He didn't say anything on the subject.
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Heliocentricity: What's It Good For?
- Thread starter Aaron
- Start date
He didn't say anything on the subject.
He didn't say anything on the subject.
This isn't an accurate statement.
You can navigate over short distances, as many pre-modern societies did, so long as you remain close to respective coasts. While the Vikings did make it to North America early, it wasn't because of celestial navigation based on geocentricity.
The advances in science provided by the heliocentric view are broader than you might realize. Celestial navigation is but one of them.
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I have to say I read that as "cosmetology" rather than "cosmology" so the emphasis was lost.
So much for me being able to read!
Didn't they use an early form of compass navigation?
You're copping out, but He did say something. Psalm 19:6.
You don't think He was mistaken about our solar system, do you?
I'll cut to the chase. In relation to us, the sun does rise and set and travel in a circle around the earth, and it's no deception to describe it in relative terms. Someone spoke of truth: the barren fact that the earth travels around the sun is not truth, because that is not our relationship with the sun, and we don't derive any meaning from that context. The sun, moon and stars were created to give light upon the earth, and so that we could measure time and the seasons. They were created for us, who are upon the earth. We will always speak of sunrise and sunset, because how we relate to the sun is the important thing despite the cold fact that it is the earth that is rotating.
(Think there is a lesson in that as well.)
Heliocentricism as a doctrine is misused as a litmus test for enlightenment. Galileo and Copernicus, both devout Christians, are considered enlightened simply because they entertained a heliocentric idea, though they weren't the first by centuries, and despite some of their other fallacies. (Galileo pointed to ocean tides as evidence of the movement of the earth.)
On the other hand, some theologians are considered backward because of their opposition to heliocentrism, and their doctrines brought into doubt for the same reason. Martin Luther opposed heliocentricity, and that's all that needs to be said to judge him as an oaf or worse, when the opposite is really true. Martin Luther was greatly used of God, as was Paul, who probably thought too that the sun traveled around the earth.
Celestial navigation existed long before heliocentricity was accepted.
What are you blubbering on about, anyway? So far as I can see it's:
1. Heliocentricism has not led to any technological advances or any useful inventions.
(Patently not true.)
2. Insofar as the earth rotates on its axis and traces an orbit around the sun, heliocentricism is a fact, but we still use outdated speech that posits the sun travels around the earth--sunrise and sunset.
(Yeah, so?)
3. Heliocentricism is a doctrine.
(What? It's a proven fact.)
4. We are supposed to take Psalms 19:6 literally.
(but apparently not verses 2-5)
Truth has meaning. When Jesus said "I am the Truth," He wasn't simply saying, "It's true that I exist."
It is true that God causes His sun to rise on the evil and on the good.
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You haven't named any.
It's not outdated, it's relative.
It is. It's a litmus test of enlightenment. Ask any highschooler why Galileo is a hero and the Church is a villain, and the Scriptures are untrue.
It is quite literally relative.
The whole idea of using observation and experimentation to confirm scientific theories has most certainly changed the world and led to untold number of inventions.
Yeah, so?
It's not a doctrine. And I could ask my high schooler, should be home in about 45 minutes, and he won't be agreeing with your assessment. The "church" is not the villain, however, I would grant you that the Catholic Church has been (is?) a villain.
The scriptures are not untrue because Galileo and Copernicus discovered the earth rotates about the sun.
noun
1.
Zoology. the fat layer between the skin and muscle of whales and othercetaceans, from which oil is made.
2.
excess body fat.
3.
an act of weeping noisily and without restraint.
verb (used without object)
4.
to weep noisily and without restraint:
Stop blubbering and tell me what's wrong.
verb (used with object)
5.
to say, especially incoherently, while weeping:
The child seemed to be blubbering something about a lost ring.
6.
to contort or disfigure (the features) with weeping.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/blubbering
1.
Zoology. the fat layer between the skin and muscle of whales and othercetaceans, from which oil is made.
2.
excess body fat.
3.
an act of weeping noisily and without restraint.
verb (used without object)
4.
to weep noisily and without restraint:
Stop blubbering and tell me what's wrong.
verb (used with object)
5.
to say, especially incoherently, while weeping:
The child seemed to be blubbering something about a lost ring.
6.
to contort or disfigure (the features) with weeping.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/blubbering
That's not my point.
You asked what benefit heliocentricity provides, I am replying that one of the benefits (be it prior to discovery or because of it) is celestial navigation. Because our solar system is heliocentric and not geocentric we can navigate around the world using the benefits of the sun as the stationary object. That it is a fixed point in our solar system with Earth (and Moon) revolving around it is a crucial necessity for our ability to navigate over long distances.
So heliocentricity provides, as a benefit, the ability to discover, to navigate, to expand...to foster greater life.
Besides, heliocentricity is firmly established. It isn't some kind of "secret handshake" or "country club" access to the Enlightenment, it is part of accepted science and continues to benefit mankind. Why some fundamentalist Christians try to wrestle an incomplete hermeneutical method around a text to make it say something it doesn't makes no sense to me.
As I said, I don't doubt it.
But what's it good for?
Celestial navigation is independent of the concept. In fact, it works better to think of the celestial sphere as rotating around the earth.
I dunno. Paul probably accepted the ancient Hebrew cosmology, which described a sun, moon and stars revolving around a disc-shaped earth under a solid dome. If He did then he probably thought any heliocentric idea to be pagan superstition.
How does the notion that the early church fathers, and possibly the Apostles, and most definitely the ancient Hebrews held a geocentric view of the cosmos affect your view of the Scriptures?
