B. John Jones

I just observed that Moses, having written about the moon, over 3,400 years ago, betrays a remarkable phenomenon. At Genesis 1:16 Moses writes, "God made two great lights—the larger one to govern the day, and the smaller one to govern the night. He also made the stars."

Now the fact is irrefutable that the face of the moon visible at night has constant concourse with the sun, and with the earth's dawn and dusk, and with that part of the earth obscured from direct sunlight by the shadow of night. The domain of the moon is over the dome of night (the height of the moon), which is arguably negligible relative to the sun's domain of day, which permeates infinitesimally close to 100% of the "solar system."

If we admit Moses' and Scriptural precept, then the moon's authority over the earth would be subject to the authority of the sun, which would confirm this constant concourse between the three, the moon having constant concourse not only with the earth's darkness, but always mediate between the earth and the sun.

I think that a very pertinent question for this topic would be, "do any of the terrestrial satellites of the 8 planets in our solar system maintain constant concourse between the particular planet's dome of night and the light of the sun, as does earth's moon?"

It isn't even possible to tell if the question has a meaning since there's a debate about whether or not "Christ" existed.

If he did (that's a big if) then the only records of what he might have thought are old books written (and re-written) many years after the alleged event by people who had their own clear agenda.

And that's probably why the various tales don't agree with eachother.

That's been followed up by a determined plan to reinterpret the books because they simply aren't very nice. These days, no book that tells you where to get your slaves and how to treat them can be taken seriously as a guide to morality.

 

And, once you realise that it's not being used as a moral guide, and it's not a history book,what's left?

Certainly nothing reliable so, as I said, there's no way to know the answer to your question.

 

Feel free to make up an answer- plenty of people have done it before and plenty will do it again.

Nonsense. Any devoted follower of a figure of Jesus' stature, who would endeavor to write an account of his life, or of the birth of his church, would spend at the very least decades to write such an account. Mark wrote his account between 59-71 years after Christ's birth. Since he was crucified at 33 years of age, the time passing from his death to Mark's account is a mere 38 years, and his was the original. The other 3 gospels depended much on Mark's account, while Matthew's and John's also included eye-witness interaction with the living Christ. Accounts of events, written by men, are human accounts. Every account of every event these proportions, by several eye-witnesses will always appear to clash, even if co-written with the God the Holy Spirit. Imagine Peter and John and Matthew in the mob at the execution, stretching and leaping to see their Lord being lead to Golgotha. They aren't in a single party and are struggling to see and hear everything going on. Their written accounts will not appear perfectly congruous.

In addition, if Rome could have discredited even one part of these accounts of Jesus' life, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, or the birth of his church, this man Jesus would have been forgotten. Rome knew very well how to crucify.

And yet, in the real world the year is something like 365.259636 times longer than the day.

That's natural- and it's not even constant. The earth isn't spinning as fast as it used to.

Nature is just plain awkward in this case (and many others).

The orbital period of the moon also isn't either an exact number of days, nor a simple fraction of the year.

So what I'm saying is that all these explicit anomalies working together harmoniously strongly affirms divine creativity. If nature were just a meaningless machine, the universe would be mostly self-destructive without harmonious home-environments and without conscious beings to experience them.

But God, by his divine nature of perfect love, chose as a master father to bring into his own house disobedient children of an imperfect world--he even struck his sinless, firstborn Son, Jesus, who took ownership of our own sin, receiving God's divine judgment, on our behalf.

I do not understand your point. It was noticed a long time ago that, based on observations, that the year is about 365 days. I agree

 

What do you mean that a calender is correct? A calender is just a useful way of approximately dividing up a year.

 

Nature suggests the basis of years being the cycle of 4 seasons, the basis of months being transitions of full moons, and the basis of days being transitions from dusk to dawn. Correct? Scientifically, these bases are far from being in-sync, because, I submit, science is imperfect, nature is not. Nature is logical, and nature is artistic. The things in nature appearing initially as flaws or divine exceptions--shooting stars, rainbows, human injustice--are all a part of someone's masterpiece. Everyone who appreciates art will understand that flaws and exceptions inspire the most beautiful aspects of the final specimens of art.

Because the topic is Islam vs Christianity. (though I grant you, it's a lousy title).

