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buffalo
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Sources?
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rossum
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If we are measuring the age of the earth then we measure it in the frame of reference of the earth. If we are measuring your age then we measure it in your frame of reference. It is irrelevant that there are objects in the universe relative to which you are two seconds old or one million years old. We can pick any age that we want and there will be a frame of reference somewhere in which that will be your relative age. The age of a body is the age measured in that body’s own frame of reference; outside that frame of reference age can be different depending on the frame of reference you pick.
During the life of the earth its velocity relative to itself has been zero, so no special relativistic effects are present. During the life of the earth the gravitational force on it has been very small, small enough that its effects are within the experimental error of the measurements. Hence there are no siginificant general relativistic effects either.
Correct. I await your evidence that such a strong field has affected the earth at some time in the last 4.5 billion years.
False. We know precisely that the velocity of the earth in the earth’s frame of reference is zero. There is no such thing as absolute velocity, so we cannot know it. We can only know our velocity relative to another object.
The possibility of an absolute frame of reference was disproved by the Michelson-Morley experiment. Do you have any experimental result which goes against the result of that experiment? The whole point of relativity is that there is no absolute frame of reference, which is why all velocities are relative.
There are many unknowns, but the extent of the unknowns is often confined within known boundaries. We can observe a certain amount of mass in the universe directly - this gives us a lower bound to the mass of the universe. We can calculate the effect of larger masses. At some large values of mass the current universe would have collapsed under gravity into a single large black hole. Since we do not observe that we know that the total mass of the universe is less that that value - this gives us an upper bound to the mass of the universe. We do not know what the precise mass of the universe is. We do know that it is less than our calculated upper bound and we know that it is greater than our observed lower bound. We do not know everything, but in many cases we can put bounds on the limits of our ignorance.
You have this backwards. We have measured the gravitational attraction, so we know what its value is. The dark matter is hypothesised to supply enough extra matter, beyond the observed bright matter, to account for the measured gravitational attraction. We have already measured the gravitational force - finding dark matter, or any other source of the extra gravitation, will not affect the measurement, it will merely explain it.
In the ancient past the velocity of the earth relative to itself was zero, just as it is now. If you have any evidence of large gravitational fields affecting the earth in its past then please show it.
rossum
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humble_in_doubt
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during the Galileo affair the CC substantively accused Galileo of deviating from a literal interpretation of scripture held by the church at that time (specifically pertaining to verses such as: Psalm 93:1, 96:10, Chronicles 16:30, Ecclesiastes 1:5, Psalm 104:5, Joshua 10:13, etc.). Galileo’s defense was that scripture should not be interpreted literally (relying on Augustine). However, he was ultimately imprisoned all the same (for his advocacy of a heliocentric universe).
Galileo argued unsuccessfully that scripture (particularly books of poetry like Psalms) should be interpreted figuratively not literally; but he lost his argument (see: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei).
Additionally, here’s another interesting factoid:
Some early Christians delayed baptism until they were dying, as is said to have been the motive for which Constantine delayed receiving baptism.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baptism#cite_note-73
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buffalo
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- The early Christians baptized children -
Early Teachings on Infant Baptism - If the Church believed that then the church would have been built on top of a rock.
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adriancombe
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StAnastasia
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avflf, it’s a bit more complex than you make it out to be, and just because you object to something doesn’t make it so. Scripture is not an all-or-nothing proposition. The Judeo-Christian Bible is a composite document, composed of many different genres of ltierature, woven together by redactors over centuries, in many different social, economic, and political contexts.
The Bible was never intended as a science book. The accounts of creation and the flood are mytho-poetic accounts similar to other such literature from other religious traditions. What is unique about the Hebrew Scriptures is the way in which the authors and redactors were inspired to organize their material in a theologically coherent way, and to express it in terms of an architectonic of “salvation history.” Thus, the flood story or the story of Jonah and the great fish serve theological or moral or and liturgical purposes, and we are not judging them to be false when we acknowledge that they cannot be read as a scientifically accurate account of some event that happened to the world or to an individual named Jonah.
