Okay, take their scenario where a day becomes a year. What are the surface temps at “noon” and “midnight”?
This is the one incident in the bible that I can not resolve, because Joshua was once involved in a battle where the sun stayed in the sky longer than a day… which could only happen if the earth stopped rotating… which as has been mentioned above would generate a whole lot of heat… not to mention things on the surface wanting to keep moving.
I’m thinking the answer is a nova or something, but have no idea if there are any remnants that fit the bill.
This is not to say there are not other things I don’t understand, but this is the only thing I’ve found that is a bit faith shaking. Well, SDB had written an article that was pretty strong regarding genetics and Noah, but on researching, I found he was not entirely correct.
Why stop here? What if half the earth’s mass suddenly turned into antimatter? Huh? What then?
I just don’t see the point of looking at the results of something that couldn’t happen without a series of miracles, and that isn’t going to happen according to celestial mechanics as we know it…
Seems kinda strange that a planet would ever become fixed in orientation with regards to the background stars. Do we suppose there is a single planet in the galaxy that maintains such an orientation.
Seems a more likely scenario would be a tidally locked planet where one hemisphere is always in sunlight and the other in darkness. In this case, would the planet assume a nearly sphere shape? I don’t believe that is the case for the moon.
The answer, as always, is explosives.
You’d be a natural for playing a goblin in World of Warcraft’s next expansion pack.
This is the one incident in the bible that I can not resolve…
Ken, I hate to pick at someones faith, but if that is the only story you can’t resolve in the Bible then you aren’t looking very hard. If God can create the Heavens and Earth in seven days, then it should be a walk in the park for Him to stop the Earth’s rotation for a few hours, resolve all the kinetic energy issues, and then re-starting the rotation. Either you have faith it happened, or you don’t.
I would seriously propose you look at the Bible less as a literal description of history and more as a collection of ancient human wisdom on man’s place in a moral universe, not a physical one. To do so doesn’t diminish God or the Bible’s importance and impact on Western Civilization, but it does put an end to trying to resolve things that simply don’t make sense in the physical world.
Ken, I hate to pick at someones faith
mpthompson, I welcome it from such a decent person as you seem to be. Christians (and I’m not claiming to be one since I feel god makes that decision) are told to question their own faith, to challenge it at every level. To challenge god actually and literally prove the truth of the bible… or to eat, drink and be merry because you’re wasting your life to have faith in something that isn’t true.
If God can create the Heavens and Earth in seven days
The heavens were created in the beginning… full stop… perhaps 14 billion years ago or so.
The earth was created in seven days, but not 24 hr. days since days refers to a period of time and all seven are referred to as the DAY of creation (some of the poetic language causing the confusion.) Also, we’re still in the seventh day, it hasn’t finished. God is still spending his day off.
then you aren’t looking very hard
I do. I find that many criticisms are straw men. Choose how to interpret, then destroy that. Asimov was a genius at that. But if you take a moment to try to understand what is meant, sometimes you are astounded. The bible, many thousands of years ago said the earth is a circle (which from the word translated can also mean sphere) that is hanging on nothing. Who else said that back then?
There are many passages that give me trouble, but less so when I realize it is my own limitations and not gods limits that are causing me the trouble. I have trouble with Lot saying, “here, have sex with my daughters, but leave these strangers alone.” Lot had different ideas about hospitality than I have but I don’t find that shaking my faith in god.
I just don’t see the point of looking at the results of something that couldn’t happen…
Thought experiments sometimes lead to insight. Sometimes they turn out to be things that can happen… such as the collapse of the magnetic protection that keeps us all from being fried by the sun. That has happened and will again… we just don’t know when, but some say it’s due.
Hey Ken, I’m glad you didn’t take offense at my posting because none was intended. I’m very happy you are exploring your faith.
BTW, knowledgeable people were aware the Earth was a sphere for many thousands of years. For instance, a Greek mathematician named Eratosthenes accurately measured the circumference of the Earth as well as determined the tilt of the Earth’s axis with respect to the Sun. He may have also accurately measured the distance to the Sun. This was all done in the 3rd century BC. You may want to read about how he did this as it’s pretty interesting to learn out how clever some of the ancients were. They noticed subtle things that even most modern people aren’t aware of.