No, the title is "Islam vs Christianity." The topic is embodied in the opening question: What kind of sword did Christ approve of?

Yet another example of the logical fallacy known as argument from personal incredulity.

 

Do you realise that you are basing your claims on something that is known to be invalid?

Relative to yours or my very local environment, it is known that the earth is flat. Relative to the universe, it is known that the earth is spherical. What if someone said, "space is a plane?"

Personal incredulity = 100% correct absolute personal certainty. Success using reason to refute it is improbable, since it was never used in the first place. This is a personally deployed anti-knowledge defense, designed to justify all the hours spent on popsci instead of studying in school, in my experience.

1) Personal incredulity = 100% personal certainty based 100% on a person's inability or unwillingness to believe. Personal credulity = 100% personal certainty based 100% on premature belief.

2) Reason seeks to understand, and to be understood, not to refute arguments.

3) "Anti-knowledge," is (has always been) comprised of die-hard commitment to preserving modern conventions. Truth and diligence respect conventions, but always questions and challenges them.

4) Actually, while I was at college I studied beyond the point of exhaustion, and my studies following school have been just as persistent (but more enriching, as they should).

Does the fact that, if you tie a string to a ball, and spin it around in an 'orbit' without it ever colliding with you, also imply the existence of a Creator ?

 

The string is taut, implying it is 'pulling' the ball in an analogous fashion to gravity, so we are essentially modelling gravity.

Where does the need for a Creator come in ?

Please explain

Someone is holding the string.

I never said that I did, so that's a straw man argument which is another logical fallacy.

Are you aware that trying to support your argument on flawed logic makes you look foolish?

Did I say you said it?

Indeed, I would rather be a fool, than to imply to my neighbor that they look like one.

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For the record, I am not here to argue. The fact is, any person who is very enthusiastic about the scientific views into nature, and much more enthusiastic about the Jesus-kind of faith, is going to meet primarily with opposition in a scientific forum (except his faith be disguised). Yet I cannot help but to seek dialogue.

They are not sacred. They simply works.

 

The old way of detecting planet around star is measuring whether star is "shaking".

If some massive planet (or other star in binary system, or even black hole, pulsar, neutron star etc) is orbiting around examined star,

one attracts other, and center of mass is located outside of center of star.

Therefor on images/videos it appears to be shaking.

 

 

The new way of detecting planet around star is measuring periodical decrease of brightness of star. When planet is between its star, and us, the less light travels from star to our detector.

 

Solar system example of this effect, when Mercury or Venus transit, and cover the Sun:

Venus-transit-of-the-Sun-June-5-3.jpg

Thank you very much. I see that you are careful to learn and to explain the things you have learned.

So the question asks, "Is earth, moon and sun unique?" How would you answer?

Objects do indeed collide and we see this all the time in astronomy and observational cosmology.

These are the exceptions, which is part of my point. The only viable explanation for a highly ordered universe in which every object is magnetic to every other object, while the proportion of collisions to objects in harmony is still infinitesimally slight, is art. And art requires an artist.

But is is not exactly harmonious!

Exactly. Art.

Again, the fact that we have stable orbits and know how to mathematically describe them does not imply a God.

The only possible mathematical descriptions are relative to a local, assumed, enclosed system which implies a great degree of ambiguity, especially in light of the vastness of the universe and the inconsistencies between the way things are (harmonious, orbital members of the universe) and the the apparent inertia of the same things (inclined to collide due to gravity).

Yes, I suppose there is. So what?

AJB was charging that my position requires an intimate knowledge about detection of objects in the stellar atmosphere, which is not the case if such correlation exists. Should I strive to be an expert of every field of science? Not when such correlations do indeed exist.

Why? This sounds much more like argument from personal incredulity than science.

I'm arguing without perfect faith in human reason.

You're arguing without faith beyond human reason.

Yet another example of the logical fallacy known as argument from personal incredulity.

 

Do you realise that you are basing your claims on something that is known to be invalid?

Tell me, how do you personally know about the nature of the stars?

This phrase

"Primarily, he brought the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. " does not make sense.

Not that it matters much because your whole post was off topic.

How is it off-topic? The OP begins: "To begin this discussion my question is - what type of sword did Jesus bring and how did he use it?"

