Ancient view of the Universe wrong?

[learning]

Hi, read this recently and it opened my eyes. Let's just quote it and you'll see what I mean I hope.

from C.S.Lewis "The Grand Miracle" chapter 'Religion and Science'

" 'These are rather niggling points,' said my friend. 'You see, the real objections goes far deeper. The whole picture of the universe which science has given us makes it such rot to believe that the power at the back of it all could be interested in us tiny little creatures crawling about on an unimportant planet! It was all so obviously invented by people who believed in a flat earth with the stars only a mile or two away.'
'When did people believe that?' (says Lewis to his friend)
'Why, all those old Christian chaps you're always telling about did. I mean Boethius and Augustine and Thomas Aquinas and Dante.'
'Sorry', said I, 'but this is one of the few subjects I do know something about.'
I reached out my hand to a bookshelf. 'You see this book,' I said, 'Ptolemy's "Almagest". You know what it is?'
'Yes,' he said. 'It's the standard astronomical handbook used all through the Middle Ages.
'Well, just read that,' I said, pointing to Book I, chapter 5.'

'The earth,' read out my friend, hesitating a bit as he translated the Latin, 'the earth, in relation to the distance of the fixed stars, has no appreciable size and must be treated as a mathematical point!'

There was a moment of silence.
'Did they really know that THEN?' said my friend. 'But - none of the the histories of science-- none of the encyclopedias-- ever mention the fact.'
'Exactly,' I said. 'I'll leave you to think out the reason. It almost looks as if someone was anxious to hush it up, doesn't it? I wonder why.'
There was another short silence.
'At any rate,' said I, 'we can now state the problem accurately. People usually think the problem is how to reconcile what we now know about the size of the universe with our traditional ideas of religion. That turns out not to be the problem at all. The real problem is this. The enormous size of the universe and the insignificance of the earth were known for centures, and no one ever dreamed that they had any bearing on the religious question. Then, less than a hundred years ago, they are suddenly trotted out as an argument against Christianity. And the people who trot them out carefully hush up the fact that they were known long ago. Don't you think that all you atheists are strangely unsuspicious people?'

[A Beautiful Truth]

It is interesting, too, that the arguments against William Paley's "watch maker argument" have been answered as well, and they keep saying his argument was debunked. It was "debunked" before science discovered the "debunking" was unfounded. You don't hear them backtracking, though, wonder why?

[jason]

I've always found the answer to the different questions for the atheist is.

"Any port in a storm"

They need some argument to use don't they. Regardless of its validity.

Jason

[19merlin69]

I'm assuming that everyone who reads this notices the - "Head in the sand", "Circular logic" involved; particularly in the final dialog. To dismiss the significance of something just because it didn't previously matter (due to a lack of knowledge), is simply ridiculous.


Allow me an opportunity to explain. To say that the size of the universe is not a logical means of debunking the myth of a creation 10-1000 centuries ago, is probably the most uneducated application of errant logic I have ever had the displeaure to read. Furthermore, to say that - because ancient man (Greek and Roman) were aware of the substantial nature of the universe, and the insignificance (in size) of the Earth, and yet they never applied that knowledge to a critical evaluation of the age of the planet is as childish as one can get; without being a child. That is apologetics, pure and simple. I can only imagine the replies I would get if I were to apply the same logic to "God". Well, we're all adults here, let's give it a try and see for ourselves - shall we?

Let's keep it simple this time. Since Christianity is the faith of forgiveness, "live and let live," and "do unto others...", does that mean that we get to disqualify all that it has accomplished since it's roots began in barbarity by sanctifying with the sword? Furthermore, utilizing circular logic, can we say that evrything that Judaism has to offer is for naught since the Hebrew nation has not managed to adhere to the tenemants of the Old testament? In other words, could that mean that the evolution of the knowledge of "God" someday do away with "him" altogether? How about this one: Since we never knew that artificial sweetners could be harmful to ourselves, further research and understanding of the subject is wasted. If we eventually gain the understanding that they can, infact, be harmful - it won't matter (and can be discounted) since they never did before. How's that work for you?

Really now, that is kindergarten logic, and I would expect it from "little people" in the 4-12 age range. i hope that the folks here aren't revisionist historians or ostriches.

-Merl-

[jason]

I'm assuming that everyone who reads this notices the - "Head in the sand", "Circular logic" involved; particularly in the final dialog. To dismiss the significance of something just because it didn't previously matter (due to a lack of knowledge), is simply ridiculous.

That is not the claim being made though. Go back and read it again.

It was known, it just simply was not regarded as a problem.

