Free-Agent Smith
New member
I wouldn't have taken his thread so far off on purpose if I had payed attention.
Last edited:
The Sun Stood Still
- Thread starter bob b
- Start date
I wouldn't have taken his thread so far off on purpose if I had payed attention.
Free-Agent Smith
New member
So now back to bob's original topic.
What do you find wrong with the opening post, Strat?
Where is the information wrong?
What do you find wrong with the opening post, Strat?
Where is the information wrong?
Stratnerd
New member
It's an example of searching for evidence, where evidence doesn't exist, to fit the dogma.
Sure a near miss may have happened but is there evidence of it outside of religious text? What would be the effect be on the moon - other than saying it had an effect? What other effects would it have on tides, etc. You would think that a near miss - close enough to slow down the earth that much would have a huge effect on the oceans. In fact, it seems like you can calculate the mass the object would need to be then you can calculate the effect on the oceans then you can examine the shorelines and see if multiple lines of data match up.
As it stands it's just hand-waving.
Sure a near miss may have happened but is there evidence of it outside of religious text? What would be the effect be on the moon - other than saying it had an effect? What other effects would it have on tides, etc. You would think that a near miss - close enough to slow down the earth that much would have a huge effect on the oceans. In fact, it seems like you can calculate the mass the object would need to be then you can calculate the effect on the oceans then you can examine the shorelines and see if multiple lines of data match up.
As it stands it's just hand-waving.
A near miss would not slow down the speed of rotation: that was my point of comparing the Earth to a child's top or gyroscope. There is much ignorance about the action of a gyroscope, which has led people to think that a long day necesarily implies a slowing down of the speed of rotation of the Earth.
No, it was pointing out to people what most engineers and physicists already know about gyroscopes, that a long day does not necessarily mean the Earth's speed of rotation would have to change.
aharvey
New member
In fact, bob b's link (from a geocentric group, no less!) makes the same points:
"Now there is no hint in Joshua 10 that there was a gradual slowing of the diurnal motion, but we can give an analogy which will enable an appreciation of the problem, as it is commonly defined._ Since the equatorial rotation speed of the earth is about 1,000 miles per hour, which is the same speed as a jet fighter, we can use the slowing of a jet plane for comparison._ Suppose there is no turbulence buffeting the jet and suppose that there is a saucer filled with water in the plane._ The problem is to stop the plane without sliding the water out of the saucer._ A little experimentation shows that one may decelerate the dish at about 0.5 miles per hour per second without spilling the water._ If so, we conclude that it would take about 35 minutes to stop the earth’s rotation without the oceans leaving their basins._ Such may work for a saucer, but oceans are much deeper and have much more energy._ Small shifts in the ocean bottom have been known to cause huge waves, for example._ Still, 35 minutes, though optimistic, is not an unreasonable response time to Joshua’s request._ A further problem is that the atmosphere does not behave as well as the ocean in this regard._ The air near the earth’s surface would slow down first, but the air aloft would keep going, dragging the air below with it._ The slowdown time needed to avoid 1,000 mile-per-hour winds scouring the earth’s equator amounts to days, a most unreasonable time to respond to Joshua’s request._ Lest the reader conclude that the geocentric explanation has no such problem, we note that the geocentric case suffers the same problems._ Insofar as the slowing-down of the earth’s rotation is concerned, there is no way to escape the conclusion that Joshua’s long day was a miracle.
The Tippie-Top
Increasingly, heliocentric apologists have tried to abstract the meaning of the sun’s arrest to such a degree that the actual intent of the passage is virtually unrecognizable._ Howard Rand suggested that perhaps the axis of rotation of the earth changed in such a way that for about one day the battle site became the rotational north pole.20_ Although not original with Rand, the idea has gained popularity lately because of the influence of Velikovsky._
In the tippie-top scenario, some event inside the earth or else the fly-by of some planetary body caused the earth’s rotational poles to move in such a way that, for one day, Joshua’s battle site was at the north pole._ One obvious problem is that the moon would still be seen to go around the sun during the battle._ But the text says that the moon, too, stood still.
Not so obviously, Professor James Hanson of the Cleveland State University in Cleveland, Ohio, has shown mathematically that Rand’s is not a possible explanation._ Furthermore, Hanson also has shown that the explanation of Joshua’s long day as proposed by Velikovsky is physically impossible unless Venus were still orbiting the earth today in an orbit even closer to the earth than is the moon.21_ In fact, none of the naturalistic proposals put forth to account for Joshua’s long day are physically possible. The simple choice remains: Joshua’s long day is either a miracle, or it is pure fiction."
