I am sure some will not believe but thought you would find interesting.

[dansir]

> > Subject: God is Awesome
> >
> >
> >
> > Interesting....
> >
> > For all you scientists out there and for all the students who have a
> > hard time convincing people regarding the truth of the Bible...here's
> > something that shows God's awesome creation and shows that He is still
in
> > control..
> > Did you know that the space program is busy proving that what has
> > been called "myth" in the Bible is true? Mr. Harold Hill, President of
> the
> > Curtis Engine Company in Baltimore Maryland and a consultant in the
space
> > program, relates the following development: "I think one of the most
> amazing
> > things that God has for us today happened recently to our astronauts and
> > space scientists at Green Belt, Maryland. They were checking the
position
> > of the sun, moon, and planets out in space where they would be 100 years
> and
> > 1000 years from now.. We have to know this so we won't send a satellite,
> up
> > and have it bump into something later on during its orbits We have to
lay
> > out the orbits in terms of the life of the satellite, and where the
> planets
> > will be so the whole thing will not bow down..
> >
> > They ran the computer measurement back and forth over the centuries and
> it
> > came to a halt. The computer stopped and put up a red signal, which
meant
> > that there was something wrong either with the information fed into it
or
> > with the results as compared to the standards. They called in the
service
> > department to check it out and they said "what's wrong?"
> > Well they found there is a day missing in space in elapsed time. They
> > scratched their heads and tore their hair. There was no answer.
> > Finally, a Christian man on the team said, "You know, one time I was in
> > Sunday School and they talked about the sun standing still." While
they
> > didn't believe him, they didn't have an answer either, so they said,
"Show
> > us". He got a Bible and went back to the book of Joshua where they
found
> a
> > pretty ridiculous statement for any one with "common sense." There they
> > found the Lord saying to Joshua, "Fear them not, I have delivered them
> into
> > thy hand; there shall not a man of them stand before thee." Joshua was
> > concerned because he was surrounded by the enemy and if darkness fell
they
> > would overpower them. So Joshua asked the Lord to make the sun stand
> still!
> > That's right - "The sun stood still and the moon stayed---and hurried
not
> to
> > go down about a whole day!" The astronauts and scientists said, "There
is
> > the missing day!" They checked the computers going back into the time it
> was
> > written and found it was close but not close enough. The elapsed time
> that
> > was missing back in Joshua's day was 23 hours and 20 minutes-not a
whole
> > day. They read the Bible and there it was "about (approximately) a
day."
> > These little words in the Bible are important, but they were still in
> > trouble because if you cannot account for 40 minutes you'll still be in
> > trouble 1,000 years from now. Forty minutes had to be found because it
> can
> > be multiplied many times over in orbits.. As the Christian
employee
> > thought about it, remembered somewhere in the Bible where it said the
sun
> > went BACKWARDS. The scientists told him he was out of his mind, but
they
> > got out the Book and read these words in 2 Kings: Hezekiah, on his
> > death-bed, was visited by the prophet Isaiah who told him that he was
not
> > going to die. Hezekiah asked for a sign as proof. Isaiah said "Do you
> want
> > the sun to go ahead 10 degrees?" Hezekiah said, "It is nothing for the
> sun
> > to go ahead 10 degrees, but let the shadow return backward 10 degrees."
> > Isaiah spoke to the Lord and the Lord brought the shadow ten degrees
> > BACKWARD! Ten degrees is exactly 40 minutes! Twenty three hours and 20
> > minutes in Joshua, plus 40 minutes in Second Kings make the missing day
in
> > the universe! Isn't it amazing just how TRUE the God's word is?
> > References: Joshua 10:8 and 12,13 2 Kings 20:9-11

[Spiritus Mundi]

Wow. It is difficult to argue with evidence like that.

------------------

The best lack all conviction
The worst are full of passionate intensity.

[DrFidelius]

It would have been easier to read if you had dropped the quote thingies. Easier to read, however, does not equal true or accurate.

This isn't even a very interesting story.

How could a computer program find that the positions of heavenly bodies were off by one day without accurate observations from the affected time period? The program would only show where they SHOULD BE, it would have no way to flag that they were not THERE, especially if it is working backwards from today.


------------------
Dr. Fidelius, Charlatan
Associate Curator Anomalous Paleontology, Miskatonic University
"You cannot reason a man out of a position he did not reach through reason."

[Scylla]

Sorry Dansir, but this is an Urban Legend.

It's been thoroughly discredited as a pure falsehood.

It only takes a moment or two of research to find this out.

Good story though.

