Re: Evolution is not a fact


"Earle Jones" <earle.jones@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:earle.jones-936C2D.15404809082008@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
In article <go8mk.15821$cW3.9377@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
"Suzanne" <shiloh7@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

"Rupert Morrish" <rupert@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:6fniabFcetnsU1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
John McKendry wrote:
On Sat, 02 Aug 2008 14:54:16 -0400, Cory Albrecht wrote:

John Wilkins wrote, On 02/08/08 12:13 AM:
Mike Painter <mddotpainter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The more likely solution is that they rounded things off to the
nearest cubit and came up with the number. Anything between 9.55
and
9.7 or so and the numbers work.
9.7 cubits gives 30.47 as a circumference. Rounding give 10 and 30.
Good enough for the bible.
Good enough for any society that hadn't invented decimal points...
But what's odd is that around 1900 BCE the Egyptians knew that 256/81
approximated pi (off by less than 1%), so one wonders why the
Israelites, 1300 years later, had such shoddy math.

Can we please retire this tired old playground argument? Thirty
cubits
is a perfectly acceptable value for the circumference of a ten-cubit
circle, and telling both the diameter and the circumference is
perfectly
acceptable story-telling. I work sometimes with maps, and for my
purposes
the diameter of the Earth is eight thousand miles, the circumference
at
the equator is twenty-four thousand miles, the latitude of Boston is
45
degrees, and the cosine of 45 degrees is 0.7. Nobody quibbles when I
use
those numbers, because the people I work with understand the context
in
which they are used, and realize that greater precision would be a
waste
of time and a distraction. The delay on a communication link through
a geosynchronous satellite is a quarter of a second. A radio
frequency of 7 MHz is a wavelength of forty meters. In the
communities in which these values are common coin it would be
considered odd at best, and probably downright annoying, to
speak of "the approximately-forty-meter band". Further, the argument
serves to confirm the Creationist premise that you can control reality
by
playing with words. If it's
legitimate to ridicule the Bible because you can twist one verse
into an error in geometry, well, here's Darwin himself saying that
evolution is impossible, here's Steven J. Gould saying that there
are no intermediates, and don't try to tell me what they actually
meant, because these are their own words.

We don't win the game by being just as wrong as the other team.

We also don't win the game by letting the other team use a rule book
that
says they can't lose.

There is only one reason to discuss inconsistencies, errors and
mismeasurements in the bible - and that is to refute those who claim
that
no such errors exist. It's obvious to you and me that even if the
vessel
existed, the author had never seen it, and certainly not measured it.
We
expect approximation, exaggeration and inaccuracy. Those things can't
happen to the Literal Word of God. God knows how big the pot was. Why
didn't he tell the author to write it down properly?

We were not really playing a game here. Some had said what
they believed were wrong in things in the Bible. I answered all
of them, but not the one about pi. I had never heard that
argument. Since someone brought that up together with some
other things, they were only elaborating upon it as per my
request, and then when I looked it up, I found some things
about it that I felt were worth explaining, such as the fact that
the molten sea, which is a vessel that was described in the
Bible that was made for Solomon's temple, was said to be
shaped like a lily. That would mean that the shape of the
vessel would be quite irregular, and therefore pi would not
eactly be a point of discussion since it was shaped, it says
in the Bible as a lily. I was not intending to bop someone on
the head with that fact, or try to make a game where I was
winning. I only had observed a detail that I believe had been
overlooked. I also think that the author did write the
information down accurately, and in great detail. But how
people interpret what he wrote down, is another matter. It's
not so much that someone believes that creationists are literal
about the Bible, so much as it is that some people miss
some details that evidently do matter.

Suzanne

*
Do you believe that the earth rotates on its axis and also rotates
around the sun? Or do you believe the Bible, which says (in several
places) that the earth is 'immovable'?

earle
*

What do I believe? I believe the Bible, but I do not
accept what you are saying as being the correct
understanding of what the Bible says. It says that the
earth is immoveable, true, but immoveable in what
respect? It probably is referring to being immoveable
in it's course, or orbit, since it is fixed in an orbit.

I do not think that it is saying that the earth is
cemented in space and never moves. There are
several things in the Bible that indicates that it does
turn, one being the Creation account that says that
God created light an divided it from the darkness
(Gen. 1:4). It then says that the evening and the
morning were the first day. The words "evening"
and "morning" indicate a passage through the
darkness and the light because the word for
morning indicates a break of day, or a return
to a former place. If light and darkness were
in a straight line, and the earth passed by them,
it would not be returning to a former position.

"Boqer" in Hebrew means "break of day."
"E-reb" in Hebrew means evening. I've wondered
if the "reb" syllable is kin to the "rev" in the
English "revolve" or "revolution." I can't prove
it by the modern etymology I don't think.
Nevertheless, I think the fact that the earth starts
in the light, passes through dark, then returns to
light (as in break of day - boqer), that it refers to
the earth turning one revolution.

As for whether the sun revolves around the earth...
certainly not in the way the flat-earthers claim.
But above us as we chase after the sun in order to
orbit it, the sun is also in it's own orbit. A single
revolution around the galaxy that it makes, which
would be it's own sun year, takes up 250 million
of our years. What it is revolving around is the
center of the galaxy. Curiously the sun is mentioned
in the Bible as having an orbit, or revolution within
the heavens:
Psalm 19:6:
"From the end of the heavens [is] his going out, And
his revolution [is] unto their ends; And nothing is hid
from his heat." YLT
"His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his
circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from
the heat thereof." KJV
(This is Psalm has a preserved superscription that says
it is a Psalm of David.)

You ask do I think the earth turns on it's axis? I do.
The axis is the imaginary line that if drawn through
the earth, reaches from the North Pole to the South
Pole. The earth, of course has true north, and true
south, but then it also has the magnetic north and
the magnetic south, both of which move around
somewhat in the arctic circle. Yet the axis being
tilted some few degrees causes our seasons. And
does this conflict with the earth's also being
immoveable? The earth does not move from it's
orbit.

Suzanne

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Good Article on Orbital Dynamics
    ... it's sun, where the temperature is just right for liquid water to ... the Sun is too magnificent a motion to ignore.yet  you have no feel ... the course of an annual orbit. ... one year period, due to the motion of the earth, but this is not the 360 ...
    (sci.astro)
  • Why be a believer?
    ... > SECOND the Universe is incomprehensible in size and by comparison our World ... > Sun, Stars and Planets revolved around the Earth. ... > Acoran [Supreme] ...
    (alt.religion.christian)
  • Re: Gravity and the Sun
    ... > You have assumed that the Earth is free falling around the Sun ... > objects fall at the same rate in a gravity field. ... > orbit the Sun, but will either go away or fall straight to the Sun. ...
    (sci.physics)
  • Re: Fair orbital question
    ... That would be our summer if there was no tilt. ... The sun is clearly the most important factor in the seasons. ... Next most important is the rotation of the earth because half the earth is ... The orbit alone is a cause but of course would not ...
    (sci.physics)
  • Re: Fair orbital question
    ... rotation and just look at how the Earth orbits the Sun. ... Will it orbit like a car going around a traffic circle  where the same ... Remember,you just leave axial rotation alone and focus on orbital ... The orbit of the Earth itself, being non circular is the ...
    (sci.physics)
Loading