Answers about Geocentricity

Why biblical geocentrism is wrong | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2007/02/15/why-biblical-geocentrism-is-wrong/

From comments' section, with my answers (I tried twice to post this, failed, will try again from elsewhere):

7. elgarak Says:
For instance, I'm still trying to figure how in the bible the Earth's age is given as 6000 years.

8. phish Says:
Elgarak,
They basically take all the ages mentioned in the Bible and add them up, to the modern day. Seriously.

Basically yes. And Septuagint version (oldest Greek translation of OT) gives mostly other ages for when so-and-so had the relevant son up to the flood, meaning it adds up to, I have gathered 5.199 at birth of Christ.

Now, Phil says that Geocentrism as defended by some Creationists is certainly wrong.

Here is where I give an additional chance of proving that - if that is possible:

Has Cassini-Huygens spacecraft earth flyby in 1999 disproven geocentrism?
http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?p=9120534#post9120534
(also deals with aberration as observed - if observed - from Mars)

To ignore gravity etc…or the fact that relativity predicted things like the energy released from atomic fission and fusion.

Who says we do ignore that?

This argument seems to be equivalent to traveling from the thumb to the forefinger by way of the elbow. If the earth is not rotating, how does one explain phenomena like hurricanes, typhoons, coastal storms, etc. In particular, one would have to explain why hurricanes spin counterclockwise in the Northern hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern hemisphere. A rotating earth generating the Coriolis force explains this nicely.

Wonderful, but a Universe rotating around earth might explain all of those as easily.

My view towards Geocentrism is the same as my feelings about flat-earthers, I'd probably be angrier with it if it weren't for the fact that there weren't so few of them. It doesn't seem like something that has that much mainstream or even worrisome underground following. Am I right in thinking that the scale of belief in these is so small that this is relatively harmless?

Supposing us even to be wrong - what would be the harm in that, except us being wrong?

It's been a long time since I've looked into this stuff in any but the most popular level, so I may be missing some fundamental point here, but I don't see how a universe centered on the Earth can be considered consistent with relativity? A universe centered on some local standard of motion (perhaps as defined by the cosmic microwave background) might work. I suspect that's not what the Geocentrists mean.

If by relativity you mean that the speed of light is anywhere and everywhere finite, either we have to deny that or that speed of light is the speed that is utmost.

The RCC accepted heliocentrism centuries ago. In fact, it /never/ objected to heliocentrism except when it was taught as being absolutely true, to the exclusion of all alternatives, and even that restriction had been dropped completely by 1758, after Kepler and Newton had completely rationalized Copernicus's original system (which was not without problems).

One more thing: the aberration annually back and fourth about 0° 0' 20". Discovered by James Bradley.

What happened in 1992 was that they reopened the question of whether Galileo had been guilty of being a smartass. (Frankly, on that point, they had a good case against him.)

But the original condemnation was not for being a smartass - that was no major offense back when orthodoxy or heterodoxy was what counted.

It seems to me that the average Geocentrist would object that you can't invoke Relativity to prove that Geocentristm is false, because the Michelson-Morley experment depended on the assumption that the Earth moves. (Of course, there have been any number of experimental confirmations of Relativity since, but Michelson-Morley is what they were typically told about in 8th-grade General Science.)

Not quite: Michelson Morley allows for either Geocentric or Relativity interpretation.

Geocentrism in particular has absolutely no support

Aristoteles [who said above, in relation to Bible], what is your take on Joshua, particularly the relation of the words he said and the effect?

We can consider that every object observed from our stationary vantage point not only dances around us, but all inner-system objects also form a complicated Spirograph design around the Sun at the same time, all beholden to every last law of planetary motion, gravity, and relativity, except us mind you…

And if planets are moved by angels, would they mind doing a spirograph design? Of course the spirograph design can hardly be explained purely by masses and gravitation ... at least not without accepting some exception for earth. But then there is more than masses and gravitation to the orbit of a socker ball on a green field, while players are playing.

But I suppose the next time someone assures me that the Earth is stationary, I'm going to have to ask where they're measuring it from.

Funnily enough my point towards those who say the Earth is moving. Independent observers from Sirius? Not that I know of. Star Wars is fiction, not fact.

According to the Bible, the so-called "universe" is really just a bunch of twinkly lights hanging from the dome that holds the ocean up. Shouldn't the bible thumpers all be Geo-under-ists?

Passage, as in book, chapter and verse. Pretty please!

And let's not forget that Genesis calls the stars besides the sun "lesser lights." From our perspective, yes, but surely an all-knowing God would not that they're not really "lesser" at all.

If distant at very much more usually than proxima Centauri - but that presupposes earth to be moving so as to have one known distance and two known angles for triangulation. If they are much closer - which geocentrically speaking can be the case - there is one angle and no distance, thus no triangulation, thus they could be far closer than proxima Centauri is usually thought to be.

Are astronomers lying, or just mistaken? It seems to me that it would be impossible to get satalites to other planets if our understanding of the universe was so badly flawed.

So did we get the satalites there, or just make everything up?

I am not at all sure it would be impossible. I did figure out a way in which to test it, see my thread on Catholic Forums, but it seems that way is flawed by ignoring that a rocket like Cassini not only has to get out of earth's gravitational field but has to deal with that if the sun as well: it did not get in a straight line from earth to saturn, and so we do not know if that straight line was observed as wavy (due to our movement from and back to origo of that line) or not.

I am not uniting with Sticks on this:

At least we are able to unite and say that Geocentricity is wrong.

Not at all uniting with that.

Their model would seem to have more internal consistency if it didn't (i.e. everything is measured from where I am standing.) but it would make everything in the universe move impossibly fast.

Impossibly there depends on quite a few assumptions which we need not share. Very fast is very true - and used to be one of the proofs for God existing as the source of infinite energy pulling it around that big that fast. And that he ordered what he spins very well, so as to not have it fall apart./HGL

PS, already was on that site on this comment thread: o-x.fr/9cke to which I linked from o-x.fr/1po1.