[DrFidelius]

From www.urbanlegends.com

This story has been circulating in its NASA version at least since the 1960s, largely due to its promulgation by one Harold Hill, who says that he was present at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center when the above events allegedly took place. NASA denies that this ever occurred, and Hill, the former president of the Curtis Engine Company of Baltimore, was involved in diesel engine operations at Goddard and had no involvement with any computer operations. The story predates Hill's NASA version, and goes back to Charles A. L. Totten's _Joshua's Long Day and the Dial of Ahaz: A Scientific Vindication_ (1890). Hill published his version in Harold Hill, as told to Irene Burk Harrell, _How to Live Like a King's Kid_, 1974, Logos International. (Logos International was a Christian publisher with no qualms about publishing phony testimonies--it also published Mike Warnke's _The Satan Seller_, Michael Esses' _Michael, Michael, Why Do You Hate Me?_, and Fernand Navarra's _Noah's Ark--I Touched It_, all of which have been debunked.)

[sugaree]

Darn it DrFidelius, here I am a newbie trying to make a worthwhile contribution to the board, and you beat me to it, cite and all, in a matter of seconds!

------------------
Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right

[DrFidelius]

Don't sweat it, sugaree. I would have taken less time but snopes did cooperate with me.

Oh, and welcome back, dansir. Long time no see.

[tomndebb]

I find it wonderful that someone named Harold Hill was involved with promulgating this bit. (That's «bit» with a B, that rhymes with T. . . .)

[Gaudere]

Oh hell, I already looked it up so I'll post the links anyway, even if DrF beat me to it.
http://www.doulon.net/shock/sunback/index.htm http://css.peak.org/newsletter/1999/mar99/meme.html http://www.utexas.edu/students/skeptics/ul.html#lostday

[DoctorJ]

It's the return of JesusSpam!

[UncleBeer]

Good Lord, who dug up that old BS? I haven't seen that particular turd in 4 or 5 years.

[Gaudere]

Bets on how long 'til we see the professor-and-the-chalk one?

[UncleBeer]

Couple days, max., Gaudere. Of course, you've already provided the debunking links, so we'll have a record simulpost response.

BTW, why did you remove the homepage link from your profile? If it's none of my business, just whack me on the nose like a bad puppy and I'll crawl back under the bed.

[dansir]

THANKS DR. F for the welcome. You know I have never been easy to read so why be any different now....laughing I read the website and how does this MR. Hill know he was at the event if it did not happen.
Of course NASA would not tell anyone...people would think our science program had went nuts ....

[Gaudere]

Mods tend to get a little more attention from the psychos, and I've had enough trouble in that area already. So I don't want as much personal info floating around. I'll email you the URL if you want it. I have some new paintings but there's been a bit of a mess with my ISP and I don't have ftp access currently, so they're not up.

[DrFidelius]

Dansir:

Think about this. Is it more likely for one person to be lying or for ALL THE OTHER PEOPLE involved in the "program" to be still lying about it?

That is an application of Ockham's scalpel.

[UncleBeer]

Ah, I figgered it was something like that. Sure, you can send me the URL at
rseaney@teamsigma.com
I've got something from my friend at www.mockensturm.com for you, too. He gave me a couple of small test prints for a lithograph a while back and I want to give one of them to you. I guess I'll bring along it to S'field.

[andros]

how does this MR. Hill know he was at the event if it did not happen.

Last night, I flew to Mars by flapping my arms real hard. There I met with all the Martian dignitaries, including several clones of Arnold Ziffle. They gave me the key to the planet and a really tasty gravy recipe.

Believe me? Didn't think so.

-andros-

[Gaudere]

Cool--I really like your friend's work, particularly the watercolors. I'll send the URL off in a bit.

[Scylla]

This is actually a serious question.

I really don't know.

Is there any difference between Occam's Razor, and Ockham's Scalpel?

They are the same, right?

(don't hurt me)

[DrFidelius]

Yes, Scylla.

Only pretentious Anglophone windbags refer to "Ockham's Scalpel".

[dansir]

Dr F. I have missed you ....
But I think it is alot easier for a whole lot of people to lie than for one to go against the grain...my opinion of course..but I know I dont like to be persecuted....especially for a lie.

[frolix8]

I recall hearing this story from a missionary when I was about 10 years old. Even then I could see that it was logically inconsistent. The missionary was not amused, and neither was the congregation. Some things never go away. Now about that third word...

[dansir]

Inorder to prove my point..have you heard about the twin boys..I am sure you have. Eventhough doctors, family, ect. doubted they chose to agree for fear of going against the famous.

[Gaudere]

Uh, yeah, but the truth came out. As it has here, where your story has been throroughly debunked. Also, I think we are talking about slightly different issues here. (I am guessing he's talking about the boy who was raised as a girl after an extremely unfortunate circumscision accident.) A family keeping some pertinent medical information from a child until they reach the age of consent is not the same as a supposed massive conspiracy to deny an amazing event that was witnessed by dozens.

