how to give a scientific opinion on this
Posted on: July 27, 2008 - 9:33pm
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how to give a scientific opinion on this
hi back here
I was asked this question from a jehovah's witness
they are biblical or scientific questions
Isaiah 40:22 There is One who is dwelling above the circle of the earth, the dwellers in which are as grasshoppers, the One who is stretching out the heavens just as a fine gauze, who spreads them out like a tent in which to dwell,
job 22:7 He is stretching out the north over the empty place,
Hanging the earth upon nothing;
CAN YOU GIVE ME YOUR OPINION OF THE TEXTS THAT QUOTES YOU?
can any of you give me a scientific opinion? thanks.
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yeah, great, absolutely! so what's the question? thanks.
how did they knew of these 2 Biblical books in the antiquity
that the planet is suspended in nothing
The Earth isn't suspended and space isn't "nothing."
he ask me about this 2 bible books
Isaiah 40:22 There is One who is dwelling above the circle of the earth, the dwellers in which are as grasshoppers, the One who is stretching out the heavens just as a fine gauze, who spreads them out like a tent in which to dwell,
job 22:7 He is stretching out the north over the empty place,
Hanging the earth upon nothing;
cheers.
Official scientific opinion follows:
Um... what?
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
Two ways to deal with this:
One, the "heavens" are the stars, and aren't a "tent", nor is the earth a circle but a spheroid, nor is it hanging but part of a big gravity driven dance with Sol the center of its orbit and the Milky Way the context.
Two, a great deal of cultures predating the bible have made similar claims about the earth - if one is willing to stretch definitions to make the bible's interpretation work, then you have to give 'got there first' credit to others.
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray
uhhhhehhhh, wow....i don't see where you got that from what it (netopia) is saying.
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray
hmm, that's kind of out there to even be classified as bullshit. how do they figure it's scientific now?
Fear is the mindkiller.
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray
well then it shouldn't be such a hard question to figure out then, should it *ahem* (netopia)?
I don't know the background on those books of the bible, but to my mind it seems more likely that it is a refutation of Hinduism than a poor rendition of Newton's Laws of Motion (which is my guess at what the JW's are saying is the scientific claim).
If I have gained anything by damning myself, it is that I no longer have anything to fear. - JP Sartre
How about a layman's opinion? They're full of it.
The earth isn't a circle, it's a sphere.
I am not a grasshopper.
Maybe something like pilates? Exercise is good? (stretching)
Arctic is pretty empty, just talk to the eskimos, though they will tell you differently.
It isn't hung on anything, so nothing is a bad translation of that.
It is only a nickname, Grasshopper.
There are other translations, such as King James's, which are as follows:
King James Bible
It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in:
Isn't this allegorical, anyway?
Regarding Job 22:7....it doesn't say anything like that at all.
At least, I can't find anything like that...
22:7 says:
7 You have not given the weary water to drink,
And you have withheld bread from the hungry.
The closest thing to what was quoted as Job 22:7 comes
in Job 22:12-14, which are as follows:
12 “Is not God in the height of heaven?
And see the highest stars, how lofty they are!
13 And you say, ‘What does God know?
Can He judge through the deep darkness?
14 Thick clouds cover Him, so that He cannot see,
And He walks above the circle of heaven.’
All of this seems allegorical and/or imaginary.
Actually it is Job 26:7 that we should be looking at:
He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing.
Still, this only demonstrates that one or more people may have understood that the earth is an orb in space (like the sun/moon which they could see) and that they didn't have any better way to understand or express its presence in the "nothing" that they could see and so they imagined a god "hanging" or suspending it there like a yo-yo or something.
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nikimoto
this jehovah's witness only wants to know what people like me ( I do not believe that there is a all powerful god) , thinks about the books that he mentioned.
Isaiah 40:22 job 22:7
how the primitive man, or tribal men knew about it beford there was any way or technology available to them.
this is the book second he quoted job 22:7 my bad.
you don't need technology to see the sun, moon, clouds, or the stars, and then make up some fantastical explanation of how they're all interrelated.....
furthermore, the quotes don't mention anything about three-dimensionality
Fear is the mindkiller.
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray
This part is taken to be allegory for the expanding universe - ie stretching just as fine gauze (allusion to a metric grid) spread like a tent in which to dwell (alludes to three dimensions of space).
And this is, more obviously, taken to be a reference to the apparent vacuum of space.
My opinion is the same as Jill's, though these metaphors are reasonably analogous to 20th century scientific models of the universe, if you give credit here you must consistently give credit to other religious tracts having the same degree of truthiness, and there are lots of those. Ultimately it says very little about the explicit existence of Judeo Christian God (this is a very selective sample of the Biblical hit rate against a selective sample of science it's not very compelling) and could mean a lot of things.
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