Yes, the ancients knew a lot of things we don’t give them credit for, but Eratosthenes was quite a bit after Job. I read somewhere that the Egyptians had a method of determining primes that doesn’t exist today. I think there is plenty of evidence that humans are devolving rather than evolving… yes, I’m being facetious… or am I?
I think there is plenty of evidence that humans are devolving rather than evolving
What does that even mean? There’s no such thing as “devolving.”
The human species is evolving at a furious rate, and the rate is likely accelerating as our immediate environment changes faster and faster. Calling the changes (that increase fitness relative to the existing environment) “devolution” is to project value judgments onto the changes.
1. Transfer or delegate (power) to a lower level, esp. from central government to local or regional administration
2. (of duties or responsibility) Pass to (a body or person at a lower level)
3. Degenerate or be split into
I believe Mr Anthonys usage would fall under the third definition.
I meant in the context of evolution. As Paul says, it implies a value judgement. Evolution has no goals, and there’s no such thing as “devolution.”
ken, there’s no reason the kinetic energy (and more importantly angular momentum) has to be dissipated as heat. All you’re asking for is some very peculiar form of “collision” between the Earth’s mass and some (no doubt very unusual) external gravitational field. There’s no law of physics that says the kinetic energy and angular momentum can’t be stored in the external field and then returned smoothly to the Earth, much as when you drop the end marble in one of these the kinetic energy an linear momentum goes down the line of marbles, turns around, and comes back to the original marble, with very little of it dissipated as heat.
To be sure, no simple astronomical interaction could possibly fill the bill. But if one has, say, a supply of small black holes at one’s disposal, as one would imagine God does, and can fire them at the Earth in some no doubt very complex sequence, to form the required space-and-time varying gravitational field, I’m quite confident you could make the Earth stand still (act tidally locked to the Sun) for a day, an hour, eight hours, whatever, without causing the crust to melt, the Earth to splatter like a raindrop, et cetera.
And if you find that at least moderately convincing, then consider what is implied by the fact that I, a mere mortal, can supply the missing mechanism for what you believed happened. If I can think of a way to do it, when your imagination is baffled — how much more likely is it that God can? He’s surely a lot smarter than me.
Which means (and this is my point), the fact that you can’t think of how it can be done should never be a serious barrier to your faith. Your imagination can hardly be equal to God’s genius.
For my part, I think the much bigger challenge to faith is simply that if arguendo God exists, what logic suggests he would concern himself with any individual man, and even if he did, why would his concern be interpretable to us as a father’s love? The gap between us would have to be as much as the gap between a man and a leaf. Why would a man concern himself with each individual leaf of the trillions on Earth? If he did, how could it be that his concern would be interpretable (by the leaf) as essentially exactly equivalent to the behaviour of a stem and attached nearby twig?
Carl,
The sad and amazing thing is I’ve considered all the things you posted before (perhaps not as deeply as you have) yes, black holes and all. You actually amaze me, which is not an easy thing to do. It seems like a trickster thing to do (something I give to Loki rather than god) but I’m not the judge.
The gap between god and man is immense, yet if in the image, perhaps not so much in some areas as we think. Christians are suppose to have a personal relationship with god. A great deal of the depression that I suffer is that I do not.
When Jesus said a person could command a mountain to move and it would I consider that Stephen Hawking is telling me he wasn’t talking figuratively but literally.
It’s not time to close the patent office just yet… we still have an ginormous amount to learn about reality.
Devolving is just word play Rand. I realize the premise that evolution has no goals.
Devolving is just wordplay Rand. I realize the premise that evolution has no goals.
Evolution has no goals
Sure it does — survival.
According to the New York Times , in such a situation,
Women and Minorities would be hardest hit.
Christians are suppose to have a personal relationship with god. A great deal of the depression that I suffer is that I do not.
Sure you do, ken. First of all, you’re not indifferent to him, right? It may be you distrust him, or are angry with him, or any number of things. But that’s not the same as having no relationship with him — as not knowing him at all.
