John A. Broussard

The final answers to my original questions seem to be either:

1. A literal belief in the biblical statement: "And the sun stopped in the middle of the sky and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day." It was a miracle. Nothing further need be added, since any deleterious effects of that phenomenon would have been ironed out as part of the miracle. As a Christian of my acquaintance said, "So what, if the sun doesn't move in the first place? God can do anything, so he can certainly stop something that isn't moving from moving."

2. The sun just "appeared" to stop. In that case the biblical statement is an outright lie.

I see no third possibility--at least not so far.

regis

JAB Quote: . . . The sun just "appeared" to stop. In that case the biblical statement is an outright lie.

I'd go with door number two - this 'outright lie' goes great with all the other 'outright lies' in the bible.

It is, however, lotsa fun watching the paroxysms the fundies go through trying to 'explain' the unexplainable. It's like being in Alice's Wonderland. The nice part is that we get to leave; the sad part is that they have to stay there forever.


:devil1:

BDS

If the people moved at speeds approaching the speed of light, time would stop (according to the laws of modern physics).

Wouldn't this constitute the sun standing still?

The ancient philosopher constantly asked, "Is time the measure of motion, or is motion the measure of time." But that was when they thought time was a constant, as we no longer think is the case.

What's so strange about the sun standing still? Is it any stranger than time standing still?

Toto

Chili digression split off here

Toto

and the people would dematerialize.

Both are a little hard to fit into what we know about ordinary life.

StaticAge

There was an article written a couple years ago that posed three options concerning whether or not it is possible that we are living in a post-human computer simulation, sort of like the Matrix movies, except that even the people are generated by this simulation, everything is "virtual."

What interested me, was that it presented the idea that our existence could be contained, that the physical world is not only just one form of "reality," but it posits that this reality can be manipulated by a regulating system.

Now, the bible speaks of God as not only as existing on a separate non-physical plane, but that he created the physical world. If an outside person is capable of programming such a reality, I dont see why it would be beyond that person's power to alter its programming. If God exists as Creator of the universe, he should possess the ability to create "miracles."

Wallener

Poetic license to enhance a "founding fathers" category of story. Similar to American's and the George Washington cutting down a cherry true fable. IMO it doesn't cross the line from Fiction to Lie unless someone tries beating you about the head with it.

Hnefi

Yeah, but that's just a technophile's version of "the spiritual world" (the world that "god" or "the world programmer" lives in). While concievable, it's just a philosophical hypothesis that has no practical impact on anything and can't be proven or disproven.

StaticAge

I agree that it cannot be proven/disproven and would say that its value as an idea is subjective, but so is the notion that such a God exists in the first place. My point is that if someone believes in a God/Creator, then miracles, including that of "the sun standing still," are not problematic, but follows a logical train of thought. Of course, if God does not exist, then it is a mistaken train of logic, but if so, then attacking the miracle seems like an unproductive argument.

LeeBuhrul

that this "sun standing still" is just a quaint folk tale from many moons ago, from a people with a disturbing tendency to wander in the desert for days on end smoking who knows what, listening to burning bushes and demanding people to cut off their foreskins as a sign of allegiance to the flag er I mean to their deity...

come on people, if this tale was from any other nomadic tribe in africa or elsewhere (and there are lots of them with thousands of folk tales many of which are far more credible than most "biblical accounts") we'd all be laughing our butts off at the child like quaintness of it all

but since it's in this one collection of verbal folk tales passed on by generations of necessarily biased people and commonly known as the bible we're suddenly to through away all logic and common sense and discuss it as if it were even remotely close to reality

Insane I say... Insane