Now this web site is unequivocal that the long day did happen, because otherwise the entire Bible would have to be false (an argument I have never understood: "the Bible MUST be 100% true or else it MUST be 100% false." Neither position is tenable, and both are misused. I'm particularly baffled by the view that if any one historical account given in the Bible is shown to have occurred, then this proves the inerrancy of the entire set of Scriptures.). They also assert that similar stories of long days or long nights are known from scattered locations around the world, and that the location of these stories lends credence to their all referring to the same historical event (see map towards the end). This is indeed a step up from the same kind of argument used to document the global Noachian flood (i.e., several cultures have stories about floods, therefore they must all be the same flood!). It would be interesting to know how trustworthy these data points are (do these cultures, in these locations, REALLY have these stories?) (Hmm, now here's another random odd thought; if more than one cultural 'document' reports a particular event, why does that fact only validate the Bible? Why doesn't it also validate the other components of the other document?). I can't comment either way. It is interesting how these stories as conveyed actually differ in many details from what would be expected if they did all describe a single event, but the article's author uniformly explains away the inconvenient bits as being unreliable. It would also be interesting to add to this map ALL of the cultures that were checked; how many cultures completely lack any reference to this unquestionably astounding event?
But Biblical geocentrists notwithstanding, I'd have to say I'm inclined to agree with them that such an event would require a massive infusion of divine intervention to avoid utterly demolishing the planet.
It is no different than if a child pokes a spinning top. The result is that the axis of the top "precesses".
To an observer on the surface of the spinning orb, the Sun would delay its setting, just as there is more sunlight in the day the further one is away from the pole. Of course this depends on the location of the observer, for half way around the world the effect is to delay the sunrise.
It is hard to visualize this, but to me it seems that the observer would see the Sun move horizontally instead of its normal setting motion. This is a slow process and in the heat of a battle it would probably not be noticable. The main observation would be a longer period of daylight, something that allowed a longer pursuit of a fleeing enemy who had already been decimated by the "stones from heaven" which had followed along the path of the body which had sped by the Earth.
A rare event of course, but one that is now known to be possible, just as possible as the current favorite theory for the formation of the Moon.
(Why would astronomers accept the Moon formation theory yet reject out-of-hand the eyewitness account of a similar celestial event?)
It would appear that computer simulations would be valuable in this regard for we are only talking about relatively simple physics for which the equations are already in use in calculating the orbits of satellites and spacecraft.
If I had access to the library of simulation tools which I had back in the days when I was involved with ballistic missiles and warhead trajectories, I would do the research on this myself.
Maybe it would pan out and maybe it wouldn't, but we wouldn't have to speculate about it anymore.
How many times do I have to emphasize that the Earth's rotation would not be affected?
I know that this is hard for those not trained in science to understand, but a gyroscope does not behave as intuition would tell you.
The Earth has a massive amount of angular momentum and this would be preserved in a precession of the axis of the Earth.
Which means in plain English that the rotational speed of the Earth would not change!!!!
Now if your statement about rotation was not precise and you were only worrying about the speed of precession then it may be true that there would be tidal effects due the precession.
However, the battle in question was in an area far from the ocean so that we would have to search elsewhere for unusual tides that might add more evidence to the speculation I have advanced.
Incidentally, I thank you for pointing out that I was not the first to suggest a precession (if indeed that was what they meant) for I had been under the impression that my idea was original.
It has been known throughout history that "myths" many times have a factual basis behind them.
there was an amateur archaeologist who believed that some Greek stories had a factual basis. He was so convinced that he spent many years searching via digs for the fabled city of Troy.
He found it.
In the same manner some archaeologists have searched in the Holy Land with a spade in one hand and a Bible in the other.
Some have had great success in this approach.
Would it bother anyone here if a computer simulation would show that the Long Day of Joshua was possible from a mathematical/physical point of view?
If so why?
I simply call 'em as I see 'em and let the chips fall where they may.
In the past I have found that many of my brilliant technical ideas were usually originally rejected, but it was very common to hear the same idea being expoused later by the same person who had originally rejected it 6 or 12 months previously. The remarkable thing for me was that they typically had no recollection of my earlier suggestion and their immediate rejection of it.
I usually never mentioned this to them and simply satisfied myself with the thought that the idea had finally "sunk in".
I promise I will never nag you when you later on accidentally "steal" one of my brilliant ideas to further your career.
Stratnerd
New member
you call 'em then you ignore all objections or explain them away with an amazing web of ad hocs.
your incredible and amazing brilliance has little to do with this. you've accepted the Bible as being literally True.. now you just need to come up with some ad hoc stuff to make it fit.
LOL.. and what does God do to the proud?
Last edited:
As I have mntioned before, I started out doubting the Bible, but was forced to concede its accuracy over an extended period of studies.
At this point you are correct that I tend to start with the idea that the Bible is correct on a given point and search for things that others have overlooked. For example the usual argument against Joshua's Long Day is that it would have been amazing for the Earth to have ceased to rotate. Of course that is not what happened as I have tried to explain.
In addition, I noted the second "miracle" in the story: the devastation of the enemy by "stones from heaven".
To me it is highly unlikely for that factor
to have been thrown into the story unless it actually happened. After all, as late as the 18th century scientists denied that stones could fall from the sky (the French academy voted on the question and said it was impossible).
All my talent comes from God to whom I kneel in humble awe.
(those who fail to do this are in deep doo doo).