning around the sun? Or are they all spinning, and spinning around the sun and geocentrism says that only earth is not spinning and not rotating around the sun? Can we see other planets in other solar systems spinning? If they are spinning, and we can see that, and all the other planets in our solar system have a path around the sun, how would that whole model of our solar system impact a stationary earth? Would they in fact impact us at any time? Would the path the sun takes around the earth create a path for another planet to come close or hit out planet based on their spin? It would seem to me that the other 8 planets in our solar system with their wobbling paths around the sun, may come into exceedingly close view to our planet, or strike it, based on the manner the sun revolves around the earth, but the planets still revolving around the sun except for ours.


There are different versions of absolute geocentrism. Some will admit the earth is rotating, or rotating slightly, but not orbiting. However, it seems the popular model is that the earth is neither spinning nor orbiting; the sun goes around the earth; but the rest of the objects go around the sun.

I think though that you are asking: If other planets orbit the sun while the sun orbits the earth, will those planets crash into the earth or otherwise interact with the earth on a geocentric model? The other planets (on either a geocentric or heliocentric model) have orbits that are either much closer to the sun or much further, so I do not think the planets would impact the earth on a geocentric model (don't know for sure though/haven't looked at the geometry/math).


----------



## Afterthought

MW said:


> Just to clarify, I'm not arguing for ether or any other theory. The point about the dark matter and ether is that it shows any "system" ends up with a great deal of unexplained matter. And just glancing over the page to which you have linked, I can see it is going to work on the susceptibility of gravity as something which has never really been explained. Physics will provide theories for how things work; it does not tell us what things are. For the nature of things we need metaphysics. And that is why I am confident I can hold by the Bible's description of things as valid in its own right.


I agree with all this. I'm actually not trying to argue for one theory or another; I'm trying to present the evidence in the best possible light, insofar as I understand it. I do think that relativity has stronger backing than the modern geocentrist theories I have seen, and there seems to be no conflict between the Scriptural data and relativity (so far as motion is concerned); indeed, it provides a way for there to be a true sense in which the earth rotates and moves around the sun. However, it is still an empirical science at the end of the day, and it could (likely will be) overturned to one degree or another eventually.

I am almost ready to discuss some things on the Scriptural teaching (but this will likely have to wait until next week), but a few more questions concerning dynamics/metaphysics. While I agree science gives theories for how things work, rather than telling us what things are (some physicists say, "Something fundamental is in need of no explanation." But a metaphysical assumption has been brought in here; and besides, the physics describes how the "fundamental" thing works rather than explaining what it is), how is the motion or lack of motion of the earth fall into a metaphysical category? It seems, at a first glance, to be a proper matter for physics: how things work? Is it simply because we could postulate a variety of non-empirically detectable entities that could allow things to work so that the earth only appears to move around the sun and rotate?

(As an aside: Isn't it odd how the "heliocentrist" has to argue that things are not how they appear to be according to our unaided senses on earth, but the "geocentrist" has to argue that things are not how they appear to be according to aided observations and observations from space?)

As a related question, what do you make of physics as searching for dynamics (as opposed to just kinematics), if anything? On the one hand, it seems the dynamics provide a metaphysics (or at least a search for metaphysics motivates finding them). On the other hand, it seems dynamics also only talk about how things work?


----------



## MW

alexandermsmith said:


> I have to say that's a rather silly response. There are time-lapse videos taken from space which seem to show the Earth rotating.



Since you use the word "seem" in relation to the videos taken from space my response must have made some sense to you.



alexandermsmith said:


> However, what's the big deal? Why is this important?



The province of the Bible to speak on its own authority; the proper limitations of scientific inquiry; the inevitable religious presupposition of science and the intersection of science with metaphysics -- to name but a few matters of importance.


----------



## Douglas P.

http://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/DSCOVR/images/eclipse_epc_2016068.gif

Another video (gif) from DSCOVR providing observable, testable, repeatable proof of heliocentrism.

Too bad Sungenis' $100,000 challenge is no longer available =\


----------



## Edward

C. Matthew McMahon said:


> First questions: I'm interested in the question of the "earth stopped" so everyone would turn into a "flying bullet" and spin off the planet problem.



Seems to me that that would be exactly backwards. The centrifugal force should be pushing folks away from the planet, and stopping the spinning would cause folks to be pushed more firmly to the ground, not loosen them from it. (Get a ferric metal ball. Put weak magnets on it. If you spin it fast enough, the magnets will fly off. If you are spinning it and the magnets are affixed, stopping the spin won't cause the magnets to fly off in all directions, although inertia may cause them to slip).


----------



## Douglas P.

C. Matthew McMahon said:


> First questions: I'm interested in the question of the "earth stopped" so everyone would turn into a "flying bullet" and spin off the planet problem. If Joshua 10 is from the perspective of Joshua, and he commanded the sun to stop moving, and the earth stopped moving making it look like the sun stopped moving, and this would then cause everyone on the planet to be jettisoned into space, or something thereabouts, can we see or not see this happening with non-spinning planets in our own solar system or somewhere else that have apparent movement? In other words, if there are stationary planets anywhere that are moving around a star, is there anything flying off them anywhere into outer space? Or, are there spinning planets in our solar system, or in other places we can see, where they are not spinning, but don't have anything flying off from them?



A couple of things. 

1) If the earth were to suddenly stop, we would continue to move at Earth's rotational velocity (~1041 mph). However, we would not be shot out into space, escape velocity is much much faster. (~25,000 mph) After the dust settled (literally, because anything not bolted to the Earth would also be launch at 1041 mph) gravity would win out and everything too heavy to get stuck in the atmosphere would come crashing back down to Earth.
2) All planets rotate. The slowest a planet could rotate would be the velocity at which they are tidally locked to their host star. An example of a tidal lock is the Moon to the Earth.

Hope this helps.


----------



## MW

Afterthought said:


> how is the motion or lack of motion of the earth fall into a metaphysical category?



Motion of what? Can you step into the same river twice? We come back to Heraclitus and Parmenides every time.

If one believed everything is caused by a spirit he could throw anything up to the gravity-spirit and he would always throw it back down. That means his experiment would be proven true 100 percent of the time. Must we believe in the gravity-spirit because physics is used to bolster his metaphysics?

Phenomena will require principia to interpret them.



Afterthought said:


> As a related question, what do you make of physics as searching for dynamics (as opposed to just kinematics), if anything? On the one hand, it seems the dynamics provide a metaphysics (or at least a search for metaphysics motivates finding them). On the other hand, it seems dynamics also only talk about how things work?



It is all much of a muchness. Systematic interpretation requires a system to process, sift, classify, synthesise, etc.

I don't believe there is any such thing as an objective materialist science. If thought is material it is as necessary as the thing that is thought about. If thought is immaterial then it is obvious that the exclusive consideration of matter is unscientific.


----------



## MW

C. Matthew McMahon said:


> First questions: I'm interested in the question of the "earth stopped" so everyone would turn into a "flying bullet" and spin off the planet problem.



I don't think that's a problem. That was simply an argument to show why we do not need heliocentric theories to interpret the Bible, and the kind of problems which might emerge if we started imposing heliocentric theories.

For myself I am content to observe that as God started relative motions He can as easily stop them without having to fit into any scientific model. But as a matter of systematic interpretation of the Bible, and allowing the Bible to speak for itself, we see miracles taking place within a worldview of geocentricity. As noted earlier, even if one regards the Bible as speaking poetically in this regard, he is still bound to a geocentric view for theological and moral reasons. The problem which emerges then, is, where is the physical sphere of time and space in which his theological and moral centrism finds expression?


----------



## Logan

Edward said:


> Seems to me that that would be exactly backwards. The centrifugal force should be pushing folks away from the planet, and stopping the spinning would cause folks to be pushed more firmly to the ground, not loosen them from it.



That's what I was going to say. All this talk of flying off into space was confusing me. Now it has me thinking about how much I would weigh if the earth wasn't spinning...

Edit: come to think of it, that might be an interesting test to see if the earth is spinning: weigh a known mass at the equator and the poles accounting for the obloid shape of earth. It ought to weigh less at the equator if it is. Of course not all geocentrists believe the earth isn't spinning...


----------



## MW

Douglas Padgett said:


> Another video (gif) from DSCOVR providing observable, testable, repeatable proof of heliocentrism.



"Proof" is obviously in the eye of the beholder. Perhaps you could let us know whether you agree with the literal statement that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is.


----------



## Douglas P.

Logan said:


> Edward said:
> 
> 
> 
> Seems to me that that would be exactly backwards. The centrifugal force should be pushing folks away from the planet, and stopping the spinning would cause folks to be pushed more firmly to the ground, not loosen them from it.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> That's what I was going to say. All this talk of flying off into space was confusing me. Now it has me thinking about how much I would weigh if the earth wasn't spinning...
> 
> Edit: come to think of it, that might be an interesting test to see if the earth is spinning: weigh a known mass at the equator and the poles accounting for the obloid shape of earth. It ought to weigh less at the equator if it is. Of course not all geocentrists believe the earth isn't spinning...
Click to expand...


You'd weigh about .5% more at the poles than on the equator once you account for the surface centrifugal force and equatorial bulge. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_of_Earth#Latitude


----------



## Afterthought

Douglas, Edward, and Logan are correct about the earth suddenly stopping its rotation. I confused a couple of different scenarios when I was posting.


----------



## lynnie

C. MM- 

_Second group of questions, are the other planets in our solar system, based on geocentrism, necessarily not spinning around, and not spinning around the sun? Or are they all spinning, and spinning around the sun and geocentrism says that only earth is not spinning and not rotating around the sun? Can we see other planets in other solar systems spinning? If they are spinning, and we can see that, and all the other planets in our solar system have a path around the sun, how would that whole model of our solar system impact a stationary earth? Would they in fact impact us at any time? Would the path the sun takes around the earth create a path for another planet to come close or hit out planet based on their spin? It would seem to me that the other 8 planets in our solar system with their wobbling paths around the sun, may come into exceedingly close view to our planet, or strike it, based on the manner the sun revolves around the earth, but the planets still revolving around the sun except for ours._

In the geocentric model which works perfectly, (as does the current heliocentric model- both predict eclipses, retrograde motion of mercury, enable a pre-computer pilot to fly as if the earth is fixed, etc) the other planets all orbit the sun, which orbits the earth daily. To some extent it is a pointless arguement in that neither side can prove anything as both models work perfectly. 

Like I said before, the true argument is with Einstein and the theory of relativity, and belief in the firmament/ether. Without relativity, using a classic physics model, the earth does not move towards a star at one speed and six months move away from it at a different speed. One would add and subtract the speed of
the earth to the velocity of light.

There is also the secondary subject of our region of space being smack in the center of the universe, whichever model you choose. Meg's list of quotes shows that many scientists admit this fits the evidence, but must be rejected on philosophical grounds.....obviously the earth could not possibly be so special they say.

A few other thoughts. Some people hold to a view of a firmament/ether that is extremely dense and bodies move in like a swimmer in water. Modern cosmology rejects the ether/firmament in rejecting geocentricity. If you do accept scripture on this it explains a lot but I don't have time to carefully to elaborate things that are better detailed by scientists out there. And the word firmament does not mean the sky and there is tons of exegesis on this and how the word is used elsewhere in the OT but I don't feel like looking for links on that either.

I read today about how with Hezekiah the sun's shadow moved backwards 10 steps. I know that some geocentrists do say that the earth has a very minimal rotation now they think came from an asteroid hit, or from the violent events of Noah when the fountains of the deep erupted. I wonder if Hezekiah experienced a whack from an asteroid that knocked the earth backwards a bit. Maybe that would have thrown up too much dust or water into the air to be a viable theory? Just speculating.


----------



## Megs

lynnie said:


> I read today about how with Hezekiah the sun's shadow moved backwards 10 steps. I know that some geocentrists do say that the earth has a very minimal rotation now they think came from an asteroid hit, or from the violent events of Noah when the fountains of the deep erupted. I wonder if Hezekiah experienced a whack from an asteroid that knocked the earth backwards a bit. Maybe that would have thrown up too much dust or water into the air to be a viable theory? Just speculating.



I don't know about Hezekiah, but I do know there is a theory that relates Joshua's long day to comet activity: 
http://s8int.com/page35.html

It seems like whenever this topic comes up on this board, the issue gets very complicated by all sorts of scientific questions, etc. It would be best, in my opinion, to parse the scriptures first and see if they definitively support only one view. Then we can ask how modern scientific theory relates that view. (Like how we start with the scriptures on creation and then look at evolutionary science's claims). If people browse the list of quotes I posted above, they will see that many scientists admit that geocentricity works as well as heliocentricity to explain things, that there might actually be an ether, that heliocentricity has been promoted for religious/philosophical reasons, etc. But the main question should be, what do the scriptures say?

Lynnie - thanks for looking at that quotes page I found. I found it very interesting.

Rev. Winzer - one of your statements might start making the rounds on Facebook. I noticed 6 people recently Facebooked it from one of my blogs FYI. (https://upongibeon.wordpress.com/2016/09/28/the-bible-systematically-presents-the-same-picture/)


----------



## alexandermsmith

MW said:


> alexandermsmith said:
> 
> 
> 
> I have to say that's a rather silly response. There are time-lapse videos taken from space which seem to show the Earth rotating.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Since you use the word "seem" in relation to the videos taken from space my response must have made some sense to you.
Click to expand...


I understood your response, I merely thought it was silly. I used the word "seem" because I don't know the science and in such instances it's better to be cautious in one's pronouncements. From a limited, layman's understanding of these things the idea that the Earth is still and the sun revolves around the Earth doesn't seem to add up. Those who have been in space and observed the Earth think it rotates. I'm sure they would have taken into account the fact that they, too, are moving.



