DEBUNKING BIBLE MIRACLES: Joshua telling the sun to stand still

by Black Man 18 Replies latest jw friends

  • Black Man
    Black Man

    So, I'd love to start some threads debunking biblical miracles as the fairytale fiction that they are. The first I'd like to start off with is Jehovah supposedly making the sun stand still to allow Joshua's army enough daylight to conquer the Amorites. Here's a quote sentex.net explaining why this would be completely impossible:

    http://www.sentex.net/~tcc/joshua.htm

    For the earth to suddenly stop rotating would certainly involve a major miracle. It violates the principle of conservation of angular momentum of rotating bodies, a fundamental law. The kinetic energy of a rotating body like the earth cannot just disappear; it must continue to exist; the energy needed somewhere to go. Clearly a miracle is needed, if the earth's rotation stopped, and then began again.

    The earth's diameter is several kilometers greater at the equator, than at the poles, because of the effects of rotation. What would maintain the equatorial bulge, if rotation stopped?

    The moon, also, cannot simply stop in its orbit; it would fall towards the earth. So a miracle was involved, to keep the moon up when it stopped, and for it to resume its orbital motion.

    The ocean waters have momentum, and if the earth's crust beneath them suddenly stopped, the waters of the oceans would overflow the eastern coasts of the continents, in mighty tidal waves traveling hundreds of km per hour. This would be a catastrophe probably greater in scale than even the world wide flood of Noah's time! Similar flooding on the western coasts would likely occur when rotation resumed. But geologic evidence for such events has not been found.

    The atmosphere has momentum, and if the earth's crust suddenly stopped, winds of hundreds of km per hour would cause devastation around the earth, but such drastic events do not appear to have happened, so miracles must be invoked by those who believe the story of Joshua's long day, to prevent all the widespread destruction.

    For the ocean waters to remain in the ocean basins would requite the miraculous suspension of the law of inertia that applies to every particle in the oceans. Similarly, if the earth's atmosphere did not keep revolving eastward when the earth stopped, countless miracles are needed; one for every single molecule of air!

  • Bella15
  • RayPublisher
    RayPublisher

    The reasoning on this is well thought out, but logic based on assumptions that are wrong produces wrong results. It of course pre-supposes that there is no God and then addresses the problem from a human point of view.

    The flaw in this reasoning is that God is billions of years old and he created all things- certainly he can manipulate atoms and sub-atomic particles to make what he wants happen. If YOU could control matter and energy on this scale, would it really be that hard for you to make the sun stand still? Or extend the light for that day and make it appear that the sun stood still?

    Just because this is impossible for man it does not mean it is impossible for the Creator. Just because you personally have never seen a miracle doesn't mean they can't/haven't happened. And advanced science can be a "miracle" to someone without the equivalent technology.

  • dgp
    dgp

    My god is more powerful than all those others . Ha! I can picture Odin's face when he saw Jah killing his creatures!

  • trailerfitter
    trailerfitter

    Interesting debunking and from Raypublisher a predictable JW answer.

    If god was that so omnipotent and could actually manipulate the world in such a way then he would not need to do the horrid things he did in the bible. The bible itself wouldn't need to be written because it would have been created in a way by the creator that it would only need to be touched and be understood fully,.... the presence of god. However jehovah, who is actually hard to find in anything other that written texts had to use a woman to give birth to a to a guy down here to spread his word in only a small area of the world, when the message could have happened simultaniously on ever contiinent of the world so the message would have actually had an impact..

    The threat of inillation for sinners by god at the end of the system of things is a bit shakey too. If god ( that is a small g) has to resort to violence on a scale that mankind has never seen killing a large portion of the population but could actually manipulate atoms on a sub atomic level then it would be much easier to do something much nicer over a longer period of time like make sinners sterile.

    He would also be able to determine much more in history.

  • trailerfitter
    trailerfitter

    Feeding of the 5 thousand is a bit much of a claim,....getting back on track. I do not know how Jesus hid the Juggernauts that brought all that food to him. Imagine the time it actuallt took too to manually break each bit of bread too?....would have needed the sun to stand still on that day too just for jesus to have completed that task. 5000 people wow work it out. big long queue, a lot of crumbs sore hands from all that work.

  • smiddy
    smiddy

    Black Man

    Of course as you point out,the bible is wrong in saying the" sun stood still."

    It should have said the sun" appeared" to stand still

    Just another example of the bible being unscientific

    Does the bible say what it means ?

    or

    Does the bible mean what it says !!

    It`s very sad to see many lives have been lost because some humans have said this is what the bible means,and many have beleived it.

    "Do not put your trust in nobles nor in the son of earthling man,to whom no salvation belongs " Ps.146:3

    Yet isn`t that what we all do ? If it`s not trust in our own understanding,it`s putting our trust in someone else`s understanding

    Lets face it we are always relying on somebody to explain help us understand scriptures

    That is until we wake up to the real truth.

    smiddy

  • glenster
  • trailerfitter
    trailerfitter

    Smitty. Truth is a very subjective thing.

  • Intel
    Intel

    trailerfitter: Go ahead. I loved to read RunningMans "The Atheist's Book of Bible Stories" (he is/was a poster on this forum). Excellent reading. Really outstanding and fresh reasoning. Do you know his pdf??? Maybe you could expand on some of the stuff he wrote (Salomons Temple: size and people working on it: impossible. Millions of Jews in the Desert-Myth, Demons f........ female humans: laughable and why, etc.etc.)

    He used to give that pdf away (22 Chapters)....

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