Actually, the Scripture uses these terms and symbols quite frequently.

An even more philosophical question is can science explain everything full stop!

 

However, so far there is no compelling reason to just say 'God did it'. That is not to say that science has stopped and that we know everything, nor is it to say that science will ever actually reach a stage of knowing everything. The notion of science and mathematics in principle explaining (so modelling well everything) and humans actually achieving that are subtly different questions.

 

 

 

Science has not established that there is a good notion of a 'spirit'. We have no evidence at all that such a thing exists. Moreover, spiritualists and religious people have not defined such a thing carefully. Of course that cannot as they cannot actually study such a 'thing'. So your point is moot.

 

 

 

Maybe not yet, but please be aware that we have medical science, biology etc and that people are scientifically trying to study consciousness. Again, not having a scientific explanation for something today does not imply that in principle we can never find a scientific explanation. Don't confuse scientific questions with the need for a God!

 

 

You are making huge leaps here without first taking small steps.

 

Again we have no evidence for a spirit or soul. There seems no case to answer here. And why is it impossible that we are just 'biological computers'? We are a very complex system that we may never fully understand, but again this by itself does not invoke the need for the supernatural.

 

In short, science is work in progress and the gaps themselves do not imply a God, gods or anything else supernatural.

 

The emphasis is now on you to define a soul, define a god and find some meaningful, unbiased non-personal evidence. Good luck.

Science is precisely what it was in the days of the first metallurgists. Technology has evolved but science is the same.

A soul is not to be defined, a soul is just to be. Late here in Hawaii. Aloha.

Okay, we get that also in general relativity. Basically gravity is a long range force.

 

 

 

That is a big leap that is not needed.

 

We know enough about gravity to know about and study (quasi)-orbits and so on. Your claim that this implies God in nonsense. Equally so, by your reckoning, any an all aspects of nature imply a God, while many of us think quite the opposite!

 

However, this seems off topic and related to the other thread we are involved in.

How could it be the opposite? If every object is attracted to every other object, the natural courses of objects would appear to be collision. But the universe is such that they are purposefully arranged to be in in harmony, even being attracted one to the others, orbiting one another rather than colliding. That would require an omniscient Creator.

All understood in terms of physics.

 

Physics and technology, okay...

 

biology, social sciences and physiology...

 

But still nature and very natural!

 

I am sorry, but you are not making yourself clear here.

 

What has any of this got to do with science needing God or gods to explain things?

The question is, "Can science explain everything without admitting there is a God?"

Science cannot ever explain the spirit or "thing," inside of a person that let's them have life; to move and breathe and experience it all in full awareness. Science can never duly explain what happens to that spirit or "thing," when it's body of flesh is buried or cremated or otherwise decays. Science can explain the electrical pulses, but if that were the essence of life we would all be robots without senses.

 

You are doubting the existence of electrons now? Okay, but that is another subject and you should start a new thread.

 

 

It is more of a definition. To be in the solar system the objects must be gravitationally bound to the Sun. This means that it is not 100% clear where the Solar System ends, but the main gravitational influence on the extrasolar planets is not our Sun but the star that they are orbiting. Still, the basic physics is not unique to our Solar System.

I'm not doubting the existence of the electrical charges detected by electron microscopes. My point is there's a correlation between their detection and our detection of very distant masses.

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Newton's gravity says that EVERY object in the universe is in the gravitational pull of the sun, and of every other object in the universe (in direct proportion to the quantity of the 2 masses, and in inverse proportion to the distance between the 2), which I do not doubt, naturally speaking. An eternal intelligence is absolutely certain if all the masses in the universe are orbiting other masses, rather than colliding either to one place of destruction, or in total confusion.

I do not follow.

 

What we observe is natural, almost by definition. Are you referring to discrepency between theory and experiment?

 

 

Meaning that on a discussion forum you think you can get away with a statement and not expect it to be questioned? You are the one that said "Absolutely not" and now you should be prepared to back that up! (This is a discussion forum)

What we observe is natural, by definition. I'm referring to phenomena such as shooting stars, whirlwinds, rainbows, modern precision of human invention, human warfare and injustice, inexplicable acts of human kindness; extreme exceptions to the way nature usually goes.