One of the most remarkable insights about faith I ever heard was spoken by the Dean of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, Alan Jones, in about 1986. He was relating some of their ministry to AIDS sufferers, who in those days died quickly at 100% rates, there being no treatment whatsoever. And he said this, roughly. Prayer is an intimate conversation, not some sacred scripted show. And like all our intiimate conversations, it isn’t always polite, or G-rated, and it may not be admiring, or praising, or consist of moderate and reasonable requests. A desperate bitter lament or heartfelt curse is just as much a prayer as the ‘Our Father.’
He spoke of visiting a very sick young man, and becoming enraged himself at God’s seeming cruelty, and how the both of them just shook their fists at heaven, so to speak, and let God have it. You son of a bitch! What does this mean? I believe it means something…but what? Tell me, damn you! This was a very intense act of prayer.
Consider, then, that your doubt and your back and forth and your questioning may well be, as it has been for great Christians since St. Augustine, just part of your faith. Faith doesn’t necessarily feel as warm and peaceful as resting in mom’s arms as a little child. It’s much more complex than that. Because you are.
Secondly, you have a relationship to certain men and women, do you not? Recall each is made in the image of Christ. If you have a relationship to them, you have a relationship to God, because it is necessary (if he is who he’s supposed to be) that each and every human soul is a portion of his nature, just as our own children reflect a portion of ourselves. What you do to the least of your brothers, you do unto me. RIght? That’s meant to be a warning against evil, of course — but it logically follows that it applies to the better side of human nature, too. Cherish your wife, love your children, be loyal to your friends — and you have necessarily done those things for Christ himself, and if he exists at all, he cannot be indifferent to that, whatever other grudges you may hold against him.
I think the meaning of “personal relationship” is not that you necessarily feel God in a very personal and direct way, as if he himself was talking to you every day, sending you special messages no one else can hear, causing significant patterns to appear in your TV static, et cetera. I think what it means is that how you understand your faith, what it means to you, and how it governs your life and thoughts has absolutely nothing to do with what other people think. It’s not to please your mom and pop, or seem righteous in the eyes of others, or because everyone tells you to do it this way or that. It’s because it’s what you yourself, when you’re all alone at night, believe is the rhyme and reason of your existence.
And if, as sometimes happens, you think there isn’t any, then — create them, ken. What else do you have to do with your allotted time? If you can’t find meaning to life, then create some. You can do it. Indeed, it may be that that is the work to which God has assigned you. Your own Cross, which however hard for you, will throw light and warmth and good into the lives of many others.
“Guess I’m just a spud boy. Looking for that real tomato.”
A simple question for the physics geeks out there…….. By what percentage would the weight of an object on the earth’s surface increase if the earth stopped rotating?
Hangtown Bob: at what lattitude?
At the equator, it would increase by 0.344%. To get the variation with latitude, multiply by the square of the cosine of the latitude.
Ursula LeGuin’s Winter in the The Left Hand of Darkness has about 1 day a year of rotation. I think most of the air would freeze out if the Earth were tide locked. It might be interesting to do the Thermodynamics of 2 day per year rotation. How much atmosphere would freeze? I also recall someone doing a far future sci-fi story returning to a tide-locked Earth and restarting Earth’s rotation with the ship’s stellar drive (but not much thought being given to how to anchor the drive into the crust).
Plus you’d really need two ships to form a couple. Otherwise you’d affect more than spin.
Turns out Stephen Hawking has proof there is no God so it's all cool.
The first casualty would be hyperlinks.
Sigh…
Yeah, I believe this is the link Rand was looking for.
Who-hoo! We’re saved!
BTW, if the Earth were to stop turning, wouldn’t the energy involved in stopping the Earth pretty much melt the crust into a smooth goo?
I think, for the sake of discussion, they’re ignoring where the angular momentum went.
mpthompson: I think we’d probably not notice that as the water of the Earth’s oceans swept over the continents at supersonic speeds.
I hope Hank Johnson (Idiot-Georgia) sees this, I figure his response would be worth a chuckle or two.
