SIMPLE Astronomical Evidence Supports the Bible

It takes me considerable time to organize my answers. I have many other things to do - so I am slow - sorry!Unlike the ancient Greeks who invented first principles, we don’t seem to examine ours. To question our first principle can be very irritating to the one who has never gone back to examine it. I am sorry if I irritate you - it is unavoidable on this subject - yet the experinece can motivate us to at least test the truth of our first principle.I have shown in Greek Peter used the word diamenei that means unchanging in being or relation. Peter predicted that in the last days they will affirm that matter, indeed all physical things, are unchanging in being or relation. Being: the nature or essence of a person or thing that is fundamental to its existence. Relationship: the way two or more people or things are connected. This word is used for the most intimate close connections. Relativity: describes something in which there are no absolute standards. In Einstein’s relativity, he assumed ceratin distinct elements or characteristics which do not have an absolute nature. Comparisons between a system of relativity and a fundamental relationship.

• In a relationship, what affects one element of the relationship, influences the whole thing.
• In a fundamental relationship, one cannot clearly define the elements of the relationship. For example, one cannot precisely define time.
• In a universe characterized by an orderly decaying relationship, only the simplest kinds of evidence are valid for understanding its history.
• Mathematics cannot model, nor can experiments decode a fundamental aging, degenerating relationship.
  ​
• In a system of relativity.
  
• Although there are no absolutes standards, it is possible to define semi independent elements, if one assumes the basic underlying nature of matter is unchanging.
• One can assign mathematical transforms to these elements defining how they relate to each other.
• Although these transforms will function with precision, if the system is really a close relationship, the result will be paradoxes that cannot be cracked. (Such as non locality and quantum duality).
• It is possible to arrive at many levels of mathematical complexity with a system of relativity, but if matter is really a decaying relationship, the mathematics that works here and now will produce nonsensical things when analyzing the long ago or the far away universe.

Does the Bible teach that matter is a decaying relationship?The Bible is not a science book. Yet it does make short statements about the physical universe.In Romans 8:19 - 22 Paul tells us that God subjected the whole creation to frailty, want of vigor. He twice uses the Greek words hupotasso. Hupo under; tasso - to arrange in an orderly manner. Polybius used this word for disciplined troops who were subject under their generals in an orderly way. The whole of creation is subject in an orderly way to God’s command to corrupt. He uses the same word phthora - for corrupt that Plato used for the degeneration of matter itself. Then in the same passage he illustrates this universal corruption with two compound Greek words that start with the word together. Matter decays in an orderly way - and the two illustrations involve togetherness. Things that change together do so as a relationship. Aristotle assumed that the matter is unchanging. Peter directly contradicts this - saying in Greek that gold is self corrupting right now.(I Peter 1:7) There is no way to harmonize these two positions.

• That there is a simple triumphant answer to the struggles between science and the Bible.
• That the answer is not some new idea - it has been in the Bible for thousands of years. But it is natural for us to use our culture as the standard by which we understand things, even our Bibles. Christians should only have one method for interpreting the Bible - its historical grammar - not our scientific system that did not even exist when the Bible was written.
• That you can verify the truth of the Bible in the earth and stars - but . . .
• You must take what the Bible says as fundamentally true. For hundreds of years Christians have unknowingly taken the ideas of the Greeks as fundamental and used them to interpret what the Bible says about earth-history.
• that if the first principle that Peter identifies is false, the simplest visible evidence in the stars and earth fit the words of the Bible.

I am saying that God’s word is the source of true wisdom, knowledge and understanding. But in these posts I am not talking primarily about spiritual truth, although that is by far the most important, but about the physical universe.This message has been edited by ptolemy, 04-22-2005 02:37 AMThis message has been edited by ptolemy, 04-22-2005 10:29 AM

There is nothing wrong with observations. The problem is, when trying to causally understand the long ago or far away, how do you identify your assumption that can lead you astray?Thinking about first principles is not done today, but it is indeed the first, the most impoirtant thing to think about. If Peter can predict ours, which has modified Aristotle on the subject of time, then maybe the Bible is the only book that accurately describes our universe and earth-history. These are minor issues in the Bible, but they are ways people test it for truth.My claim is that the simple evidence from astronmy fits what the BIble actaually says in the original language.

