Skeptic Project

Checked out your website, what's the criteria for winning the thousand bucks? I could use a thousand bucks.

If you help me win, I'll split the money with you.

This doesn't sound that hard. Let me in on this deal, damn it.

"The Bible declares the world to be a sphere in Isaiah 40:22, 'It is he who sits above the circle of the earth"

Also theories do not become laws.

Oh. Lame, never mind. Zeitgeist is full of lies. Boo.

Even as an atheist its easy to call bullshit when its all Acharya S junk and sun=son. Anyways, welcome to the forum!

"Circle isn't a sphere. Biblefail."

Actually, the big fail there was Kepp's failure to read the next sentence on that webpage.

"The Bible declares the world to be a sphere in Isaiah 40:22, "It is he who sits above the circle of the earth" (the Hebrew word used here is 'Khug' which has the literal translation of 'sphere')."

The critical line in Hebrew reads (transliterated and omitting vowels): hyshb 'l hwg h'rtz, which my colleague Dr. Robert Suder translates: "the one dwelling on the circle/horizon of the land."14 A survey of Hebrew lexica and theological wordbooks15 yields much information about the key word hwg (chûgh).16 According to K. Seybold, its root appears six times in biblical Hebrew, and it is clear from its usage in context that it has a specifically geometrical meaning, that is, "a circle, as drawn with compasses." In Job 26:10 and Prov. 8:27, chûgh is used with choq, meaning "to inscribe a circle."17 This nominal infinitive form also appears in Job 22:14, where it denotes "the circle of the heavens" (shamayim), and in Isa. 40:22a, where it denotes "the circle of the earth" (haarets). Sir. 43:1218 uses chûgh in describing the rainbow. Finally, in Isa. 44:13, mechûghah, a hapax legomena (a form used only once), means "a compass," i.e., that simple instrument people my age used to draw circles in high school geometry class.19

All but one of these contexts are cosmological, and in fact four of the five uses of chûgh occur in creation hymns. Isa. 40:22a describes God as sitting/ dwelling above "the circle of the earth" which God laid out--with a compass, as Job 26:10 and Prov. 8:27 suggest, for the latter verses describe the act of inscribing the circle that fixes the boundary between the earth and the deep, the circle that also marks the boundary between light and darkness.20 The context also suggests that in Isa. 40:22a, the earth ('erets) which is encircled refers not to the earth as that part of the creation distinct from the heavens (Gen. 1:1)--as the creationists cited above seem to interpret it--but to other meanings of earth: as "the dry land" (Gen. 1:9-10), and at the same time, it appears, as "the ground on which people and things stand," for "its inhabitants are like grasshoppers."21

A circle is no more a sphere in Scripture than it is in geometry.

Looking at these usages together, I am hard put to see how anyone could justify rendering chûgh in Isa. 40:22a as "sphericity."22 The earliest translations of these Scriptures bear this out. In the Septuagint (LXX), the translators render the nominal and verbal forms of chûgh in every case with the Greek gýros (noun), "circle" or "ring," which they use in Isa. 40:22a, or gyróo (verb), "to make or inscribe a circle."23 Gýros does not mean "sphere,"24 and in fact nowhere in any Greek recension of the Hebrew Scriptures will one find the proper word sphaíra used in this context at all.25 The history of the formation of the LXX is largely lost, and we do not know if the Prophets were translated in Alexandria as the Torah was in the third century BC.26 But if they were and if the translators were familiar with the concept of a spherical earth taught at the Museon of Alexandria, then the center of Greek science, they give no hint of it in their translation of chûgh.

http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2001/PSCF9-01Schneider.html

No Matt; KingDavid8 is right.
Here is the proof.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHex9GDQ2S0

"No Matt; KingDavid8 is right.
Here is the proof.
">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHex9GDQ2S0"

Just so you know, I'm not a Creationist, as the term is generally accepted. I believe in the Big Bang and Evolution, and say so on my website.

At first I only skimmed your website. I was under the impression that you were a creationist. Don't take it personally, but this is a skeptic's website. Creationists are fair game.

Knowing now that you aren't a creationist, I have no desire to challenge your beliefs or your explanations for said beliefs. They are irrelevant to me.

I hope there isn't any hard feelings.

PS - I'm a big fan of Kenneth Miller.

"Most people are familiar to some degree with this law, proposed as a theory by Albert Einstein and since proven (thus it is now a law, not a theory)."

I still think he should fix this statement regarding the theory of relativity. Just some constructive criticism.

"I still think he should fix this statement regarding the theory of relativity. Just some constructive criticism."

Is it wrong, though? I know that generally theories don't become laws, but I usually hear it referred to as the "Law Of Relativity", when I believe it was only considered a theory in Einstein's day. If I'm wrong, I'll gladly change it. But why is it so commonly referred to as a "Law" if it's not?

Nothing in science is ever "proven". Laws are not a higher stage than theories, and the two are totally separate scientific terms. A law is a description of an observed phenomenon, while a theory is an explanation of an observed phenomenon. Laws don't require testing, make no predictions, and are readily observable IE gravity. Theories are held in higher regards over laws in science, as theories can actually explain a set of laws.

I also never seen relativity regarded as a law, except on your website.

Hope this helps.

"I also never seen relativity regarded as a law, except on your website."

If you google "Law of Relativity", you'll get over 25,000 results, so it's nothing unique to myself. But I'll change it on my site, since it does seem to be a misconception.