The real question is, how fast would it stop? Those is Alaska would feel some discomfort while the tropics would be a fine pink goo.
“wouldn’t the energy involved in stopping the Earth pretty much melt the crust into a smooth goo?”
I, for one, welcome our new, smooth goo, overlords!
No, the real question is how you get it going again. The answer, as always, is explosives.
“The answer, as always, is explosives”
That’s even better than duct tape!
Okay, take their scenario where a day becomes a year. What are the surface temps at “noon” and “midnight”?
This is the one incident in the bible that I can not resolve, because Joshua was once involved in a battle where the sun stayed in the sky longer than a day… which could only happen if the earth stopped rotating… which as has been mentioned above would generate a whole lot of heat… not to mention things on the surface wanting to keep moving.
I’m thinking the answer is a nova or something, but have no idea if there are any remnants that fit the bill.
This is not to say there are not other things I don’t understand, but this is the only thing I’ve found that is a bit faith shaking. Well, SDB had written an article that was pretty strong regarding genetics and Noah, but on researching, I found he was not entirely correct.
Why stop here? What if half the earth’s mass suddenly turned into antimatter? Huh? What then?
I just don’t see the point of looking at the results of something that couldn’t happen without a series of miracles, and that isn’t going to happen according to celestial mechanics as we know it…
Seems kinda strange that a planet would ever become fixed in orientation with regards to the background stars. Do we suppose there is a single planet in the galaxy that maintains such an orientation.
Seems a more likely scenario would be a tidally locked planet where one hemisphere is always in sunlight and the other in darkness. In this case, would the planet assume a nearly sphere shape? I don’t believe that is the case for the moon.
The answer, as always, is explosives.
You’d be a natural for playing a goblin in World of Warcraft’s next expansion pack.
This is the one incident in the bible that I can not resolve…
Ken, I hate to pick at someones faith, but if that is the only story you can’t resolve in the Bible then you aren’t looking very hard. If God can create the Heavens and Earth in seven days, then it should be a walk in the park for Him to stop the Earth’s rotation for a few hours, resolve all the kinetic energy issues, and then re-starting the rotation. Either you have faith it happened, or you don’t.
I would seriously propose you look at the Bible less as a literal description of history and more as a collection of ancient human wisdom on man’s place in a moral universe, not a physical one. To do so doesn’t diminish God or the Bible’s importance and impact on Western Civilization, but it does put an end to trying to resolve things that simply don’t make sense in the physical world.
Ken, I hate to pick at someones faith
mpthompson, I welcome it from such a decent person as you seem to be. Christians (and I’m not claiming to be one since I feel god makes that decision) are told to question their own faith, to challenge it at every level. To challenge god actually and literally prove the truth of the bible… or to eat, drink and be merry because you’re wasting your life to have faith in something that isn’t true.
If God can create the Heavens and Earth in seven days
The heavens were created in the beginning… full stop… perhaps 14 billion years ago or so.
The earth was created in seven days, but not 24 hr. days since days refers to a period of time and all seven are referred to as the DAY of creation (some of the poetic language causing the confusion.) Also, we’re still in the seventh day, it hasn’t finished. God is still spending his day off.
then you aren’t looking very hard
I do. I find that many criticisms are straw men. Choose how to interpret, then destroy that. Asimov was a genius at that. But if you take a moment to try to understand what is meant, sometimes you are astounded. The bible, many thousands of years ago said the earth is a circle (which from the word translated can also mean sphere) that is hanging on nothing. Who else said that back then?
There are many passages that give me trouble, but less so when I realize it is my own limitations and not gods limits that are causing me the trouble. I have trouble with Lot saying, “here, have sex with my daughters, but leave these strangers alone.” Lot had different ideas about hospitality than I have but I don’t find that shaking my faith in god.
I just don’t see the point of looking at the results of something that couldn’t happen…
Thought experiments sometimes lead to insight. Sometimes they turn out to be things that can happen… such as the collapse of the magnetic protection that keeps us all from being fried by the sun. That has happened and will again… we just don’t know when, but some say it’s due.