How does the notion that the early church fathers, and possibly the Apostles, and most definitely the ancient Hebrews held a geocentric view of the cosmos affect your view of the Scriptures?
My favorite part is the pastor who is following around ITL using the dumb button on every single post like a child. I swear, I fail to see the point of even having that feature on a Christian message board. If someone has something to say then say it. I've noticed the people that go around using that button all the time are the same people you would expect to.
The following passages can best be supported with which model, Heliocentric or Geocentric?
Joshua 10:
12 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.13 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. 14 And there was no day like that before it or after it, that the Lord hearkened unto the voice of a man: for the Lord fought for Israel.
2 Kings 20:
8 And Hezekiah said unto Isaiah, What shall be the sign that the Lord will heal me, and that I shall go up into the house of the Lord the third day? 9 And Isaiah said, This sign shalt thou have of the Lord, that the Lord will do the thing that he hath spoken: shall the shadow go forward ten degrees, or go back ten degrees? 10 And Hezekiah answered, It is a light thing for the shadow to go down ten degrees: nay, but let the shadow return backward ten degrees. 11 And Isaiah the prophet cried unto the Lord: and he brought the shadow ten degrees backward, by which it had gone down in the dial of Ahaz.
Notice in Joshua we are told the sun stood still, not that the earth did but the sun. If the Sun is Stationary then it always stands still. The interlinear states, Verse 13, “and he is standing still the sun and the moon he stayed…and He is staying the Sun in the middle of the Heavens and not He rushed to the set of as day flawless”
2 Kings 20: verse 11, “…the shadow ten degrees backward…” interlinear, “…Yahweh and He is reversing the shadow in the steps thereof…”
Both sound as if the Sun was reversed from an orbit not the Earth. Now think about God reversing the earth.
What would the oceans do when the earth was reversed?
Would they continue with their currents or would they immediately stop and reverse?
Does the Law of centrifugal force come in? “…centrifugal force, action-reaction force pair associated with circular motion. According to Newton's first law of motion, a moving body travels along a straight path with constant speed (i.e., has constant velocity) unless it is acted on by an outside force. For circular motion to occur there must be a constant force acting on a body, pushing it toward the center of the circular path. This force is the centripetal ("center-seeking") force. For a planet orbiting the sun, the force is gravitational; for an object twirled on a string, the force is mechanical; for an electron orbiting an atom, it is electrical…The centrifugal force is often mistakenly thought to cause a body to fly out of its circular path when it is released; rather, it is the removal of the centripetal force that allows the body to travel in a straight line as required by Newton's first law. If there were in fact a force acting to force the body out of its circular path, its path when released would not be the straight tangential course that is always observed.” So if that force were removed from the earth to hold the Sun still and to move the shadow back ten steps then would those things in motion, rivers, lakes and oceans continue in motion and fly out of their circular path. Yet if the sun were held or moved from an orbit around the earth those same rivers, lakes and oceans would remain in motion. Seems to me as if the Bible can be best supported with the Geocentric model.
Joshua 10:
12 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.13 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. 14 And there was no day like that before it or after it, that the Lord hearkened unto the voice of a man: for the Lord fought for Israel.
2 Kings 20:
8 And Hezekiah said unto Isaiah, What shall be the sign that the Lord will heal me, and that I shall go up into the house of the Lord the third day? 9 And Isaiah said, This sign shalt thou have of the Lord, that the Lord will do the thing that he hath spoken: shall the shadow go forward ten degrees, or go back ten degrees? 10 And Hezekiah answered, It is a light thing for the shadow to go down ten degrees: nay, but let the shadow return backward ten degrees. 11 And Isaiah the prophet cried unto the Lord: and he brought the shadow ten degrees backward, by which it had gone down in the dial of Ahaz.
Notice in Joshua we are told the sun stood still, not that the earth did but the sun. If the Sun is Stationary then it always stands still. The interlinear states, Verse 13, “and he is standing still the sun and the moon he stayed…and He is staying the Sun in the middle of the Heavens and not He rushed to the set of as day flawless”
2 Kings 20: verse 11, “…the shadow ten degrees backward…” interlinear, “…Yahweh and He is reversing the shadow in the steps thereof…”
Both sound as if the Sun was reversed from an orbit not the Earth. Now think about God reversing the earth.
What would the oceans do when the earth was reversed?
Would they continue with their currents or would they immediately stop and reverse?
Does the Law of centrifugal force come in? “…centrifugal force, action-reaction force pair associated with circular motion. According to Newton's first law of motion, a moving body travels along a straight path with constant speed (i.e., has constant velocity) unless it is acted on by an outside force. For circular motion to occur there must be a constant force acting on a body, pushing it toward the center of the circular path. This force is the centripetal ("center-seeking") force. For a planet orbiting the sun, the force is gravitational; for an object twirled on a string, the force is mechanical; for an electron orbiting an atom, it is electrical…The centrifugal force is often mistakenly thought to cause a body to fly out of its circular path when it is released; rather, it is the removal of the centripetal force that allows the body to travel in a straight line as required by Newton's first law. If there were in fact a force acting to force the body out of its circular path, its path when released would not be the straight tangential course that is always observed.” So if that force were removed from the earth to hold the Sun still and to move the shadow back ten steps then would those things in motion, rivers, lakes and oceans continue in motion and fly out of their circular path. Yet if the sun were held or moved from an orbit around the earth those same rivers, lakes and oceans would remain in motion. Seems to me as if the Bible can be best supported with the Geocentric model.