Most of us can see your lack of imagination, but your post underlines the point nicely. Carolinajazz, embrace your orthodoxy-bound, imagination-limited brethren!
First of all, I have a great "imagination"....and do not view myself as being very conservative when it comes to my viewpoints and attitudes!....and when it comes to "geocentrism" it actually disagrees with what the Bible says!
It was in the second century C.E., when the renowned astronomer Ptolemy devised the geocentric theory. It was mathematical ingenuity at its best and was an explanation of the apparent movement in the sky of the sun, moon, planets, and stars that was widely accepted until the 16th*century. Today scholars believe that he obtained his data, not by observations, but by copying the work of an early Greek astronomer, Hipparchus of Rhodes. He was also suspected of having obtained some data by working backward from the results he expected.
An honest reader will readily admit that a statement in the Bible one time about the sun standing still in the sky is not meant as a scientific analysis but as a
simple observation about how things appeared from the standpoint of human eyewitnesses.
Astronomers, too,
often speak of the rising and setting of the sun, planets, and stars. They do not mean that these heavenly bodies literally revolve around the earth but, rather, that they appear to move across our sky.
That the Earth is flat IS exactly opposite of what the Bible actually says! About 2,700 years ago, the Bible said: “There is One who is dwelling above the circle of the earth.” (Isaiah 40:22) The Hebrew word here translated “circle” can also mean “sphere,” as various reference works note. Other Bible translations, therefore, say, “the globe of the earth” (Douay Version) and, “the round earth.”—Moffatt.
Thus, the Bible was not influenced by the unscientific views prevalent at the time regarding the earth’s support and its shape. The reason is simple: The Author of the Bible is the Author of the universe. He created the earth, so he should know what it hangs on and what its shape is. Hence, when he inspired the Bible, he saw to it that no unscientific views were incorporated in it, however much they may have been believed by others at the time.
The strength of Daniel 4:10-11 as an argument for a flat Earth is considerably reduced by the fact that this part of the Book of Daniel recounts a dream experienced by the Persian king during a fit of madness. Thus, it does not necessarily refer to an actually existing tree or make any statements about real cosmology.
As to a "finite universe", observations with larger telescopes have proved that our universe contains at least 50,000,000,000 galaxies. We do not mean 50 billion stars—but at least 50 billion galaxies, each with billions of stars like our sun. Yet it was not the staggering quantity of huge galaxies that shook scientific beliefs in the 1920’s. It was that they are all in motion.
Astronomers discovered a remarkable fact: When galactic light was passed through a prism, the light waves were seen to be stretched, indicating motion away from us at great speed. The more distant a galaxy, the faster it appeared to be receding. That points to an expanding universe! The scriptures at both Job 38:4, 5 and Isa. 40:22 actually alludes to this possibility when it says "Where were you when I founded the earth? Tell me, if you think you understand. *Who set its measurements, in case you know, Or
who stretched a measuring line across it?" “There is One who is dwelling above the circle of the earth, the dwellers in which are as grasshoppers,
the One who is stretching out the heavens just as a fine gauze, who spreads them out like a tent in which to dwell.”—Isaiah 40:22.
Even if we are neither professional astronomers nor amateurs, we can see that an expanding universe would have profound implications about our past—and perhaps our personal future too. Something must have started the process—a force powerful enough to overcome the immense gravity of the entire universe. You have good reason to ask, ‘What could be the source of such dynamic energy?’
