Fixed Earth?

[amai]

This is probably old news to you, but it's not for me.

Does the Bible teach that the earth is motionless?

I don't seem to remember reading that in the Bible, but the webmaster on
this (http://www.fixedearth.com) site says the Bible and the Quran(of all things. Er... ^^) teach that the earth is motionless, not revolving around the sun.

I don't know what to make out of this. :tape

[Algesan]

These are geocentrists. Look here (http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/geocentrism.asp#geocentrism). Review (http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/tj/docs/tjv15n2_marshall_hall.asp)of the book advertised on that site.

[Rom831]

No, it does not say it is motionless or does not orbit. It says God has put it in the heavens (does not say anything about no orbit) and it cannot be moved and I have yet to see anyone move it.

You may also hear it said the Bible says the earth is flat because it speaks of the angels of the four corners of the earth. Four corners is a term still used today to describe N, E, S, W. It does not say flat.

They also try to show this by showing the Bible refers to the circle of the earth instead of sphere, which implies (today) flat. But in the original Hebrew, there was no word for sphere. Either circle or ball was used. Why wasn't ball used in the text? Because circle was just as commonly used in Hebrew.

Another one you may here is that they say the Bible says the sun orbits the earth because the Bible says the sun rises and sets But science shows that the sun doesn't rise and set, it is relatively stationary and changes position in our sky due to the earth's movments. But we still today say the sun rises and sets because it does. The passage in no way speaks of orbits or rotation, just of the position of the sun in the earth sky.

Finally, you'll then hear it said if we can "reintrepret" these verses so that the earth isn't flat, moves, and isn't orbited by the sun, then we can reintrepret Genesis to not mean days. The problem in none of the cases I listed, does the Bible actually say earth is flat, moves, or is orbited by the sun. But the Bible does, quite specifically say "day" in Gen 1.

Bless...ArtS

[budddyh]

Originally posted by amai
Does the Bible teach that the earth is motionless? Depends who you ask. Some people say it does (expecialy these guys (http://www.geocentricity.com/whygeocentricity.htm)) some say it doesn't. It's the same for a whole lot of other issues.

When you see people spout rhetoric such as:
In other words, either God writes what he means and means what he writes, or else he passes off mere appearances as truths and ends up the liar. The ultimate issue is one of final authority: is the final say God's or man's? (from the geocentricity website)
then your alarm bells should go off.

I think it's safe to say that if modern science is pretty much unnanamous about the subject, the contrary interperetation of the bible (and not the bible itself) must be incorrect.

[Angyl]

Originally posted by budddyh
I think it's safe to say that if modern science is pretty much unnanamous about the subject, the contrary interperetation of the bible (and not the bible itself) must be incorrect.

I wouldn't think it safe to say such a thing at all.

Certainly might, (modern scientists being unanamous), doesn't make right. That's an old lesson everyone should know! :nod

Unless you would dare make the assertaion that everytime science has been "unanamous" in history they've ALWAYS been right...

[Don]

Originally posted by amai
This is probably old news to you, but it's not for me.

Does the Bible teach that the earth is motionless?

No it doesn't. The motion of the earth has no bearing on anything spiritually important anyway. The Bible is not a science textbook, and we should not treat it as such. The purpose of the Bible is to point us to Christ, not to tell us the inner workings of the physical universe.

[Angyl]

Originally posted by Don
The purpose of the Bible is... ...not to tell us the inner workings of the physical universe.

Assumption.

[Don]

Originally posted by Angyl
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Don
The purpose of the Bible is... ...not to tell us the inner workings of the physical universe.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Assumption.
No, fact.

This is the problem with a lot of believers today: they totally take the wrong attitude toward the scriptures, and it has led to countless divisions and many, many incorrect beliefs. The Bible is not a magical book written by God to give us insight on concepts like the creation of blood cells in bone marrow and the like. (Let's see how badly this comment is miscontrued)

[Angyl]

Originally posted by Don
No, fact.


Hubris!

[Don]

Originally posted by Angyl
Hubris!
Ignorance.

[Angyl]

Originally posted by Don
Ignorance.