MW said:


> alexandermsmith said:
> 
> 
> 
> However, what's the big deal? Why is this important?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The province of the Bible to speak on its own authority; the proper limitations of scientific inquiry; the inevitable religious presupposition of science and the intersection of science with metaphysics -- to name but a few matters of importance.
Click to expand...


I don't see how any of these things are threatened by heliocentrism. 
-The Bible nowhere says the Earth is the centre of the Universe; that it is still; that the Sun orbits the Earth. These things may be true, but the Bible does not claim them therefore its authority is not at stake.
-Therefore, if the Bible doesn't claim these things, Science has not breached its proper limits in claiming the contrary. Nor is it beyond the proper limits of Science to investigate the nature and working of the Universe. Of course there will be limits to this understanding, but the investigation itself is not unwarranted.
-I don't understand what you're saying with the third point. But clearly God's revelation takes precedence over scientific enquiry where they contradict. No-one has shown the contradiction here.

Considering the Earth was created first, it's likely that the Universe was created out from that point (starting at the centre and working one's way out being a logical thing to do). However, I don't think this necessitates that the Earth remain stationary and the Sun orbit the Earth. The Universe follows laws.


----------



## Douglas P.

MW said:


> "Proof" is obviously in the eye of the beholder. Perhaps you could let us know whether you agree with the literal statement that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is.



Matthew, I'm going to dodge the loaded question  and pose another question, which is; Are we the church, required to read statements such as "in six days the Lord made heaven and earth" literally. That is, are we required to read them as factual statements with regards to a modern scientific understanding of the world around us? The answer I would give is no, we are not.

I would argue that scripture never teaches, or corrects scientific understanding, instead, biblical writers simply assume the "scientific" worldview of the day. So, I would agree with you, lynnie, Megs, and other that the bible does have a geocentric worldview. But I would not say it strictly teaches a geocentric worldview, but instead _accommodates_ one. 

In fact, I think its very clear from both scripture and archaeological findings that the entirety of the ANE held to a flat earth geocentric model. (Here's a good primer on Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography for anyone interested). 

Passages like Dan. 4:10-11 make it very clear that the bible accommodated a flat earth. But I am unwilling to to go so far as to say that Scripture teaches these things.

Another example of accommodation would be a heart/kidney/entrails-centered view of thought and cognition. Versus like Neh. 7:5 and Ps. 16:7 were not taken by the original audience as merely figures of speech but instead would have been read quite literally.

I'd be curious to know if you (or others) are also a flat Earthers? Or if you also question/reject modern neuroscience and cognitive findings that the brain, not the heart/kidney/entrails function as the seat of thought?


----------



## Taylor

Douglas Padgett said:


> Matthew, I'm going to dodge the loaded question and pose another question, which is; Are we the church, required to read statements such as "in six days the Lord made heaven and earth" literally. That is, are we required to read them as factual statements with regards to a modern scientific understanding of the world around us? The answer I would give is no, we are not.
> 
> I would argue that scripture never teaches, or corrects scientific understanding, instead, biblical writers simply assume the "scientific" worldview of the day. So, I would agree with you, lynnie, Megs, and other that the bible does have a geocentric worldview. But I would not say it strictly teaches a geocentric worldview, but instead accommodates one.
> 
> In fact, I think its very clear from both scripture and archaeological findings that the entirety of the ANE held to a flat earth geocentric model. (Here's a good primer on Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography for anyone interested).
> 
> Passages like Dan. 4:10-11 make it very clear that the bible accommodated a flat earth. But I am unwilling to to go so far as to say that Scripture teaches these things.
> 
> Another example of accommodation would be a heart/kidney/entrails-centered view of thought and cognition. Versus like Neh. 7:5 and Ps. 16:7 were not taken by the original audience as merely figures of speech but instead would have been read quite literally.
> 
> I'd be curious to know if you (or others) are also a flat Earthers? Or if you also question/reject modern neuroscience and cognitive findings that the brain, not the heart/kidney/entrails function as the seat of thought?



This beautifully captures what I was trying to communicate a while back in this thread. 

Thanks you so much.


----------



## Reformed Thug Life

Not only is geocentrism a moot point biblically, it is also a moot point scientifically. One of the weird effects of an expanding universe is that an observer will always be the center of the universe from their reference frame. Imagine a balloon covered with dots and inflating that balloon. If you focus on one of those dots it will become the "center" with all other dots going away from that one central dot. Equally, you can choose any other dot, and it would still be the "center". It's weird for us, because we don't really understand space beyond three dimensions, but it checks out mathematically.


----------



## MW

alexandermsmith said:


> -The Bible nowhere says the Earth is the centre of the Universe;





alexandermsmith said:


> Considering the Earth was created first, it's likely that the Universe was created out from that point



You deny in the first statement what you affirm in the second. By affirming that the earth is privileged you have basically demolished the mediocrity principle by which heliocentrism is established.


----------



## MW

Douglas Padgett said:


> Are we the church, required to read statements such as "in six days the Lord made heaven and earth" literally. That is, are we required to read them as factual statements with regards to a modern scientific understanding of the world around us? The answer I would give is no, we are not.



I would like to know what biases are moving you to accept bare pictures as proof of phenomena which are beyond human perception. Do you believe in six day creation? Do you believe Genesis One literally describes the creation acts day by day? Do you believe the earth was created before the sun? What predisposes you to your view?



Douglas Padgett said:


> I would argue that scripture never teaches, or corrects scientific understanding, instead, biblical writers simply assume the "scientific" worldview of the day.



The apostle Paul did not assume the scientific worldview of the day when he taught the bodily resurrection of the dead. He was mocked. He gloried in the cross of Christ. And so must we. If one does not believe Scripture corrects the scientific understanding of the day one basically does not believe holy Scripture.



Douglas Padgett said:


> In fact, I think its very clear from both scripture and archaeological findings that the entirety of the ANE held to a flat earth geocentric model.



The Bible does not teach a flat earth. It maintains there is a circle of the earth and that the earth is suspended upon nothing. By your own evidence, then, you have no reason to conclude that the Bible simply accommodates the science of the day.



Douglas Padgett said:


> Passages like Dan. 4:10-11 make it very clear that the bible accommodated a flat earth.



Do you think everyone then believed that trees grow to heaven and to the end of the earth. Of course not. This is a dream of an heathen ruler. It should be interpreted accordingly.



Douglas Padgett said:


> Another example of accommodation would be a heart/kidney/entrails-centered view of thought and cognition. Versus like Neh. 7:5 and Ps. 16:7 were not taken by the original audience as merely figures of speech but instead would have been read quite literally.



Your interpretations of Scripture are ridiculous. Perhaps you could spend more time in the Scriptures before undertaking to correct them.



Douglas Padgett said:


> I'd be curious to know if you (or others) are also a flat Earthers? Or if you also question/reject modern neuroscience and cognitive findings that the brain, not the heart/kidney/entrails function as the seat of thought?



No, I don't accept your ridiculous interpretations of Scripture. I hold the holy Scripture in too high regard.


----------



## gordo

Douglas Padgett said:


> MW said:
> 
> 
> 
> "Proof" is obviously in the eye of the beholder. Perhaps you could let us know whether you agree with the literal statement that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Matthew, I'm going to dodge the loaded question  and pose another question, which is; Are we the church, required to read statements such as "in six days the Lord made heaven and earth" literally. That is, are we required to read them as factual statements with regards to a modern scientific understanding of the world around us? The answer I would give is no, we are not.
> 
> I would argue that scripture never teaches, or corrects scientific understanding, instead, biblical writers simply assume the "scientific" worldview of the day. So, I would agree with you, lynnie, Megs, and other that the bible does have a geocentric worldview. But I would not say it strictly teaches a geocentric worldview, but instead _accommodates_ one.
> 
> In fact, I think its very clear from both scripture and archaeological findings that the entirety of the ANE held to a flat earth geocentric model. (Here's a good primer on Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography for anyone interested).
> 
> Passages like Dan. 4:10-11 make it very clear that the bible accommodated a flat earth. But I am unwilling to to go so far as to say that Scripture teaches these things.
> 
> Another example of accommodation would be a heart/kidney/entrails-centered view of thought and cognition. Versus like Neh. 7:5 and Ps. 16:7 were not taken by the original audience as merely figures of speech but instead would have been read quite literally.
> 
> I'd be curious to know if you (or others) are also a flat Earthers? Or if you also question/reject modern neuroscience and cognitive findings that the brain, not the heart/kidney/entrails function as the seat of thought?
Click to expand...


Good post. Thank you for sharing. Very well thought out! 

Let us hope and pray no flat earthers wander these forums!


----------



## MW

Reformed Thug Life said:


> It's weird for us, because we don't really understand space beyond three dimensions, but it checks out mathematically.



And do you believe in an 11 dimension multiverse?


----------



## MW

Prov. 8:27, "When he prepared the heavens, I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of the depth:"

Job 38:4, "Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding."


----------



## Afterthought

MW said:


> Motion of what? Can you step into the same river twice? We come back to Heraclitus and Parmenides every time.
> 
> If one believed everything is caused by a spirit he could throw anything up to the gravity-spirit and he would always throw it back down. That means his experiment would be proven true 100 percent of the time. Must we believe in the gravity-spirit because physics is used to bolster his metaphysics?
> 
> Phenomena will require principia to interpret them.


I understand the Heraclitus vs Parmenides point. However, I am not seeing how it connects to determining the motion of the earth. Is your point that we cannot know what the earth is, according to an empirical method? If so, how does that make the earth's motion a matter of metaphysics? We do not need to know what something is (in its essence) to describe how it works?

That's a good point about a "gravity-spirit" (all the more so seeing how "modern science" has its own "gravity-spirit" of sorts), and I think I am almost tracking with what you are saying but not quite there yet. It is true that we need not believe all the metaphysics that physics is being used to bolster. However, are there not some parts of metaphysics that are inherently attached to the physics (e.g., one need not interpret space-time literally, but one needs to accept something of its metaphysics for it to work, e.g., that there are universal laws, that coordinate systems are artificial human constructions, that these laws do not depend on coordinate systems)? To use your example, a gravity-spirit is empirically undetectable, and we can come up with other explanations that do not require it. These other explanations have evidence to support them. There is no independent evidence of a gravity-spirit: neither can there be, since it is empirically undetectable. There is thus no reason from revelation, observation, or pure reason to believe in a gravity-spirit, so why would one believe this?

Regardless of this though (and this likely stems from my not seeing how earth's motion is metaphysical), I am not seeing the connection between the gravity-spirit example and determining whether the earth moves. Phenomena do require principia, but when one sees with one's own eyes (howbeit mediated by a satellite) that the earth rotates, it is kind of hard to see what other principia could make that an illusion of rotation, especially when the rotation agrees with other evidence already presented.



MW said:


> It is all much of a muchness. Systematic interpretation requires a system to process, sift, classify, synthesise, etc.
> 
> I don't believe there is any such thing as an objective materialist science. If thought is material it is as necessary as the thing that is thought about. If thought is immaterial then it is obvious that the exclusive consideration of matter is unscientific.


So you see no distinction between dynamics and kinematics? Or rather, you view dynamics as a systemized form of kinematics, and that none of the theoretical entities of the dynamics are real?


----------



## Pmoon

I don't know about 11 dimensions. But I do imagine God is perceived in ways that we can not fathom. We have 5 senses, and it's difficult for us to believe anything in existence being perceived by anything other than them. And how much greater is God (or perhaps even his creation) than our senses? Maybe I'm getting a bit off topic here, but I guess my point here is that I don't believe anything is wrong with simply saying "I don't know". That's not to say one can't know, and it's not meant as some cop out. But at the same time, there are things the Bible doesn't have to tell us. It doesn't have to tell us grass is green, or that you shouldn't look at the sun because we can simply observe these things and see for ourselves - which is where science can come in.


----------



## MW

Pmoon said:


> I guess my point here is that I don't believe anything is wrong with simply saying "I don't know".



It is one thing to say "I don't know" and not put forward any theory, and quite another to say "I don't know" whilst supporting a theory which contradicts what the Bible teaches us to know. The former is true modesty; the latter is false modesty.


----------



## MW

Afterthought said:


> I understand the Heraclitus vs Parmenides point. However, I am not seeing how it connects to determining the motion of the earth. Is your point that we cannot know what the earth is, according to an empirical method? If so, how does that make the earth's motion a matter of metaphysics? We do not need to know what something is (in its essence) to describe how it works?



From Hume forward secular science can find no epistemic basis for induction. The idea of describing things by their attributes comes from common sense realism's acceptance that revelation itself provides a realist foundation for nominal attributions. In other words, we could never understand things by their attributes unless we accepted the existence of One who has created all things, knows all things, and reveals to us what is necessary for us to know. If one denies creation and revelation one is left with the Heraclitus/Parmenides problem. And so far as induction is concerned, no merely human individual compasses past, present, and future, nor has the power to universally ascertain all observed instances.



Afterthought said:


> However, are there not some parts of metaphysics that are inherently attached to the physics (e.g., one need not interpret space-time literally, but one needs to accept something of its metaphysics for it to work, e.g., that there are universal laws, that coordinate systems are artificial human constructions, that these laws do not depend on coordinate systems)?



By calling them "laws" do you not require a law-giver and administrator? And if there is a Lawgiver, would not His model demand acceptance? It would be a strange thing for a person to advocate a prince's law for the purpose of robbing the prince of his right to design his palace as he sees fit.



Afterthought said:


> So you see no distinction between kinematics? Or rather, you view dynamics as a systemized form of kinematics, and that none of the theoretical entities of the dynamics are real?



As previously noted, I am not a scientist so I cannot comment on different theories. I am only looking at the metaphysical and religious commitments of naturalistic science. I read the philosophers of science in order to understand their priestcraft. So far as the theories themselves are concerned, there is so much unexplained matter that it is obvious to me there must be prior psychological commitments in order for one theory to "matter" more to a particular person.