There is a vast difference:
A Brief history of the scientific cosmos:

1. A first principle is elementary and fundamental.
   It is elementary because it is a simple assumption about the nature of matter.
   It is fundamental - the foundation for an entire way of reasoning.
2. Our first principle is that the nature or essence of matter is unchanging
3. Upon the foundation of this first principle ==>our ancestors defined unchanging properties of matter - our versions of time, mass, energy.
4. Using these ==> they invented mathematical laws
5. With these laws ==>we calculated constants
6. Since our constants did not change ==> we claimed that out to the edges of the visible universe - changelessness exists.
7. However, in the far away or long ago - our laws did not seems to work in the visible universe - although our calculated constants remained unchanging.
8. So we invented ==>an invisible universe - 99% undetectable to make our mathematical laws fit the universe.

A Biblical Cosmos based on a literal exegesis:

1. Our first principle is that wisdom, knowledge and understanding come from God’s Word.
2. It says ==> everything in creation degenerates (Characterized by orderliness)
3. Consequently ==> we cannot define specific properties to matter or time.
4. Consequently ==> we cannot invent laws of physics (which supports what Solomon said about the impossibility of causal knowledge in the physical world).
5. However ==> we can accept what the Bible and the archaic writers claimed - that the nature of ancient durations was long - and a few generations separated us from these patriarchs. (The Bible repeatedly calls those < 100 Old Testament generations - the long ages - the eons. If the essence of matter is changing - everything in the universe would necessarily have to change - including orbits and rotations.)
6. However - in such a universe - neither an experimental system nor mathematical modeling could analyze fundamental change - since it affects matter itself.
7. Our Book says God is continually stretching out the heavens.
8. Our book says God continually stretches out the earth and even everything from the earth.
9. We can verify what it says - the most distant galaxies are compressed, often found in strings - implying great changes - and seem to be moving out - ejecting. Closer galaxies are more diffuse - have arms etc. Everywhere in the universe we see signs of great changes.
10. We examine our continents and find that they do not fit back together except on a globe ~ 2/3 its present size. The oceans clearly are newer than the land - not covered with thick sediments - etc. This fits statements in the Bible about the flood and where the water went after the flood.
11. We cannot understand causally such a universe - but we notice it fits the very words of the Bible.

Please notice the vast difference in these two cosmologies
In the scientific system the only evidence of changelessness is directly traceable to our first principle. All the evidence for this is circular and symbolic - countless pages of mathematics that never go back and examine the first principle.In the Biblical cosmos - it remains mysterious and unknowable - but what we see confirms what the Bible actually states in simple language with simple visible evidence. Why would God make the universe work like this?

• For his glory - so that He alone can be wise.
• Because His glory is centered in His great plan to redeem those who have simple faith in Jesus.
• So that faith in Jesus - foolishness to the world - will triumph over any conceivable system of causal knowledge.
• Because He loves justice - and it is just that those who will not believe will deceive themselves.
• All of this will cause those simple folk - who just believed His Word - to praise and glorify His Goodness, Wisdom and Justice forever.

Notice that decisions can be made as to which one is valid. The simple evidence - not based on an untested first principle - fits the Bible alone.This message has been edited by ptolemy, 04-23-2005 05:13 AM

Please understand that I do not wear the cap and gown of a scholar. If I did, I could not write what I do, because I would be undermining my own frocking.I use a number of books, computer texts and on line repositories in the original language. For example I have the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament - free download. I can look up all the classics in Greek - often with English translations - at Perseus Digital Library I use on line material at Bible Search and Study Tools - Blue Letter Bible that shows the tense, voice, moods etc of the verbs because it is faster and more convenient than using a paper book. (My Greek - English Lexicon by Liddell & Scott (Oxford Press) weighs 5 pounds and is difficult to use - although it is a thorough reference). A couple of Greek scholars have examined some of my exegeses that refer to the physical universe. They have told me they are valid translations, probably the right one, and encouraged me to continue my studies on this subject.I am a simple searcher and lover of truth. For many years I examined the various scientific theories from both the creationists and the evolutions. I noticed that both systems had many discrepancies that were not marks of conformity to reality. Creationists can and do point out the symbiosis between bees and flowering plants as powerful evidence for a Creator. It is when they try to make mathematical theories that they always fail.I prayerfully determined to search for the truth in the pages of the Bible and not try to tailor it to fit my scientific way of thinking. I discovered that it said:

