JTF.ORG Forum
Torah and Jewish Idea => Torah and Jewish Idea => Topic started by: Pursley on June 14, 2009, 11:11:00 PM
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As it is written:
"And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed..." -- Joshua, 10:13
"Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day." -- Joshua 10:13
"And Isaiah the prophet cried unto the LORD: and he brought the shadow ten degrees backward, by which it had gone down in the dial of Ahaz." -- II Kings 20:11
"Behold, I will bring again the shadow of the degrees, which is gone down in the sun dial of Ahaz, ten degrees backward. So the sun returned ten degrees, by which degrees it was gone down." -- Isaiah 38:8
"And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord God, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day:" -- Amos 8:9
"Therefore night shall be unto you, that ye shall not have a vision; and it shall be dark unto you, that ye shall not divine; and the sun shall go down over the prophets, and the day shall be dark over them. Then shall the seers be ashamed, and the diviners confounded: yea, they shall all cover their lips; for there is no answer of God." -- Micah 3:6-7
And this is what we find in over other culture on Earth so the Hebrwes couldn't have invented the story.
"Biot (1846) and Humboldt (1850) were the pioneer western astronomers who firstly introduced the historical Chinese astronomical records to North America." -- Zhen-Ru Wang, astronomer, November 2006
"According to the legend, the ancient peoples [of Lake Titicaca] had been without light for many days." -- Clive L. N. Ruggles, archaeoastronomer, 2005
"It is said that in this province [Titicaca] the people of ancient times tell of being without light from the heavens for many days, and all of the local inhabitants were astonished, confused, and frightened to have total darkness for such a long time. Finally, the people of the Island of Titicaca saw the Sun come up one morning out of that crag with extraordinary radiance." -- Bernabé Cobo, historian, 1990
"The last of these catastrophic events occurred on 23 March - 686. Fortunately, men were not illiterate at the time of these catastrophes." -- Immanuel Velikovsky, cosmologist, 1979
"Physical scientists were outraged in 1950 when Immanuel Velikovsky published historical evidence from around the world suggesting that the order and even the number of planets in the solar system had changed within the memory of man. Ideas in nearly every field of scholarship were challenged, but most seriously challenged of all were certain dogmas in the field of astronomy which had only in recent centuries succeeded in convincing mankind that Spaceship Earth was a haven of safety. The emotional outburst from the community of astronomers that so blackened the name Velikovsky and so successfully - if only temporarily - discredited Worlds in Collision has been laid to many causes, from the psychological and the political to simple resentment against invasion of the field by an outsider. Whatever the nature of such intensifying factors, however, I believe it is only fair to acknowledge an underlying and totally sincere scientific disbelief in the historical record." -- Ralph E. Juergens, engineer, 1972
"Could the [American] Indians on this continent know the connection between the sun appearing over the horizon, Eastern horizon, dropping down, again appearing, dropping down, and all the continent, this continent, bursting in flame? How could they know the connection? So they could not invent the stories. Something must have happened." -- Immanuel Velikovsky, cosmologist, 1966
"...it was accepted that the solar system has no history at all. So it was created if not 6000 years ago, then 6 billion years ago. But then for 6 billion years there was no change. Whether it was created or came into being by tidal action of a passing star which would be catastrophic as the tidal theory wishes or it is growing out of a nebula, the nebular theory which goes back to Kant and Laplace, but since creation there was no change. But if what I am telling you is truth, then there were changes, and very many, and very recently too." -- Immanuel Velikovsky, cosmologist, 1966
"... the solar system may have changed so much since it was created that a study of the present state would tell us very little about it's origin." -- Hannes O.G. Alfvén, physicist, 1954
"In -747 [B.C.] a new calendar was introduced in the Middle East, and that year is known as 'the beginning of the era of Nabonassar.' It is asserted that some astronomical event gave birth to this new calendar, but the nature of the event is not known. The beginning of the age of Nabonassar, otherwise an obscure Babylonian king, was an astronomical date used as late as the second Christian century by the great mathematician and astronomer of the Alexandrian school, Ptolemy, and also by other scholars. It was employed as a point of departure of ancient astronomical tables. 'This was not a political or religious era.... Farther back there was no certainty in regard to the calculation of time. It is from that moment that the records of the eclipses begin which Ptolemy used.' [Cumont, F., 1912] What was the astronomical event that closed the previous era and gave birth to a new era?" -- Immanuel Velikovsky, cosmologist, 1950
"In the tomb of Senmut, the architect of Queen Hatshepsut, a panel on the ceiling shows the celestial sphere with 'a reversed orientation' or the southern sky. The end of the Middle Kingdom antedated the time of Queen Hatshepsut by several centuries. The astronomical ceiling presenting a reversed orientation must have been a venerated chart, made obsolete a number of centuries earlier. 'A characteristic feature of the Senmut ceiling is the astronomically objectionable orientation of the souther panel.' The center of this panel is occupied by the Orion-Sirius group, in which Orion appears west of Sirius instead of east. 'The orientating of the southern panel is such that a person in the tomb looking at it has to lift his head and face north, not south.' 'With the reversed orientation of the south panel, Orion, the most conspicuous constellation of the southern sky, appeared to be moving eastward, i.e., in the wrong direction.' [Pogo, A., 1930]" -- Immanuel Velikovsky, cosmologist, 1950
"The most incredible story." -- Immanuel Velikovsky, cosmologist, 1950
"Uranus has the sun rising and setting neither in the east nor in the west. So it is not a law that a planet of the solar system must rotate from west to east and that the sun must rise in the east." -- Immanuel Velikovsky, cosmologist, 1950
"If, occasionally, historical evidence does not square with formulated laws, it should be remembered that a law is but a deduction from experience and experiment, and therefore laws must conform with historical facts, not facts with laws." -- Immanuel Velikovsky, cosmologist, 1950
"The signs of the Chinese zodiac have the strange peculiarity of proceeding in a retrograde direction, that is, against the course of the sun." -- Hans S. Bellamy, author, 1936
"The Chinese say that it is only since a new order of things has come about that the stars move from east to west." -- Hans S. Bellamy, author, 1936
"The next reference to meteors is found in the Chinese annals for 687 B.C. It is given by Biot as follows: '(March 23), during the night the fixed stars did not appear, although the night was clear. In the middle of the night, stars (des étoiles) fell like rain.' The account is translated in another way by Abel-Remmat who makes the last part read: 'there fell a star in the form of rain.'" -- Charles P. Olivier, astronomer, 1925
"... when the Duke of Lu-yang [Huai-nan-tse] was at war against Han, during the battle the sun went down. The Duke, swinging his spear, beckoned to the sun, whereupon the sun, for his sake, came back and passed through three solar mansions." -- Alfred Forke, philosopher, 1925
"According to a different account, which found favour with the Latin poets, the sun reversed his course in the sky, not in order to demonstrate the right of Atreus to the crown, but on the contrary to mark his disgust and horror at the king for murdering his nephews and dishing up their mangled limbs to their father Thyestes at table." -- James G. Frazer, translator, 1920
"As told by Huaman Poma, five such ages had preceded that in which he lived. The first was an age of Viracochas, an age of gods, of holiness, of life without death, although at the same time it was devoid of inventions and refinements; the second was an age of skin-clad giants, the Huari Runa, or 'Indigenes,' worshippers of Viracocha; third came the age of Puron Runa, or 'Common Men,' living without culture; fourth, that of Auca Runa, 'Warriors,' and fifth that of the Inca rule, ended by the coming of the Spaniards." -- Hartley B. Alexander, historian, 1920
"Harakhte [The Sun] ... he rises in the west...." -- James H. Breasted, egyptologist, 1906
"The travelling toward the east [of the sun] and the disappearance in the east ... must be understood literally...." -- Eduard Seler, anthropologist, 1903
"Pour retrouver la plus ancienne histoire du globe, il fallait comparer aux antiques traditions de l’Asie et de l’Egypte celles des peuples primitifs de l’Amerique. [In order to rediscover the remotest history of the earth it is necessary to compare the ancient traditions of Asia and Egypt with those of the primitive peoples of America.]" -- Charles-Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg, archaeologist, 1864
"The year 687 B.C., in the summer, in the fourth moon, in the day of sin mao (23rd of March) during the night, the fixed stars did not appear, though the night was clear [cloudless]. In the middle of the night stars fell like rain." -- Édouard Biot, astronomer, 1846
