Portrait of the Earth and moon from three million miles away

[siegi91]

On 1/16/2018 at 5:53 PM, 1to3 said:

Good day For His Glory, there is a  very informative video found on you tube titled:

Why the VATICAN really Owns the LUCIFER Telescope.

 

I too am searching, this video is christian and there is a pastor-don't know him- who is explaining a little what is going on with CERN, NASA, the Vatican and the government.

The CERN? You scare me, I have to go there in a couple of days!

 

 sieglinde

 

[Retrobyter]

On 1/16/2018 at 10:31 AM, MorningGlory said:

Nothing wrong with questioning things, 37.  I am not an overly trusting soul myself except when it comes to the Lord.

Shabbat shalom, MorningGlory.

That's a WONDERFUL picture and a great explanation of how it was taken. I don't have a problem at all with something that the intelligent people have been led by God to discover since Copernicus!

It's quite simple really: The earth and the moon and the sun, too, are spheres. All of this is easily detected by the eclipses! The shadow of the moon on the earth is ALWAYS a circle. The shadow of the earth on the moon is ALWAYS a circle. If they were anything but spheres, the shadow would change with the angle of approach. The sun, too, is ALWAYS seen in a circular shape, no matter where we are during the year and no matter from where we glimpse the sun. Furthermore, the circle of the moon pretty well equates in relative size to the circle of the sun during a solar eclipse.

Once upon a time (during the dark ages), human beings thought that the sun and the moon were at the same distance from earth. However, they also were taught and believed that the earth was the center of the known Universe. However, with those beliefs came the unwieldy calculations and HORRIBLE-TO-EXPLAIN beliefs that the movement of the planets followed a complex MESS of epicycles, which were invented to explain the occasional back-tracking of the planets among the backdrop of the stars in the sky. (This is why the other celestial bodies were called "planetes," which mean "wanderers.")

When Copernicus discovered the simplicity of making the sun the center of our solar system (like God should be the center of our world), we suddenly had simple orbits around the sun for the various planets, which now included the earth as just one of the planets (like we each should be just one of the whole human race). We no longer needed complex epicycles; the comparison of different sized orbits of the planets compared to the orbit of the earth accounted for the "wandering" effects of the planets.

A couple of the planets, Mercury and Venus, never wandered very far from the sun, visible only early in the morning before the sun rose or early in the evening just after the sun set. (This is why Venus is often called the "morning star" or the "evening star.") We calculated that these two had smaller orbits around the sun than did the earth.

Other planets very seldom visited close enough to the sun from our perspective and ALWAYS took longer to make a cycle than our own yearly cycle. These we calculated had larger orbits around the sun than did the earth.

Then, when Sir Isaac Newton came on the scene, he noticed how the various massive objects all had an attraction for each other that varied according to the distance between them. This gave rise to his gravitational laws. But, I really like (1) that He was a devout Christian who loved God and attributed Him with his findings, and (2) that he said with humility,

"If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants."

Observation and experimentation are the building blocks of science.

Where things went wrong in "science" was when they introduced the PHILOSOPHY of humanism. Humanism is defined as "an outlook or system of thought attaching prime importance to human rather than divine or supernatural matters. Humanist beliefs stress the potential value and goodness of human beings, emphasize common human needs, and seek solely rational ways of solving human problems."

The first problem associated with this belief philosophy is that it violates God's First Commandment:

Exodus 20:3 (KJV)

3 "Thou shalt have no other gods before me."

Mankind is placed before God in this philosophy.

The second problem associated with this belief philosophy is that it violates the law of the Messiah:

Matthew 22:37-38 (KJV)

37 Jesus said unto him,

"'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.' 38 This is the first and great commandment."

The third problem associated with this belief philosophy is the belief in "the potential value and goodness of human beings." Human beings are first and foremost "SINNERS" with NO inherent goodness and NO value UNLESS God steps in and does for the human being what only HE can do to change that! HE is their "potential!"

Romans 1:18-32 (KJV)

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; 19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. 20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: 21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain (self-centered and empty) in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, 23 And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.