• that God could not give me wisdom if I were double minded - used two systems of thought. I discovered that our ancestors had formed just such a system when they used the elementary ideas of the pagan Greeks as the foundation for science, and relegated the Bible to spiritual truth.
• I discovered that the Bible warned me that the elementary ideas of philosophy take one like a military prisoner.
• It commanded me to rather accept foolishness - than to think myself wise in this age
• Once I determined to search for truth using the historical / grammatical approach, I found many things that formerly I had explained away since they did not make sense in our culture.
• I soon discovered that Peter warned of the first principle, and began a historical study of that principle that has occupied me for several years. My exegesis is confirmed by history - this really is our first principle!

The Bible is not a science book. Its theme is the Creator / Savior, not the creation. But when I stopped tailoring it to fit our science, I found that the simplest evidence overwhelmingly supports the Bible.This message has been edited by ptolemy, 04-23-2005 12:57 PM

I am trying to show that the simple words of the Bible demonstrates its truth. We have endured unrelenting attacks claiming that our Bible could not be true because science contradicts it. We have conducted a valiant struggle with our own versions of science. We can’t win this war of ideas that way. God made the universe for His glory - not to glorify our science. My message cannot be made socially acceptable, because I am interpreting what the Scriptures say about physics with simple words, not science.Why is it so hard to think about our first principle? Paul warns about these stoicheon: [elementary ideas, first principles] of philosophy in Colossians 2:8. He uses the word sulagogeo: [to carry one off as a captive, to lead away from the truth and subject to one's sway] Our Western mind set assumes that changelessness exists.

• We have constructed an impregnable fortress of knowledge built on this assumption.
• The assumption is very handy for inventing ideas and symbols about things that do not change.
• Yet we never examine these things without the use of our assumption. You cannot even measure an atom or claim that time is unchanging without using this assumption.
• Yet all of this is a based on symbolic thinking where mathematics has more importance than what is visible and the first principle is protected at all costs.

According to the Bible, Jesus is coming to destroy the destroyers of the earth, to turn the wisdom of this world into foolishness and to set up a righteous kingdom. The residents of this kingdom will not know war, they will have no religious teachers, they will live in a prosperous agricultural world and ride their camels to Jerusalem to worship the King. God has not spoken to me. What I know of Him comes from studying His Book. Who is He? He is a loving God who came to die for our sins. Yet He is also a warrior who will return to save the world: to destroy the destroyers of the earth.Image that the young of a future generation gather around an old survivor to question her about the dark ages, when the world was almost destroyed for profit, when wars, famine and disease wiped out most of the world's population in seven years, when a great asteroid hit the sea etc. Imagine that the old woman tells them how people called scientists could use complex mathematics to show the universe was 99.97% undetectable. Will the young ones, in utter amazement, will they roar with laughter? Can God really make foolish the wisdom of this world?To think so now seems foolish, but if what this Book predicts comes true, will it seem foolish after these last days. I wonder who the destroyers of the earth are?

I agree with you that science did not exist when the Bible was written. I am doing the exact opposite of what you claim. I am trying to take what it says in its historical - grammatical context as valid and I claim the simplest visible evidence supports this exegesis.I used the word physics in my post, but not in the sense of the modern branch of knowledge. The second dictionary definition is the properties of physical things and their phenomena. The Bible does make clear statements about the nature of matter.I used to tailor what it said about that subject to fit our culture. I did not do that deliberately. I did not know how to think any other way. It is when I started testing the first principle, that I was emancipated from that principle.Is there evidence that our first principle is false from astronomy? The earliest recorded astronomical series of observations is the Venus Tablets of Ammizaduga. They recorded the same synodic period as we have, but the orbit is remarkably different from ours.Average Venus Today

• disappears behind sun 50 days
• appears as morning and evening star 263 days
• disappears at close approach - average 8 days ===> Total synodic 584 days
  ​
  Cuneiform tablets show Venus over 21 year period
• disappearance on far side of sun longer - 65 and 90 days
• evening and morning appearances shorter 240 / 241 days
• Disappearance at close approach 7 days ==> Total synodic cycle 584 days