"The nations of Culhua, or Mexico, says Gomara, who wrote about the middle of the sixteenth century, believe according to their hieroglyphical paintings, that, previous to the sun which now enlightens them, four had already been successively extinguished. These four suns are as many ages, in which our species has been annihilated by inundations, by earthquakes, by a general conflagration, and by the effect of destroying tempests." -- Alexander Von Humboldt, naturalist, 1814
"That the sun will not rise to-morrow is no less intelligible a proposition, and implies no more contradiction, than the affirmation, that it will rise." -- David Hume, philosopher, 1772
"In the lifetime of [Emperor] Yao the sun did not set for ten full days and the entire land was flooded." -- Johannes Hübner, evangelist, 1729
"Lord of the two Easts, and Lord of the two Wests!" -- Quran 55:17
"The inhabitants of this country [Egypt] say that they have it from their ancestors that the sun now sets where it formerly rose." -- Gaius J. Solinus, grammarian, 3rd century
"Soles fuerre quinque." [There were five suns] -- Lucius Ampelius, tutor, date unknown
"O all-enduring Phoebus, though thou didst shrink afar, and in mid-sky didst bury the darkened day, still thou didst set too late." -- Lucius A. Seneca, philosopher statesman, 1st century
"Whither, O father of the lands and skies, before whose rising thick night with all her glories flees, whither doest turn thy course and why dost blot out the day in mid-Olympus? Why, O Phoebus, dost snatch away thy face? Not yet does Vesper, twilight’s messenger, summon the fires of night; not yet does thy wheel, turning its western goal, bid free thy steeds from their completed task; not yet as day fades into night has the third trump sounded; the ploughman with oxen yet unwearied stands amazed at his supper-hour’s quick coming. What has driven thee from thy heavenly course? What cause form their fixed track has turned aside thy horses? Is the prison-house of Dis thrown wide and are the conquered Giants again essaying war?" -- Lucius A. Seneca, philosopher statesman, 1st century
"The Zodiac, which, making passage through the sacred stars, crosses the zones obliquely, guide and sign-bearer for the slow-moving years, falling itself, shall see the fallen constellations; the Ram, who, ere kindly spring has come, gives back the sails to the warm West-wind, headlong shall plunge into the waves o’er which he had borne the trembling Helle; the Bull, who before him on bright horns bears the Hyades, shall drag the Twins down with him and the Crab’s wide-curving claws; Alcides’ Lion, with burning heat inflamed, once more shall fall down from the sky; the Virgin shall fall to the earth she once abandoned, and the Scales of justice with their weights shall fall and with them shall drag the fierce Scorpion down; old Chiron, who sets the feathered shafts upon Haemonian chord, shall lose his shafts from the snapped bowstring; the frigid Goat who brings back sluggish winter, shall fall and break thy urn, whoe’er thou art; with thee shall fall the Fish, last of the stars of heaven, and the Wain, which was ne’er bathed by the sea, shall be plunged beneath the all-engulfing waves; the slippery Serpent which, gliding like a river, separates the Bears, shall fall, and icy Cynosura, the Lesser Bear, together with the Dragon vast, congealed with cold; and that slow-moving drive of his wain, Arctophylax, no longer fixed in place, shall fall." -- Lucius A. Seneca, philosopher statesman, 1st century
"The sun set in the East." -- Apollodoros, Scholium on the Iliad: Book II, ~143 B.C.
"The reversal which takes place from time to time of the motion of the universe. ... Of all changes of the heavenly motions, we may consider this to be the greatest and most complete. " -- Plato, philosopher, The Statesman, 360 B.C.
"There did really happen, and will again happen, like many other events of which ancient tradition has preserved the record, the portent which is traditionally said to have occurred in the quarrel of Atreus and Thyestes. ... how the sun and the stars once rose in the west, and set in the east, and that the god reversed their motion, and gave them that which they now have as a testimony to the right of Atreus. " -- Plato, philosopher, The Statesman, 360 B.C.
"Then, it was then that Zeus changed the radiant paths of the stars, and the light of the sun, and the bright face of dawn; and the sun drove across the western back of the sky with hot flame from heaven's fires, while the rain-clouds went northward and Ammon's lands [Egypt] grew parched and faint, not knowing moisture, robbed of heaven's fairest showers of rain." --Euripides, playwright, Electra, 408 B.C.
"... here also everyone bows down before him who reversed the circuit of the sun." -- Sophocles, playwright, Fragment 738, 410 B.C.
"Thus the whole period is eleven thousand three hundred and forty years; in all of which time (they said) they had had no king who was a god in human form, nor had there been any such either before or after those years among the rest of the kings of Egypt. Four times in this period (so they told me) the sun rose contrary to experience; twice he came up where he now goes down, and twice went down where he now comes up." -- Herodotos, historian, Book II, ~440-420 B.C.
"Let not the sun go down and disappear into darkness." -- Homeros, poet, Iliad, Book II: 413
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The Lubavitcher Rebbe stated: "It is my firm belief that it is the Sun that revolves around the Earth, as I have also declared publicly on various occasions and in discussion with professors specializing in this field of science."
"The Earth is suspended at the center of the universe" (Rambam, Hilchos Yesodei HaTorah 3) www.geocentricity.com
(http://www.spacetoday.org/images/SolSys/Earth/EarthBlueMarbleWestTerra.jpg)
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Where does a thread like this end up? Some subjects just put to much on the table and invite division and this seems like one thats made to order.
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Since a scientific & Torah case can be made for geocentrism, and that historians of science have shown that Darwin, Huxley, Evolution, Marx, Communism, Freud, atheistic existentialism, humanism, Nazism, moral relativity, modern hedonism and despair etc derive directly from the Copernican Revolution, it's a subject worthy of discussion.
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Since a scientific & Torah case can be made for geocentrism, and that historians of science have shown that Darwin, Huxley, Evolution, Marx, Communism, Freud, atheistic existentialism, humanism, Nazism, moral relativity, modern hedonism and despair etc derive directly from the Copernican Revolution, it's a subject worthy of discussion.
Scientific case for geocentrism? Haven't seen that anywhere. According to a rabbi I am close with, one who "believes" such things (such as the sun revolving around the earth) now that they are proven false is a heretic who doesn't really believe in Torah. By publically claiming it, such a person commits a chillul Hashem.
And it is ridiculous to claim that citing "Velikovsky" and his wild theories is a scientific proof.
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TorahAnyTime.com has been running a series of Shiurs called "Scientism vs Judaism"... I have not yet listened to this shiur but would be interested to learn... I will be listening to it this evening...
http://www.torahanytime.com/scripts/media.php?file=media/Rabbi/Shaya_Karlinsky/2009-06-28/Scientism_vs._Judaism_Part_1/Rabbi__Shaya_Karlinsky__Scientism_vs._Judaism_Part_1__2009-06-28.wmv (http://www.torahanytime.com/scripts/media.php?file=media/Rabbi/Shaya_Karlinsky/2009-06-28/Scientism_vs._Judaism_Part_1/Rabbi__Shaya_Karlinsky__Scientism_vs._Judaism_Part_1__2009-06-28.wmv)
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There are quite a few sites giving the scientific case for geocentrism e.g.
www.geocentrism.com
www.geocentricity.com
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2686447277698368881
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZb_Y95uCtI&feature=related
Einstein himself stated that according to Relativity geocentrism is by definition an scientifically equally valid way of looking at the universe:
"The struggle, so violent in the early days of science, between the views of Ptolemy and Copernicus would then be quite meaningless. Either coordinate system could be used with equal justification. The two sentences, 'the sun is at rest and the Earth moves,' or 'the sun moves and the Earth is at rest,' would simply mean two different conventions concerning two different coordinate systems" (Albert Einstein).
Scientific case for geocentrism? Haven't seen that anywhere.
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Einstein himself stated that according to Relativity geocentrism is by definition an scientifically equally valid way of looking at the universe:
"The struggle, so violent in the early days of science, between the views of Ptolemy and Copernicus would then be quite meaningless. Either coordinate system could be used with equal justification. The two sentences, 'the sun is at rest and the Earth moves,' or 'the sun moves and the Earth is at rest,' would simply mean two different conventions concerning two different coordinate systems" (Albert Einstein).
Scientific case for geocentrism? Haven't seen that anywhere.
That is speaking in terms of measurement in which, relatively speaking it makes no difference either way. But that doesn't mean that in reality the earth is actually stationary with the sun moving around it. He is speaking in terms of convention in measurement. Are you honestly suggesting the Einstein believed it's possible the sun revolves around the earth? This is a complete distortion. INSANITY!