Typical response of a "science before Bible" type

First they state their BELIEF is fact

Then when called on it they INSIST, what they can not know with absolute certainty is positively right

Then when the arrogance of such assumption is pointed out...

"You must be ignorant of my wonderful, educated truth."

:rolleyes :rolleyes :rolleyes :rolleyes

I can't begin to count how many times I've seen this pattern. :nod

Well science, (and those that place it in extremely high regard) is nothing, if not predicatble! :laugh

[Mindenite]

I have to take Don's side in this one. The Bible does not teach everything. It teaches everything anyone needs to know in the area spiritually and how to be saved and what one should and should not do but it does miss some things. It never speaks os technology and rarely speaks of science. Want to learn how to build a computer? Reading the Bible will not help (God may help but that is different). Biology is barely mentioned as well as physics, chemistry, and geology. You won't be able to predict the resting place of an object that you shot into the sky by solely reading the Bible. This is not to say that science is not flawed. You can learn more about the history of human beings from the Bible than you can in a science class (history as in where we came from). Evolution is science's approach, creation is the Bible's approach. But this is fairly rare. Using science has an approach and the Bible is silent (usually because it is not necessary for salvation).

[Don]

Originally posted by Angyl
Typical response of a "science before Bible" type
Interesting that you think this because I'm not a "science before Bible" type.

You can get off your self-righteous high-horse.

[Angyl]

A well-reasoned and thought out post, Mindenite,

The Bible is not meant to teach man all of science, you are correct.

That doesn't mean that it doesn't hold scientific truths and we can't learn from it or STAND BEHIND it in the face of what it does teach scientifically.

As far as computers and advanced physics, chemistry, etc...

Those things aren't in a 1st grade science textbook either but does that mean that book isn't a SCIENCE book? Since when does a writing have to contain the sum of human knowledge to qualify as a type of book?

I say, the Bible WAS INDEED written to give us lots of scientific insight, but mostly spiritual, granted.

But the Bible is also full of
Philosophy,
Psychology
Health science,
Astronomy,
and even a tawdry romance or two :redface

But to say unequivocably that that the Bible was NOT written to teach us science, I believe is wrong. It does teach that, and so much more! :wave

[Angyl]

Originally posted by Don

You can get off your self-righteous high-horse.

You claim your opinion as to why the Bible was written is FACT and I'M the self-righteous one?

:pound :pound :pound
:laugh :laugh
:pound

[Rom831]

Originally posted by Don
This is the problem with a lot of believers today: they totally take the wrong attitude toward the scriptures, and it has led to countless divisions and many, many incorrect beliefs. The Bible is not a magical book written by God to give us insight on concepts like the creation of blood cells in bone marrow and the like. (Let's see how badly this comment is miscontrued)

You are correct, the Bible is Not a science book nor is it suppose to be one. HOWEVER, it very much does talk about issues involving scienve including origins, paleontology, astronomy, Archaeology and many more. Bearing in mind that what we title "the Bible" is simply a collection of scripture and Scripture is told to be Gods word, "God breathed" and "Flawless", can it be incorrect when it does speak on these issues?

(Please, I am asking Christians here)

Bless...ArtS

[Algesan]

Originally posted by budddyh
I think it's safe to say that if modern science is pretty much unnanamous about the subject, the contrary interperetation of the bible (and not the bible itself) must be incorrect.

Ok, let's clarify this some.

1) Has modern science always been correct when there is a large majority in agreement on something? (I don't demand unanimity since we can always find one that disagrees.)

2) What happens when such an agreement would disprove the Bible, but an alternate minority theory supports the Bible? Without twisting the language in a way that would violate the sciences of textual analysis, translation, etc. An example would be someone saying, "Oh, the creation account in Genesis is just an allegory," which shows ignorance of the fact that the Hebrew is written in a manner consistent with historical writing and not allegory.

3) The position that "the Bible isn't a science book, so you cannot use it for science" represents one of the catechism statements of the anticreationists. Let's contrast that to a book by Chandler on the Napoleonic era that discusses technological innovations such as rifled muskets. This also is a historical account and it mentions something techical, so, since it isn't a science text, we can assume by the logic applied to the Bible vs. science, that rifled muskets don't exist, correct?