StAnastasia
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humble_in_doubt
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oh golly … not the RCC revisionist spin job on Galileo … you guys are too funny. Thankfully this event is well recorded in history (so trying to spin it only dilutes your credibility further, if that’s even possible).
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StAnastasia
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Very well documented in Hess and Allen’s Catholicism and Science (2008), chapter 2.oh golly … not the RCC revisionist spin job on Galileo … you guys are too funny. Thankfully this event is well recorded in history (so trying to spin it only dilutes your credibility further, if that’s even possible).
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avflf
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If one is predisposed to a belief system one would find enough evidence that unrelated stories, of a mythological or historical nature, had been woven together so as to give such believer the assurance that, if not so much their composition then the editing and final presentation of the various stories was divinely inspired and presented a deep religious truth. Thus, the adherents of the various religions look on their sacred books with the same awe and read into them all manner of “salvation histories”, to use your description. There is nothing unique about any of them in the sense of being a cut above the rest. Should someone believe that, say, The Lord of the Rings to be divinely inspired he would find in its pages deep spiritual truths. It all depends on your starting block how and in which direction you will run.
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rossum
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You cannot change your “relativistic state” on your own, you can only change it relative to something else - that is why we talk about the theory of “relativity”. Your “relativistic state” relative to yourself is always zero velocity. There are frames of reference in which you are one second old. There are frames of reference in which you are one year old. There are frames of reference in which you are pretty much any age you want to be. None of that has any impact on your age as measured in your own frame of reference.
When scientists talk about the “age of the earth” they are using it as a shorthand for “the age of the earth as measured in its own frame of reference”. This is the same as when you talk about how old you are, you are actually talking about your age in your own frame of reference. In other frames of reference your age could be different.
The age of the earth as measured in its own frame of reference is about 4.5 billion years. When measured in other frames of reference it can have different values. None of the values is absolute because all are relative. The value as measured in its own frame is the most common and the most useful.
It is neither common nor useful for anyone to thnk of you as being one second old despite the fact that there is a frame of reference in which you are indeed one second old.
rossum
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Orogeny
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Really? Should we take the parables to be actual events? Should we take the book of Revelations literally?
You are wrong in your assertion. I have the actual authority (the Church) tell me that I should read scriptures in light of the way they were written. Which specifically means not literally.
Peace
Tim
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Orogeny
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Well, you make it clear that you don’t believe the Bible since you decided to re-write it (or parts of it). Besides, the question isn’t about truth, it is about literalness.
I believe that Genesis makes it very clear that God created everything.
Only if you believe that. I don’t believe that any of it is “quasi true” or “pure fabrication”.
I am grateful I don’t have your worldview regarding scriptures. If I did, I guess I would have to discount them as you do.
Peace
Tim
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avflf
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Not about truth? That God, or should I say Gods (Elohim), created the heavens and the Earth and all in it in 7 days or that the chapter is not to be understood as it is written but anybody can put any number of years between each day (yôm - day, lit. from sunrise to sunset or one sunset to the next; fig. a period of time, age. Take your pic).Now, allowing for so much diversity of interpretation, do you accept that a god that is, according to you, omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient would create so much confusion in the minds of his followers in the very opening chapter of his book? If, however, you believe the same way as StAnastasia then it doesn’t matter if it’s not true, as long as it conveys some theological truth (or what appears to be a theological truth) to a section of believers. As you probably know, the first chapter of Genesis is based on the Enuma Elish, the Babylonian creation myth. Many other stories in the Bible are also taken from much older texts e.g. the Book of Job, the story of Moses, the exodus from Egypt, unless you believe that these older texts were also divinely inspired.
It is your prerogative to believe what you want but it appears, from your answer below, that it is not really your belief but what the Church tells you to believe.
It takes a bit of study of the biblical texts to get it, and seeing there are no fixed rules on how to interpret the holy texts do not begrudge my own interpretation, right or wrong as it may be.