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There are quite a few sites giving the scientific case for geocentrism e.g.
www.geocentrism.com
www.geocentricity.com
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2686447277698368881
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZb_Y95uCtI&feature=related
Einstein himself stated that according to Relativity geocentrism is by definition an scientifically equally valid way of looking at the universe:
"The struggle, so violent in the early days of science, between the views of Ptolemy and Copernicus would then be quite meaningless. Either coordinate system could be used with equal justification. The two sentences, 'the sun is at rest and the Earth moves,' or 'the sun moves and the Earth is at rest,' would simply mean two different conventions concerning two different coordinate systems" (Albert Einstein).
Scientific case for geocentrism? Haven't seen that anywhere.
How is it possible that the sun could revolve around the earth? The sun is much more massive and has a much stronger gravitational pull than the earth.
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I know that you would not accuse the Lubavitcher Rebbe and all the others of Chazal who held by geocentrism of "insanity"!
The expert on the subject, Sir Fred Hoyle stated:
"The difference between a heliocentric theory and a geocentric theory is one of relative motion only, and that such a difference has no physical significance. If the Galileo Affair had taken place after Einstein had framed his General Theory, it would have resulted in an even draw out of physical and mathematical necessity”.
There is no scientific objection to a massive object, even the whole universe, revolving daily around a tiny motionless Earth. This is discussed by Hoyle in his book "Nicolaus Copernicus".
Hoyle points out that the Earth does not, technically, revolve around the Sun, but rather, the Earth and Sun both revolve around the center of mass of the Earth-Sun system, which is quite a few miles from the Sun's central axis (though still well inside the Sun). Hoyle points out that one must factor in all objects, starting with the nearest stars, to recalculate the true center-of-mass of the earth-sun-universe. Hoyle speculates that once one has properly applied the barycentric argument to all other entities in the universe (known as "widening the view angle of one's telescope to avoid self- serving tunnel vision"), the center-of-mass may easily be at the Earth's location, making it impossible to disprove the geocentric hypothesis.
Hoyle says the barycentric argument is only properly applied when every object in the universe has been factored into the center-of-mass calculation, a calculation that has never been done. He believes that consistent application of the barycentric argument, layer by layer, places the center- of-mass farther away from the Sun and closer to the Earth and concludes that the barycentric argument can easily and fully support pure geocentricity: "The Earth is suspended at the center of the universe" (Rambam, Hilchos Yesodei HaTorah 3)
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I know that you would not accuse the Lubavitcher Rebbe and all the others of Chazal who held by geocentrism of "insanity"!
It is insanity for one to say such things TODAY when they are known to be proven false.
Chazal had no idea whether the earth moved around the sun or vice versa and neither did the science of their times. There is ample source material suggesting chazal could have erred in science and that we do not go by them if they based a ruling on the science of their time that has since become outdated. This is in Rambam and R Avraham ben Rambam.
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Hoyle points out that the Earth does not, technically, revolve around the Sun, but rather, the Earth and Sun both revolve around the center of mass of the Earth-Sun system, which is quite a few miles from the Sun's central axis (though still well inside the Sun).
This is relatively speaking. Not physically true, though. The earth does physically spin around on an access, and it does travel around in an elliptical orbit with the sun as the focii of the ellipse.
One can take any physical movement and turn it into nonsense or double speak by speaking in terms of relativity. For example, a car A going 20mph, if you are in a car B going 10mph looking at car A, then from your "frame of reference" the car A is only going 10mph. But in reality, car A really is still travelling at 20 mph objectively speaking. Meaning to one who sits stationary and watches Car A fly by, it flies by at 20 mph. Objective fact. Can be put into relative terms by changing frame of reference. But from a standard non moving frame of reference, the earth literally travels around the sun. To claim anything else is am haaretzus.
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Relativity is the current ruling scientific paradigm.
If Relativity is correct, then that the Earth, Mars, the Sun, Pluto, Alpha Centauri or the end of your nose are the center of the universe, are all EQUALLY acceptable. That is the definition of Relativity: that all space and motion are relative!
Relativity does not say that the universe has no center: it says that we cannot locate where that center is: so everywhere is valid. Not theoretically, not as a thought experiment, not as "double speak", not as abstract maths, but as hard physical scientific reality.
“I can construct you a spherically symmetrical universe with the Earth at its centre, and you cannot disprove it based on observations" (cosmologist George Ellis).
Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, who was also a physycist was a geocentrist as is Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburgh, Professor Herman Brannover, all Lubavitchers, and many others.
Of course, should Relativity ever be disproven, then the zero-velocity result of the famous Michelson-Morley experiment that failed to detect the Earth's 67,000mph velocity round the Sun will be shown to be real, and then geocentricity is not just "a first among equals", but is actually the winner!
You should carefully read the scientific articles at those sites.
As for the Torah angle, nowhere does the Tenach atribute any diurnal or annual motion to the Earth, which was the first physical object created, but speaks only of its staticity, and that everything else is doing the moving.
The scientific aspects of Torah were not Rav Kahane's shtik. But you can be sure that once he'd have studied the issues and evidence, he would have supported the 6000 year old geocentric universe of the Torah and Chazal!
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Relativity is the current ruling scientific paradigm.
If Relativity is correct, then that the Earth, Mars, the Sun, Pluto, Alpha Centauri or the end of your nose are the center of the universe, are all EQUALLY acceptable. That is the definition of Relativity: that all space and motion are relative!
For the sake of a measurement. Not to actually believe that the sun is really at the end of my nose. That is stupidity.
Relativity does not say that the universe has no center: it says that we cannot locate where that center is:
That's because we don't know how big the universe is because we are not able to measure that. It seems infinite. But that doesn't change that the earth spins on its axis and moves in elliptical orbit around the sun. This has been documented and observed even by satellite images, so how can anyone in their right mind deny this except if they are living in denial and complete lack of understanding?
“I can construct you a spherically symmetrical universe with the Earth at its centre, and you cannot disprove it based on observations" (cosmologist George Ellis).
He says that because we don't know how far out the universe extends to. If it extends large enough, the spec known as 'earth' becomes smaller and smaller until it could be called the "center" along with the sun and all the other planets. Nu? Even the earth as the center of a hypothetically outlined universe is revolving around the sun in a yearly elliptical orbit.
Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, who was also a physycist was a geocentrist as is Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburgh, Professor Herman Brannover, all Lubavitchers, and many others.
What about them? I am aware that rabbis can be scientists. In fact, my own gemara teacher was a physicist before he began to learn Torah full time. And he DOES believe that science has value in it, it does not just "tell lies" as you seem to be claiming it does, and he does believe in a universe where the earth revolves around the sun, and that also spins on its axis, and it is that spinning which causes the appearance of 'sunrise' and 'sunset' and "day" and "nighttime" each day. Not only that but he could learn you under the table in seconds flat. He is a gaon b Torah.
he would have supported the 6000 year old geocentric universe of the Torah and Chazal!
I don't believe this for a second. Rabbi Kahane was honest and sincere enough to deal with sources and information in an intellectually honest manner. If he had studied up in science, there is no reason for me to believe he would not have accepted an old universe which all scientists do. My own gemara rabbi believes the earth to be far more than 6,000 years old and he says that those who claim that "Torah claims it is 6,000 years old" have no source to back themselves up in chazal and even adopt a fundamentalist xtian understanding of Torah in order to assert that.
I believe you fall right in line with his description.
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Furthermore, I can't speak for the Lubavitcher rebbe, but given that he was educated, I highly doubt he would ever have said such a thing. You are probably misquoting him or taking it out of context, or making it up entirely. I would be shocked if the L. Rebbe believed such nonsense or would profess to such a belief in public.
As you so often fail to back up your statements and quotes here with sources, I challenge you to find me anything where R. Aryeh Kaplan ZT"L asserts that the universe is 6,000 years old. Nonsense. In fact, from what I have read about him, he asserted that the kabalah as he understands it allows for a much older universe and that this can fit with the science which he himself ACCEPTS, since he was a degreed and distinguished physicist.
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I think Galilee Rat should put a bibliography at the end of each post.
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Furthermore, I can't speak for the Lubavitcher rebbe, but given that he was educated, I highly doubt he would ever have said such a thing. You are probably misquoting him or taking it out of context, or making it up entirely. I would be shocked if the L. Rebbe believed such nonsense or would profess to such a belief in public.
As you so often fail to back up your statements and quotes here with sources, I challenge you to find me anything where R. Aryeh Kaplan ZT"L asserts that the universe is 6,000 years old. Nonsense. In fact, from what I have read about him, he asserted that the kabalah as he understands it allows for a much older universe and that this can fit with the science which he himself ACCEPTS, since he was a degreed and distinguished physicist.
