Torah and Jewish Idea > Torah and Jewish Idea
The Reversal of Retrograde Rotation
Kahane-Was-Right BT:
--- Quote from: Moshe92 on July 23, 2009, 12:04:30 PM ---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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I am also astonished at this, Moshe.
Kahane-Was-Right BT:
--- Quote from: Yochai on July 23, 2009, 12:31:37 PM ---
--- Quote from: Moshe92 on July 23, 2009, 12:04:30 PM ---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.
--- End quote ---
Scientific laws have also proven that something cannot be formed out of nothing. Which means that creation is bogus.
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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.
Kahane-Was-Right BT:
"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.
Kahane-Was-Right BT:
--- Quote from: Yochai on July 23, 2009, 12:31:37 PM ---
--- Quote from: Moshe92 on July 23, 2009, 12:04:30 PM ---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.
--- End quote ---
and I believe that the intricacies of science in our world is a creation of Hashem,
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Precisely.
--- Quote --- 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.
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I don't know of any scientists that claim to have created the phenomena observed in nature.
--- Quote ---At the same time, I do not believe that any scientist with a prestigious title is always going to be right.
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But no one is claiming that.
--- Quote ---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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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.
Muck DeFuslims:
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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