The Mayans, who had an entirely different calendar, recorded a similar division of the same synodic period on their bark books.This suggests that the solar system was much smaller in historical times. Claudius Ptolemy measured what seems to be a smaller solar system in degrees / minutes. Yet all his measurement errors cancel so that the his parameters worked - yet his synodic periods, sometimes averaged over 800 years, are almost identical to ours.
If matter ages as a relationship - the one thing that could seem unchanging is durational periods. Why? Time cannot be separated from motions or changes. As Augustine said If a day went by in an hour, we would still call it a day. Their measurements, if we question our first principle, give us grounds to question its verity.

I like your picture of Eta Carinae - an explosive ejection of material into two lobes traveling in opposite directions. How does physics explain a bipolar explosion?Physics works in the here and now. It works because we have adjusted our symbols until it does work. That does not mean the concepts, the assumptions, on which it is founded are valid.Energy is a symbolic thing that exists only in equations and has never been isolated in any experiment. We can only say light or matter is energetic. Energy is such a nebulous thing that it can even violate the "Laws of Conservation." Dark energy is supposed to spring our to the vacuum and accelerate matter. Another invisible thing invented to protect our first principle!The evidence that energy is a symbolic thing is seen in the distant sky. How could these tiny little objects be ejecting other smaller objects as though hammered out in violent ejections?

• If the ancient primordial galaxies do not have the same extension - geometry & shape - as local galaxies. They seem compressed.
• If they do not move the same - they are seen in chains - sometimes clearly linked.
• If the light from every atom from these primordial galaxies is shifted - yet we can identify the same atoms
• What is wrong with taking the evidence at face value? If the things do not look the same, move the same, and they are the same atoms but shifted
• Why not take it at face value?
• Does this confirm what the Bible says that everything in creation is under a decree - an orderly submission to corrupt. [Greek: phthora - used by Plato for the degeneration of matter].

Why do we defend our first principle with vigor? It must be the key assumption, the dogma of science. Without it our way of thinking would collapse. The Bible predicts that God takes them with their own skills. Can he take even mathematics and logic? Think about it.

You are still not getting what I am saying - if everything is changing - it will be visibly evident everywhere in the universe. Nothing visible in the universe is staying the same.The only thing that does not change in the whole universe is symbolic stuff based on the very first principle that Peter predicted. Only the invisible, mathematical, symbolic things are unchanging and we invented them with the very first principle Peter predicted. Plato - who did not follow Aristotle’s first principle - proposed forms as his solution to the problem of change. To explain how people are prisoners of their language and way of thinking he told a story of a cave and its prisoners. Our habitual way of thinking about the physical world can hold us prisoner.http://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/cave.htmThis message has been edited by ptolemy, 04-23-2005 10:49 PM

If matter is a relationship - for which there is ample quantum evidenceIf the relationship shifts - and all the light from primordial galaxies is shiftedThen matter could be a deteriorating - aging relationship. It would be like a shifting equilibrium.Because we have invented laws and constants based on the assumption of changelessness - we cannot imagine that matter could decay. The Apostle Paul wrote that the whole creation phthora [degenerates - corrupts]There is no way to propose a causal reason why the solar system would increase in size if atoms are not perpetual motion machines. The cause would be fundamental, and you can’t break it down into a higher level of specificity.The Bible twice states that the earth also continually increases in size - for which there is simple evidence. Again there is no way to precisely define why - if the cause is fundamental. Why? Matter is fundamental to everything.I am not a follower of Velikovsky. He did not question the first principle.The ancients spoke of close encounters
The Bible seems to record oneThe ancients mention a planet shattering
The Bible uses almost identical language and that God saved the world from chaos.As hard as we try - we cannot imagine that matter can change - shift as a relationship. Yet the universe is full of evidence of such change. It is easier to invent a fictitious universe made of undetectable things than to question one’s first principle.Can God really take the wise of the world with their own skills - their mathematical way of reasoning? He looks like He is on track to do so. Of course what I am saying is foolishness to those trained to only think with that little assumption. You are helping me prove that this really is our (the Western) first principle - our dogma about matter.

A brief history of scientific symbols.

