Re: [asa] Finger on Sodom and Gomorrah

On Thu, 20 Dec 2007, George Cooper wrote:

> Galileo clearly touted the Copernican model which opposed at least on important passage: that the Earth is immovable. Science has much to say about this and this is an objective element of the religious claim that the Earth is the center of the universe. This view was an erroneous interpretation, and it was eventually corrected, of course. The religious claim of Geocentricity had many objective elements that became more and more counter to scientific knowledge.
>

I am not comfortable with seeing geocentrism called a religious claim.
That makes it sound as if it originated in some religion. Actually, belief
in an immovable earth is natural and does not come from being taught it.
One does not feel as if he is being moved when he stands on the earth.
Defining motion as being motion relative to the earth, thus centering your
coordinate system in the earth, makes good sense until you need to get
somewhere in physics research. Then you need to redefine motion. When
Hebrew poets wanted to praise the Lord for his good job in creating the
earth, it was natural for them to say that the earth could not be moved
off its foundation.

Gordon Brown (ASA member)

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Received on Thu Dec 20 21:37:15 2007