Read this for an explanation of the 6000 year old world basis in Jewish belief:
http://www.askmoses.com/en/article/238,70148/How-can-you-say-the-world-is-only-5000-to-6000-years-old.html#articlepage
http://www.innernet.org.il/article.php?aid=165
According to the Talmud, "The world as we know it will exist for 6,000 years (beginning with Adam and Eve). The first 2,000 years were defined as 'chaos.' The second 2,000 years marked the years of Torah. The final 2,000 years will include the Messianic Age."
Mystics explain this cryptic passage as a remarkably prescient script, for the past and for the future. The 2,000 years of chaos are the years before monotheism made its appearance on earth. Abraham was fifty-two years old when he intuited that there had to be one G-d responsible for the creation of a carefully designed and stunningly intricate world. The date on the Hebrew calendar marking this great discovery, an insight that would decidedly alter the history of civilization, was exactly two thousand. (As an intriguing aside, the year Abraham was born, fifty-two years earlier, was 1948 ― a year that many centuries later by the secular calendar would become the year of the establishment of the State of Israel.)
The years 2,000 to 4,000 represent the second period of two thousand years designated for Torah. In these years the children of Israel experienced Revelation at Mount Sinai and lived through the events recorded in the five books of Moses, as well as the later books of the Bible. It was a time of great intellectual and spiritual creativity, culminating in the codification of all of Jewish law in the massive work known as the Mishnah. It took all of the next two thousand years for the Jews to master the meaning of the words of G-d ― and become worthy of the profound gift for the millennia to follow.
From 4,000 to 6,000, according to this tradition, the world should be prepared for good news and bad news. The good news is that sometime within this time frame ― and, mind you, I'm well aware that we are drawing close to its outermost limit ― the Messianic Age will at long last arrive, bringing with it peace for all mankind, universal recognition of G-d, and indescribable blessings. The bad news is that if this is the year 5,760 on the Jewish calendar, we still have a maximum of 240 years left on the "warranty" for earthly redemption.
http://www.sinaicentral.com/UnitOneJewishReligion.dwt
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http://www.aish.com/ci/sam/48951136.html
One of the most obvious perceived contradictions between Torah and science is the age of the universe. Is it billions of years old, like scientific data, or is it thousands of years, like Biblical data? When we add up the generations of the Bible, we come to 5700-plus years. Whereas, data from the Hubbell telescope or from the land based telescopes in Hawaii, indicate the age at about 15 billion years.
Let me clarify right at the start. The world may be only some 6000 years old. God could have put the fossils in the ground and juggled the light arriving from distant galaxies to make the world appear to be billions of years old. There is absolutely no way to disprove this claim. God being infinite could have made the world that way. There is another possible approach that also agrees with the ancient commentators’ description of God and nature. The world may be young and old simultaneously. In the following I consider this latter option.
In trying to resolve this apparent conflict, it's interesting to look historically at trends in knowledge, because absolute proofs are not forthcoming. But what is available is to look at how science has changed its picture of the world, relative to the unchanging picture of the Torah. (I refuse to use modern Biblical commentary because it already knows modern science, and is always influenced by that knowledge. The trend becomes to bend the Bible to match the science.)
So the only data I use as far as Biblical commentary goes is ancient commentary. That means the text of the Bible itself (3300 years ago), the translation of the Torah into Aramaic by Onkelos (100 CE), the Talmud (redacted about the year 500 CE), and the three major Torah commentators. There are many, many commentators, but at the top of the mountain there are three, accepted by all: Rashi (11th century France), who brings the straight understanding of the text, Maimonides (12th century Egypt), who handles the philosophical concepts, and then Nachmanides (13th century Spain), the earliest of the Kabbalists.
This ancient commentary was finalized long before Hubbell was a gleam in his great-grandparent's eye. So there's no possibility of Hubbell or any other modern scientific data influencing these concepts.
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Looking deeper into the text.
In trying to understand the flow of time here, you have to remember that the entire Six Days is described in 31 sentences. The Six Days of Genesis, which have given people so many headaches in trying to understand science vis-a-vis the Bible, are confined to 31 sentences! At MIT, in the Hayden library, we had about 50,000 books that deal with the development of the universe: cosmology, chemistry, thermodynamics, paleontology, archaeology, the high-energy physics of creation. At Harvard, at the Weidner library, they probably have 200,000 books on these same topics. The Bible gives us 31 sentences. Don't expect that by a simple reading of those sentences you'll know every detail that is held within the text. It's obvious that we have to dig deeper to get the information out.
The idea of having to dig deeper is not a rationalization. The Talmud (Chagiga, ch. 2) tells us that from the opening sentence of the Bible, through the beginning of Chapter Two, the entire text is given in parable form, a poem with a text and a subtext. Now, again, put yourself into the mindset of 1500 years ago, the time of the Talmud. Why would the Talmud think it was parable? You think that 1500 years ago they thought that G-d couldn't make it all in 6 days? It was a problem for them? We have a problem today with cosmology and scientific data. But 1500 years ago, what's the problem with 6 days for an infinitely powerful G-d? No problem.
So when the Sages excluded these six days from the calendar, and said that the entire text is parable, it wasn't because they were trying to apologize away what they'd seen in the local museum. There was no local museum. The fact is that a close reading of the text makes it clear that there's information hidden and folded into layers below the surface.
The idea of looking for a deeper meaning in Torah is no different than looking for deeper meaning in science. Just as we look for the deeper readings in science to learn the working of nature, so too we need to look for the deeper readings in Torah. King Solomon in Proverbs 25:11 alluded to this. “A word well spoken is like apples of Gold in a silver dish.” Maimonides in The Guide for the Perplexed interprets this proverb: The silver dish is the literal text of the Torah, as seen from a distance. The apples of gold are the secrets held within the silver dish of the Torah Text. Thousands of years ago we learned that there are subtleties in the Text that expand the meaning way beyond its simple reading. It's those subtleties I want to see.
Natural history and human history.
There are early Jewish sources that tell us that the Bible’s calendar is in two-parts (even predating Leviticus Rabba which goes back almost 1500 years and says it explicitly). In the closing speech that Moses makes to the people, he says if you want to see the fingerprint of G-d in the universe, "consider the days of old, the years of the many generations" (Deut. 32:7) Nachmanides, in the name of Kabbalah, says, "Why does Moses break the calendar into two parts -- 'The days of old, and the years of the many generations?' Because, 'Consider the days of old' is the Six Days of Genesis. 'The years of the many generations' is all the time from Adam forward."
Moses says you can see G-d's fingerprint on the universe in one of two ways. Look at the phenomenon of the Six Days, and the development of life in the universe which is mind-boggling. Or if that doesn't impress you, then just consider society from Adam forward -- the phenomenon of human history. Either way, you will find the imprint of G-d.
I recently met in Jerusalem with Professor Leon Lederman, Nobel Prize winning physicist. We were talking science, and as the conversation went on, I said, "What about spirituality, Leon?" And he said to me, "Schroeder, I'll talk science with you, but as far as spirituality, speak to the people across the street, the theologians." But then he continued, and he said, "But I do find something spooky about the people of Israel coming back to the Land of Israel."
Interesting. The first part of Moses' statement, "Consider the days of old" - about the Six Days of Genesis - that didn't impress Prof. Lederman. But the "Years of the many generations" - human history - that impressed him. Prof. Lederman found nothing spooky about the Eskimos eating fish at the Arctic circle. And he found nothing spooky about Greeks eating Musika in Athens. But he finds something real spooky about Jews eating falafel on Jaffa Street. Because it shouldn't have happened. It doesn't make sense historically that the Jews would come back to the Land of Israel. Yet that's what happened.
And that's one of the functions of the Jewish People in the world. To act as a demonstration. We just want people in the world to understand that there is some monkey business going on with history that makes it not all just random. That there's some direction to the flow of history. And the world has seen it through us. It's not by chance that Israel is on the front page of the New York Times more than anyone else.
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Looking back in time, a scientist will view the universe as being 15 billion years old. But what is the Bible's view of time? Maybe it sees time differently. And that makes a big difference. Albert Einstein taught us that Big Bang cosmology brings not just space and matter into existence, but that time is part of the nitty gritty. Time is a dimension. Time is affected by your view of time. How you see time depends on where you're viewing it. A minute on the moon goes faster than a minute on the Earth. A minute on the sun goes slower. Time on the sun is actually stretched out so that if you could put a clock on the sun, it would tick more slowly. It's a small difference, but it's measurable and measured.
