Earth

Originally posted by josephw

Do you see the earth suspended on anything? I don't!

Through observation we do.
Open your eyes!

Originally posted by wolfgang59
Through observation we do.
Open your eyes!

By analogy it is easy to demonstrate the levitation of a piece of metal using magnets. It is suspended in midair by the balancing of gravitational attraction by magnetic repulsion. Manipulation of these forces could guide the object along a path. Do we "see" the object being suspended, as by a string? No. But we know better.

So the earth, thought at the time to be motionless, was actually suspended all along its orbit (not to a fixed place) by the action of gravitational forces on its inertial velocity. We know better.

Originally posted by JS357
What about my "falling" idea? Is that unbiblical?

I saw your post about that. Interesting, but I'm not sure what to make of it. Seems possible. Suspended in a falling. Falling would mean there's an up and down in the universe, and that the earth was falling or moving toward something like the bottom.

Could be.

Originally posted by Agerg
You and other fundamentalists cretins talking about thinking outside the box, and thinking for ourselves is patently ridiculous!

[b]josephw: hmm...I wonder how birds stay in the sky!? 😕
pastor: goddidit!
josephw: Whoah thanks pastor, I now know everything about aviation!!! 🙂


josephw: hmm...I wonder what forces water ...[text shortened]... ephw: [/b]Whoah thanks pastor, I now know everything about biology!!! 🙂

... and so on ... 😵[/b]

Yes, I am a cretin. Feel better?

Well, you're the one that immediately discounts the Biblical narrative out of hand just because it's the Bible without even thinking about it. You get all hung up in your mind over a word or phrase because of your narrow mindedness. It means you're not thinking outside the box of your preconceived ideological biases.

Suspended. Just a word Agerg. Seems to me one could say that everything in space is suspended there even though it's all moving around. So flippin' what?!

You atheist guys are scared as hell the Bible might say something true. Then your're whole box headed paradigm collapses and you have a tizzy fit and start calling people names like a big baby. 😉

Originally posted by wolfgang59
Through observation we do.
Open your eyes!

"And if you were to give any credence to the sentence it would mean describing Gravity and Newton's Laws of Motion as "nothing"."

What do you "observe" the earth suspended on? Gravity?

The earth is suspended on gravity? Well, ok, so the object that has the greatest gravitational force on the earth would be the sun? Right?

But because the earth is spinning around the sun that gravitational force is negated and a kind of equilibrium is established that prevents the earth from falling into the sun. Right?

Sounds like suspension to me!

Originally posted by josephw
"And if you were to give any credence to the sentence it would mean describing Gravity and Newton's Laws of Motion as "nothing"."

What do you "observe" the earth suspended on? Gravity?

The earth is suspended on gravity? Well, ok,

Glad you agree

Originally posted by josephw
I saw your post about that. Interesting, but I'm not sure what to make of it. Seems possible. Suspended in a falling. Falling would mean there's an up and down in the universe, and that the earth was falling or moving toward something like the bottom.

Could be.

Falling is accelerating due to gravity.
The earth is accelerating due to gravity. (That of the sun)

Falling does not mean the universe has an up & down!!! 🙄

Originally posted by josephw
Yes, I am a cretin. Feel better?

Well, you're the one that immediately discounts the Biblical narrative out of hand just because it's the Bible without even thinking about it. You get all hung up in your mind over a word or phrase because of your narrow mindedness. It means you're not thinking outside the box of your preconceived ideological biases.

Su ...[text shortened]... d paradigm collapses and you have a tizzy fit and start calling people names like a big baby. 😉

Well, you're the one that immediately discounts the Biblical narrative out of hand just because it's the Bible without even thinking about it
I discount the Bible narrative out of hand because those who wrote it have no business being taken seriously by those of us who have actually been educated. If the likes of you have your way, it is to the same cold, barbaric, disease-infested, filth-ridden way of life as experienced by the writers of the Bible that humanity will once again return. Moreover, the only solice I would take in such an outcome is that having already surpassed the life expectancy of humans back in that age, I would find myself dead long before the full horrors of your totalitarian theocracy coalesce back into one.


You atheist guys are scared as hell the Bible might say something true...
Erm ... no we're not!

Originally posted by Agerg
[b]Well, you're the one that immediately discounts the Biblical narrative out of hand just because it's the Bible without even thinking about it
I discount the Bible narrative out of hand because those who wrote it have no business being taken seriously by those of us who have actually been educated. If the likes of you have your way, it is to the same co ...[text shortened]... atheist guys are scared as hell the Bible might say something true...[/b]
Erm ... no we're not![/b]

101 scientific truths in the Bible.

http://www.eternal-productions.org/101science.html

Many of these are arguable and some are just silly (chicken or egg first?), but I like the sanitation tips. So it turns out that the observant Jews during the second millennium plagues suffered fewer infections than the less observant Christians. In at least one town we visited (Speyer) the Jews were blamed for the plague and persecuted because they were less affected by it, because they used clean water for their ritual cleansings.

People learned about the world by trial and error and the good tips (good at the time, maybe not later) got made into rules in for example, Leviticus.

Originally posted by JS357
"...suspended in space?"

Actually, Earth is continuously falling.

Consider a satellite in stable orbit around the earth.

It is under gravitational attraction and is free to fall, but its lateral velocity is set so it keeps "missing" the earth by the same amount, say, 100 miles. The Moon is doing the same thing.

And we are a satellite of the Sun. ...[text shortened]... h is falling.

That's why, to return the satellite to earth, its lateral velocity is reduced.

I was obviously talking about how it might appear to someone (looking at a picture of earth from outer space) a few thousand years ago. Surely you wouldn't expect anyone from a few thousand years ago to know as much about this as you are able to know about it today... or would you?

Originally posted by twhitehead
So basically the verse is so vague it could mean just about anything.

To you perhaps, because the modern reader today is so heavily pandered to. The expression "plumbing the depths" appears to have nearly lost all meaning.

Originally posted by stellspalfie
the earth isnt suspended on nothing. the bible is wrong.

Are you suggesting the earth is hanging from something, kind of like how a Christmas tree ornament hangs from a tree? What does modern day science say the earth is hanging from?

Originally posted by wolfgang59
Why would ancient thinkers think that?
It is counter intuitive.

Shouldn't you be asking yourself why would any ancient thinker think the earth is suspended in a void? With no visible means of support, either from above or below. You can't really believe they had the same information or means to find out that we have today, can you?

Originally posted by wolfgang59
Falling is accelerating due to gravity.
The earth is accelerating due to gravity. (That of the sun)

Falling does not mean the universe has an up & down!!! 🙄

And yet you are somehow expecting that ancient people, from thousands of years ago, should have (or could have) known this...

Seriously? Is it really so hard for any of you to image what people could have known or not known that long ago?

Originally posted by lemon lime

Seriously? Is it really so hard for any of you to image what people could have known or not known that long ago?

One would expect the bible to say what it says ... if written by Man.

But if inspired by a god ... one would expect more.