----------



## alexandermsmith

MW said:


> alexandermsmith said:
> 
> 
> 
> -The Bible nowhere says the Earth is the centre of the Universe;
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> alexandermsmith said:
> 
> 
> 
> Considering the Earth was created first, it's likely that the Universe was created out from that point
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> You deny in the first statement what you affirm in the second. By affirming that the earth is privileged you have basically demolished the mediocrity principle by which heliocentrism is established.
Click to expand...


This sort of arguing is beneath you. The two statements you quote address completely different things. On the one hand I said that the Bible nowhere says the Earth is the centre of the Universe: it never makes this claim. On the other hand, one could reasonably infer from the account of Creation that the Earth is at the centre. I.e., we make that claim, speculating on the data we have; the Bible does not make that claim. It is silent on the issue. This is not going so far as to say that it is a good and necessary consequence from the Scriptural account that the Earth is at the centre; rather, the Scriptural account allows for that speculation whilst itself remaining silent on it.


----------



## gordo

I see no value in this argument at all. It has little to do with salvation or scriptural authority.


----------



## lynnie

Douglas-

I am not a flat earther. I am not aware of any influential published geocentrists who are. 

I have met one layman flat earther who got me to read some of their sites. Their model is fascinating, and to some extent well workable, but one must entirely discount NASA as a lying government conspiracy. They are worthy debaters though, not dopes, so I have some respect for them. 

My late father in law was a navigator in WW11. He ended up by chance ( ie sovereign God) in a bombing run with a high officer. On the way back England was so fogged in that you could not see anything. He sat in the plane with his slide rule and whatever you used for trigonometry, to measure the speed of the plane and distance on a curved surface. When they got to the airport he said "drop", the pilot dropped all the way down, and there right before him was the runway.

The officer was so impressed that he made Grandpop his personal navigator the rest of the war. It may have saved his life- some in his squadron were shot down over Germany. So I say to flat earthers that if the surface was not curved, maybe my hub would not be here. 

Going back to science, it seems to me that people here are still missing the point. Science proves geocentricity. In physics, the speed of a wave is added or subtracted to a moving object. This is why sound waves from ambulances sound higher and lower. This is how radar works. 

Science demonstrated that waves of light do not add and subtract the velocity of the earth as it spins around the sun supposedly. Science proved geocentricity.

Until Einstein and relativity. Now visible light does not behave like other waves, and suddenly heliocentricity is a workable model. 

Believe what you want, but stop trying to claim science proves your point. Unless you adopt relativity, it does not. All the other phenomena ( coriolis, equator bulge, pendulum, satellites) work perfectly with a rotating universe as well as a rotating earth. I am not going to even start to detail the flaws with relativity; I have mentioned worthy writers if you have a desire to read. Gerhardus Bouw was a major writer, not sure I mentioned him. 

It is not about models and phenomena. The science works for both of them. It is about relativity versus classical physics. In my opinion relativity requires more blind faith than a biblical model. 

Thug- we are not a dot on an expanding balloon. That is just one more crazy way to try and deny the evidence of earth/solar system at the center of the universe. The cosmic background radiation, the shells of pulsars and quasars and so many other things show us at the center. Read Sungenis for more.


----------



## gordo

lynnie said:


> My late father in law was a navigator in WW11. He ended up by chance ( ie sovereign God) in a bombing run with a high officer. On the way back England was so fogged in that you could not see anything. He sat in the plane with his slide rule and whatever you used for trigonometry, to measure the speed of the plane and distance on a curved surface. When they got to the airport he said "drop", the pilot dropped all the way down, and there right before him was the runway.



I doubt you will find a 'flat earther' pilot or sea captain.


----------



## Logan

lynnie said:


> This is how radar works.
> 
> Science demonstrated that waves of light do not add and subtract the velocity of the earth as it spins around the sun supposedly. Science proved geocentricity.



I'm a radar engineer and understand Doppler shifts. Yet each time you've made this statement I just don't get it. I mean, that's why we have "red" shifts and "blue" shifts. It refers to the Doppler effect (among other things) on light. So why do you say there is no shift? I already mentioned barycentric corrections.



lynnie said:


> Now visible light does not behave like other waves, and suddenly heliocentricity is a workable model.



I'd like to see your source for this too. I'm acquainted with the research of a few professors in Terahertz radiation (frequency above that of light) and I'm familiar with radiation below the frequency of light (my own work) and I'm wondering why you say it doesn't behave like other waves. All EM waves have "photons". So why would you say light has been proclaimed to have different behavior?

By the way, radar is affected by relativity too.


----------



## Douglas P.

MW said:


> I would like to know what biases are moving you to accept bare pictures as proof of phenomena which are beyond human perception.



In the case of these photos (http://epic.gsfc.nasa.gov/galleries/solar_eclipse/) logic and simple geometry tell me that the Earth is rotating. The DSCOVR Satellite sits in L1 between the Earth and Sun, also outside the orbit of the moon. Now, notice in the series of pictures the shadow from the moon is moving west to east(therefor the moon is orbiting the Earth counter-clockwise) however the light is moving from east to west. If the sun and moon both orbit the earth in a counter-clockwise motion as all geocentric models have it, then we would not have the light moving from east to west in the pictures. This series of photos can only be accounted for if you understand that the Earth is rotating counter-clockwise along with the moon and the Sun is standing still. These photos are not CGI, they are actual images taken from a satellite, the phenomena of the Earth rotating and orbiting the Sun is not outside of human perception.




MW said:


> Do you believe in six day creation? Do you believe Genesis One literally describes the creation acts day by day? Do you believe the earth was created before the sun? What predisposes you to your view?



I accept the current Big Bang model, which states that the universe began 13.8 billion years ago. I also accept findings of radiometric data that the Earth formed 4.5 billion years ago. Finally I accept the geochemical evidence that life on earth began approx. 3.8 billion years ago. So no, I would reject a literal-scientific understanding of six-day creation. 

I am not "predisposed" to this view. In fact, I was brought to Christ through the work of YECs, and was once a YEC myself. However, multiple events led to my change, but ultimate when it finally came to the point where I had to teach my children science I was force to re-evaluate my positions. After a hard look at both scripture and science, I could not longer, in good conscience, teach my kids that the Earth is young or any other of the many claims made by YECs.

What ultimately led me to the positions I hold is reason, logic, and the scientific method. Or what I would call the "hermeneutic of natural revelation" 



MW said:


> The apostle Paul did not assume the scientific worldview of the day when he taught the bodily resurrection of the dead. He was mocked. He gloried in the cross of Christ. And so must we. If one does not believe Scripture corrects the scientific understanding of the day one basically does not believe holy Scripture.



Couple of things on this point:

First, Paul, at least from my understanding, never argued that the bodily resurrection was anything but a supernatural event. So there would be no conflict between the modern and ancient "scientific" understanding of life and death. 

Second, the mockery (again I could be wrong here) was more on a theological level than a scientific level. I don't think the ancients had a hard time believing that someone _could_ miraculous come back to life. The stumbling stone wasn't, "Once the brain ceases to function, biological processes cannot start again".

Finally, I will concede that one who holds to a view like mine, that is a view of biblical accommodation, while still holding to inerrancy, must walk a tight line. But, it is, in my opinion, far more challenging to deny what is clearly perceived and reasoned from the cosmos around us, and that is that we live on a planet that is billions of years old, traveling around a sun in a galaxy that is billions of years older, and in a universe that began as nothing more than a singularity some 13.8 billion years ago.




MW said:


> The Bible does not teach a flat earth. It maintains there is a circle of the earth and that the earth is suspended upon nothing. By your own evidence, then, you have no reason to conclude that the Bible simply accommodates the science of the day.



I want to be clear, I never said the Bible teaches a flat earth, it accommodates one. The predominant if not exclusive world view of the day was a flat earth. From Babylonia to Egypt, all archaeological and historical evidence we have shows everyone thought the earth was flat, and there is no reason to believe that the Israelites would have thought differently.

Although there are many examples of Scripture accomidating a flat earth, none seem more striking to me than Ps. 19:1-6



> The Law of the LORD Is Perfect
> 
> To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.
> 
> The heavens declare the glory of God,
> and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
> Day to day pours out speech,
> and night to night reveals knowledge.
> There is no speech, nor are there words,
> whose voice is not heard.
> Their voice goes out through all the earth,
> and their words to the end of the world.
> In them he has set a tent for the sun,
> which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber,
> and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy.
> Its rising is from the end of the heavens,
> and its circuit to the end of them,
> and there is nothing hidden from its heat.
> 
> 
> (Psalm 19:1-6 ESV)




Although poetic, and beautiful, there is no way to understand the idea of a tent for the sun, rising from one end to the other with its heat not hidden from anything unless you have a flat earth with a firmament dome above.

Furthermore, the circle must be understood as a disk of sort not a sphere. If it was a sphere, you could not say, as Ps. 136:6 says:



> to him who *spread out the earth above the waters*,
> for his steadfast love endures forever;
> 
> (Psalm 136:6 ESV)



How do you spread out a sphere? And what waters are this sphere above? The original author and any of its original readers would have instantly understood what is being talked about, and that's because they had a flat earth cosmology.




MW said:


> Do you think everyone then believed that trees grow to heaven and to the end of the earth. Of course not. This is a dream of an heathen ruler. It should be interpreted accordingly.



First, this dream was given to Nebuchadnezzar by God, interpreted by Daniel, and recorded in Scripture. Second, the tree itself was the figurative aspect in the passage. The fact that everyone could see it was the literal import into the image. The idea that everyone could see something on earth only makes sense if you already have a flat earth cosmology. The original audience would have understood this. 




MW said:


> Your interpretations of Scripture are ridiculous. Perhaps you could spend more time in the Scriptures before undertaking to correct them.



Matthew, if you're going to claim they are ridiculous, could you at least provide some evidence to the contrary? The author and original readers would have had no clue that the brain functions as the seat of thought and cognition. They would have took every reference to heart/kidney/entrails quite literally. How else would you interpret Neh. 7:5?



MW said:


> I hold the holy Scripture in too high regard.



I too hold high regard for Scripture, but I hold an equally high regard for creation, and they are both revelation from God.


----------



## MW

alexandermsmith said:


> This sort of arguing is beneath you. The two statements you quote address completely different things. On the one hand I said that the Bible nowhere says the Earth is the centre of the Universe: it never makes this claim. On the other hand, one could reasonably infer from the account of Creation that the Earth is at the centre. I.e., we make that claim, speculating on the data we have; the Bible does not make that claim. It is silent on the issue. This is not going so far as to say that it is a good and necessary consequence from the Scriptural account that the Earth is at the centre; rather, the Scriptural account allows for that speculation whilst itself remaining silent on it.



The "data" says God created the heaven and the earth. The "data" says the earth functioned for three days without the sun. The "data" says that God causes the sun to move and to stop. The "data" says earth is a privileged place. The "data" says man was given dominion at the creation and Christ as the Son of man is Lord over all things in heaven and earth. The "data" says that man is redeemed by the Son of God assuming human nature. The "data" denies the fundamental principle of heliocentrism, which is the mediocrity principle. Is this beneath me? I am quite content to become a fool in men's eyes in order to be made wise by the Scriptures.


----------



## MW

Douglas Padgett said:


> I accept the current Big Bang model, which states that the universe began 13.8 billion years ago. I also accept findings of radiometric data that the Earth formed 4.5 billion years ago. Finally I accept the geochemical evidence that life on earth began approx. 3.8 billion years ago. So no, I would reject a literal-scientific understanding of six-day creation.
> 
> I am not "predisposed" to this view.



You might not be predisposed to this view, but this view is predisposing the way you look at a picture as conclusive proof of something you already believe.

When you reject the Bible you basically reject the religious framework within which you can properly understand anything about our world and human life on it, and you opt for the narrative of a false religion in its place.



Douglas Padgett said:


> Finally, I will concede that one who holds to a view like mine, that is a view of biblical accommodation, while still holding to inerrancy, must walk a tight line.



You might imagine you are walking a tight line, but from where I stand you have yielded the narrative of life to another religion. As Exod. 15 teaches God has triumphed gloriously. His narrative of life is to be chosen over the narrative of the Egyptian gods.



Douglas Padgett said:


> Although poetic, and beautiful, there is no way to understand the idea of a tent for the sun, rising from one end to the other with its heat not hidden from anything unless you have a flat earth with a firmament dome above.



Calvin on this place has grasped the meaning of the passage and might help you to escape from the bad influence of a false religion:



> he shows us the sun as placed in the highest rank, because in his wonderful brightness the majesty of God displays itself more magnificently than in all the rest. The other planets, it is true, have also their motions, and as it were the appointed places within which they run their race, and the firmament, by its own revolution, draws with it all the fixed stars, but it would have been lost time for David to have attempted to teach the secrets of astronomy to the rude and unlearned; and therefore he reckoned it sufficient to speak in a homely style, that he might reprove the whole world of ingratitude, if, in beholding the sun, they are not taught the fear and the knowledge of God. This, then, is the reason why he says that a tent or pavilion has been erected for the sun, and also why he says, that he goes forth from one end of the heaven, and quickly passes to the other and opposite end. He does not here discourse scientifically (as he might have done, had he spoken among philosophers) concerning the entire revolution which the sun performs, but, accommodating himself to the rudest and dullest, he confines himself to the ordinary appearances presented to the eye, and, for this reason, he does not speak of the other half of the sun’s course, which does not appear in our hemisphere. He proposes to us three things to be considered in the sun, — the splendor and excellency of his forms — the swiftness with which he runs his course, — and the astonishing power of his heat.





Douglas Padgett said:


> The idea that everyone could see something on earth only makes sense if you already have a flat earth cosmology.



The tree symbolises the king's dominion. The "sight" of the tree is symbolic for the broad recognition of that dominion. It is not literal.



Douglas Padgett said:


> How else would you interpret Neh. 7:5?