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As a physicist who new his Relativity theory, R.Kaplan held by geocentricity, which is not surprising, since he was a Breslover, and Rav Nachman of Breslov wrote that Copernicus was wrong.
At http://www.yiddishkeit.org under "Torah and Science" you can see the Lubavitcher Rebbe quotes on geocentrism and a 6000 year universe, also in the Gutnick Chumash and in "Mind over Matter: The Lubavitcher Rebbe on science technology and medicine" (2003).
A choice one is:
“Those well meaning persons who felt impelled to interpret certain passages in the Torah differently from the time-honoured tradition, did so only in the mistaken belief that the Torah view on the age of the world was at variance with science; otherwise they would not have sought new interpretations in the Torah. There is no need to seek new reinterpretations in the Torah to 'reconcile' them with science” (Lubavitcher Rebbe, Gutnick Chumash Breishis p.5).
The learned B'Or HaTorah journal
http://www.borhatorah.org/home/index/cumul_index.html
has numerous pro-geocentric article written by top Orthodox Jewish scientists.
As can be seen from the tone of some of those above, the age of the earth is a big stumbling block for many even believers, some even becoming enraged at the possibility that the Torah might be literally correct! For them , Professor Gerald Schroeder http://www.geraldschroeder.com/ offers an assuaging solution in his Aish HaTorah and Discovery/Arachim lectutres by using Relativity to show that the universe can be both 16 billion years and 6000 years old at the same time!
That's why with Einstein's Relativity, everyone is compelled to be simultaneously both happy and unhappy: Relativity is the great leveller of all scientific playing fields: the universe is simultaneously both geocentric, heliocentric and acentric; as well as being simultaneously 16 billion years and 6000 years old! And by very definition of Relativity, you cannot say otherwise!
If Relativity theory itself is ever shown to be wrong, and that Absolute Space and Absolute Time exist, then the evidence will have to be reappraised: and that evidence will favor the Torah and Chazal!
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“Those well meaning persons who felt impelled to interpret certain passages in the Torah differently from the time-honoured tradition, did so only in the mistaken belief that the Torah view on the age of the world was at variance with science; otherwise they would not have sought new interpretations in the Torah. There is no need to seek new reinterpretations in the Torah to 'reconcile' them with science” (Lubavitcher Rebbe, Gutnick Chumash Breishis p.5)."
You'll have to be more specific than this. My rabbi suggests as do many others, that the TORAH VIEW allows for the possibility of a very old universe. And that the deepest kabalah fits with this. It is only the literalist reading of Chumash that compels one to say that Torah and science contradict. But we are not forced to read it that way, and the Rambam would surely disagree.
Science does not allow for a young 6000 year universe. Sorry. So if Torah insists that the world is 6,000 years old, then it does contradict science. But I don't believe the Torah insists on that, neither does my rabbi, another of my rabbis whom I'm sure would disagree if I asked him, Rabbi Gil Student who runs the hirhurim blog (hirhurim.blogspot.com), and many others.
What Muman cited is a midrash. There are also other contradicting midrashim which suggest an old, very old, world. But in Muman's other citation, in the Aish article, the author acknowledges right off the bat that scientific evidence such as Hubble telescope etc demonstrate the existence of a universe billions of years old. The only question is what is the Torah point of view, can it fit with that, does it contradict, or is it agreeing. And then he delves into that in the article. To say that the scientific evidence does not exist is to live in denial.
As a physicist who new his Relativity theory, R.Kaplan held by geocentricity, which is not surprising, since he was a Breslover, and Rav Nachman of Breslov wrote that Copernicus was wrong.
It's "knew," not "new" and you have not provided a citation like I asked. I asked for a source by Rabbi Kaplan. Not for you to reiterate your opinion about him.
To say that R. Kaplan "held by geocentricity," and to say that this is not surprising is a total distortion. R. Kaplan was a physicist living in the 1900's, so for any real 1900's physicist to hold of a disproven "geocentricity" is not just surprising it's downright shocking. But then what you say after that is utter foolishness. Whether Rav Nachman said that or not, R. Kaplan is not beholden to every thing ever said by every other rabbi. So even if he was Nachman oriented, that does not mean he agrees with everything R Nachman ever wrote or has ever been quoted as saying. But more importantly, R. Kaplan did not define his scientific views by what great rabbis had said! That is to make a mockery of all of R. Kaplan's work as a scientist. He based his scientific conclusions on observation and experimentation (or those that had come before him of which he could look at the results), not what some famous rabbi's opinion was.
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(http://www.shemayisrael.com/jewishobserver/archives/nov/rmiller3.jpg)
Rav Avigdor Miller had whole chapters in his books showing just the opposite: that science does not allow for a billion year universe!
So you've got the Torah, the Talmud, Lubavitcher rebbe, R.Miller and others, plus all the non-Jewish Creation Scientists (who also have PhDs from MIT etc) presenting hard scientific evidence for a young universe.
And you prefer to hold by the zero evidence of atheist evolutionists?! Oy vey!
Science does not allow for a young 6000 year universe.
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Lubavticher Rebbe's letter to the Association of Orthodox Jewish Scientists, supporting Geocentrism.
http://www.torahscience.org/torahsci/rebbeletter.html
I can tell you as a person who is very close to the Lubavticher community, that most Lubavitchers will agree with the Rebbe and state that the universe is in fact geocentric.
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(http://www.shemayisrael.com/jewishobserver/archives/nov/rmiller3.jpg)
Rav Avigdor Miller had whole chapters in his books showing just the opposite: that science does not allow for a billion year universe!
With great respect for a tzaddik, Rav Avigdor Miller was NOT a scientist and was not trained to examine data with the scientific method. Why put words into the mouths of scientists and 'what science says' or 'what science doesn't say' ? He is giving his opinion, but it is certainly NOT what the science says and not what any legitimate scientists say.
So you've got the Torah, the Talmud,
Uh, sorry bud, you can't just wave 'Torah and Talmud' and pretend that it's all a scientific discourse giving a clear opinion of scientific fact as you see it without room for interpretation. This is a lie and a distortion. Terribly sinful to mislead people this way.
Lubavitcher rebbe, R.Miller and others,
Rabbis, not scientists. Rabbis giving opinions, not drawing conclusions from observed facts as scientists do. They do not refute the myriad evidence that points very obviously to an old universe and one which contains a planet Earth which revolves around a sun.
And unfortunately I was mistaken because as it turns out from further research, the L. Rebbe was NOT educated or degreed in science.
plus all the non-Jewish Creation Scientists (who also have PhDs from MIT etc) presenting hard scientific evidence for a young universe.
It is not "hard evidence" just because you wish it to be so. You will never see a discovery of any value or importance coming from a group of people like 'young earth creationists' because they do not operate in current methodology and simply retread past misconceptions. They are holding blindfolds over the entire process. That is the road to nowhere, not the road to further discovery in science.
And you prefer to hold by the zero evidence of atheist evolutionists?! Oy vey!
Whether scientists are atheists or not is not the issue (and not all scientists are atheists). The issue is what is true and provable based on observed facts, and what is mere conjecture or "philosophy of science." But it's quite strange that you say I rely on atheists given the fact that I have already written in this thread several times that my own gemara rebbe (a physicist himself) believes in a universe billions of years old, that fits with scientific fact as he accepted fact in his life as a scientist and continues to do so, and that also fits with his understanding of kabbalah, which is vastly beyond anything you can imagine. As I said before he is a gaon b'Torah, but that is inconsequent as far as what is true scientifically in terms of dating the universe. He is using science there, which has a scientific method that does not include superimposing texts onto the world to force the facts into a singular reading of a text. I also cited Rabbi Gil Student who does not believe in your nonsense, and believes in an old universe consistent with fact. At the same time he is an Orthodox rabbi and no atheist.
Interesting also that you gave up on the name-dropping of Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan. Perhaps you researched a bit and realized how crazy you were to say he believed in geocentrism. He was a physicist afterall. Not in a 'Young earth creationist' cult.
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I can tell you as a person who is very close to the Lubavticher community, that most Lubavitchers will agree with the Rebbe and state that the universe is in fact geocentric.