1. The ancients had no concept of mass or energy and their idea of time was derived from nature, dynamic in every sense. Perhaps they noticed that as one ages - life speeds up and accepted this as universally valid. They believed their ancestors lived for vast long ages eating abundant fruit on a warm earth and that their faces were transmuted from great age (Job 14:20). But great catastrophes had periodically ravaged the solar system and introduced chaos and inferior ages.
2. The Greeks sought to overthrow this simple system by inventing a first principle on which to found science.
3. On the foundation of this assumption, we constructed a symbolic system with symbolic entities - mass, time, energy. These have an assumed separate existence and are defined as part of an unchanging reality. We used this system to invent experiments, logic, mathematical laws and constants. These had many short term practical uses.
4. But when we try to extend this symbolic system to understand the fundamental structure of matter - we ran into insurmountable paradoxes - e.g. duality and non local nature of matter.
5. When we try to extend this system to understand beginnings
6. We seem not to notice that our earth-history violates what all the patriarchs wrote about the earth and sky. Even what the ancient astronomers measured in the sky seems to have nagging discrepancies in some classes of measurement but is highly accurate in others.
7. When our symbolic system is applied to the most distant sky - we have to invent undetectable things to make our mathematical laws fit what is visible.

What changes in this universe? EVERYTHING. Absolutely nothing visible and real is unaffected by change.Only the symbolic stuff - the mathematical constants - stay the same. Yet these are completely dependent on our first principle, our little dogma that no one mentions or tests but everyone uses continuously.Your question is a valid question. What is the difference?

quote:

---

Colossians 1:16...17 For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth,. . . .and in Him all things hold together.

---

The Greek word translated "hold together" is a union or association that acts together. God actively sustains physical things by holding them together in a union. Yet in Romans 8 He says that everything in creation is decaying and illustrates this twice with together_words.Matter, atoms, hold together. It remains the same kind of atom as in its primordial existence. Yet it also changes as we can see in the light from all primordial atoms. How does it change? AS A RELATIONSHIP. The union that holds together is also aging - changing together. While everything is changing - the relationship — the union does not fall apart - the union is preserved. There is order and continuity - even while things are continually degenerating. In such a degenerating union - it is impossible to define the components of reality with symbols that will fit reality.

quote:

---

Bertrand Russell in "History of Western Philosophy"
Science, like philosophy, has sought to escape from the doctrine of perpetual flux by finding some permanent substratum amid changing phenomena. Chemistry seemed to satisfy this desire. It was found that fire, which appears to destroy, only transmutes: elements are recombined, but each atom that existed before combustion still exists when the process is completed. Accordingly it was supposed that atoms are indestructible, and that all change in the physical world consists merely in rearrangement of persistent elements. This view prevailed until the discovery of radioactivity, when it was found that atoms could disintegrate. Nothing daunted, the physicists invented new and smaller units, called electrons and protons, out of which atoms were composed; and these units were supposed, for a few years, to have the indestructibility formerly attributed to atoms. Unfortunately it seemed that protons and electrons could meet and explode, forming, not new matter, but a wave of energy spreading through the universe with the velocity of light. Energy had to replace matter as what is permanent. But energy, unlike matter, is not a refinement of the commonsense notion of a 'thing'; it is merely a characteristic of physical processes. It might be fancifully identified with the Heraclitean Fire, but it is the burning, not what burns.

---

Light is visible. It is inseparable from the nature of matter. The Bible simply says - what God made had no form or shape until He created light. Anyone who is not blind can see real things illuminated with light.Gravity is invisible. It is a symbolic thing - not even postulated until after we settled on our first principle. Just because the path of an object bends, does not prove the existence of a force. In fact, Einstein’s system does not need forces at all. The reason a pen drops from my hand to the floor could be because clocks at my feet run slower than clocks at the level of my hand. Experiments have shown that precision clocks fit his postulated space-time that is said to warp geometry. Unfortunately this does not prove even Einstein's gravity - because assumptions are and always have been a part of any definition of time. Does the gravity constant prove the existence of gravity?

