Tagged: natural science
On “The Lesser Light to Rule the Night” (Artemis II Splashdown around 8pm EST/6pm MST)
In only a few hours, around 8pm EST (6pm MST) the Artemis II astronauts will return to Earth. To be clear, they journeyed around the moon.
Christians in America and the other countries to whom American missionaries have fervently spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ have long associated the moon with Genesis 1:16’s “lesser light to rule the night”. This appears reasonable in the immediate context of, “So God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night, and also the stars.” But when we expand out to the entire creation account, say, Genesis 1:1–2:3, the moon that Artemis II just traveled to cannot be the “lesser light to rule the night”.
This is not because there is some other “lesser light” which the Genesis writer had in mind or had in view back then. Nor is it because the Genesis writer invented the concept that his god placed two lights in the sky.
The reason we know that the moon that Artemis II traveled to is not the “lesser light” is because the Genesis author demonstrably had no awareness of the moon’s physical reality.
To start, and this is softball or elementary level knowledge, the moon isn’t a light anymore than a mirror is a light. The moon and mirror are reflections of the light emanating from a proper light source.
Secondly, the moon (even from what Moses and peers could see) was present in what we call phases, to include “new moon” (or no visible moon at night) and full moons during the day.
Any child can be shown these two facts on any day and demonstrate that they understand, no different than they can name and meaningfully distinguish trees from driveways. (To be sure, a child can understand the moon is a mirror—has a dark side—and that the moon is visible when it is not night and not visible when it is night.)
Assuming that you, faithful reader, understand these two facts about the moon, the one that Artemis II just traveled to, then you now have a sure foundation from which to understand, as early generations of Jews/Israelites did, the creation account recorded in Genesis and referenced elsewhere in the library that we call the Bible.
This is not about creationists vs evolutionists or any iteration of that debate. It isn’t about 6-day creation or intelligent design.
I am sharing a simple, incontrovertible set of facts from which any Artemis II watching American can undergird their interpretation of scripture.
Moses didn’t understand what we call physics. It is untenable, baseless, and rigid stubbornness to suggest Yahweh inspired him to write words which would so easily prove laughably inaccurate. Instead, the divinely inspired words of Moses recorded in Genesis (and elsewhere) infallibly inform us who (the real) god is and what he is like.
The answer to any question your mind develops is “read more”, not “become inflexible”.
One Thought on Mathematicians
As I keep working through James Newman’s four volume The World of Mathematics, I cannot help but conclude that my previously held notion “nurture matters (in “nature vs nurture” sense) in the development of mathematical ability” is entirely mistaken.
New question: In what other corners of the mind might nurture not matter?
How Do Flat Earth Lunatics Account for the Darkness Between the Stars?
I befriended and consequently wished I had never befriended my first Green Beret at seminary. Suffice it to say, going from US Special Forces immediately to four years of Christian undergrad followed immediately by three years of Christian graduate studies is a bad idea. (All curious souls should be asking, “How does one pay for 7 years of schooling?” Good question. The answer is, “Post 9/11 GI Bill has 36 months of coursework and if you are collecting at least 10% disability ((most vets are)) you get another 48 months!”)
As I had flown operators like him around Iraq, while the rest of the seminarians hadn’t, he and I naturally bonded easily. (I fully aim to cause you to think of the Tesla Green Beret as I relate this experience with one.) He was intense. So am I. Yet I couldn’t help but feel weird around him knowing that at any time he had the upper hand and I was quite literally at the mercy of his mental faculties. He expressed once that one of the softer professors displayed a fear of him, which my friend chuckled off as if he was perfectly harmless.
But then the moment came when he texted me a flat earth meme. From that SMS until a mere couple of weeks later, he couldn’t release. My last text to him was, “I do not care what conception of the universe is in your mind, but I do believe that we should be able to change topics.” And his last text to me (in response to mine) was, “We cannot talk about anything else until you get that (effing) ball out of your head.”
Faithful readers know that I have posted either two or three anti-Flat-Earth-Lunatic posts on here with the purpose of giving easy to use conversational strategies to destroy these lunatics. The first post posited the employment of economics, first question being, “Have you ever started a business?” Last question being, “So you’re telling me hundreds, no thousands of workers (concrete for a rocket pad itself requires the use of Quickbooks to run accurate payroll for all involved) are being duped to work for nothing, but you can’t persuade anyone to give you their money?”
A second post offered, “Have you ever looked at the night sky through a telescope?” And if miraculously they answer “yes” you move to, “At your convenience, I am available these dates, please show me how to identify a planet from a star. They all look the same to me.” And today, I would offer a slight variation to this angle by suggesting we ask, “So, which brand of telescope you rocking these days?”
Recently, with all my reading, I am more and more anti-FELs. Not just for your reading pleasure, then, here is a third method of attack (or consider it training for your children and family).
****
Me: “It’s not the stars that baffle me. It’s the dark.”
FLE: “Huh?”
Me: “I’m talking about the night sky. People are always ooooing and awwwwing at the stars—even creating horoscopes to this day based on them—but that’s not the awe-inspiring part of the night sky by my thinking.”
FLE: “Hmm. Umm. You know the earth is flat though, right?”
Me: “No it’s not. But seriously, think about the dark part of the night sky. The part in between the stars. You can see it right?”
FLE; “Sorry, I was looking at my phone. There’s this video right here that proves the earth is flat. What? Sure. Yes. Well, no. I mean, have I showed you where the Bible says the earth is flat? What do you do with that? You’re a Bible-believing Christian, yes?”
Me: “I think you did. But just look at it all. All that dark. What do you suspect accounts for it? Is it the black paint on Ptolemy’s sphere? Is it countless tubes of nothingness pointed from the bounds of infinity directly at the earth of all places? I mean, it stands to reason that since we can only ever see more and more stars with bigger and bigger telescopes—wait a minute. Have you ever looked through a telescope?”
FEL: “Gee. Look at the time!”
Me: “You want me to believe the earth is flat and yet you believe the dark you see unaided is actually darkness, even when using a telescope? Ha. Haha. Aaaaahahahaha. Okay. I’ll stop. Now what were you saying about some video?”
FEL: (Crickets. And then assuredly they return to not looking through telescopes.)
****
You’re welcome, Blog-O-Sphere.
Captain’s Log 