24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: 25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: 27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; 29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, 30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, 31 Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: 32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

Isaiah 64:6 (KJV)

6 But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.

The fourth problem associated with this believe philosophy is the attempt to "seek solely rational ways of solving human problems" instead of coming to God for His help. It ASSUMES that going to God for His help in solving human problems is not a RATIONAL thing to do! However, God is the SOURCE of human reasoning and He freely offers it to the one who comes to Him:

Isaiah 1:18 (KJV)

18 "Come now, and let us reason together," saith the LORD (YHWH): "though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool."

James 1:5 (KJV)

5 If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

Go back in history and see when this first occurred on a broad scale, and you will find that Evolution was proposed as a theory soon after that!

These are things that you can trust to be true.

[JohnD]

[The Barbarian]

On 10/3/2020 at 7:57 AM, Retrobyter said:

Where things went wrong in "science" was when they introduced the PHILOSOPHY of humanism.

True humanism predates Newton.   It was a Christian renewal movement of the Renaissance, from which came the Protestant and Catholic reformations.

The intellectual and social movement which historians call humanism is what lies at the base of the period we call the Renaissance. Humanism and its ideals came to pervade the art, literature, learning, law, and civic life, first in Italy, then in all of Europe. But what is humanism? Scholars are still debating this issue, but there is a consensus on a basic definition. Simply put, humanism is a rediscovery and re-evaluation of the aspects of classical civilization (ancient Greece and Rome) and the application of these aspects to intellectual and social culture. It is also in many ways a reaction against scholasticism, the dominant intellectual school of the Middle Ages. Scholasticism, while a vital and dynamic method in its early days in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, had, in the eyes of its detractors, by the fourteenth century become little more than organized quibbling over minor points of philosophy and theology. You may recall the famous question over how many angels could dance on the head of a pin; such questions were actually fairly regularly debated by the later scholasticists.

In contrast, the early humanists espoused a return to study of the original texts, rather than a reliance on the glosses and commentaries produced by the scholasticists. This break was by no means clear--many of the later humanists continued to admire and make use of the works of scholastic scholars, while forging ahead with their own examination of the sources.

http://www.themiddleages.net/life/humanism.html

"Secular humanism" is a modern revision of Christian humanism, leaving off God.   It's not humanism as medieval Christians saw it.

I really like your summary of medieval cosmology.   One quibble.    There is Newton's theory of gravitation, and there is Newton's laws of motion.    The former is a theory because it both predicts and explains the phenomenon of gravity and because its predictions have been repeatedly confirmed by evidence.   Newton's laws of motion merely predict without explaining.  Laws are weaker things than theories in science.

 

[Guinan]

On 1/8/2018 at 9:50 PM, MorningGlory said:

This is one of the first photos of Earth and the moon from over 3 million miles away taken as the Osiris-Rex spacecraft moves away from us.  Another glimpse into God's fantastic universe.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/portrait-earth-moon-3-million-173000016.html

Beautiful. 

[The Barbarian]

On 10/3/2020 at 7:57 AM, Retrobyter said:

Once upon a time (during the dark ages), human beings thought that the sun and the moon were at the same distance from earth.

Actually, Aristarchus of Samos had realized that the Sun was much bigger than the Earth, and much farther away than the Moon, using crude instruments and reason.

Aristarchus of Samos (/ˌærəˈstɑːrkəs/; Greek: Ἀρίσταρχος ὁ Σάμιος, Aristarkhos ho Samios; c. 310 – c. 230 BC) was an ancient Greek astronomer and mathematician who presented the first known heliocentric model that placed the Sun at the center of the known universe with the Earth revolving around it. He was influenced by Philolaus of Croton, but Aristarchus identified the "central fire" with the Sun, and he put the other planets in their correct order of distance around the Sun. Like Anaxagoras before him, he suspected that the stars were just other bodies like the Sun, albeit farther away from Earth. His astronomical ideas were often rejected in favor of the geocentric theories of Aristotle and Ptolemy. Nicolaus Copernicus attributed the heliocentric theory to Aristarchus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristarchus_of_Samos

Aristarchus did infer the correct order of planets from the Sun, but Galileo, showing that Venus has phases like the Moon, demonstrated that it orbited the Sun, more closely to the Sun than to the Earth.