"Heart" in the Hebrew Old Testament is the psychological centre of the person.


----------



## Tyrese

MW said:


> alexandermsmith said:
> 
> 
> 
> This sort of arguing is beneath you. The two statements you quote address completely different things. On the one hand I said that the Bible nowhere says the Earth is the centre of the Universe: it never makes this claim. On the other hand, one could reasonably infer from the account of Creation that the Earth is at the centre. I.e., we make that claim, speculating on the data we have; the Bible does not make that claim. It is silent on the issue. This is not going so far as to say that it is a good and necessary consequence from the Scriptural account that the Earth is at the centre; rather, the Scriptural account allows for that speculation whilst itself remaining silent on it.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The "data" says God created the heaven and the earth. The "data" says the earth functioned for three days without the sun. The "data" says that God causes the sun to move and to stop. The "data" says earth is a privileged place. The "data" says man was given dominion at the creation and Christ as the Son of man is Lord over all things in heaven and earth. The "data" says that man is redeemed by the Son of God assuming human nature. The "data" denies the fundamental principle of heliocentrism, which is the mediocrity principle. Is this beneath me? I am quite content to become a fool in men's eyes in order to be made wise by the Scriptures.
Click to expand...


Absolutely!


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## Bill The Baptist

it seems that some of us have been convinced by the seeming success of current scientific models, however history demonstrates that many "successful" models have later been proven not to actually correspond to reality despite their "success." This paper is a bit long, but worth the read for those interested. http://philosophy.hku.hk/courses/dm/phil2130/AConfutationOfConvergentRealism2_Laudan.pdf


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## lynnie

Logan- I don't want to cop out on your legitimate questions. I used to spend hours on this stuff linking articles and You tube videos. There is just so much out there now to wade through. Maybe on other older threads here you can find links. 

This is a starting point: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson–Morley_experiment

While M-M were trying to measure the ether, their zero value can equally prove the presence of ether and a motionless earth. ( ether being the firmament in many if not all geocentric models).

Sagnac is another guy to look up. 

I just don't know how good the many many you tube videos are and I see some are on flat earth sites, and I hate to see people getting turned off because of that. 

Major good authors to look for are Gerhardus Bouw, Martin Selbrede, Robert Sungenis ( good for laymen) and Malcolm Bowden on youtube. There may be others but I haven't kept up in recent years. 

Some subjects besides M-M are Sagnac, Airy's failure. This is a very basic into page: http://mbowden.info/Geocexpl.htm 

Barry Setterfield has papers on red shift. 

Sorry to not do more. At this point I tend to assume people are so closed to geocentricity that isn't worth my efforts looking for helpful links. The links are out there though. Sungenis' book Geocentricity 101 is worth the money.

Every argument people bring up has a response from the science professor geocentrists, I just don't feel like spending days in books trying to explain it here. And the debunking of relativity is out there too.


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## lynnie

By the way Douglas......your old earth billions of years rely on a constant speed of light model. The Barry Setterfield model- based on actual measurements going back 400 years- of a decreasing speed of light on a parabolic curve, give young earth figures to starlight. Termed CDK ( speed of light decay).

This involves a biblical understanding that at the fall, when the creation was cursed- really and truly cursed- there were massive changes in so many ways including the speed of light and other physical constants. Creation truly fell. Too much to get into, but I throw out Setterfield and CDK for anybody interested.


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## alexandermsmith

MW said:


> alexandermsmith said:
> 
> 
> 
> This sort of arguing is beneath you. The two statements you quote address completely different things. On the one hand I said that the Bible nowhere says the Earth is the centre of the Universe: it never makes this claim. On the other hand, one could reasonably infer from the account of Creation that the Earth is at the centre. I.e., we make that claim, speculating on the data we have; the Bible does not make that claim. It is silent on the issue. This is not going so far as to say that it is a good and necessary consequence from the Scriptural account that the Earth is at the centre; rather, the Scriptural account allows for that speculation whilst itself remaining silent on it.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The "data" says God created the heaven and the earth. The "data" says the earth functioned for three days without the sun. The "data" says that God causes the sun to move and to stop. The "data" says earth is a privileged place. The "data" says man was given dominion at the creation and Christ as the Son of man is Lord over all things in heaven and earth. The "data" says that man is redeemed by the Son of God assuming human nature. The "data" denies the fundamental principle of heliocentrism, which is the mediocrity principle. Is this beneath me? I am quite content to become a fool in men's eyes in order to be made wise by the Scriptures.
Click to expand...


No, what is beneath you is taking two separate points which I made and falsely pitting them against each other as if they were contradictory, when they were actually addressing different things. And let's not indulge in the over-heated rhetoric of being "a fool in men's eyes in order to be made wise by the Scriptures"- these things are not on the line in this discussion. You and others arguing for your position have categorically failed to show how salvation, Christ's Lordship and the authority of Scripture are undermined by a heliocentric viewpoint. The account of Creation is not intended as a scientific explanation for how the world or universe operate. Vegetation appeared on the earth before the sun was created, and yet we know that the sun plays an integral role in the life of vegetation. God is the cause and sustainer of all life on earth, of course this is true; but He also uses means for the ordinary operation of creation. So the fact that the sun was created a few days after the earth does not require that the sun revolves around the earth.

We measure time, days, months, seasons by the position of the earth to the sun and moon. Does that mean there were no days before they were created? What would that mean for six-day creation? And yet we have Scripture telling us that days existed before the sun and moon existed, yet it would be nonsense for us, now, to talk about days and years and seasons without reference to the sun and the moon. Which is all to say that when we try to make Scripture prove more than it does; to turn it into a science textbook, we end up looking rather silly.

The Bibles tells us that Creation took six days: Genesis tells us this, Moses tells us this, Jesus confirms this. The use of "day" in these contexts clearly refers to the 24 hour day. But as to the movement of the earth, the sun, moon, solar system: Scripture is silent. Joshua perceived the sun to stand still because from his perspective- here on earth- it did. From our perspective on earth the sun and moon do move. Something similar happens when Scripture talks about God repenting, or being angry: such things are, properly, not applicable to God and yet they are used because from our perspective that is how we experience the acts of God being referred to. I grant, of course, that there is a difference between a description of an historical event and a psychological understanding of an event (e.g. describing God as repenting of creating Man), but in both cases if we were to take the Biblical description of what's happening as it's literally written (the sun stopping; God repenting) we would reach a wrong conclusion. 

When Scripture tells us something plainly (e.g. the world was created in six days) we must believe it; when Scripture remains silent on something, we must not be dogmatic. If it turns out I'm wrong- that the earth is still and the sun does revolve around the earth- then that would be fine. My salvation is not dependent on either theory.


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## Logan

lynnie said:


> This is a starting point: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mi...ley_experiment
> 
> While M-M were trying to measure the ether, their zero value can equally prove the presence of ether and a motionless earth. ( ether being the firmament in many if not all geocentric models).



I'm familiar with the Michelson–Morley experiment and I find it odd that anyone would use it to prove a motionless earth. You can't look at it in isolation from the Fizeau experiment---Michelson and Morley certainly didn't. 

The other site you linked to mentions the Sagnac effect as support. Actually, the Sagnac experiment provided conflicting results for the aether theory too. Yet this site is perfectly happy to pick one piece of the M-M experiment and one of the Sagnac and use both to support what he wants. That's either ignorant, or dishonest. The thing is, there wasn't just one experiment here, or even two, or three. There were dozens. Everyone was trying to figure out this "aether" experimentally, and they got conflicting results. Stationary or moving earth model, it was puzzling. Thus the need for an alternative theory.

And that's the problem I've seen with all the geocentric articles you'd linked to in the past: selective picking of _pieces_ of experiments to support their hypothesis while ignoring those that conflict with it. That's supporting an agenda, not truth. Sagnac's experiment doesn't demolish relativity as the article says, actually Sagnac himself concluded "the speed of light is independent of the speed of the source" which uh, sounds a lot like relativity! Stuff like these articles sound convincing until you realize they aren't telling the whole truth.


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## Taylor

alexandermsmith said:


> You and others arguing for your position have categorically failed to show how salvation, Christ's Lordship and the authority of Scripture are undermined by a heliocentric viewpoint.



Thank you.


----------



## lynnie

Logan- let me reiterate. Both models work. Both models give accurate results for many phenomena. In that sense, some experiments prove both. What you claim geos do is the same thing helios do. 

Th greatness of Einstein is universally admitted to be that he was able to explain Michaelson Morley and others, whose extrapolated results show an earth at rest. They were trying to measure ether speed, but the extrapolations are there. Consequently the need for relativity theory. As I keep saying, the debate is really about relativity. Heliocentricity needs and must rely on relativity theory; geocentricity relies on classical physics and how waves of light behave. You mentioned it yourself in the Sagnac quote above. Either the earth is motionless, or relativity is correct. 

I feel like this is trying to explain limited atonement. I've read the works on it, I believe it, I wrestled it through and read the evidence and formed a conclusion, but rather than trying to explain it to a debater I want them to read some better things about it, better than I can explain it myself without hours and days of refreshing myself on it, especially the flaws with Einstein's relativity. If you ever want to pursue it, Sungenis might be the best start.


----------



## Logan

lynnie said:


> Logan- let me reiterate. Both models work. Both models give accurate results for many phenomena. In that sense, some experiments prove both. What you claim geos do is the same thing helios do.
> 
> Th greatness of Einstein is universally admitted to be that he was able to explain Michaelson Morley and others, whose extrapolated results show an earth at rest. They were trying to measure ether speed, but the extrapolations are there. Consequently the need for relativity theory. As I keep saying, the debate is really about relativity. Heliocentricity needs and must rely on relativity theory; geocentricity relies on classical physics and how waves of light behave. You mentioned it yourself in the Sagnac quote above. Either the earth is motionless, or relativity is correct.



Both models work mathematically as far as coordinate systems go. The geocentric model does not work physically unless you reject almost everything out there on space and EM. And no, the experiments do not prove both. 

I'm talking about aether vs relativity and neither really has anything to do with whether the earth is stationary. Which was not the point of the M-M experiment and to say it showed that is dishonest. And you again seem to be under the erroneous assumption that light waves are somehow different from EM waves. All the stuff I have ever seen from Sungenis is confirmation bias at its finest. 

I know this sounds harsh but I'm just bothered by these unsubstantiated sweeping claims that apparently come from much misinformation. But which are believed because they support a presupposed position, no matter how biased or poorly researched the authors. Why trust a RC apologist over everyone else when it comes to scientific matters? If it is so irrefutable then why do people like me who understand the technical details of what he is saying, find it so unconvincing? Because we're indoctrinated or because we understand the material?


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## Douglas P.

MW said:


> Calvin on this place has grasped the meaning of the passage and might help you to escape from the bad influence of a false religion:
> 
> he shows us the sun as placed in the highest rank, because in his wonderful brightness the majesty of God displays itself more magnificently than in all the rest. The other planets, it is true, have also their motions, and as it were the appointed places within which they run their race, and the firmament, by its own revolution, draws with it all the fixed stars, *but it would have been lost time for David to have attempted to teach the secrets of astronomy to the rude and unlearned; and therefore he reckoned it sufficient to speak in a homely style,* that he might reprove the whole world of ingratitude, if, in beholding the sun, they are not taught the fear and the knowledge of God. This, then, is the reason why he says that a tent or pavilion has been erected for the sun, and also why he says, that he goes forth from one end of the heaven, and quickly passes to the other and opposite end. *He does not here discourse scientifically (as he might have done, had he spoken among philosophers) concerning the entire revolution which the sun performs, but, accommodating himself to the rudest and dullest, he confines himself to the ordinary appearances presented to the eye, and, for this reason, he does not speak of the other half of the sun’s course, which does not appear in our hemisphere.* He proposes to us three things to be considered in the sun, — the splendor and excellency of his forms — the swiftness with which he runs his course, — and the astonishing power of his heat.



This is actually an amazing quote. Obviously I would disagree with his affirmation of the firmament being some sort of ether, but other than that, Calvin's argument is essentially what I have been trying to argue. He even uses the word accommodate!


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## lynnie

Logan-

Here is a link to a Time Magazine Person of the Century article. ( that person was Einstein). They are heliocentric and pro modern cosmology and relativity. 

This article is by Stephen Hawking. Not Rev Winzer!


http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/time/1999/12/27/relativity.html

_You would expect light to travel at a fixed speed through the ether. So if you were traveling in the same direction as the light, you would expect that its speed would appear to be lower, and if you were traveling in the opposite direction to the light, that its speed would appear to be higher. Yet a series of experiments failed to find any evidence for differences in speed due to motion through the ether.

The most careful and accurate of these experiments was carried out by Albert Michelson and Edward Morley at the Case Institute in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1887. They compared the speed of light in two beams at right angles to each other. As the earth rotates on its axis and orbits the sun, they reasoned, it will move through the ether, and the speed of light in these two beams should diverge. But Michelson and Morley found no daily or yearly differences between the two beams of light. It was as if light always traveled at the same speed relative to you, no matter how you were moving._

Let me emphasize this: *As the earth rotates on its axis and orbits the sun, they reasoned, it will move through the ether, and the speed of light in these two beams should diverge. But Michelson and Morley found no daily or yearly differences between the two beams of light.*

Ok, now people used to believe in the ether, a medium in which starlight travels. This is the geocentric firmament in which the heavenly bodies are placed. 

The obvious conclusion was that the earth is motionless. If you can't measure the light coming from stars during a yearly revolution, the earth IS NOT REVOLVING. 

This stumped science for decades, because they knew the earth really was rotating and revolving....even though geocentric models work perfectly, they were rejected on philosophical grounds. 

So Einstein decided the concept of an ether was unnecessary. No firmament in which heavenly bodies exist. And.....

_In particular, observers should all measure the same speed for light, no matter how they were moving.