Why not? Can you be certain that the sower did not exist, or the 10 virgins? But no, you do not have to take parables literally … but you accept literally that Jesus told them, don’t you? Revelation should be read as you read any prophetic utterance. It says right at the beginning of the book that it is meant to show the followers of Christ “things which must shortly come to pass” and if you accept that the word signify in “he sent and signified” means “by signs” then you must take all reference to beasts with many heads and horns to signify some future event and not literal beasts. Same as in the Book of Daniel
All of them?
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Orogeny
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Why did God create anything? Why did God allow free will? There are well thought out theological answers to those questions, but we don’t know if they are correct or not. I don’t believe that God created any confusion at all. It is only a problem if one insists that the book of Genesis is a literal history of the creation.
So tell me, do you reject the bible as inspired or do you not?
The sun rises in the east. Now that you have been told that, do you believe it because it is true or because I told you so?
I accept the Church as THE authority because that authority comes from God. I am not arrogant enough to think that I have the ability to correctly interpret scriptures without the help of the institution established by Christ.
So why is that true for you and not for me? Why can’t I interpret parts of the bible as allegory or as myth and other parts as literal?
I see. So you can take parts as non-literal and others as literal.
Didn’t you tell me in an earlier post that if I consider scriptures to be inspired that I had to take all of them literally? Or did you not mean it when you wrote “So if the Scriptures are from God i.e. God’s Word then all in it must be true and yes it should be taken literally.”?
Peace
Tim
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avflf
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Yes, I believe the Books that comprise the Bible are inspired, that the writers, like every writer of books, were inspired; even my effort at writing the Bible in verse was inspired.
As for the Sun I accept it rises from the East because I also can observe it and I agree with you because our perception of East is the same. However, if I regarded your East as West I would disagree with your statement.
How do you know that the Church has such authority? Because you take what the Christ said to Peter literally ?
You can interpret anything literally or figuratively, so how do you go about discerning which is which? Ah, the Church tells you. But the Church, till recent times, believed Genesis literally.
Sure thing. If one really believes that the Scriptures come from an omniscient God, I believe it should be taken at face value. If God says Jonah was swallowed by a big fish who am I to disagree?
Orogeny, I feel we have been digressing from the topic of this post, which is a discussion on the age of the world so, before a Moderator intervenes, I think we should call it quits. What say ye?
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StAnastasia
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The universe is 13.715 billion years old. Earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old, and life has been here for 3.5 billion. That’s pretty much it, so we should be able to close the thread now. Of course, we won’t – we’ll haggle on until we reach the 1,000 post limit. It’s kind of like life!
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avflf
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Or we could go on discussing the right amount of zeros of the old earth view-point:
*“In a study published today (2003) in the journal Science, a team of researchers says the universe is between 11.2 billion and 20 billion years old.
Most estimates in recent years have ranged between 10 billion and 15 billion years. Last year, data supplied by the Hubble Space Telescope led to an apparently refined estimate of 13 billion to 14 billion years.” *from Space.com
I go for the upper figure
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StAnastasia
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I’m a theologian, not a cosmologist. I’ll go with the consensus of the cosmological community. In any case, this is orders of magnitude older than 6,000 years.
StAnastasia
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heiscominginthe
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IT is the world that moves against the Word of God. The world wants men to say all the OT is merely parable, that it is merely symbolic and did not actually occur. To say that Adam and Eve did not exist is to not believe in God. For to not believe in the Word of God is to not believe in God.
And this is a said thing when you have a house devided. For it is written that a house divided will not stand.
So I would not be a bit surprised to see a movement toward a split which seperates those who choose to believe every Word in the bible who stand on creation, not evolution as opposed to those who choose to ignore the OT by believing it is fairytales and also believe that the world was not created, but evolved.
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StAnastasia
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(1) It is not true to say that not to believe in a literal Adam and Eve is not to believe in God. Millions of people both believe in God and accept evolution.
(2) You may be right that a split is coming. But who will lead the part of the Church that interprets scripture literally? Pope Benedict accepts evolution.
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