The question is why is it suddenly a problem all of sudden when even when it was known it was not considered a problem.

Jason

[Jedidiah]

The question is why is it suddenly a problem all of sudden when even when it was known it was not considered a problem.

Especially when we have the solution to that problem in hand.

[19merlin69]

That is not the claim being made though. Go back and read it again.

It was known, it just simply was not regarded as a problem.

The question is why is it suddenly a problem all of sudden when even when it was known it was not considered a problem.

Jason

Oiy vey - The "Artificial Sweetner" analogy matches that thinking to a "T". There are also many other analogies that would work as well. Dioxin, Asbestos, Cigarettes... Should we assume that "Love Canal" was really just liberal, anti-government hype? Really now, the question of the enormous size of the universe was really a simple matter of deductive reasoning once scientists were able to determine the speed of light.

So, the question is, "Why did it become a problem?" It's simple really. "The Church" had calculated the creation of the Earth to be around the time of 5,750 B.C.E.. Because the distance of many of the stars exceeded that age, given the recent understanding of how fast light travelled, the question of "size" became an issue. If you are old enough to remember, "the church's" first answer to this problem was, "'He' made everything in-situ, i.e. 'he' made everything at the age it is." This posed another problem once alpha-particle decay was determined, and the age of the Earth turned out to be about 3.8-4.3 BY, and the universe 13.8-15.2 BY. Now - all of a sudden - we have a major problem... "god" created things at different ages??? Why?

That's when "the church" made its biggest mistake; they answered, "Because he can." No one, not even the majority of the parishoners bought that answer. A couple of decades of Young Earth Creationist apologetics followed, but the numbers of those believers dwindled drastically until "the church" eventually settled on acceptance of the facts. Now, as for how the creation in Genesis is explained is another story entirely. There are a handful of competing arguments for assigning 15 billion years to the 7 days of creation - but that is not paramount to our discussion here.

So yes, "Size really does matter" afterall; particularly when you are trying to assign 7750 years to 15 billion of them, the speed of light is 186,000,000 mi/sec, the doppler effect is a proven component of distance measurement, and someone makes the mistake of offer the bible up as scientific proof. If "The Word" is the inerrant/infallible word of "god", then "god" was no scientist.

[19merlin69]

Especially when we have the solution to that problem in hand.

Exactly Jedidiah, that's my point - Thanks for supporting me. I was a little concerned that folks around here would throw "god" at answering everything, particularly when the logical answer says otherwise.

[Ruth]

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[Jedidiah]

Exactly Jedidiah, that's my point - Thanks for supporting me. I was a little concerned that folks around here would throw "god" at answering everything, particularly when the logical answer says otherwise.

I may not be able to take the credit for supporting you. I was in fact pointing out that modern science can deal with the concern at hand.

The argument was:

The whole picture of the universe which science has given us makes it such rot to believe that the power at the back of it all could be interested in us tiny little creatures crawling about on an unimportant planet! It was all so obviously invented by people who believed in a flat earth with the stars only a mile or two away.'

The implication is that science has now given us something that blows the theological understanding of Christianity out of the water. In fact it does indeed, as the argument went, nor does it do so now. You have tossed out a scientific perspective, when the failure to convince was theological in nature. Modern science has produced nothing new that would make us believe that we are too small for God to care about.

If the universe were any significantly smaller than it is there could be no life on the planet earth. Indeed there could be no planet earth.

Jed

[19merlin69]

I may not be able to take the credit for supporting you. I was in fact pointing out that modern science can deal with the concern at hand.

That was my point... Whether you improperly stated your case is not acertainable by me, but what you have said above is quite correct. Modern Science can deal with the concern at hand; I agree. Now, the question is, "What is the concern?"

In your following statement you said that there is nothing in science that makes the universe's size affect "god's" ability to follow the activities of every individual. Clearly that is your perspective - but not one supported or refuted by science.

As a scientist, I have no need to point out errors of faith; it simply "is what it is"... "Faith" is the belief in something that has no facts or logic to support it - otherwise known by children as a "fairy-tale", and of no consequence to me when debating the issues at hand.

By the way, I will say this for science: It has "it" as wrong as religion does. With so many people clammoring to be the next Bohm, Bohr, Einstein, Podonsky, Rosen, Fermi, etc., etc. - there has been a rush to cast the universe in an incorrect way; not unlike the religions of the world. E=mc^2, in a classical sense is correct beyond any refutation - but that's not the end of the story. QM dictates that things may have occurred in a completely different manner, and M-Theory & Super String Theory conceive and entirely new possibility.

In the post mortem of this debate, everyone will have proven to be incorrect... That will not change until it does.