This required abandoning the idea that there is a universal quantity called time that all clocks measure. _

.....
_
Although the theory of relativity fit well with the laws that govern electricity and magnetism, it wasn't compatible with Newton's law of gravity.....(which) also required the Absolute or Universal Time that relativity had abolished in favor of personal or relativistic time._

_
On his return to Zurich in 1912 Einstein had a brainstorm. He realized that the equivalence of gravity and acceleration could work if there was some give-and-take in the geometry of reality. What if space-time--an entity Einstein invented to incorporate the three familiar dimensions of space with a fourth dimension, time--was curved, and not flat, as had been assumed?_

OK Logan. We now dismiss Newton, absolute time, the laws of physics for how wave speeds are measured, and our 3D concept of space itself. 

This article will assure you that science proved Einstein. If I wanted to bother to dig out books and articles by genius geocentrists I could explain why it proved nothing of the sort.But I am not going to bother. I spent a summer of my life reading everything I could get my hands on and the arguments on both sides, and I ended up rejecting relativity in favor of Newton. I am not spending days on this thread 

I will say this again. Both models work. However, measuring the earth moving towards a star in October and away from the star six months later, the classic laws of science show a motionless earth. Or, you must adopt relativiiy, and throw out 3D space and absolute time. It is one or the other.

Dude, I was a college science grad with honors and I started my Christian life with a billions of year old earth, and a telescope on the roof looking at the moons of Jupiter with basic relativity drilled into my liberal brain. It wasn't easy to wade through this and realize what a leap of faith Einstein was. Once I read through the geocentric science, I was convinced. But I can't do that for you.

I don't see it as a salvation issue, but for me it was a marvelous inerrancy subject. The firmament, geocentricity, a fall where creation really fell, including light speed and the elements and all sorts of things. Not just our free will fell, but all of creation fell. 

Nice dialoguing, and like I said, your questions are legitimate and the replies are out there. But I am not going to be the one to make them, it is just too time consuming. If you do read stupid stuff, that might be because some of the newer geocentric sites are stupid. I could say the same thing for some of the newer Calvinist sites as well. Read the older wiser guys on any subject and be choosy on the internet.


----------



## Logan

Lynnie, thanks for your time. I'm not going to reply further. Let me say though that I still don't see any substantiation for claims that there is no Doppler shift every 6 months around the sun (there is) or that relativity says that light behaves differently from all other EM waves (not true), or that you understand what the M-M experiment was all about. You say I can read geocentrists on it, but I don't really feel compelled to chase changing claims made by a fringe group.

Once again, the M-M experiment showed a null result. The reason this was surprising was NOT because it showed a stationary earth (as geocentrists like to interpret) but because it showed that the motion of the earth relative to the aether, was zero. The conclusion was that this showed either that the earth and aether both were motionless, or that both moved at the same rate (complete aether dragging). The _surprising_ thing was not that this showed zero relative motion between the two (the model had already been proposed which would have explained this) but that this CONFLICTED with other experiments that seemed to show there WAS aether motion (see Fizeau's experiments, which Michelson and Morley replicated). The geocentrists can't have it both ways: if they are going to stick with aether (and use the M-M to prove a stationary earth) then they have to explain why the aether also seems to have motion at the same time. They can't pick and choose experiments to support their beliefs, especially ones which weren't designed to prove what they want them to (i.e., it wasn't intended to show earth's motion, but earth's motion relative to the aether, which has its own inherent assumptions).

Maybe relativity has its problems, I don't know, I admit I'm not an expert in it. But those problems would seem to be nothing compared to the aether model. The former is simple, works, and has predictive power. The latter is none of those, is formed of contradictions, and has to be altered after the fact to fit observations. This model is forever chasing its tail trying to modify itself as fast as it can to explain away what it can't predict.

No, I don't consider this an issue as important as salvation either, and I'm just going to leave it there. I'm glad you were a college science grad with honors.


----------



## Afterthought

MW said:


> From Hume forward secular science can find no epistemic basis for induction. The idea of describing things by their attributes comes from common sense realism's acceptance that revelation itself provides a realist foundation for nominal attributions. In other words, we could never understand things by their attributes unless we accepted the existence of One who has created all things, knows all things, and reveals to us what is necessary for us to know. If one denies creation and revelation one is left with the Heraclitus/Parmenides problem. And so far as induction is concerned, no merely human individual compasses past, present, and future, nor has the power to universally ascertain all observed instances.


Sorry, our discussion probably got lost somewhat due to time and how many people you are conversing with at once: I am not talking any more about materialist science or physics used by materialists to further their agendas. We had agreed that their views were not inherent in the physics, unless one chose to interpret the physics in a particular way. I am trying to think about science at its best. At its best, i.e., as conducted by one who affirms creation and revelation and acknowledges the limitations of induction (hence, such a person can understand things by their attributes), why is earth's motion or lack thereof an inquiry of metaphysics, rather than physics? We do not need to understand the earth in its essence in order to determine that, by its attributes, it is moving? This is merely determining how things work, rather than what they are?



MW said:


> By calling them "laws" do you not require a law-giver and administrator? And if there is a Lawgiver, would not His model demand acceptance? It would be a strange thing for a person to advocate a prince's law for the purpose of robbing the prince of his right to design his palace as he sees fit.


Perhaps this is a good point to start looking at the other thing I was interested in besides dynamics vs kinematics: What exactly does this model demand with respect to this issue? E.g., I can see exegesis for the sun moving when one is on earth; I can see an existence of a "firmament" (although what exactly that is seems to remain unrevealed); I can see a probable argument being made for the earth being at the "physical" center (not sure which center; what kind of center seems to be even harder to prove) of the universe (namely, the argument you worked through with Alexander), but I do not see how that is a necessary conclusion from the teaching of Scripture.



MW said:


> As previously noted, I am not a scientist so I cannot comment on different theories. I am only looking at the metaphysical and religious commitments of naturalistic science. I read the philosophers of science in order to understand their priestcraft. So far as the theories themselves are concerned, there is so much unexplained matter that it is obvious to me there must be prior psychological commitments in order for one theory to "matter" more to a particular person.


Fair enough. But dynamics vs kinematics is key to the discussion for those who reject relativity; hence, why the article in the OP focused on it. It would seem an absolute geocentrist would need to have some position on the matter in order to respond (all the major contemporary absolute geocentrists mentioned in this thread acknowledge the distinction and claim to have provided dynamics). When you say the theories leave much unexplained, are you talking about things like why mass causes spacetime to curve?


----------



## MW

alexandermsmith said:


> No, what is beneath you is taking two separate points which I made and falsely pitting them against each other as if they were contradictory, when they were actually addressing different things.



You were addressing similar things but did not seem to realise it; I attempted to show you the relation between the two. I didn't think it was beneath me to try to show you something like that. I am sorry you are unwilling to consider religious authority in scientific facts. The Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is.



alexandermsmith said:


> And let's not indulge in the over-heated rhetoric of being "a fool in men's eyes in order to be made wise by the Scriptures"- these things are not on the line in this discussion.



Your ignorance of a fact does not remove the presence of the fact.



alexandermsmith said:


> You and others arguing for your position have categorically failed to show how salvation, Christ's Lordship and the authority of Scripture are undermined by a heliocentric viewpoint.



Heliocentricity depends on the mediocrity principle. The mediocrity principle has no place in the biblical worldview. Heliocentricity gives it a place in natural science and science subsequently develops in opposition to the biblical worldview. But then men want us to understand the Bible itself in light of the mediocrity principle. That simply cannot and should not be tolerated. Where it is tolerated it undermines the real space and time in which the history of redemption takes place. Where the mediocrity principle is developed it squeezes the Christian religion into a small box of psychological need with little relevance to human life and society.



alexandermsmith said:


> The account of Creation is not intended as a scientific explanation for how the world or universe operate.



It was clearly intended to convey facts about the origins of our world. Insofar as it speaks, it speaks truly and reliably. If you cannot accept it as speaking truly and reliably you basically relegate it to a piece of propaganda.

As the rest of your post depends on a minimalist approach to biblical revelation I simply oppose it on the basis that the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is. "Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created." I quote an old theologian to make the point:

John Edwards, Brief remarks upon Mr. Whiston’s New theory of the earth (London: Printed for J. Robinson and J. Wyat, 1697), 23: "we have no reason to quit Moses for Copernicus, but to believe that the Earth, though so small a Globe, is of greater dignity than all the Celestial System, than all the Planetary and Fixed Lights. They that discourse otherwise betray a great Narrowness of Soul and Meanness of Spirit, because they set a value upon Space and Quantity, and dote upon Room and Magnitude, which are of no real worth and esteem: but at the same time they undervalue the Order and Appointment of the Sovereign Maker and Disposer of the World, who plainly shows us the Transcendent Dignity and Superlative Excellency of the Terrestrial System in his allotting more Time for the creating of that and what belongs to it than all the rest of the World, and would thereby convince us that the Earth, as small as it is, is the Noblest and Choicest Part of the World."


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## MW

Afterthought said:


> When you say the theories leave much unexplained, are you talking about things like why mass causes spacetime to curve?



No, I am speaking about the fact that they do not know "WHAT" they are talking about. They describe one thing by another thing, which is described by another thing, which is eventually described by the first thing. It is entirely relative; an human construct. They give names to things and require us to believe in them; then when we believe in them they dictate how we must live in relation to them. These things of which they speak are the creation of God. Human reason has its uses, but I am sure it has no basis for usurping the place of the One who creates, conserves, and consummates all things.

"But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee; and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee: Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee: and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee. Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the LORD hath wrought this? In whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind."


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## MW

Douglas Padgett said:


> This is actually an amazing quote. Obviously I would disagree with his affirmation of the firmament being some sort of ether, but other than that, Calvin's argument is essentially what I have been trying to argue. He even uses the word accommodate!



You have been trying to argue that the Scriptures reflect the ignorance of the ANE world. You have denied what Calvin said about David being able to instruct the philosophers on a scientific matter. You have claimed ridiculous things like the big bang, the earth is billions of years old, Nehemiah misunderstood the heart, and God gave Nebuchadnezzar a dream which thought of the earth as flat with a firmament dome. If Calvin has taught you to think more respectfully of the Word of God I am thankful; but your words to date in this thread demonstrate you have no affinity with the approach of Calvin to the scientific matters on which holy Scripture makes pronouncements.


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## alexandermsmith

MW said:


> You were addressing similar things but did not seem to realise it; I attempted to show you the relation between the two. I didn't think it was beneath me to try to show you something like that. I am sorry you are unwilling to consider religious authority in scientific facts. The Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is.



No, I dispute that the Bible requires me to hold to the geocentric view. If the Bible is silent on a scientific question I fail to see how I reject Biblical authority in agreeing with the scientific explanation. You can try to dazzle me with your use of obscure philosophical principles which most people don't bother themselves with, and quoting the same passages of Scripture again and again as if that proves a point in itself, but that doesn't change the fact that you have failed to give concrete Biblical evidence for your position. And frankly I think you've spent far too much of your precious time investigating this topic and certainly expended too much passion in defending your position.


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## Jeri Tanner

Alexander, have you read the whole thread? There was some discussion about why it's believed the Bible is not silent on the question of the sun's movement, and indeed that it makes a claim concerning it. Historically, the claim of heliocentrism, made widely known by Copernicus, was the first salvo fired against a claim of Scripture that hit its target in such a devastating way. (With claims of a billions of years old earth and evolution next up.) Until Copernicus' claims began to be widely taught, it was believed that the Bible spoke clearly on the movement of the sun, and that there was no hint of accommodation in the text to Israel's "ignorance" on the matter. Both Luther and Calvin were familiar with claims of heliocentricity, and both basically said that we must believe God's word and not the claims of philosophers (they understood that philosophy was the basis for speculation about the nature of these things; that understanding has been largely lost).

Reverend Winzer said this earlier: "Physics will provide theories for how things work; it does not tell us what things are. For the nature of things we need metaphysics. And that is why I am confident I can hold by the Bible's description of things as valid in its own right."

If you can wrap your head around the import of this statement on the dispute ongoing between the claims of Scripture and the contrary claims of modern (so-called) science, it will help you understand the use of philosophy in this matter. I can't keep up with all the ideas expressed in the conversation between Raymond and Rev. Winzer, but others reading, both now and in the future, will be able to, and it's an important conversation because philosophy is important. It's what's driving much of scientific theorizing.


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## Ask Mr. Religion

In the link below, the author, Sibley, quotes from McMullin, E., _Galileo on science and Scripture_; in: Machamer, P. (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Galileo, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 271–347, 2006...


“_Principle of Priority of Demonstration (PPD): _When there is a conflict between a proven truth about nature and a particular reading of Scripture, an alternative reading of Scripture must be sought.”

​“_Principle of Priority of Scripture (PPS): _Where there is an apparent conflict between a Scripture passage and an assertion about the natural world grounded on sense or reason, the literal reading of the Scripture passage should prevail as long as the latter assertion lacks demonstration.”

​The article dissects the two items related to Augustine's views and the Galileo's mistaken interpretations of Augustine, as well as offering suggestions to the believer when confronted with either scientific theories or _demonstrated_ facts. Note from the article that the word "_demonstration_" implies "_the true nature of things_", not mere theoretical constructs based upon experimentation.

Worth a full review:
http://creation.com/lessons-from-augustine


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## MW

alexandermsmith said:


> No, I dispute that the Bible requires me to hold to the geocentric view. If the Bible is silent on a scientific question I fail to see how I reject Biblical authority in agreeing with the scientific explanation. You can try to dazzle me with your use of obscure philosophical principles which most people don't bother themselves with, and quoting the same passages of Scripture again and again as if that proves a point in itself, but that doesn't change the fact that you have failed to give concrete Biblical evidence for your position. And frankly I think you've spent far too much of your precious time investigating this topic and certainly expended too much passion in defending your position.