[DoctorJ]

Did that actually happen? It was last week's Chicago Hope.

[shantih]

Originally posted by Gaudere:
Bets on how long 'til we see the professor-and-the-chalk one?

If I'm the only one who doesn't recognize this, just taunt me, but what's the story about the professor and the chalk?

[John Corrado]

dansir, just take a step back and look at it from a rational perspective.

Hank Hill claims to have seen this event occur. He claims to have seen it despite having never worked for a department of NASA that this event would have occured in. It's similar to me claiming that I saw Monica Lewinsky giving the president a bj while I was on a White Hour Tour. Sure, I was in the White House, but being on a tour doesn't give me any access to the highly-guarded areas where those incidents are alleged to have occured.

Second- Let's assume that Hill is right, and that it's a massive goverment conspiracy to cover this all up. So this would involve:

• NASA Scientists and Engineers. Of course, none of them are Christians, so they'd all be perfectly happy to cover this up.
• The Carter, Reagan, and Bush administrations. Of course, all of those presidents and their cabinets were heathen agnostics and atheists, who would never want this kind of information validating the Bible to come out.
• Every major organized religion. Think about it. Hill published his story years ago, and this e-mail pops up every once in a while. Either the Pope and Jerry Fallwell are surrounded by atheist counter-intelligence operatives who don't wish this NASA information to get out to the public, or the leaders of nearly every major religious denomination recognize this story for the tall-tale bull-crap it is.

Guess it's you and Hill against every single other person in the world.

Gotta admit, that'd be one heck of a conspiracy, though.

------------------
JMCJ

This is not a sig.

[RTFirefly]

Gaudere - not to mention the soundness of Dr.F's argument in his initial post.

dansir, one doesn't have to be a nonbeliever to dislike it when believers pass off crap like this as God's truth. In fact, it genuinely hurts me when my supposed brethren in Christ evidence to nonbelievers that we care nothing for the truth.

[Gaudere]

Well, according to Dateline (which I never watched before, but comes across as a cheesy newsmagazine; I don't know how well-regarded they are). But the guts off the story seem quite true, despite their attempts to spice it up with sinister allegations against the psychiatrist who recommended the gender-switch. Cut the guy some slack; he may have liked his fame bit too much, but at the time they couldn't reconstruct a penis properly, nor did they know how solidly gender roles were set by genetics versus environment. I think he did what he thought was best at the time.

[Gaudere]

The Chalk Story

[DrFidelius]

Actually Gaudy, I have no idea which twin boys dansir is referencing. There have been more than one set of male twins born during the past few centuries.

I also wonder who is being persecuted. 90% of the technicians who worked for NASA in the 1960s were Christian, and I am sure there were a few other Christians in the computer room in Green Belt Maryland who might possibly remember an incident such as described. It is odd that no one else seems able to verify Hill's tale.

It doesn't take the wisdom of Solomon to see that here is no reason on God's Green Earth for NASA to be trying to check the positions of the planets THOUSANDS OF YEARS in the past. Were they afraid that one of the Gemini missions would hit a time warp and accidentally hit Mars in 2000 BC? And, as I said in my first post on this thread, HOW IN THE WORLD would they be able to tell that their calculated observed positions would be off? We do not have sterral charts detailed enough from that era to check the calculations against.

IIRC, dansir is female.


------------------
Dr. Fidelius, Charlatan
Associate Curator Anomalous Paleontology, Miskatonic University
"You cannot reason a man out of a position he did not reach through reason."

[RTFirefly]

shantih - I'm in the dark, too.

John - there's a big difference. At least it's theoretically possible that you could have seen Monica slurping the Prez. But the latter-day Music Man's story is not.

[DrFidelius]

um, strike "sterral", replace with "stellar"

[Gaudere]

D'oh! She *is* female. I was trying to remember where I knew her from and now I do. Heck, nearly everyone thought she was male last time, too, at least for a while.

I do think I'm right about which twins she's talking about, though. Sometimes these posts take a little mind-reading.

[John Corrado]

RTF- Sorry, didn't make myself clear. I was trying to point out that even if the story Hank Hill was telling was true, that there would be no possible way that Hill would have been present to watch it.

Ergo, regardless of whether or not said calculations could be performed or were performed to show such a discrepancy, Hill did not see them performed, ergo, this story and the idea that NASA is hiding caluclations which prove the veracity of the Bible is absolutely false.

Don't nitpick with me, man. (grin)

------------------
JMCJ

This is not a sig.

[RTFirefly]

Were they afraid that one of the Gemini missions would hit a time warp and accidentally hit Mars in 2000 BC?

It's just a jump to the left...

Gaudere - Robby Slaughter may think he's sooo smart, but he's not. He must've checked the wrong USC - the story must've happened at the University of South Carolina, which also is abbreviated USC.