1. No one has ever detected gravity or found a way to prove its existence.
2. Gravity is defined using our symbolic definitions - time, mass, space. Its definition depends on the first principle that Peter predicted and contradicts.
3. The gravitational constant is defined using these symbolic values - in such a way that - if the whole relationship is shifting - the constant could stay unchanging. Example: every equilibrium constant remains the same BECAUSE its definition embraces a dynamic relationship - where everything changes_together.
4. Did the ancients experience the same weight as we do when they moved a large rock?
   1. The earliest people could build great megaliths. The Egyptians left records that only a few thousand skilled workers built the pyramids.
   2. Dinosaurs that should not be able to stretch out their long necks, left tracks in soft clays showing that they could run.
   3. Primordial galaxies often look tiny - and even show visible evidence of ejections.
   4. Every spiral galaxy is a gravitational anomaly. Yet we can visibly see gas streams that connect their arms back to the core as though they were ejected.
   5. All the ancients, including the Bible, mention things in the solar sytem that make no sense at all using our laws of gravity.

Imagine that Adam could roll an orange down a plank and time it with his pulse. During the first pulse - it moved a unit distance. During the next - it moved 3 units, then 5, 7, 9 .... during each succeeding pulse the distance it rolled was the next odd number of units. Imagine that he added them all up and discovered that the total distance down the plank varied by the square of the elapsed number of pulses. (1;4;9;16;25 ...) That is the same thing Galileo found.But wait, a huge Brontosaurs grazing on the top of a giant fern tree is startled when Adam cries Eureka and lopes off as though it were a tiny kangaroo on its back legs and tail.What changed? There is nothing unchanging because matter shifts - every aspect changes together AS A RELATIONSHIP.When we insist on using our symbolic system - the universe clearly does not fit - so we image it is 99% invisible. If we interpret what the Bible says with grammar - not science - the simple, visible evidence fits the very words of the Bible.This message has been edited by ptolemy, 04-25-2005 07:26 PM

Gravity is an idea that has never been detected without complete dependance on assumptions. Newton said

quote:

---

I have not been able to discover the cause of these phenomena, and I frame no hypothesis.

---

Despite this, in the same passage, he said, gravity does really exist and follows his laws. There are several theories that attempt to give causes for gravity which can predict what we see in nearby spaces. No theory can predict what we see in galaxies or in the distant universe without inventing undetectable things. He calls himself by the name of Truth. Paul says let God be true and every man a liar. He does not deceive in either word or action. Could a God of integrity fill the universe with 99% undetectable things? No way! We invented these non existent things to protect our dogma. The Bible denies that man can decode even under the sun. I have not found a single statement in the Bible that grammatically agrees with a law of physics. Even the passages we use to hold up the Second Law, the exegesis is disputable at best, and contradicts the law at worst. We can observe all we want. Yet even instruments must be interpreted with preconceived - a priori - elementary ideas. I claim the Bible is accurate - even in astronomy. Christians have been in full retreat for over a hundred years in the area of astronomy. None of our theories hold water, and for some things, like the triangulation of SN1987a, we have no answer. Which creationist has shown how 6000 Biblical years can accommodate the great antiquity of the heavens? Yet in the original language, the Bible makes simple profound statements that impact this subject. But we no longer know how to think like the ancient prophets, because we also use the first principle of the last days. (I include myself. My Christian teachers trained me to think with the elementary ideas of the pagans, but they did it in good conscience. It was just part of our heritage.)Have our scientific theories made a single dent in the evolutionary juggernaut? Yet He promises that when our obedience is complete - we will defeat the speculations raised up against the knowledge of Him. Perhaps if we used the Bible as our weapon, and interpreted it with the historical grammatical method instead of science, we could do what the Bible promises. (II Corinthians 10:3 - 6)This message has been edited by ptolemy, 04-26-2005 03:30 AM

Even our ideas about gravity and our mathematical laws can’t explain a spiral galaxy without inventing invisible, undetectable things. You are proving my point. It is easier to believe in invisible things, than to question the assumption upon which the whole system is historically founded. If our first principle, an assumption, the one Peter predicted, is false, mathematics could not model the long ago or far away. Yet it could be adjusted to work with precision in close by spaces and times.Of course it is vague. It is impossible to define with precision things like Western concepts of mass, energy and time if this little assumption is false.Of course it is foolishness. To question a first principle is the most foolish thing you can do. Yet the God of the Bible commands Christians in the imperative to rather be foolish than think oneself wise IN THIS AGE [touto aion]. Why? We would deceive ourselves. Why? Because he is taking the wise with their own craftiness. (I Corinthians 3:16 - 18).Why would God want to that? So that simple faith in His Word, in Jesus the Creator who came to die for us, would triumph over every conceivable system of science. Jesus said, I praise thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou didst hide these things from the wise and intelligent and didst reveal them to babes. Yes, Father, for thus it was well pleasing in Thy sight. Why? So that those who war with Him will be defeated with simple evidence, and those who believe His Word in simplicity will praise His wisdom forever.The simplest evidence supports what the Bible actually says, even in spiral galaxies.

