Chili

So the answer is that the sun never stopped because it was not moving to start with.

The problem with this is that you cannot take 'no' for an answer or you would have chucked the 'good book' long ago. This alone is sufficient proof that the sun stopped if only by your own 'unspoken argument' wherein you are waiting to see it stop in an argument for you to encounter in real life. Life itself, after all, is an argument wherein we only need to discover who we really are . . . and see how bright our light will be when the sun stops in our life (and you don't have to die to see this, just your ego has to die)

Have a 'good one' John and may your light be bright.

John A. Broussard

Guess what.

Fortuna

No, we didn;t talk much about A & P in physics class. Physics was all about Newton's laws, conservation of energy, the old classical physics and mechanics. (which we were to study in great detail the next year in a class devoted entirely to mechanics).

More practically, Physics 101 is a weed out/elimination class. You typically lose 80% of them after the first semester. Most of those just change majors to engineering or computer science.

But anyway I agree. Neurons, nerve cells, water and misc organics, circulatory system and other support components is about all there is inside the cranial cavity.

Strange as it may seems to you, I believe that the brain is the mind, and that the mind is the brain. All the scientific evidence seems to support that view.

Ok, next ;

OK, you are using the word "light" metaphorically to mean something other then what we usually understand.

But, you do bring up one interesting point though ;

We can only show you time intervals or dt (delta T), or demonstrate that things change. That change, or the rate of it, is what we call time. To measure time we find what looks to us like a cyclic processes (i.e. A cesium atom, sunrise and sunset) and we assign numeric values to those periodic events which we then call time differences. wit those, we then just pick an arbitrary starting point and use our cyclic numbering system and call that time.

And, time passes whether you think it does or not. The only ways to change its rate is to either get yourself out of the earth and solar systems gravity well, or accelerate yourself up to near the speed of light.( both of which are impractical, I can't imagine the G forces involved with that speeding up to near c )


Getting back to Joshua and the sun stopping in the sky, I'm sure it has probably already been mentioned that some people thought (me also, at one time) that it might have just been a metaphorical way of describing a long day of fighting. But, looking at the content of the story, it makes a bigger claim than that.

I guess that I dont see it as being much different than the story of Cupid spelunking his way into Hades to get Psyche, or Icarus's wax wings melting in the sun (and of course parachutes weren't invented yet - not a good day for Icarus who then discovered the directional component of gravity).

In other words, I've always just understood that it's just a myth, nothing more. As I understand it, the whole conquest of Canaan is a myth too. So its just a mythical scene in a mythical story.

For those who might think otherwise, think of the energy it would take to slow or stop the rotation of the earth and handle all the inertial side effects of that (and other effects). Wouldn;t it have just been a whole lot easier for their god to launch a bunch of high velocity projectiles (local rocks would do nicely) at the enemy ? That would be just as effective, save more of his chosen people, minimize collateral damage, and leave him less mess to clean up.

Of course, the ancient author's mind didn't work that way. I guess to him the idea of stopping the sun would be better understood by his audience.
I guess that their god preferred they do their own killing, he would just give them some extra time to do it. (not that other authors didn't say the god did his own dirty work).

I probably needn't mention it, but it should also be quite obvious here that there was obviously no higher level intelligence or inspiration or celestial insight given to the author of this story, because he doesn't know about heliocentricity. His view of the earth,sun, moon and stars is the Genesis flat land under a dome(the firmament) with sun, moon and stars as ornaments hung in the dome, or some similiar model. No higher intelligence or insight here. :down:

Wallener

I'm doing a little reading (always a dangerous thing) on the Amorites, and from what I can gather they named their capital, Jericho, after their moon deity, and their other chief deity is the "son of the sky g-d". The father deity is, according to what I've (so recently) read, associated not only with the sun, but specifically with the sun at its zenith. IE, precisely at the point Joshua "stopped" it. And since he "stopped" the moon, too...

This is close enough for my personal level of Occamish sensibility. I am now firmly in the "metaphorical funning with the bad guy's deities" interprative camp, unless someone can come up with a more coherent explanation.

proudliberal

We are dealing with God here.Remember with God anything is possible.

badger3k

That was my point before the digression into another reality (ok, my fault, I guess), that the story is most likely mythological. I was curious to see if anyone was aware of mythic trends around that time, though. By that, were there other stories that used the same phrasing, and what might have been the people's response on hearing that phrase. Perhaps it is as simple as "the writer wanted to show his god's power". I tried to come up with examples, but can't think of anything now - perhaps a comparable phrase might be Washington chopping the tree, and people would see that phrase as indicative of the main character's honor and truthfulness? The phrase itself is meaningless to any story it is used in (unless it's about Washington), but the context/concept would be fairly well known). I don't know.

I do find the apologetic line of trying to explain this particularly funny, especially when they try to use science (or physics). One that I hadn't heard yet takes the creationist idea that light used to be faster back then. Maybe that was the day that God decided to slow down all the light, so the day seemed longer. Of course, most people were ignorant of the time it took (or were confused by God or the Devil), so naturally no one else would realize it. :devil3:

Clivedurdle

Could it all be a victory story that Joshua defeated the sky and the moon god's representatives - the sun and moon - and allegedly proved his god was better because he held them still?

badger3k

Actually, I was talking about historical (preferably historically verified) facts and you wax poetic and metaphysical about everything but. Not any way to carry on a discussion, IMO. Still, thanks for sharing your views, but it would have been easier to just say it was your own interpretation. That's all I wanted to know.

badger3k

Shoot - now that you mention it, I had heard something along those lines. It's plausible to me, too. Back then, there was a lot of "one-god-upmanship" among the Isrealites (maybe within too, if the polytheistic models are right). Thanks for bringing that up.

Chili

But is isn't my own interpretation. It pre-exists remember? and that makes it a recollection.