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Author | Topic: SIMPLE Astronomical Evidence Supports the Bible | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ptolemy Inactive Member |
Phatboy asks: What is "the principle that Peter predicted? Pretend that we are being taught...right now...by Peter. What is it that Peter wants us to know about truth and reality? Keep in mind that you cannot skim over these principles and assume that everyone is going to catch on. 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.
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.
Phatboy asks: If you can't explain Aristotle scientifically, please show us how Aristotle and the Greeks differed from Peter philosophically. Surely the two can be contrasted, no? 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.
Phatboy asks: In a nutshell, what is it that you want EvC to know? What is it that you want us to see? You can't rewrite science by using theology, science fiction, or philosophy. You can show us what it is that you really want us to know. Is it Jesus? Is it a new theory?
Phatboy asks: When you say first principle, are you quite simply suggesting that either we acknowledge the Spirit of God as the source of all true wisdom or we will continue to be confused? Be honest! Yes or No? ( I am not disagreeing with you...I simply want a yes or no answer to that question.) 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 AM This message has been edited by ptolemy, 04-22-2005 10:29 AM
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ptolemy Inactive Member |
DHA comments:I have read most of this thread, brain reeling,I like your posts but nderstand the fustration. According to ptolemy the only obseved model is recorded in the bible. 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.
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ptolemy Inactive Member |
Arachnophilia states:i'd also like my question answered. if EVERYTHING changes directly related to everything else, what is the net observable effect, and how is it different than nothing changing at all? There is a vast difference:
A Brief history of the scientific cosmos:
A Biblical Cosmos based on a literal exegesis:
Please notice the vast difference in these two cosmologiesIn 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?
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
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ptolemy Inactive Member |
DHA asks: Do you have a text of the bible in the original language? 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:
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
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ptolemy Inactive Member |
phatboy asks: Don't you think that you would be more effective, at least in your next post, if you approach the online discussion from the position of a Bible teacher and not a science teacher? Even IF the Bible supports the science that you (or God) defines, it will never click with anyone here, because we don't understand why the Bible is true. 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.
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.
Phatboy requests: Teach us who God is. Not what God has said to you. 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?
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ptolemy Inactive Member |
ramoss writes: As far as I am concerned, trying to twist the 'simple' words in the bible to have it show your misunderstanding of scientific fact is corrupting the bible, corrupting science, and corrupting spirituality. . . . .he Bible says nothing of physics. 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
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.
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ptolemy Inactive Member |
Eta Carinae writes: You are correct in this but you made in your original post a physics claim that with a pocket calculator can be shown as absurd. Namely, the ejection of something like the LMC from the Milky Way bulge. I challenged you earlier to get out your calculator but you never replied. So Creationists fail and you ignore. Isn't it any small wonder that they get little note. Physics is a can do science. You either can do or you cannot and statements you made make me think (nay know) that you are just wishful thinking about galaxy structure so as to ally it with some vague Scriptural reference. 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?
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.
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ptolemy Inactive Member |
Arachnophilia writes: that has nothing do with the question i asked. none of that. i'm asking a vague and rhetoric question? how is everything changing together any different than everything staying the same? i'm not gonna bother with your misrepresentations of the biblical perspective of the cosmos and the scientific until you tell me what the difference your describing actually is. 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.htm This message has been edited by ptolemy, 04-23-2005 10:49 PM
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ptolemy Inactive Member |
Archnophilia writes: On a serious note - there's a lot of crap flying in this thread. Would you inform us the mechanism for a proposed historical difference in the orbit of Venus? If matter is a relationship - for which there is ample quantum evidence If the relationship shifts - and all the light from primordial galaxies is shifted Then 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 encountersThe Bible seems to record one The ancients mention a planet shatteringThe 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.
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ptolemy Inactive Member |
Arachnophilia writes: "in relation to everything else," then how is this different than staying the same? A brief history of scientific symbols.
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: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:
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ptolemy Inactive Member |
Eta Carinae writes: When does observation of the light emitted have any more validity than the gravitational effect? 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?
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
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ptolemy Inactive Member |
rogero writes: Your assertion that gravity is "invisible" whilst the form of EM radiation known as "light" is visible is at best a rhetorical trick and at worst a despicable ruse. Gravity is an idea that has never been detected without complete dependance on assumptions. Newton said quote: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. rogero writes:
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.
Do you believe that the Creator supplied the creation with integrity -- i.e., the ability to be studied by cognitively-aware creatures? rogero writes: If so, then it appears you've fallen into a large vat of gooblety-gook, in spite of your obvious ability at English articulation. If not, then what you're implying about the observable universe is simply frightful. I'm really trying not to be sarcastic, however --- I'm glad I'm not you. 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
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ptolemy Inactive Member |
Eta Carinae writes:
Please get out your calculator and justify #4.Physics, like all the sciences, eventually comes down to the fact you can either do it or you cannot. I don't think you can. You never provide a single calculation to be tied down to. It's all some artsy fartsy vague language and total off the wall craziness. ptolemy writes: #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. 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.
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ptolemy Inactive Member |
Eta Carinae writes: There is no falsifiable or predictive aspect to it. You can weasel out of any criticism because the whole framework rests on disregarding any outside evidence and at the same time not needing to provide any yourself. 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.
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ptolemy Inactive Member |
ramoss writes: You have shown nothing. You are taking things out of context, and mistranlated, and trying to 'shoehorn' things into that do not mean anything like it is intended to mean. Why don't you read Isaiah 42-46 IN CONTEXT?? It has nothing to do with geography and the physical bounds of the earth. Your insisting that these ancient texts say what they don't doesn't demonstrate anything at all, except that you are not realistic. 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: 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 ramoss writes: 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 are not realistic 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
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