And they are also mistaken, but if any of them ever went to university got a degree in biology and then went on to do real scientific research, they would no longer agree to such things. Unless they are delusional. Some people believe anything a certain rebbe says is 100% true and infallible. This to me is poisonous ideology and certainly not consistent with a rebbe being human and rabbis being fallible like anyone else. Not to mention that rabbis with an expertise in Torah often do not have the means or the time to develop an expertise in all other subjects known to man, let alone even a simple example like, say, biochemistry. So it is unreasonable to think such things that rabbis will know everything. Like the Rambam would say, best to consult a doctor about medicine, not a rabbi who is not trained in it. Same here with regards to complicated science.
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Does the Jewish date 5769 have any meaning to you?!
"Some people believe in the Torah implicitly, but they believe in evolution too. Exactly how you reconcile evolution with the Torah, that’s not so easy! They do a lot of tongue-twisting to explain that. Later generations will look back and say 'you were meshuggah: how could believe in evolution and believe in the Chumash at the same time?!' ” (Rav Avigdor Miller tape 871).
Evidence for a recent creation include the rate of decrease of the earth and sun's magnetic fields, the rate of decrease in the size of the solar disc, the high residual warmth of the moon and mere half-inch of dust on its surface (which amazed the Apollo astronauts who had been told to expect being swamped!), the decrease in the speed of light, the paucity of helium and micro-meteoric dust in the atmosphere, the rate of mineral deposition into the oceans, the fallacious premises of radiometric dating, the still "unwrapped" state of the arms of the great spiral galaxies, the thickness of Saturn's rings, the continued existence of short-term comets, human population statistics, the dearth of human records and artifacts older than 6000 years, polystrate fossils, the abiogenic theory for the origin of oil, dendochronolgy, pleochroic haloes etc.,
(http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/0512/as17-140-21391.jpg)
"The universe will exist 6000 years" (Sanhedrin 97)!
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Does the Jewish date 5769 have any meaning to you?!
We didn't always date ourselves that way. But either way, that says nothing about how old the earth is. It's a convention.
"Some people believe in the Torah implicitly, but they believe in evolution too. Exactly how you reconcile evolution with the Torah, that’s not so easy!
If one insists upon a literalist fundamentalist reading of Torah and to pretend that it's a science book, then for sure that's not easy. But the vast majority of people who believe in Chumash and also have seen the evidence for evolution/old universe and are convinced the science is true, these people do not insist upon fundamentalist readings of Chumash, and so it is not quite so difficult. Like all great rabbis, Rabbi Miller is seeing the arguments of his opponents through his own lens - just like the rishonim did - but when one realizes that his opponents in this argument do not begin with the same starting assumptions that he does, much difficulty drops away.
"The universe will exist 6000 years" (Sanhedrin 97)!
Once again you are quoting a midrash. Other contrary midrashim exist and one is not forced to take this as the only, immutable objective truth. Most kabalists don't even agree with this. And I mean the real kabbalists, not the clowns running around today. But whether they do or don't agree with it is not the point. You present it as dogmatic, as a gospel. In no other facet of Jewish law or Jewish hashkafa do we treat midrashim in such a way. It is an fundamentalist approach to do so.
With your denial of the heliocentricity of the planets, which has been proven through innumerable observations and fact, you are basically claiming right now that 2+2 = 5.
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I can tell you as a person who is very close to the Lubavticher community, that most Lubavitchers will agree with the Rebbe and state that the universe is in fact geocentric.
And they are also mistaken, but if any of them ever went to university got a degree in biology and then went on to do real scientific research, they would no longer agree to such things. Unless they are delusional. Some people believe anything a certain rebbe says is 100% true and infallible. This to me is poisonous ideology and certainly not consistent with a rebbe being human and rabbis being fallible like anyone else. Not to mention that rabbis with an expertise in Torah often do not have the means or the time to develop an expertise in all other subjects known to man, let alone even a simple example like, say, biochemistry. So it is unreasonable to think such things that rabbis will know everything. Like the Rambam would say, best to consult a doctor about medicine, not a rabbi who is not trained in it. Same here with regards to complicated science.
One of my good friends at University is a Chabadnik, who is now on his way to a masters in biology, and he has stood by this. I am not a science expert, so I cannot judge his research, but I do know that he drives many professors and students crazy because he uses their own theories to show that they cannot prove him wrong.
I am not going to pick a side on this issue, because truthfully, science is not my expertise. But I will say that it is naive to say that anybody has been proven 100% wrong about science. The Lubavitcher Rebbe was very knowledgable in science (regardless of the leftist drek that states he did not attend the schools he claimed- If you believe those stories, the it means that HaRav Soloveitchik is also a liar, as he talks of his experiences with the Rebbe in Berlin), and his final conclusion (with the help of many of his Chossids- think of all the Baalei Teshuvah in Chabad who have great scientific knowledge from the secular world.) was that the universe is geocentric.
The issue also lies within the fact that the Rambam is a key source on this. As the Rambams work was mostly uncited, one must delve through many seforim to find the basis for his rulings. On this, I trust the Rebbe's knowledge of Rambam over my own. The fact is that the Rebbe had no problem stating that some of Rambam's medical ideas were incorrect upon investigation, even though the Rambam was a doctor, so the Rebbe was not just a blind follower. He undertook serious Chakiro, much like the Rambam, and came to his conclusion.
You are right, it is best to consult a doctor about medicine, not a Rabbi who is not trained in it. But if you can have both, then that is ideal. The Rebbe had access to Baalei Teshuvah who were doctors in biology, physics, etc, and they came to the same conclusion, which is that geocentrism cannot be disproved.
Lastly, on the age of the universe, there is nothing in the Torah stating that the universe is 5769 years old. To say so is to say that one has a complete understanding of the process of creation, which in itself is probably the most difficult and complex area of the Chumash
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Before I saw this thread, I didn't even know that there are people alive today who believe in geocentricism. Newton's Laws and Kepler's Laws show that the earth has to revolve around the sun.
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Before I saw this thread, I didn't even know that there are people alive today who believe in geocentricism. Newton's Laws and Kepler's Laws show that the earth has to revolve around the sun.
Scientific laws have also proven that something cannot be formed out of nothing. Which means that creation is bogus.
Let me restate, I am not a geocentrist, and I believe that the intricacies of science in our world is a creation of Hashem, so I am not scared to state that there are many complex biological processes, and that many of them are real, and not created by scientists, but by Hashem.
At the same time, I do not believe that any scientist with a prestigious title is always going to be right.
Hashem made the life process in this world very complex, with set rules and so forth. Nonethless, when a scientist makes an observation, we are not bound to think that he is right just because it makes sense in the created world of theory that academic scientists have created for themselves.
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I can tell you as a person who is very close to the Lubavticher community, that most Lubavitchers will agree with the Rebbe and state that the universe is in fact geocentric.
And they are also mistaken, but if any of them ever went to university got a degree in biology and then went on to do real scientific research, they would no longer agree to such things. Unless they are delusional. Some people believe anything a certain rebbe says is 100% true and infallible. This to me is poisonous ideology and certainly not consistent with a rebbe being human and rabbis being fallible like anyone else. Not to mention that rabbis with an expertise in Torah often do not have the means or the time to develop an expertise in all other subjects known to man, let alone even a simple example like, say, biochemistry. So it is unreasonable to think such things that rabbis will know everything. Like the Rambam would say, best to consult a doctor about medicine, not a rabbi who is not trained in it. Same here with regards to complicated science.
The Lubavitcher Rebbe was very knowledgable in science (regardless of the leftist drek that states he did not attend the schools he claimed- If you believe those stories, the it means that HaRav Soloveitchik is also a liar, as he talks of his experiences with the Rebbe in Berlin),
I don't know of any such "drek." And I never claimed the Lubavitcher Rebbe or anyone else was a liar. It IS a mistake to say he was trained in science though. He studied philosophy and was at least an acquaintence of Rav Soloveitchik while they both studied at University of Berlin.
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Before I saw this thread, I didn't even know that there are people alive today who believe in geocentricism. Newton's Laws and Kepler's Laws show that the earth has to revolve around the sun.
I am also astonished at this, Moshe.
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Before I saw this thread, I didn't even know that there are people alive today who believe in geocentricism. Newton's Laws and Kepler's Laws show that the earth has to revolve around the sun.
Scientific laws have also proven that something cannot be formed out of nothing. Which means that creation is bogus.