(That's a joke, of course - in the combined eleven years my wife and I were there, we never heard the chalk story. And given its predecessor, the flask story, it's obviously a UL.)

BTW, the eastern USC's teams are the Gamecocks, or, frequently, just the Cocks. The western USC's teams are the Trojans. Too bad their teams don't play each other very often - can you imagine the headlines? "Cocks burst Trojans," "Trojans contain Cocks," etc., etc.

[RTFirefly]

Don't nitpick with me, man. (grin)

Hey, it's my hobby - I just can't help myself.

[dansir]

Yes that is the twins that I was talking about...and I have always been female. laughing. I believe in God whether or not the above story is bogus. But who am I to say it is real or not. I do not have a clue why Nasa would have to go in the past but at the same time it does make sense to look in the past. Looking in the past to find a sequence or things that were repeated. Maybe 'history would not repeat itself' if we chose to learn from others mistakes.

[manhattan]

Originally posted by dansir:
But who am I to say it is real or not.

With all due respect, you are now exactly who should say that the story is not true. When someone repeats it, you can say, "Actually, that's not true at all. Here's proof. Please do not spread false stories, because they make Christianity look less truthful."

You see, here at the Straight Dope, we seek exactly that -- the straight dope. Once we find it, we spread it (like Gospel, as it happens).

Now go forth, my young friend, and spread the truth at the same time you spread the Truth.



------------------
Livin' on Tums, vitamin E and Rogaine

[John Corrado]

Hallelujiah and praise Manny!

[RTFirefly]

Hallelujiah and praise Manny!

Darn tootin' - when I get to Hell, I expect him to be there, mixing me a tall one!

And I second his message: (1) the story's obviously not only false, but impossible, for the reasons Dr.F gave, and (2) now that that's been made clear, as one who loves the (T/t)ruth, you should acknowledge it and stop spreading the falsehood. Please stop unglorifying God.

[Ben]

Originally posted by DrFidelius:
Actually Gaudy, I have no idea which twin boys dansir is referencing. There have been more than one set of male twins born during the past few centuries.

I believe he is referring to Romulus and Remus.

-Ben

(just kidding.)

[Northern Piper]

Here's the circumcision thread: Botched Circumcision

The boy in question has now gone public, to try to prevent such surgery in the future. He lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Unfortunately, the link to the Globe and Mail article will no longer work, as the G&M only keeps its links active for a week after the story first runs.

------------------
and the stars o'erhead were dancing heel to toe

[Guy Incognito]

I thought this "missing day" story sounded familiar. It's pretty well covered on pages 83-85 in the third Straight Dope compilation, "Return of the Straight Dope".


------------------
"It's only common sense,
There are no accidents 'round here."

[aseymayo]

Okay, I'm lost here. What does a botched circumcision have to do with the sun standing still?

I also have to point out that for the sun to appear to stand still, it would actually be the earth that stopped spinning. You'd think one of those bright boys at NASA would have mentioned that.

Wow! Went throught this whole page and was surprised no one has mentioned that great Unca Cecil has debunked the story in the OP . . . I'll go get the link - you wait here.

well I doubt this will change Dan's mind anymore than the other good arguments, but then again this is the SDMB, and this is also Cecil "The Man" Adams !!
www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_083.html

Who's on the ball ? Thats right . . .

------------------
"A single lifetime, even though entirely devoted to the sky, would not be enough for the investigation of so vast a subject." - Seneca

[DAVEW0071]

Okay, I'm lost here. What does a botched circumcision have to do with the sun standing still?

Easy. If your son doesn't stand still when they're circumcising him, it'll get botched.

To respond to the original topic, I have to say I don't really approve of anyone trying to prove the Bible, or God's existence or how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Throughout the Bible the emphasis is placed on faith, not scientific proof. I don't mean this as a cop-out, but if the basis of your faith in something that is, by definition, supernatural rests on scientific proof, then there is no room for faith. Sorry for the crappy sentence construction, but I think you get the idea.

I can understand a sceptic or unbeliever saying, "Show me the evidence." That's natural human behavior. But for a Christian (or theist) to try to offer that proof is ludicrous. How can you offer proof of something as ineffably subjective as faith in the existence of God? I can only offer that I have faith and ascribe certain events/feelings/outcomes in my life to God. If you are like-minded, you'll nod your head in agreement. If you are not like-minded, you'll tell me my ass is on fire.

I can't prove my faith, but I know it exists just the same. Take it or leave it. I won't cheapen my relationship with God by trying to "prove" anything.

------------------
The Dave-Guy
"Since my daughter's only half-Jewish, can she go in up to her knees?" J.H. Marx

[Liberal]

What a beautiful spirit! Thank you so much.