Hey Ken, I’m glad you didn’t take offense at my posting because none was intended. I’m very happy you are exploring your faith.
BTW, knowledgeable people were aware the Earth was a sphere for many thousands of years. For instance, a Greek mathematician named Eratosthenes accurately measured the circumference of the Earth as well as determined the tilt of the Earth’s axis with respect to the Sun. He may have also accurately measured the distance to the Sun. This was all done in the 3rd century BC. You may want to read about how he did this as it’s pretty interesting to learn out how clever some of the ancients were. They noticed subtle things that even most modern people aren’t aware of.
Yes, the ancients knew a lot of things we don’t give them credit for, but Eratosthenes was quite a bit after Job. I read somewhere that the Egyptians had a method of determining primes that doesn’t exist today. I think there is plenty of evidence that humans are devolving rather than evolving… yes, I’m being facetious… or am I?
Frank’s obviously a fan of Futurama.
I think there is plenty of evidence that humans are devolving rather than evolving
What does that even mean? There’s no such thing as “devolving.”
The human species is evolving at a furious rate, and the rate is likely accelerating as our immediate environment changes faster and faster. Calling the changes (that increase fitness relative to the existing environment) “devolution” is to project value judgments onto the changes.
de·volve
devolves (3rd person singular present); devolved (past tense); devolved (past participle); devolving (present participle)
1. Transfer or delegate (power) to a lower level, esp. from central government to local or regional administration
2. (of duties or responsibility) Pass to (a body or person at a lower level)
3. Degenerate or be split into
I believe Mr Anthonys usage would fall under the third definition.
I meant in the context of evolution. As Paul says, it implies a value judgement. Evolution has no goals, and there’s no such thing as “devolution.”
ken, there’s no reason the kinetic energy (and more importantly angular momentum) has to be dissipated as heat. All you’re asking for is some very peculiar form of “collision” between the Earth’s mass and some (no doubt very unusual) external gravitational field. There’s no law of physics that says the kinetic energy and angular momentum can’t be stored in the external field and then returned smoothly to the Earth, much as when you drop the end marble in one of these the kinetic energy an linear momentum goes down the line of marbles, turns around, and comes back to the original marble, with very little of it dissipated as heat.
To be sure, no simple astronomical interaction could possibly fill the bill. But if one has, say, a supply of small black holes at one’s disposal, as one would imagine God does, and can fire them at the Earth in some no doubt very complex sequence, to form the required space-and-time varying gravitational field, I’m quite confident you could make the Earth stand still (act tidally locked to the Sun) for a day, an hour, eight hours, whatever, without causing the crust to melt, the Earth to splatter like a raindrop, et cetera.
And if you find that at least moderately convincing, then consider what is implied by the fact that I, a mere mortal, can supply the missing mechanism for what you believed happened. If I can think of a way to do it, when your imagination is baffled — how much more likely is it that God can? He’s surely a lot smarter than me.
Which means (and this is my point), the fact that you can’t think of how it can be done should never be a serious barrier to your faith. Your imagination can hardly be equal to God’s genius.
For my part, I think the much bigger challenge to faith is simply that if arguendo God exists, what logic suggests he would concern himself with any individual man, and even if he did, why would his concern be interpretable to us as a father’s love? The gap between us would have to be as much as the gap between a man and a leaf. Why would a man concern himself with each individual leaf of the trillions on Earth? If he did, how could it be that his concern would be interpretable (by the leaf) as essentially exactly equivalent to the behaviour of a stem and attached nearby twig?
Carl,
The sad and amazing thing is I’ve considered all the things you posted before (perhaps not as deeply as you have) yes, black holes and all. You actually amaze me, which is not an easy thing to do. It seems like a trickster thing to do (something I give to Loki rather than god) but I’m not the judge.
The gap between god and man is immense, yet if in the image, perhaps not so much in some areas as we think. Christians are suppose to have a personal relationship with god. A great deal of the depression that I suffer is that I do not.
When Jesus said a person could command a mountain to move and it would I consider that Stephen Hawking is telling me he wasn’t talking figuratively but literally.
It’s not time to close the patent office just yet… we still have an ginormous amount to learn about reality.