On the contrary, I have given you simple evidences that can be used to test whether our first principle is false. However, I cannot propose a test that assumes the definitions, laws and mathematical theories that are based on this first principle. That would be begging the question.

1. Isaiah 44:24b and 42:5, using the Hebrew verb tenses / stems it says, the earth continually stretches, expands, and everything on or from the earth also expands. Other passages explain the sound like thunder when the rift happened, the wide plain (in Hebrew) that accepted the waters of the flood, that God made a division to accepted the water of the deluge, and that the earth is stretched out upon the waters.
   1. It is beyond question that a great GLOBAL rift runs through all the oceans and that it often follows the contours of the lands (e.g. Africa - Americas), with perpendicular offset rifts.
   2. That most of the earthquakes occur along this seam.
   3. That fresh magma wells up as the seam (magma melts when pressure is relaxed - like water flashes to steam when a boiler ruptures) and produces new sea floor. (It is not local pressure that splits the crust open.)
   4. That the subduction zones were proposed before they even looked for evidence - to keep the earth from expanding.
   5. That the drill cores from the ocean trenches found layered sediments that mostly came from the land. The trenches are not filled with jumbled up oceanic oozes and clays that would be necessary if subduction really was happening.
   6. The evidence for subduction is invisible - the evidence that supports what the Bible says is visible.
   7. Simple evidence supports this, since the continents do not fit back together except on a globe 2/3 its present size. However, if matter is a decaying relationship - in which the very structure changes together - GPS, VLBI, laser ranging to the GEOS, etc could not measure this stretching. Because - orbits, meter sticks, clocks everything would be affected_together if what the Bible says is literally true.
   ​
2. That the Bible states 12 times that the heavens are continuously pounded / spread out.
   1. That long stings of tiny quasar like objects are found around active galaxies. At the end of some of these strings small galaxies and even clumps (Abel clusters) of micro galaxies are found.
   2. These objects have different redshifts yet are sometimes linked with radio contours, hydrogen streams, have bow shocks etc.
   3. The dimmest objects ever photographed (the Hubble Deeps) the chains of tiny naked galaxies are the predominant feature. Most of the objects are in chains with different redshifts. In some cases these tiny blue objects are seen with gas streams back to a larger object - as though caught in the process of ejection.
   4. But this visible evidence is excluded - because redshifts are the yeardstick. When the redshift surveys produces nonsense - e.g. the fingers of god pointing back to the earth from all directions in the sky, it is still accepted as dogma. Clearly the redshift distance formula is an inadequate gauge of distance.
   ​
3. That the Bible agrees with every ancient society on the subject of solar system catastrophes. It uses identical language for the shattering of a great planet as the Phoenicians in Job and Isaiah - but honors YHWH as the one who saved the world from grave danger
   1. That all the ancient astronomers seemed to have measured a smaller solar system.
   2. e.g. Cassini, Flamsteed & Richter used two methods of measuring parallax and measured a solar system 7% smaller than ours in 1672. Flamsteed used a micrometer eyepiece to compare the diurnal parallax with close bright stars when Mars stopped its motion against the background stars at conjunction. During the same month, Cassini measured the parallax when Mars occulted a bright star - (measured from S. America and Europe) to arrive at an angle only one second different from Flamsteed’s.
   3. Ptolemy measured the synodic periods, sometimes using eclipses 800 years apart, and his periods are almost identical to ours.
   4. Yet he measured the maximum elongation of Venus and Mercury and they are too large. Yet he used these erroneous measurements to calculate his parameters and they worked for a thousand years. Why did his errors cancel? I assume he did not have a computer to cull millions of possible fictitious measurements to select the ones that worked.
   5. Even his catalog of the stars, when compared to ours, shows the stars in the galactic plane, the milky way, are more accurate than those not in the plane. He seems to have measured a smaller galaxy!!!
   6. He even gives the construction details of the dioptra he used to measure diameters in the solar system. His diameter of the moon, at perigee and apogee, are to large in degrees, minutes and seconds. His diameter of every planet is too large, when compared to ours.
   7. If matter really is a relationship that ages and changes, it should affect the orbits continuously. However, if matter itself is the cause of this expansion, the synodic periods should not change. Why not? If a day went by in an hour, we would still call it a day, as Augustine commented 1600 years ago.
   8. Angles are one form of measurement that should not be affected if matter is a decaying relationship
   ​
4. I have given you three different ways to test our first principle against the actual grammatical statements of the Bible. The simple evidence supports the Bible.
5. What I have given you is falsifiable. We can look at the chains of quasars in the sky, we can look for the non existent oceanic sediments in the deep ocean trenches, we can compare the measurements of the ancient astronomers with ours. The symbolic evidence, the mathematical system based on or first principle, is the one you would need to question if you would test the first principle that Peter predicted and all of us use continuously.