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Get away with? Absolutely not. Back it up? Absolutely. How does science explain our standard basis for measuring time as 365 and some fractions of number of rotations of the earth, and yet the earth never orbits the sun, and the moon never orbits the same earth precisely correlative numbers of times? The calendar is correct because humans govern the earth. But except a creative, omniscient artist governs humans and the universe, nothing really is explicable.

You could of course look into the science of how we detect such planets.

 

 

 

You are just being too lose here.

 

Anyway the forces and matter that make up our Solar System do not appear to be unique to our local region of the Universe. We have good reasons to believe that physics is universal, for example we can use the same laws to model our Sun and we can for other stars. Another example could be modelling the motion of binary stars around each other, this fits with our laws of planetary motion. The list continues and so far we have no evidence that the laws of physics are different in, say other galaxies as compared with our own. I hope that answers your sort of opening question.

Or I could make an educated guess that's it correlates with the way we "detect," electrons with an electron microscope.

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Okay, by modern standards of science, earth and moon are a member of a solar system, correct? How is it proven that 8 other planets are members of that system, and not of another?

We have detected many other planets around other stars, some of these planets are 'Earth-like' and sit in 'Goldbricks' zones. You can find lists online if you are interested.

 

 

 

This I do not follow. Every object is (or was) a satellite of what?

A list says little. "Detection," of any mass of matter supposedly far more distant than the sun is not believable, much less claims that masses of matter have been "detected," orbiting them. We need an audit of all these "sacred," lists.

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Every object is by nature a satellite of another object. It's orbit is it's state of inertia.

And groups of objects with their satellites are very much like atoms comprising masses.

Do you care to clarify this?

[Clarifying the first part of my answer to the original question: "Absolutely not."]

Certainly. Is there even one master in any field science who can begin to count the number of deviations in nature from what appears, by science, to be natural? If so, then we can begin to contemplate your question.

The problem is that the forces and the matter seem quite universal.

 

Can you clarify your question?

Would you admit or oppose the notion that earth, moon and sun are unique in the universe, without special regard to the "planets" in "our solar system?" I submit that every other "planet," star or terrestrial mass is simply a certain kind of satellite in orbit around another satellite, or in deviation from it's natural orbit, as with a shooting star.

This is a continuation of discussion between me and John Cuthber from the Paris attack thread.

 

There, John quoted a verse from Mathew (10:34) that says:

To begin this discussion my question is - what type of sword did Jesus bring and how did he use it?

Primarily, he brought the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Secondarily, he brought the sword as we know it, restrained. In one of the 4 gospels, Christ says to the Apostles before being arrested and crucified, "I have told you not to carry swords, but now I tell you, if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one." But when Peter took an arresting soldier's ear with his sword, Christ said, "enough!" healing the soldier's ear. Christ and Paul were in agreement, one having said, "Love your enemies," and the other, "If God be for us, who can be against us?" and "Our battle is not against flesh and blood." Every word spoken in Jesus' name is an offense to many.

No offense, but I have always been against religion. I know most of the bible and some of it is just plain horrible. I'm going to give you a few of these quotes; Psalms 137:9, 1 Kings 20:35-36, Genesis 19:5-8, Deuteronomy 22:28-29, and Numbers 15:32-36. I got more than that and if you don't believe me read them for yourself.

 

I was always told as a kid that "the universe can't come from nothing" and this proves God exists. It wasn't until I watched a science video until I learned the truth. The basic idea is that the universe started at a heated and condensed state. Energy (not nothing) had transferred into particles of matter. These particles later combined because of the heat and made atoms, which later combined and made planets and stars. Then the universe cooled down and expanded. This took place over billions of years...

 

It's seems like everything can be explained by science and not religion. In the bible; bats are birds, unicorns exist, pi is three, and plants were created before the sun. We all know this is not true. A religious person asked me why the sky was blue the other day and how this proves God exists. I told him that the particles in the atmosphere reflect the color based on the distance from the sun. In your opinion, can Science explain everything without a God. What do you think?

Absolutely not. Science is one very useful way of looking at nature.

An invitation to every inclined physicist or cosmologist to admit or escape the notion that the energy and the forces between the earth, the moon and the sun, their substance and motions, are absolutely unique in the universe.