The judgments of a man who cannot be bothered looking into the issues are no bother to me. As far as I can see no time is wasted on the Bible, its authority, or its interpretation. I am only sorry I don't have more time for it.


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## Afterthought

MW said:


> No, I am speaking about the fact that they do not know "WHAT" they are talking about. They describe one thing by another thing, which is described by another thing, which is eventually described by the first thing. It is entirely relative; an human construct. They give names to things and require us to believe in them; then when we believe in them they dictate how we must live in relation to them. These things of which they speak are the creation of God. Human reason has its uses, but I am sure it has no basis for usurping the place of the One who creates, conserves, and consummates all things.


Okay, I see. But now getting back to my earlier question: Why is it that science, at its best (as I defined in my previous post), cannot determine the motion of the earth? Why is motion a metaphysical issue? One does not need to know what a projectile is in its essence to know that it is moving; neither does one need to know what a merry-go-round is in its essence to determine that it is moving.


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## MW

Afterthought said:


> But now getting back to my earlier question: Why is it that science, at its best (as I defined in my previous post), cannot determine the motion of the earth?



Given that science at its best is relative, any description of motion is only going to be relative to the system in which it operates. Natural science has no theory of everything. If it had a theory of everything one would have to question the verifiability of it, since there would be nothing left by which to verify or falsify it. This allows the sciences to enjoy a relative degree of experimental confirmation, but when you start trying to unite them they conflict. Incidentally, this also has a providential benefit in that the hindrance of unification disturbs the momentum of Babel-builders.

Relatively, then, I think we can speak of the "laws" of motion, but these can provide no absolute or ultimate explanation. They are merely describing a mechanism according to a model which we accept. When our Lord stilled the wind and the waves, or walked on the water, He demonstrated that these are not absolute "laws." If they were absolute laws He would have been metaphysically constrained to obey them. If they were absolute "laws" miracles would be impossible because a miracle would commence a new chain of cause-effect and signal a revolution. They are more like "constants" under divine providence, and this means that the Almighty "is free to work without, above, and against them, at His pleasure."


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## Afterthought

MW said:


> Given that science at its best is relative, any description of motion is only going to be relative to the system in which it operates. Natural science has no theory of everything. If it had a theory of everything one would have to question the verifiability of it, since there would be nothing left by which to verify or falsify it. This allows the sciences to enjoy a relative degree of experimental confirmation, but when you start trying to unite them they conflict. Incidentally, this also has a providential benefit in that the hindrance of unification disturbs the momentum of Babel-builders.


Interesting points here and below. You are saying that science is intrinsically linked to a system, and this system is man-made, not reflecting reality in an absolute way? I'll need to think about this some more to see how this makes motion a matter of metaphysics, rather than physics or sense. I agree with your points about the nature of scientific law.

For now, while I think: 1) We have images from space of the earth rotating, and effectively images from space of the earth moving. Indeed, even in an absolute geocentrist system, the earth would move when viewed from other positions in space. But anyway, we can see these images with our own eyes (mediated by instrumentation). Does this give us warrant to believe that there must be a true sense in which the earth does move and does rotate?

2) What do you make of what I said concerning the Scriptural data on the matter? Did I miss anything? I suppose I missed that some geocentrists quote verses about the earth not being moved to say that the earth must absolutely be at rest, but I don't see how that is a necessary conclusion.

3) It seems your position is as follows. The Scriptures teach "geocentrism." By geocentrism, you mean at the very least that the sun moves when on earth (whatever that means) and that the earth is probably in the physical center of the universe (whatever that means), along with the earth being in a privileged position for the sake of man (although all the details of what "privileged" means is not given in the Scriptures). The concerns you have with "heliocentrism" or "acentrism" are a) a reading back into the Scriptures of what is not there. This is an exegetical matter. The Bible nowhere mentions the earth moving or rotating, so as a matter of strict exegesis, we cannot read our scientific conclusions back into the text. b) That there is a false religion surrounding the science of heliocentrism, and Christians should not adopt its metaphysics that conflicts with the Scriptures. c) That there is a tendency for those who adopt "heliocentrism" to view the Scripture authors as unlearned while we are enlightened, whereas we ought not to do so. d) That in order for the scientists looking at the data to conclude against absolute geocentrism (although perhaps not against a relative geocentrism? If science is relative and motion is metaphysical, it seems there could be a true sense in which the earth moves), they must adopt philosophical principles that conflict with the Scriptural worldview. So a Christian obviously cannot adopt these principles. e) Seeing how the sciences are relative anyway and meant to be descriptive, Christians can still nevertheless work with these models without attributing ultimate authority to their epistemic or metaphysical claims.


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## MW

Afterthought said:


> Does this give us warrant to believe that there must be a true sense in which the earth does move and does rotate?



We are back to sitting on the plane watching the land move under us. 

You could explain the earth moving in terms of reference frames and call this "a true sense." You could base a great many things on it and I would guess it would "work." God has blessed man with dominion in that way, and natural science is an act of dominion. But at the end of the day I would still come back to the basic restriction on human dominion stated in Psalm 115:16. Absolute and ultimate explanation belongs to the Lord.



Afterthought said:


> What do you make of what I said concerning the Scriptural data on the matter? Did I miss anything? I suppose I missed that some geocentrists quote verses about the earth not being moved to say that the earth must absolutely be at rest, but I don't see how that is a necessary conclusion.



Metaphysically the earth must move. There is only one unmoved Mover. If the earth were absolutely unmoved it would be unchangeable, and that is not possible for a creature. The fact it changes is evidence of motion. But the geo-static question concerns relative motion. If it is relative it is not going to address the issue from an ultimate standpoint; and given Mach's equivalence principle there doesn't seem to be a single answer at any rate.



Afterthought said:


> The concerns you have with "heliocentrism" or "acentrism"



Your five points are a good summary statement.


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## lynnie

Just to clarify, any images from space will appear identical if the universe is rotating and the earth fixed, or vice versa. You can't accept relativity and deny this fact. 

I have felt amazed to be honest that my quote from Hawking above- considered to be one of the greatest physicists ever, and an atheist- seems to have gone unnoticed here.

_You would expect light to travel at a fixed speed through the ether. So if you were traveling in the same direction as the light, you would expect that its speed would appear to be lower, and if you were traveling in the opposite direction to the light, that its speed would appear to be higher. Yet a series of experiments failed to find any evidence for differences in speed due to motion through the ether.......As the earth rotates on its axis and orbits the sun, they reasoned, it will move through the ether, and the speed of light in these two beams should diverge. But Michelson and Morley found no daily or yearly differences between the two beams of light. _

Ether here would be space. Even if you don't think space is full of ether ( the dense firmamant), here it is in black an white from Hawking: We cannot measure either rotation or revolution. (The earth does not move according to Newton). When we turn in one direction daily, or we hurl towards a star in October and away from it in April, we cannot measure the speed of the earth turning or revolving by adding and subtracting the measured speeds of light waves. If the earth rotates and revolves the waves of light are not behaving like any other wave behaves ( sound waves, radar waves). This is Hawking for crying out loud, not some internet flake on a dubious site.

We are forced into relativity and the abandonment of classical physics, absolute time, 3 dimensional space, and a host of other things you can read about in the better geocentric books. 

Rev Winzer, I admire your valiant effort to be true to scripture, but even if scripture was silent, the science remains. Either the earth is at rest, or classical physics must be discarded and relativity with all its problematic propositions adopted. I happen to think that takes far more blind faith than reading scripture at face value. The extent of deception first with Darwin and secondly with Einstein is mind boggling and I am sad to see my brethren so impacted by it.


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## Logan

lynnie said:


> here it is in black an white from Hawking: We cannot measure either rotation or revolution. (The earth does not move according to Newton).



That's not what Hawking is saying. He's saying they couldn't measure motion DUE TO AETHER. You are grossly and repeatedly misunderstanding this.



lynnie said:


> When we turn in one direction daily, or we hurl towards a star in October and away from it in April, we cannot measure the speed of the earth turning or revolving by adding and subtracting the measured speeds of light waves.



FALSE. FALSE. If these things can't be measured, then why are they being calculated and corrected for?



lynnie said:


> If the earth rotates and revolves the waves of light are not behaving like any other wave behaves ( sound waves, radar waves).


FALSE. I don't know where you get this claim. 

More links could be added nearly infinitely. Just stop making these claims, please.



lynnie said:


> Just to clarify, any images from space will appear identical if the universe is rotating and the earth fixed, or vice versa.



Now this I do agree with. I don't understand why people say images from space prove the earth is moving. It proves a relative difference in motion, whether that is from you going around the earth or the earth rotating (or both) is impossible to tell without an absolute frame of reference. Thus Winzer bringing up the airplane. From the airplane's perspective, it could very well be sitting still while the world and air rotate beneath it.


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## Afterthought

lynnie said:


> Just to clarify, any images from space will appear identical if the universe is rotating and the earth fixed, or vice versa. You can't accept relativity and deny this fact.





Logan said:


> Now this I do agree with. I don't understand why people say images from space prove the earth is moving. It proves a relative difference in motion, whether that is from you going around the earth or the earth rotating (or both) is impossible to tell without an absolute frame of reference. Thus Winzer bringing up the airplane. From the airplane's perspective, it could very well be sitting still while the world and air rotate beneath it.


The reason I, at least, bring it up is because I am exploring the implications of a realist epistemology in relation to the question, along with figuring out what the limits of absolute geocentrism are/where there is common ground, especially when relativity is denied (classical physics makes rotation an absolute motion; from what I understand, relativity makes the effects of rotation absolute unless we live in a Machian universe). I accept relativity's claims so far as motion is concerned.



lynnie said:


> I have felt amazed to be honest that my quote from Hawking above- considered to be one of the greatest physicists ever, and an atheist- seems to have gone unnoticed here.


For my own part, I only have so much time on my hands. For now, I prefer to spend it mostly on discussing metaphysics, exegesis, and clarifying what exactly is being proposed by "geocentrism" and let others who wish to do so (like Logan) respond to quotations and misinformation/misunderstandings.


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## lynnie

Logan- anything you think is a measurement applies to both systems equally. 

I feel like you just are not getting it and refusing to face facts. Every single thing you claim is an experimental proof of heliocentricity and annual revolution APPLIES EQUALLY to a stationary earth and rotating solar system and revolving universe. Everything.

With a couple exceptions ( Airy, Sagnac, Michaelson-Gale) which prove ether and geocentricity, every single thing you call proof of heliocentricity is equally proof of geocentricity. BOTH MODELS WORK. Why can't you get this?

Here are quotes from Einstein and his buddies. This is a philosophic discussion, not a scientific one. 

One retains classic physics and classic electricity, magnetism, gravity, time, 3D space, etc. (geocentricity). The other presupposes relativity and all of its implications. The discussion is not about any of the things you talk about measuring. They work for both (IF and only if relativity is true).

When we move to philosophy, we do get into scripture. Is there a firmament? Are the heavenly bodies placed in it? Why did everybody up to Einstein believe this? Relatvivity demands we eliminate the ether. Do you as a Christian really want to eliminate the firmament?

I feel like I am wasting my time and beating my head against a brick wall. Anybody who is willing to read the following quotes can draw their own conclusions. 

( by the way let me emphasize the last quote I put on here:


“Always the speed of light was precisely the same…Thus, failure [of Michelson-Morley] to observe different speeds of light at different times of the year suggested that the Earth must be ‘at rest’…It was therefore the ‘preferred’ frame for measuring absolute motion in space. Yet we have known since Galileo that the Earth is not the center of the universe. Why should it be at rest in space?”

- Adolf Baker, Modern Physics & Antiphysics, pp. 53-54 (Addison-Wesley, 1972).)

Can you see how this is philosophical, not scientific? 


************************* 

"The struggle, so violent in the early days of science, between the views of Ptolemy and Copernicus would then be quite meaningless. Either coordinate system could be used with equal justification. The two sentences, 'the sun is at rest and the earth moves,' or 'the sun moves and the earth is at rest,' would simply mean two different conventions concerning two different coordinate systems." -Albert Einstein

"We know that the difference between a heliocentric theory and a geocentric theory is one of relative motion only, and that such a difference has no physical significance." -Cosmologist Fred Hoyle


"...Thus we may return to Ptolemy's point of view of a 'motionless earth'...One has to show that the transformed metric can be regarded as produced according to Einstein's field equations, by distant rotating masses. This has been done by Thirring. He calculated a field due to a rotating, hollow, thick-walled sphere and proved that inside the cavity it behaved as though there were centrifugal and other inertial forces usually attributed to absolute space. Thus from Einstein's point of view, Ptolemy and Corpenicus are equally right."

- Max Born said in his famous book,"Einstein's Theory of Relativity", Dover Publications,1962, pgs 344 & 345


Already Newton viewed this as proof that the rotation of the earth had to be considered as “absolute,” and that the earth could not then be treated as the “resting frame” of the universe. Yet, as E. Mach has shown, this argument is not sound. One need not view the existence of such centrifugal forces as originating from the motion of the earth; one could just as well account for them as resulting from the average rotational effect of distant, detectable masses as evidenced in the vicinity of the earth, where the earth is treated as being at rest."

- Albert Einstein, 1914


The only question remains: are these forces by themselves enough to explain all translational motions that we observe from Earth, and can they reproduce the Tycho Brahe’s model? The discussion in this paper will show that the answer to this question is positive."

[...]

"But what is less known is that Tycho Brahe, Kepler’s tutor, developed a geostatic system that was just as accurate and elegant as Kepler’s: the Sun orbits around the Earth, and all the other planets orbit around the Sun. The trajectories are ellipses, and all the Kepler’s laws are satisfied."

[...]

"We can therefore conclude that the Sun’s orbit in the Earth’s pseudo-potential is equivalent to that observed from the Earth in the heliocentric system."

[...]