You cannot "disprove" creation. Creation by definition happens before there is a scientific law. G-d is not bound by the laws of nature and we believe he made a 'miracle' to create the world and He Himself created the laws of science. On the other hand, certainly you can disprove whether or not a certain body of mass revolves around another body of mass. This is done through observation, data collection, analysis, and a combination from many fields and disciplines that all prove the same basic point. That the earth revolves around the sun. It is not done through massive conspiracy or polemics or wishful thinking. It is a process by which scientists have tried to derive at the truth, not to push certain beliefs. The great scientists like Kepler, Bohr, Newton, etc etc were not interested in promoting their "beliefs" in a certain principle or principles. They were out to test hypotheses and determine empirically whether certain postulates about the physical world were true or false, provable or not provable. Their work was based on the "scientific method."
These are the steps of the scientific method to summarize for beginners: http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_scientific_method.shtml
This is a physical reality that can be observed in the universe, and cannot be compared with the act of creation itself.
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"God forbid that something in the Torah should contradict a proof or demonstration" (Kuzari 1:67)...
And just as in his (Rabbi Yehuda HaLewi's) day, creation cannot be "proven" or disproven, so too it cannot be proven or demonstrated or disproven today. So that is not an example where we are required to believe something that is completely contradicting of reality. And the Torah would never demand that of us, according to the rishonim and their understanding of Torah. In his day it was an issue of Aristotelian proofs for and against, which did not constitute real physical evidence (as in, hard science) or demonstration. For the same reason, the Rambam was also not prepared to accept the arguments of Aristotle as fullproof or making a need to reinterpret Torah. They did not concede to him because that is not real evidence, only logical/philosophical speculation.
On the other hand, a heliocentric universe has been proven by demonstration and observation of physical reality. G-d forbid that the Torah would have us believe in something (geocentrism) that contradicts clear proof and demonstration.
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Before I saw this thread, I didn't even know that there are people alive today who believe in geocentricism. Newton's Laws and Kepler's Laws show that the earth has to revolve around the sun.
and I believe that the intricacies of science in our world is a creation of Hashem,
Precisely.
so I am not scared to state that there are many complex biological processes, and that many of them are real, and not created by scientists, but by Hashem.
I don't know of any scientists that claim to have created the phenomena observed in nature.
At the same time, I do not believe that any scientist with a prestigious title is always going to be right.
But no one is claiming that.
Hashem made the life process in this world very complex, with set rules and so forth. Nonethless, when a scientist makes an observation, we are not bound to think that he is right just because it makes sense in the created world of theory that academic scientists have created for themselves.
No, we ARE bound to accept real evidence for what it is. We are NOT bound to live in denial, (in fact we are forbidden), of what exists in reality because it is inconvenient for us or because we wish to view the Torah in a fundamentalist manner. And by fundamentalist manner I mean citing one midrash agada and then claiming that this is the only acceptable view within a Torah framework and trying to filter all Jewish hashkafa through this one midrash. And that to deny this midrash or use a different contradicting one for hashkafa is somehow denying all Torah. That is a fundamentalist approach.
Compelling proof is compelling proof. The fact that the universe is heliocentric is not a challenge or contradiction to the Torah. As the Rambam says to accept the truth from whatever its source in the beginning of Shemoneh Perakim, so too, we should do so, even if the source of a given truth is an "atheist" or a "secular Jew" or a "scientist." The truth is the truth. Anyway, it is much more common today for scientists to be atheist, (of course not all of them are), and that was not the case in the past. Heliocentrism is something that was established a long time ago. Not a passing fad.
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KWRBT, You should realize by now it's impossible to win a debate with, or convince 'young earth/universe' proponents that the earth and the universe are more than 6,000 years old. It doesn't matter how much scientific proof you provide. You can not win.
As an example, in this thread one of the posters refers to a 'dearth' of human records and artifacts older than 6,000 years as some sort of proof for a 'young' earth. OK, let's accept that there aren't human artifacts older than 6,000 years. Is this some sort of proof that the earth itself, (and the universe) is only 6,000 years old ? If you were to tell this poster of other evidence disproving the 'young' earth, (such as dinosaur fossils) he'd just tell you the dating method is erroneous. By the way, even a 'dearth' of artifacts proven to be older than 6,000 years of age, would be enough to destroy the idea of the earth being only 6,000 years old. In fact, it is obvious that it would only take a single artifact, fossil, or piece of evidence to do so. But of course, it's impossible to prove the age of anything being older than 6,000 years, because any scientific dating method that does so has to be wrong.
Keep in mind that we're not talking about a miniscule or relatively small difference in age here, either. We're talking about BILLIONS of years.
Of course, ultimately, if one believes that time is relative, then it is possible to say the earth and the universe are only a little more than 6 days old and be right. But from our human perspective, from our reality, here on earth, with our space-time coordinates it is obvious the universe is indeed far, far older than 6 days or 6,000 years.
One can legitimately argue that from a divine perspective, looking forward in time from the beginning, (rather than back) that the universe has only existed for a little more than the 6 days depicted in Genesis.
But we are not divine, and to insist the universe (as measured in human years), is only 6,000 years of age literally borders on insanity.
But you will never, ever convince some people of this.
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Science is an invention of mankind and has been shown to be flawed. I am a scientist {a computer scientist} and I live with the belief that nothing can be proven 100% accurately because there is always a quantity of unknown. In my own profession I know that there may be more than one solution for a particular problem and all problems and solutions can co-exist. I believe that the world is 6000 years old but that time has become warped. During the initial creation time was much accelerated and we have no idea because we cannot go back in time to prove anything. Just as a scientist cannot prove to me what is going to happen tomorrow. The only thing a scientist can do is make observations and come to some theories... Many theories have been disproved and many whole sciences have been abandoned. I do not put any trust in Medicine or Science and look at is as just humans trying to understand the infinite creator without even coming close.
Only when mankind accepts the yoke of heaven will all the answers of creation be answered. This is my faith, and my experience, and I will defend my beliefs with my life.
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You are entitled to your beliefs and I'm really not interested in trying to change them.
However, I do wonder why someone that considers himself a 'scientist' doesn't put any trust in science. I can understand not accepting theories or having alternative views to unanswered questions or problems, but to flat out state that you don't trust science at all, seems odd. Surely, you must believe that there is objective truth and knowledge, and that not all of science is subjective or untrustable. Surely, you can't be serious about not having any trust in medicine. Are you saying you don't visit a doctor when you're ill or take a medicine that can make you better ? If you do, then you must have some level of trust in science and medicine.
Do you have any reason to believe that time has become warped ? Is this just a personal belief ? Or is it supported by Torah or scientific evidence ? Just curious.
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You are entitled to your beliefs and I'm really not interested in trying to change them.
However, I do wonder why someone that considers himself a 'scientist' doesn't put any trust in science. I can understand not accepting theories or having alternative views to unanswered questions or problems, but to flat out state that you don't trust science at all, seems odd. Surely, you must believe that there is objective truth and knowledge, and that not all of science is subjective or untrustable. Surely, you can't be serious about not having any trust in medicine. Are you saying you don't visit a doctor when you're ill or take a medicine that can make you better ? If you do, then you must have some level of trust in science and medicine.
Do you have any reason to believe that time has become warped ? Is this just a personal belief ? Or is it supported by Torah or scientific evidence ? Just curious.
I have just lived through a medical nightmare... I was misdiagnosed for over five years, treated with medicines which nearly destroyed my liver functions {taking medicine I did not need to take}, and miraculously I have been cured. I believe it is the hand of Hashem who cured me from this. It was labeled Vasculitis by a biopsy done in 2004 and they treated this with anti-immune system drugs and prednisone which caused me much discomfort. I have no faith that the doctors even did anything except charge my insurance for $100,000s of dollars.
My mother had a similar experience with her doctors who told her there was nothing wrong for many years, only after getting a second or third opinion did they discover that there really was a problem. Now my father and step-dad have cancer and it seems that only because of miracles they are still alive. The chemo my step-dad was on almost killed him, after he stopped taking it he recovered... Now they say his tumors are in remission. This to me is another medical miracle...
I use the scientific method to develop software. But there are times when working on some complex software bugs {i work in some of the most complex software code, digital video and audio encoders and decoders} when it seems that only though insight granted from Hashem do I understand the nature of the bug. Scientific measurements of the bugs help, but the solution is not found through the measurements. Only through the light of intellect can these issues be resolved. I truly live each day thanking Hashem for providing the solutions to all my software problems.
I have been gainfully employed as a software engineer for over 20 years. My expertice is still in high demand and I make a 6-figure salary as a Senior Engineer. My religious beliefs do not interfere with my ability to produce advanced code. In a sense I view my job as a way to emulate my creator.
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And what exactly are the proofs for heliocentrism?