A first principle is a tiny assumption that forces one to shoehorn all of physical reality to fit that conjecture about the nature of matter. I also shoehorn reality to fit my first principles - but I got mine from the Bible. I was raised in Western schools that got theirs from the pagan Greeks. Two different principles ===> two different shoehorns. I have tested mine - have you tested yours? Remember the only kinds of tests that are valid are ones that can result in a falsifiable outcome. You cannot use the system built upon an elementary idea to authenticate it - that is circular reasoning.The context in Isaiah.

quote:

---

Behold, My Servant, whom I uphold; My chosen one in whom My soul delights. I have put My Spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice to the nations.
He will not be disheartened or crushed, Until He has established justice in the earth; And the coastlands will wait expectantly for His law. . . .
Thus says God the LORD, Who created the heavens and stretched them out, Who spread out the earth and its offspring, Who gives breath to the people on it, And spirit to those who walk in it,
I am the LORD, I have called you in righteousness, I will also hold you by the hand and watch over you, And I will appoint you as a covenant to the people, As a light to the nations,. . . .
The LORD will go forth like a warrior, He will arouse His zeal like a man of war. He will utter a shout, yes, He will raise a war cry. He will prevail against His enemies.
I have kept silent for a long time, I have kept still and restrained Myself. Now like a woman in labor I will groan, I will both gasp and pant.
I will lay waste the mountains and hills, And wither all their vegetation; I will make the rivers into coastlands, And dry up the ponds.
And I will lead the blind by a way they do not know, In paths they do not know I will guide them. I will make darkness into light before them And rugged places into plains. These are the things I will do, And I will not leave them undone.

---

The context is: his promise to send His Chosen one to destroy his enemies and establish justice in the earth. The context is: I continually stretch out the heavens and the earth - that is the evidence of my limitless power that I can accomplish the promises I made about a righteous worldwide kingdom with the Servant of the Lord reigning from Jerusalem.The rules for understanding all ancient texts, biblical or otherwise, is to interpret them with the language and meaning of when they were written. No biblical author could ever have intended a scientific meaning. Scientific reasoning did not even exist when the Bible was written. Why then do we, Christians, tailor it to fit our scientific culture? Let me quote your very words when I am attempting to interpret the Bible with hermeneutics. If you want to argue that it doesn’t say that - use the grammar of the original - not the standard that it is not realistic in our way of thinking that did not even exist when Isaiah wrote.You see we judge what the Bible says using the first principle that history shows we got from the Greeks, to make it realistic. What a mess we have made trying to shoehorn it into our way of thinking. Every few years we have to adjust its meaning to try to make it fit the latest scientific theory. And yet it claims to be the unalterable truth. If the Bible really is the truth, it is a Tyrannosaurs Rex, that will eventually subdue falsehoods. Yet we try to defend its invincible, powerful truth with our puny way of thinking. Peter even predicted the very first principle that science is founded upon and clearly contradicts it, as do other biblical authors. I will quote back your own words, as one Christian to another, I feel sorry for you.This message has been edited by ptolemy, 04-27-2005 04:52 PM