"If one could put the whole Universe in accelerated motion around the Earth, the pseudo-potential corresponding to pseudo-force (4.2) will immediately be generated. That same pseudo- potential then causes the Universe to stay in that very state of motion, without any need of exterior forces acting on it."

- 'Newton-Machian analysis of Neo-tychonian model of planetary motions' : Luka Popov, University of Zagreb, Department of Physics, Bijeniˇcka cesta 32, Zagreb, Croatia


"According to Einstein, the argument over whether the earth turns around or the heavens revolve around it, is seen to be no more than an argument over the choice of reference frames. There is no frame of reference from which an observer would not see the effects of the flattening of the poles. Thus in frame number 1 (the earth turns round while the sky is at rest), the centrifugal force is a consequence of the earth’s motion (uniform acceleration) relative to the heavens. This causes the flattening. In the latter frame, number 2 (the sky rotates and the earth stands still), the centrifugal force should be understood as being an effect of “the rotating heavens,” which is generating a gravitational field that causes the flattening of the poles. The two explanations are equivalent as there is equivalence between inertial and gravitational mass."

- “Einstein’s Ether: D. Rotational Motion of the Earth,” Galina Granek, Department of Philosophy, Haifa University, Mount Carmel, Haifa 31905, Israel, Apeiron, Vol. 8, No. 2, April 2001, p. 61.

"Before Copernicus, people thought that the earth stood still and that the heavens revolved about it once a day. Copernicus taught that "really" the earth revolves once a day, and the daily rotation of sun and stars is only "apparent"... But in the modern theory the question between Copernicus and his predecessors is merely one of convenience; all motion is relative, and there is no difference between the two... Astronomy is easier if we take the sun as fixed than if we take the earth... But to say more for Copernicus is to assume absolute motion, which is a fiction. It is a mere convention to take one body as at rest. All such conventions are equally legitimate, though not all are equally convenient." 

- Bertrand Russell "The ABC of Relativity [ London: Allen & Unwin, 1958, p.13].



"No physical experiment ever proved that the Earth actually is in motion."

- Lincoln Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein, 2nd rev. edition, 1957, p. 73.

“The data were almost unbelievable… There was only one other possible conclusion to draw — that the Earth was at rest....“This, of course, was preposterous”

- Bernard Jaffe, Michelson and the Speed of Light, 1960, p. 76

(b) "Airey's failure" (Reference - Proc. Roy. Soc. London v 20 p 35). Telescopes have to be very slightly tilted to get the starlight going down the axis of the tube because of the earth's "speed around the sun". Airey filled a telescope with water that greatly slowed down the speed of the light inside the telescope and found that he did not have to change the angle of the telescope. This showed that the starlight was already coming in at the correct angle so that no change was needed. This demonstrated that it was the stars moving relative to a stationary earth and not the fast orbiting earth moving relative to the comparatively stationary stars. If it was the telescope moving he would have had to change the angle.


After the Michelson-Morley experiment: 

“The problem which now faced science was considerable. For there seemed to be only three alternatives. The first was that the Earth was standing still, which meant scuttling the whole Copernican theory and was unthinkable. The second was that the ether was carried along by the earth in its passage through space…*The third solution was that the ether simply did not exist, which to many nineteenth century scientists was equivalent to scrapping current views of light, electricity, and magnetism, and starting again.”*( lynnie emphasis. This is scrapping the firmament (and classic Newtonian physics). Do you really want to deny the firmament of Genesis 1?)

- Ronald W. Clark, Einstein: The Life and Times, pp. 109-110, (World Publishing Co., 1971).


“Always the speed of light was precisely the same…Thus, failure [of Michelson-Morley] to observe different speeds of light at different times of the year suggested that the Earth must be ‘at rest’…It was therefore the ‘preferred’ frame for measuring absolute motion in space. Yet we have known since Galileo that the Earth is not the center of the universe. Why should it be at rest in space?”

- Adolf Baker, Modern Physics & Antiphysics, pp. 53-54 (Addison-Wesley, 1972).

http://christian-wilderness.forumvi.com/t569-geocentricity-ordered-quotes 

( and much more at link)


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## Logan

lynnie said:


> anything you think is a measurement applies to both systems equally.



I'll concede that, at least mathematically. I said that initially.



lynnie said:


> I feel like you just are not getting it and refusing to face facts. Every single thing you claim is an experimental proof of heliocentricity and annual revolution APPLIES EQUALLY to a stationary earth and rotating solar system and revolving universe. Everything.



Then you haven't been reading my posts. I have offered nothing in proof of heliocentricity. I could care less if you model the earth at the center or use the center of the galaxy. I'll concede that there can be a geocentric model where the entire universe moves away from the earth six months out of the year, and moves toward the earth six months out of the year. That is different, however, from what you claim, which is that there is no Doppler shift. That simply isn't true. I'm not refusing to face facts, I am just opposed to you making them up.

Ditto for your comment about light waves being different from every other EM wave. That's not a difference between a geocentric and heliocentric mathematical model, that's just plain false.

Let me put it this way: you say "we don't measure a Doppler shift one way for six months, and another way for the other six months". Yet we do. Therefore your statement is false no matter which model you are using.



lynnie said:


> I feel like I am wasting my time and beating my head against a brick wall.



Ditto. All I ask is that you stop making these claims which are _false for either frame of reference_ (e.g., there is no Doppler shift, light waves are different).


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## lynnie

There is a doppler (red) shift as stars and galaxies appear to move outwards in an expanding universe. ( I could go to Setterfield and the decreasing speed of light, but I have to get back to work.)

http://www.academia.edu/3189940/On_the_Geocentric_Nature_of_Hubbles_Law 

This is only one of endless secular articles you can find on a google search about this doppler red shift and how it appears to show a geocentric universe with a earth at the center of the big bang theory. I am not kidding, the sites are apparently endless, like the universe. However, they know that can't possibly be true, so they try to rescue Hubble without falling into geocentricity, and the twists and turns and hypotheses get more convoluted all the time. I can't copy and paste from this download, skim it yourself. The obvious answer to this doppler red shift is geocentricity.

That is not what I am referring to, please read my quotes. I am referring to the light measured from one star as we move towards it and away from it six months apart. The velocities of the light do not add and subtract. Stop saying I am making this up. This is not the doppler red shift of stars expanding. The lack of velocity "c" change, proving the earth at rest, became the impetus for relativity. Einstein's theory would not have been needed if early experiments measuring the light speed from a fixed star, with earth's rotational and annual revolution velocity, showed an increased and decreased speed. 

I beg you again- go to my link and read the quotes from Einstein and his buddies. Every measurement you refer to proves geocentricity as much as heliocentricity......unless one accepts a firmament and classic Newtonian physics, in which case only geocentricity can be proved.

Are you aware that with radar and sound we add and subtract the velocity of a moving object to the speed of the wave? With light in a vacume of space according to Einstein, we do not. It appears the same to all observers everywhere- the one on the earth moving towards the star today and the one in six months moving away from the star. This is relativity, sort of. Its gotten tweaked and sub tweaked and altered in various ways when it didn't fit classic electricity or magnetism or time or mass. But it is a simple explanation. 

Here, this is all about relativity, you will like it. It is your choice to accept time constants, mass constants, and constant wave behavior, or go with this. I choose Newton and a firmament/ether. My model works perfectly. Yours needs all sorts of counterinutitive and illogical assumptions, as well as rejection of the firmament. Suit yourself, but stop saying I make false claims. You do not know what you are talking about. 

Special Relativity

Another assumption on the laws of physics made by the SI definition of the metre is that the theory of relativity is correct. It is a basic postulate of the theory of relativity that the speed of light is the same in all inertial frames. This can be broken down into two parts:

The speed of light is independent of the motion of the observer.
The speed of light does not vary with time or place.
To state that the speed of light is independent of the velocity of the observer is very counterintuitive. Some people even refuse to accept this as a logically consistent possibility, but in 1905 Einstein was able to show that it is perfectly consistent if you are prepared to give up assumptions about the absolute nature of space and time.

In 1879 it was thought that light must propagate through a medium in space, the ether, just as sound propagates through the air and other substances. The two scientists Michelson and Morley set up an experiment to attempt to detect the ether, by observing relative changes in the speed of light as Earth changed its direction of travel relative to the sun during the year. To their surprise, they failed to detect any change in the speed of light.

Fitzgerald then suggested that this might be because the experimental apparatus contracted as it passed through the ether, in such a way as to countermand the attempt to detect the change in velocity. Lorentz extended this idea to changes in the rates of clocks to ensure complete undetectability of the ether. Einstein then argued that those transformations should be understood as changes of space and time rather than of physical objects, and that the absoluteness of space and time introduced by Newton should be discarded. Just after that, the mathematician Minkowski showed that Einstein's theory of relativity could be understood in terms of a four dimensional non-euclidean geometry that considered space and time as one entity, ever after called spacetime.

The theory is not only mathematically consistent, it agrees with many direct experiments. The Michelson-Morley experiment was repeated with greater accuracy in the years that followed. In 1925 Dayton Miller announced that he had detected a change in the speed of light and was even awarded prizes for the discovery, but a 1950s appraisal of his work indicated that the most likely origin of his results lay with diurnal and seasonal variations in the temperature of his equipment.

Modern instruments could easily detect any ether drift if it existed. Earth moves around the Sun at a speed of about 30 km/s, so if velocities added vectorially as newtonian mechanics requires, the last 5 digits in the value of the speed of light now used in the SI definition of the metre would be meaningless. Today, high energy physicists at CERN in Geneva and Fermilab in Chicago routinely accelerate particles to within a whisker of the speed of light. Any dependence of the speed of light on inertial reference frames would have shown up long ago, unless it is very slight indeed. Their measurements are actually made in a non-inertial frame because gravity is present. But in the context of the measurements, this non-inertial frame is almost identical to a "uniformly accelerated frame" (this is actually the content of Einstein's Principle of Equivalence). And it turns out that a measurement of light's speed made in a uniformly accelerated frame directly by someone who is very close to the light will return the inertial value of c—although that observer must be close to the light to measure this value.

But what if we pursued the original theory of Fitzgerald and Lorentz, who proposed that the ether is there, but is undetectable because of physical changes in the lengths of material objects and the rates of clocks, rather than changes in space and time? For such a theory to be consistent with observation, the ether would need to be completely undetectable using clocks and rulers. Everything, including the observer, would have to contract and slow down by just the right amount. Such a theory could make exactly the same prediction in all experiments as the theory of relativity; but it would reduce the ether to essentially no more than a metaphysical construct unless there was some other way of detecting it—which no one has found. In the view of Einstein, such a construct would be an unnecessary complication, to be best eliminated from the theory.

************
When we wave goodbye to an astronaut who is about to make a high-speed return journey to the nearest star, it would be wrong to maintain that the slowing of his clock is nothing more than an artifact of a coordinate choice. It isn't: when the astronaut returns, he will have aged less than we have, and there's nothing illusory about that. (lynnie edit. You are a Christian. Do you believe this about time? This is where we get philosophical and Rev Winzer starts throwing in bible verses. This concept is necessary for relativity. Isn't it far more sensible to hold to a firmament and fixed time? Your opinion is up to you). 

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SpeedOfLight/speed_of_light.html


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## Logan

lynnie said:


> That is not what I am referring to, please read my quotes. I am referring to the light measured from one star as we move towards it and away from it six months apart. The velocities of the light do not add and subtract. Stop saying I am making this up.



Aha! I finally understand. You keep saying the velocities of light do not add and subtract. This makes no sense and that's what was throwing me off, I thought you were referring to a Doppler shift six months out of the year in one direction, and the opposite the other six months, which does exist.

Okay, so they don't add and subtract, but why would they? And how could you possibly measure that? Besides, no other waves behave that way that I know of.



lynnie said:


> Are you aware that with radar and sound we add and subtract the velocity of a moving object to the speed of the wave?



I didn't want to flash credentials but my MS degree was in Electromagnetics and I work in radar every day. What you said here, is wrong. When I am flying a plane with a radar attached to it, it doesn't magically make the EM wave travel at c + jet speed. In radar we know the velocity by the Doppler shift, and we know the range by the amount of round-trip time for the pulse, which is at the speed of light. If the velocity of object was additive to the wave, the range would be completely ambiguous because we wouldn't know whether the pulse got back quicker because the object was moving really fast toward us, or because the object was close to the radar. It is NOT additive.

The same is true of sound. That's why a plane can go faster than the speed of sound, if the velocity was added or subtracted, how could it? The sound would always just go speed of sound faster than the plane. It doesn't make the sound travel faster if the plane goes faster, the limit of the medium is what matters here, just like the limit of light in a vacuum.

The Doppler shift has nothing to do with the speed of the wave. It has to do with the perceived _frequency_ shift.


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## lynnie

Logan- If apparatus is supposed to measure something, and every scientist in the world at the time and after until Albert expected the apparatus to measure something- it can be the speed of a hamster running on a wheel- and all of the scientists expect a certain result, and they end up with a nil result when they are sure the conditions will yield a measurable result....

...and they are left scratching their heads for a couple decades until Einstein throws out classic Newtonian physics and comes up with a new theory that says the speed of the hamster wheel will always look the same even when it should measure faster or slower depending on which hamster is in the wheel.....

...and they also toss time as a constant, and they toss a lot of things.....

we end up where we are right now. I may not know how radar works the way you do, but I know that what scientists expected to happen with light waves did not happen. Hence relativity and the tossing of the ether/firmament, 3D space, and so much more.

Anyway, thanks for the reply.


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## NaphtaliPress

Give this one at least the Day's rest.


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## NaphtaliPress

Re-opened; but consider at nearly 250 posts if this one's rather done.


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## lynnie

_The Doppler shift has nothing to do with the speed of the wave. It has to do with the perceived frequency shift._

Yes. Bad semantics on my part perhaps. But when one expects to see the perceived shift by all known laws of physics and does not, the shift is not happening....unless we resort to relativity. 