Mach's Principle and Einstein's Relativity state that there can be none: all the phenomena produced by an Earth rotating on its axis are equally well explained by a universe going round the Earth every 24 hours. So how can you distinguish one from the other?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZb_Y95uCtI&feature=related
The only way you can tell what is the true state of affairs is to go outside of the universe and report back. This we cannot do in this lifetime.
But we believe we have already had such a report: Hashem's Word is that the Earth is stationary.
Note that weather forecasting, practical astronomy, space shots, satellite launches, artillery, navigation, rocketry, oceanography, calendars, astrology, and gyroscopy, are all based on the stationary Earth model!
"We cannot feel our motion through space. Nor has any experiment ever proven that the Earth actually is in motion" (Einstein's leading disciple Professor Lincoln Barnett).
On the other hand, a heliocentric universe has been proven by demonstration and observation of physical reality.
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I'm glad you are cured and your father is recovering. I too, have had some terrible experieces with doctors. In fact, you can't drag me to see a doctor unless I have a life threatening illness. The next doctor that sees me will probably be doing my autopsy. But that doesn't mean I don't trust science or medicine at all.
I'm glad you apply scientific method to developing software and problem resolution. I agree that intellect and insight is a blessing you have been bestowed with by Hashem and through the study of Torah.
But in all honesty, I still can't fathom why you dont have any trust in science at all. That makes no sense to me.
Also, I'm still curious about your belief that time has become warped and what (if any) basis you have for this belief.
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So the Rambam is being used to defend science. If so, I have one question:
Should I be using the science of Rambam's days, because that is what he was referring to. If I do so, I am using science that according to you, has been "proven" wrong by the modern day scientists.
And in time, the modern scientists will again be proven wrong. And so forth.
To say that there is compelling truth for heliocentrism may be true. Then again, one does not have to accept compelling evidence, as it is only compelling, not absolute. As for absolute evidence for heliocentrism, no such thing exists.
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I'm glad you are cured and your father is recovering. I too, have had some terrible experieces with doctors. In fact, you can't drag me to see a doctor unless I have a life threatening illness. The next doctor that sees me will probably be doing my autopsy. But that doesn't mean I don't trust science or medicine at all.
I'm glad you apply scientific method to developing software and problem resolution. I agree that intellect and insight is a blessing you have been bestowed with by Hashem and through the study of Torah.
But in all honesty, I still can't fathom why you dont have any trust in science at all. That makes no sense to me.
Also, I'm still curious about your belief that time has become warped and what (if any) basis you have for this belief.
Maybe I used the wrong term but I am sure you have heard this explanation that time at the beginning of creation {according to Torah} occured before there was a sun and a moon, and therefore the concept of days and nights did not exist. Also it is possible that time expanded as it was created, from the 'in the beginning of G-ds creating' to the end of the sixth day. It is possible that according to our understanding of time now, a second could have actually been perceived to us as billions of years. As KWRBT also mentions there is the possibility that the age of the universe which our physical sensors perceive is actually discovered in our Kabbalah. Hashem created this world for a purpose and he created it so we can discover him. There are reasons we see dinosour fossils, and reasons we perceive the universe as billions of years old. I am just not all-knowing to know the reason for every thing in existance. I have enough humility to stand back and say it is an awesome world, and it doesn't just happen.
I also pretty much agree with everything Doctor Gerald Schroeder writes here at Aish:
http://www.aish.com/ci/sam/48951136.html
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Here is another excerpt from this article at Aish:
What is a "day?"
Let's jump back to the Six Days of Genesis. First of all, we now know that when the Biblical calendar says 5700-plus years, we must add to that "plus six days."
A few years ago, I acquired a dinosaur fossil that was dated (by two radioactive decay chains) as 150 million years old. My 7-year-old daughter says, "Abba! Dinosaurs? How can there be dinosaurs 150 million years ago, when my Bible teacher says the world isn't even 6000 years old?" So I told her to look in Psalms 90:4. There, you'll find something quite amazing. King David says, "One thousand years in Your (God's) sight are like a day that passes, a watch in the night." Perhaps time is different from the perspective of King David, than it is from the perspective of the Creator. Perhaps time is different.
The Talmud (Chagiga, ch. 2), in trying to understand the subtleties of Torah, analyzes the word "choshech." When the word "choshech" appears in Genesis 1:2, the Talmud explains that it means black fire, black energy, a kind of energy that is so powerful you can't even see it. Two verses later, in Genesis 1:4, the Talmud explains that the same word -- "choshech" -- means darkness, i.e. the absence of light.
Other words as well are not to be understood by their common definitions. For example, "mayim" typically means water. But Maimonides says that in the original statements of creation, the word "mayim" may also mean the building blocks of the universe.
Another example is Genesis 1:5, which says, "There is evening and morning, Day One." That is the first time that a day is quantified: evening and morning. Nachmanides discusses the meaning of evening and morning. Does it mean sunset and sunrise? It would certainly seem to.
But Nachmanides points out a problem with that. The text says "there was evening and morning Day One... evening and morning a second day... evening and morning a third day." Then on the fourth day, the sun is mentioned. Nachmanides says that any intelligent reader can see an obvious problem. How do we have a concept of evening and morning for the first three days if the sun is only mentioned on Day Four? There is a purpose for the sun appearing only on Day Four, so that as time goes by and people understand more about the universe, you can dig deeper into the text.
Nachmanides says the text uses the words "Vayehi Erev" -- but it doesn't mean "there was evening." He explains that the Hebrew letters Ayin, Resh, Bet -- the root of "erev" -- is chaos. Mixture, disorder. That's why evening is called "erev", because when the sun goes down, vision becomes blurry. The literal meaning is "there was disorder." The Torah's word for "morning" -- "boker" -- is the absolute opposite. When the sun rises, the world becomes "bikoret", orderly, able to be discerned. That's why the sun needn't be mentioned until Day Four. Because from erev to boker is a flow from disorder to order, from chaos to cosmos. That's something any scientist will testify never happens in an unguided system. Order never arises from disorder spontaneously and remains orderly. Order always degrades to chaos unless the environment recognizes the order and locks it in to preserve it. There must be a guide to the system. That's an unequivocal statement.
The Torah wants us to be amazed by this flow, starting from a chaotic plasma and ending up with a symphony of life. Day-by-day the world progresses to higher and higher levels. Order out of disorder. It's pure thermodynamics. And it's stated in terminology of 3000 years ago.
The creation of time.
Each day of creation is numbered. Yet there is discontinuity in the way the days are numbered. The verse says: "There is evening and morning, Day One." But the second day doesn't say "evening and morning, Day Two." Rather, it says "evening and morning, a second day." And the Torah continues with this pattern: "Evening and morning, a third day... a fourth day... a fifth day... the sixth day." Only on the first day does the text use a different form: not "first day," but "Day One" ("Yom Echad"). Many English translations make the mistake of writing "a first day." That's because editors want things to be nice and consistent. But they throw out the cosmic message in the text! Because there is a qualitative difference, as Nachmanides says, between "one" and "first." One is absolute; first is comparative.
Nachmanides explains that on Day One, time was created. That's a phenomenal insight. Time was created. You can't grab time. You don't even see it. You can see space, you can see matter, you can feel energy, you can see light energy. I understand a creation there. But the creation of time? Eight hundred years ago, Nachmanides attained this insight from the Torah's use of the phrase, "Day One." And that's exactly what Einstein taught us in the Laws of Relativity: that there was a creation, not just of space and matter, but of time itself.
Einstein's Law of Relativity.
Looking back in time, a scientist will view the universe as being 15 billion years old. But what is the Bible's view of time? Maybe it sees time differently. And that makes a big difference. Albert Einstein taught us that Big Bang cosmology brings not just space and matter into existence, but that time is part of the nitty gritty. Time is a dimension. Time is affected by your view of time. How you see time depends on where you're viewing it. A minute on the moon goes faster than a minute on the Earth. A minute on the sun goes slower. Time on the sun is actually stretched out so that if you could put a clock on the sun, it would tick more slowly. It's a small difference, but it's measurable and measured.
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So the Rambam is being used to defend science. If so, I have one question:
Should I be using the science of Rambam's days, because that is what he was referring to. If I do so, I am using science that according to you, has been "proven" wrong by the modern day scientists.
No. Rambam says specifically that one should rely on the proven scientific evidence of the time even if they go against what came before. If Rambam reported that certain Talmudic era medical/scientific understandings were outdated in his day, certainly we can acknowledge that some of the medical knowledge from Rambam's day that he reported on has also become outdated.