Torah and Jewish Idea > Torah and Jewish Idea
The Reversal of Retrograde Rotation
Kahane-Was-Right BT:
--- Quote from: galileerat on July 21, 2009, 05:50:03 PM ---I know that you would not accuse the Lubavitcher Rebbe and all the others of Chazal who held by geocentrism of "insanity"!
--- End quote ---
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in science and that we do not go by them if they based a ruling on the science of their time that has since become outdated.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.
Kahane-Was-Right BT:
--- Quote from: galileerat on July 21, 2009, 05:50:03 PM ---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).
--- End quote ---
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.
galileerat:
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!
Kahane-Was-Right BT:
--- Quote from: galileerat on July 21, 2009, 08:10:10 PM ---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!
--- End quote ---
For the sake of a measurement. Not to actually believe that the sun is really at the end of my nose. That is stupidity.
--- Quote ---Relativity does not say that the universe has no center: it says that we cannot locate where that center is:
--- End quote ---
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?
--- Quote ---“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).
--- End quote ---
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.
--- Quote --- Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, who was also a physycist was a geocentrist as is Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburgh, Professor Herman Brannover, all Lubavitchers, and many others.
--- End quote ---
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.
--- Quote ---he would have supported the 6000 year old geocentric universe of the Torah and Chazal!
--- End quote ---
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.
Kahane-Was-Right BT:
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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