I find that when I talk to people what it usually boils down to is that they just can't accept planets and stars rotating that fast. They just can't accept that the God who made it all could spin it every 24 hours.

It is interesting to compare the solar system with one atom. (Now I know the old Bohr model with electrons as little orbiting points is no longer the model. We now have a nucleus grain of sand in the middle of picturing a big puff of smoke, which can be a sphere or doughnut or dumbbell, and the electron is a probability wave of quantum physics now. So don't jump on me.) 

If our sun and the nucleus of a gold atom were each scaled to one foot long, the outer electron of the gold atom ( or edge of the uncertainty shell) would be past Pluto. (The earth would be 215 feet out.)

https://www.google.com/search?q=per...ei=r7H7V_naOsXme4egpOAN#imgrc=Nc2FckaS9bkClM:

So using a classical Bohr model, every second that electron with an orbit out past Pluto spins 1.7854*10^20 revolutions per second around the sun. Can you imagine Pluto spinning around the sun 1.780,000,000,000,000,0000,000 times every single second?

https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090103143328AAI2BrN

Yet people think the universe could not spin every 24 hours. (and see Setterfield on the speed of light decay for why the universe size is far smaller than you've been led to believe). 

People accept the structure of an atom without giving it a single thought. Yet the same God who can make an electron spin (or do its uncertainty principle wave motion thing)the equivalent of Pluto spinning around the sun 1.780,000,000,000,000,0000,000 times every single second can't make the planets and stars spin every day?

Relativity says that if a spaceship is moving at speed v towards earth, and a stationary observer measures a beam of light (c) from the spaceship, he will not see it at the speed of v + c, but only as c. 

You can believe that, and dismiss absolute time and space and mass and the firmament to have heliocentricity, or you can believe classic physics and Genesis and geocentricity. Both models work to predict all the phenomena we see locally with planets and so forth. But one requires relativity, and one does not. 


Before this thread ends forever, let me suggest a good book for laymen, with a basic guide to both geocentricity and the problems with relativity (there are so many).

https://www.amazon.com/Science-Agrees-Bible-Malcolm-Bowden/dp/0950604240 (he is better known for his work on fossils and evolution, but includes more Creationist subjects in this book).

I think the subject matters, especially for inerrancy. Just my opinion. I have found geocentricity to be a wonderful subject worth studying, and have enjoyed the thread.


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## Afterthought

MW said:


> Metaphysically the earth must move. There is only one unmoved Mover. If the earth were absolutely unmoved it would be unchangeable, and that is not possible for a creature. The fact it changes is evidence of motion. But the geo-static question concerns relative motion. If it is relative it is not going to address the issue from an ultimate standpoint; and given Mach's equivalence principle there doesn't seem to be a single answer at any rate.


Sounds good. That is the part of the geocentrist understanding of Scriptures that I found most difficult to see. Mach's principle isn't really standard science though, so far as I am aware, and modern science contradicts some of it. On the other hand, it hasn't been completely disproven either.



MW said:


> Your five points are a good summary statement.


Given these admissions, I don't really have anything with which I disagree, with the exception that heliocentrism or acentrism require a mediocrity principle to arrive at them from the scientific data. That has been the case historically though, and I do agree that it is a large driving factor in the present day. However, there are empirical reasons for not holding the earth to be at the center. Lynnie has brought up some counter-evidence that purportedly shows the earth is near the center, and although I have investigated it before, I am not ready to say it is entirely wrong (or correct).




MW said:


> Given that science at its best is relative, any description of motion is only going to be relative to the system in which it operates. Natural science has no theory of everything. If it had a theory of everything one would have to question the verifiability of it, since there would be nothing left by which to verify or falsify it. This allows the sciences to enjoy a relative degree of experimental confirmation, but when you start trying to unite them they conflict. Incidentally, this also has a providential benefit in that the hindrance of unification disturbs the momentum of Babel-builders.


As I was reviewing relativity in preparation for the class I TA, I was seeing this much more clearly than I did before. The reason the earth is said to be rotating (and moving) based on classical physics is because of a theory of motion (based on reference frames) that metaphysically declares some motion to be absolute because no known causes for the forces that appear can be found within the reference frame and those forces disappear when one switches to a reference frame not undergoing absolute motion. I also noticed that "absolute" needs to be carefully defined: with regards to reference frames, "absolute" quantities (such as motion) are those that observers in all reference frames agree on, while "relative" quantities change their value when observed from different reference frames. Nevertheless, there does seem to be something based upon common-sense and critical observation in this sort of reasoning about motion. Perhaps it would be helpful to ask: How do you distinguish the case for the earth's motion from the case of a projectile or merry-go-round? 

Or maybe, suppose that you were inside a large metal dome on earth that moved around a large object and rotated on its axis, although it does so in such a way that you are carried with the motion and do not feel it with your own senses. You can see nothing outside the dome except the stars and the large object in the sky rising and setting. You perform various experiments and notice that according to Newton's laws (which you already knew before being placed in the dome), the area in which you inhabit exhibits the unique characteristics of rotation. Indeed, if you do not take the rotation into account, you are unable to aim some projectiles with proper accuracy. You also notice by measurements that the large object in the sky must be larger than your metal dome: so large, that by Newton's laws, your dome is moving around it. You are eventually let outside of your dome and you notice it to rotate and move--just as you thought it would. Do you doubt that the object rotates and moves? Is the only difference between this and the earth is that God has said something about the relative motion of the earth and sun, whereas there is no divine revelation concerning your metal dome (incidentally, is this why you would accept the earth is round? Because empirical observation indicates this, whereas there is no word to the contrary in Scripture)?




NaphtaliPress said:


> Re-opened; but consider at nearly 250 posts if this one's rather done.


I'm just about done.


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## MW

Afterthought said:


> Lynnie has brought up some counter-evidence that purportedly shows the earth is near the center, and although I have investigated it before, I am not ready to say it is entirely wrong (or correct).



The "evidence" is rejected on the homogeneous principle, and nullified by the big bang. An expanding universe which is accelerating and looking the same in every direction can have no centre; and even if it did it could never be ascertained by an empirical method, which would mean any contradicting phenomenon must be an "anomaly" the science hasn't figured out as yet; and the science would only figure it out by postulating a larger space in which they suppose the same phenomenon will exist in unexplored space.

The mediocrity principle as a metaphysical commitment allows the practitioner to effectively nullify any evidence which points in the direction of "significance." If earth holds any distinguishing characteristics it only suggests to the mediocrean that there must be other worlds with the same characteristics.



Afterthought said:


> You are eventually let outside of your dome and you notice it to rotate and move--just as you thought it would. Do you doubt that the object rotates and moves?



Where am I when I am let out of my dome? Am I on a spinning earth, around a spinning sun, around a spinning galaxy, ad infinitum? It begs the question. According to inertia, force is required for something to stay at rest or remain in motion. If I found that the dome was rotating I would have to investigate why it is rotating around something at rest. Were I to find an answer I could only say my findings are relative to something else, which are relative to something else, which are ultimately relative to something I don't know. If I were to come back to something absolute I would be looking into God Himself, which is impossible without the doctrine of emanation. If emanation were true I would not be able to properly distinguish between the one and the many, which would only render any investigation of the matter an illusion.


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## Afterthought

MW said:


> The "evidence" is rejected on the homogeneous principle, and nullified by the big bang. An expanding universe which is accelerating and looking the same in every direction can have no centre; and even if it did it could never be ascertained by an empirical method, which would mean any contradicting phenomenon must be an "anomaly" the science hasn't figured out as yet; and the science would only figure it out by postulating a larger space in which they suppose the same phenomenon will exist in unexplored space.
> 
> The mediocrity principle as a metaphysical commitment allows the practitioner to effectively nullify any evidence which points in the direction of "significance." If earth holds any distinguishing characteristics it only suggests to the mediocrean that there must be other worlds with the same characteristics.


Ah, I see what you are saying. As I noted earlier, there is some evidence of homogeneity (although it is ultimately an assumption), but those are some good points.




MW said:


> Where am I when I am let out of my dome? Am I on a spinning earth, around a spinning sun, around a spinning galaxy, ad infinitum? It begs the question. According to inertia, force is required for something to stay at rest or remain in motion. If I found that the dome was rotating I would have to investigate why it is rotating around something at rest. Were I to find an answer I could only say my findings are relative to something else, which are relative to something else, which are ultimately relative to something I don't know. If I were to come back to something absolute I would be looking into God Himself, which is impossible without the doctrine of emanation. If emanation were true I would not be able to properly distinguish between the one and the many, which would only render any investigation of the matter an illusion.


It seems the difficulty is indeed the difference between "absolute" in physics and "absolute" in philosophy (I realize Newton had a concept of "absolute space" that complicates this proposed distinction a bit). The physicist would just say: Although all these things are relative to things that I don't know, I do know that observers in any reference frame would measure the same thing I am measuring, so by my definition of "absolute" the motion is "absolute." I was going to say the difficulty was Machain vs non-Machian understanding of accelerated motion (Newton's bucket example), but it seems that the "fictitious force" that appears in a "rotating" reference frame would be said to be relative to something we don't know. Yes?


As further questions to make sure I am understanding what you are saying: Do you investigate a projectile or merry-go-round in the same way? Or are there other things at work here (like our senses)?

After stepping outside the dome and finding it to be rotating relative to the earth and you thought about how you launched the projectile within the dome and had to take into account the rotation of the dome relative to the earth, what did you make of the fact that you had to take into account that rotation, if the rotation is relative, not absolute?

Finally, do you subject the observed roundness of the earth to the same analysis? Or is it accepted on other grounds? (I'm trying to make sure I understand the methodology being used.)


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## MW

Afterthought said:


> As further questions to make sure I am understanding what you are saying: Do you investigate a projectile or merry-go-round in the same way? Or are there other things at work here (like our senses)?



I think we have shown it is all counter-intuitive to our senses. By my senses I can feel a force; but then I am told it is only an apparent force, not real. At any rate, my senses give me a reference point by which I can develop a common sense approach to the world, and I need to trust my senses in order to make real, ethical, practical decisions. E.g., if I or others might be hurt by the projectile. You can only make sensible decisions based on your relative information being practically correct.



Afterthought said:


> what did you make of the fact that you had to take into account that rotation, if the rotation is relative, not absolute?



Anything going outside the dome had to take into account the rotation as relative to the thing to which it was directed. If there were a counter-rotation anywhere it may have created equilibrium.



Afterthought said:


> Finally, do you subject the observed roundness of the earth to the same analysis? Or is it accepted on other grounds? (I'm trying to make sure I understand the methodology being used.)



The Bible never says the earth is flat. The funny thing here is that you actually have flat earth measurements for some things. Also a flat universe is one of the models. Even space-time flattens things out into a motionless block.


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## Afterthought

Sorry for the delay in response. In part to finish up this thread and in part because I am getting very busy, I will likely need to finish this up without having finished discussing things through to my own satisfaction (i.e., I'm still not entirely sure why motion is held to be metaphysical). I think the metaphysical issues are slightly separate from the OP topic, so hopefully they will make a good thread topic on their own. Here are some (hopefully) final questions/statements in an attempt to make sure I understand what has been said thus far.



MW said:


> I think we have shown it is all counter-intuitive to our senses. By my senses I can feel a force; but then I am told it is only an apparent force, not real. At any rate, my senses give me a reference point by which I can develop a common sense approach to the world, and I need to trust my senses in order to make real, ethical, practical decisions. E.g., if I or others might be hurt by the projectile. You can only make sensible decisions based on your relative information being practically correct.


Only the outward force pushing one away from the center of rotation is said to be fictitious; it is said to be fictitious because only an observer inside the dome feels it; an observer outside the dome or merry-go-round does not measure that force: that force disappears. The force you feel of being pressed against another object (a wall or floor) is said to be a real force and is measured by observers both inside and outside the dome or merry-go-round. The point though is that these fictitious forces only show up when an object is rotating, and it seems you do indeed analyze the merry-go-round or projectile in the same way as the dome.



MW said:


> Anything going outside the dome had to take into account the rotation as relative to the thing to which it was directed. If there were a counter-rotation anywhere it may have created equilibrium.


As just noted, these fictitious forces only show up when an object is rotating. So one needs to take these forces into account when inside the dome. That is what I meant by taking into account the dome's rotation. I am not entirely clear what is being said here: Are you saying that the rotation only needs to be taken into account when one is outside the dome?



MW said:


> The Bible never says the earth is flat. The funny thing here is that you actually have flat earth measurements for some things. Also a flat universe is one of the models. Even space-time flattens things out into a motionless block.


Okay. So it seems the main reason for holding to geocentrism is because it is divinely revealed? Hence, a flat earth is rejected, since that is not revealed but our observations show the earth to be round?


Perhaps I did not analyze things properly in my previous post. Maybe the issue is indeed coming down to an understanding of Newton's bucket, or maybe it's a combination of Newton's bucket and a difference in understanding of absolute/relative. Anyway, that should be a focused enough idea/set of ideas for a thread topic on its own.


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## MW

Afterthought said:


> Okay. So it seems the main reason for holding to geocentrism is because it is divinely revealed? Hence, a flat earth is rejected, since that is not revealed but our observations show the earth to be round?



Yes. My only concern is to allow the Bible to speak without having its meaning determined by extraneous considerations. The Bible presents a consistent cosmology which has a bearing on a range of theological issues. It is important to understand the Bible's cosmology for its own sake, without trying to make it fit into a model devised by men for other reasons.


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## Reformed Thug Life

MW said:


> Reformed Thug Life said:
> 
> 
> 
> It's weird for us, because we don't really understand space beyond three dimensions, but it checks out mathematically.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And do you believe in an 11 dimension multiverse?
Click to expand...

I honestly don't know. I'm no scientist. My point was "The center of the universe" is kind of an empty claim.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk


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