Devolving is just word play Rand. I realize the premise that evolution has no goals.
Devolving is just wordplay Rand. I realize the premise that evolution has no goals.
Sure it does — survival.
According to the New York Times , in such a situation,
Women and Minorities would be hardest hit.
Christians are suppose to have a personal relationship with god. A great deal of the depression that I suffer is that I do not.
Sure you do, ken. First of all, you’re not indifferent to him, right? It may be you distrust him, or are angry with him, or any number of things. But that’s not the same as having no relationship with him — as not knowing him at all.
One of the most remarkable insights about faith I ever heard was spoken by the Dean of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, Alan Jones, in about 1986. He was relating some of their ministry to AIDS sufferers, who in those days died quickly at 100% rates, there being no treatment whatsoever. And he said this, roughly. Prayer is an intimate conversation, not some sacred scripted show. And like all our intiimate conversations, it isn’t always polite, or G-rated, and it may not be admiring, or praising, or consist of moderate and reasonable requests. A desperate bitter lament or heartfelt curse is just as much a prayer as the ‘Our Father.’
He spoke of visiting a very sick young man, and becoming enraged himself at God’s seeming cruelty, and how the both of them just shook their fists at heaven, so to speak, and let God have it. You son of a bitch! What does this mean? I believe it means something…but what? Tell me, damn you! This was a very intense act of prayer.
Consider, then, that your doubt and your back and forth and your questioning may well be, as it has been for great Christians since St. Augustine, just part of your faith. Faith doesn’t necessarily feel as warm and peaceful as resting in mom’s arms as a little child. It’s much more complex than that. Because you are.
Secondly, you have a relationship to certain men and women, do you not? Recall each is made in the image of Christ. If you have a relationship to them, you have a relationship to God, because it is necessary (if he is who he’s supposed to be) that each and every human soul is a portion of his nature, just as our own children reflect a portion of ourselves. What you do to the least of your brothers, you do unto me. RIght? That’s meant to be a warning against evil, of course — but it logically follows that it applies to the better side of human nature, too. Cherish your wife, love your children, be loyal to your friends — and you have necessarily done those things for Christ himself, and if he exists at all, he cannot be indifferent to that, whatever other grudges you may hold against him.
I think the meaning of “personal relationship” is not that you necessarily feel God in a very personal and direct way, as if he himself was talking to you every day, sending you special messages no one else can hear, causing significant patterns to appear in your TV static, et cetera. I think what it means is that how you understand your faith, what it means to you, and how it governs your life and thoughts has absolutely nothing to do with what other people think. It’s not to please your mom and pop, or seem righteous in the eyes of others, or because everyone tells you to do it this way or that. It’s because it’s what you yourself, when you’re all alone at night, believe is the rhyme and reason of your existence.
And if, as sometimes happens, you think there isn’t any, then — create them, ken. What else do you have to do with your allotted time? If you can’t find meaning to life, then create some. You can do it. Indeed, it may be that that is the work to which God has assigned you. Your own Cross, which however hard for you, will throw light and warmth and good into the lives of many others.
Thank you Carl. I’m not really able to respond.
Devolution as art:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devo
“Guess I’m just a spud boy. Looking for that real tomato.”
A simple question for the physics geeks out there…….. By what percentage would the weight of an object on the earth’s surface increase if the earth stopped rotating?
Hangtown Bob: at what lattitude?
At the equator, it would increase by 0.344%. To get the variation with latitude, multiply by the square of the cosine of the latitude.
Ursula LeGuin’s Winter in the The Left Hand of Darkness has about 1 day a year of rotation. I think most of the air would freeze out if the Earth were tide locked. It might be interesting to do the Thermodynamics of 2 day per year rotation. How much atmosphere would freeze? I also recall someone doing a far future sci-fi story returning to a tide-locked Earth and restarting Earth’s rotation with the ship’s stellar drive (but not much thought being given to how to anchor the drive into the crust).
Plus you’d really need two ships to form a couple. Otherwise you’d affect more than spin.
Turns out Stephen Hawking has proof there is no God so it's all cool.