# Proof for Religion from Astronomy **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 14, 2010, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-for-religion-from-astronomy/560653 "2010-11-14T18:10:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Bpelta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Bpelta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bpelta)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2010, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-for-religion-from-astronomy/560653/1 "2010-11-14T18:10:58Z")
Alright, I’ve had a bit of trouble with this bit of informal research, so I would be much obliged for any help. Religion-promoting websites use astronomy to prove the veracity of their religions. [For example:](http://www.sentex.net/~tcc/astropro.html) > [@](#): > > The huge number of stars in the universe was fully realized only after the discovery of the telescope, when astronomers found many more stars than those visible to the naked eye, that number about two or three thousand. There are more grains than this, in just a handful of sand. So the promise to Abraham recorded in Genesis revealed the enormous number of the stars, long before it was confirmed by astronomers. Or [here:](http://slifkin-opinions.blogspot.com/2010/11/deja-vu-all-over-again-unfortunately.html?showComment=1289590893334#c2468129788876133206) > [@](#): > > How about the gemara [=Talmudic passage] in [Tractate] Berachos…regarding the number of stars in the sky? How could Chazal [=Talmudic Sages] have known that there were more than 3-4000 stars in the sky? And how could they have known that there were trillions and trillions of stars? Now, the Talmud apparently gets its measurement [pretty](http://frumheretic.blogspot.com/2010/10/chazal-knew-number-of-stars.html) [wrong](http://observantastronomer.blogspot.com/2006/03/number-of-stars-in-universe.html). But what I want to know is this: Were there any other people in ancient cultures (Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian) who measured a larger amount of stars than a couple thousand? Any which measured ten thousand, hundreds of thousands, millions, billions? ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2010, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-for-religion-from-astronomy/560653/2 "2010-11-14T18:17:33Z")
I don’t think the concept of “a million” existed prior to the bible being written. Roman numerals, for example, didn’t go over a thousand. Two or three thousand would have been the same as infinite to ancient peoples. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2010, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-for-religion-from-astronomy/560653/3 "2010-11-14T19:01:38Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > I don’t think the concept of “a million” existed prior to the bible being written. Roman numerals, for example, didn’t go over a thousand. Two or three thousand would have been the same as infinite to ancient peoples. I don’t believe eany of those three statement is true. You can’t seriously think that the Egyptians built the pyramids without any concept of a number \> 3,000. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2010, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-for-religion-from-astronomy/560653/4 "2010-11-14T19:07:54Z")
The promise to Abraham is that his descendants will be as numerous as the stars in the sky. If that is taken as the number of stars in the universe, that’s somewhere between 10[sup]22[/sup] and 10[sup]24[/sup]. Given that the total number of people who have ever lived on Earth is only a few billion, the Bible is off by nine orders of magnitude as of now. It’s going to be a very long time indeed before the promise is fulfilled. ---
**Author:** ![code\_grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@code\_grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/code_grey)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2010, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-for-religion-from-astronomy/560653/5 "2010-11-14T20:54:23Z")
I have seen mentions of Egyptian “million” numeric symbol. And regardless of that, they would certainly have needed to handle such quantities e.g. for figuring out how many taxable hectares (or similar) of land there is in the country, or how much grain it produces and so forth. And you don’t even necessarily need “million” as such for this, you could count in 100,000 as in India or 10,000 as in China. The “stars in heaven” bit sounds first and foremost as an analogy for “uncountable”. It requires some technological sophistication and systematic effort to get an accurate count of visible stars. So for people who had better things to do the number of stars would be “a whole lot”, “uncountable”. The same applies to “sand in the sea” analogy even though there are obviously more sand particles out there than the population of all descendants of Abraham over the last several thousand years. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2010, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-for-religion-from-astronomy/560653/6 "2010-11-14T21:25:18Z")
By 500 B.C., the Indians had names for numbers up to 10 to the 421st power: > **[History of large numbers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_large_numbers)** > > Different cultures used different traditional numeral systems for naming large numbers. The extent of large numbers used varied in each culture. Two interesting points in using large numbers are the confusion on the term billion and milliard in many countries, and the use of zillion to denote a very large number where precision is not required. > The Shukla Yajurveda has a list of names for powers of ten up to 1012. > The list given in the Yajurveda text is: > Later Hindu and Buddhist texts have ext... ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2010, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-for-religion-from-astronomy/560653/7 "2010-11-14T21:47:58Z")
> [@code\_grey](#): > > The “stars in heaven” bit sounds first and foremost as an analogy for “uncountable”. It requires some technological sophistication and systematic effort to get an accurate count of visible stars. So for people who had better things to do the number of stars would be “a whole lot”, “uncountable”. The same applies to “sand in the sea” analogy even though there are obviously more sand particles out there than the population of all descendants of Abraham over the last several thousand years. I think this point might have been more obvious in the days before light pollution. If you’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing the sky in one of the few remaining truly dark parts of the world, it’s pretty hard to wrap your head around just how many stars you can see. It’s sometimes strange to think that for most of human history, that was the view _everyone_ got every clear night. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2010, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-for-religion-from-astronomy/560653/8 "2010-11-14T22:10:03Z")
> [@GreasyJack](#): > > I think this point might have been more obvious in the days before light pollution. If you’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing the sky in one of the few remaining truly dark parts of the world, it’s pretty hard to wrap your head around just how many stars you can see. It’s sometimes strange to think that for most of human history, that was the view _everyone_ got every clear night. Especially when the moon is new. I’ve been camping the Sierra during a new moon and was astounded by how much you can see by starlight alone. With a full moon it’s “almost” daylight. ---
**Author:** ![whiterabbit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/cab0a1/32.png) [@whiterabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whiterabbit)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2010, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-for-religion-from-astronomy/560653/9 "2010-11-15T00:53:50Z")
When I moved up here I wondered what the heck that whitish thing that went across the sky was for a few nights before I realized it, and felt like a moron. I also had no idea that moonlight really was that bright outside of TV or movies. When there’s snow on the ground and a full moon, it’s startlingly bright. Light pollution, as unavoidable as it is these days, sucks. ---
**Author:** ![Bpelta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Bpelta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bpelta)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2010, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-for-religion-from-astronomy/560653/10 "2010-11-15T06:31:23Z")
> [@code\_grey](#): > > The “stars in heaven” bit sounds first and foremost as an analogy for “uncountable”. It requires some technological sophistication and systematic effort to get an accurate count of visible stars. So for people who had better things to do the number of stars would be “a whole lot”, “uncountable”. The same applies to “sand in the sea” analogy even though there are obviously more sand particles out there than the population of all descendants of Abraham over the last several thousand years. Yeah, thinking about it, I think you’re right. ---
**Author:** ![Candyman74](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Candyman74](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Candyman74)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2010, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-for-religion-from-astronomy/560653/11 "2010-11-15T06:44:13Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > I don’t think the concept of “a million” existed prior to the bible being written. Roman numerals, for example, didn’t go over a thousand. Two or three thousand would have been the same as infinite to ancient peoples. Romans regularly field very organised very organised armies of many times 3000. They collected taxes from many more than 3000. They held censuses of their empire. They most certainly had a concept of large numbers. ---
**Author:** ![flodnak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/838e76/32.png) [@flodnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flodnak)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2010, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-for-religion-from-astronomy/560653/12 "2010-11-15T07:41:38Z")
[This link takes you to a beautiful photo of the night sky](http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/1006/Alamut-Babak1.jpg) taken about 100 km away from a city. (That city is a big one, though - Tehran, which is the bright bit in the corner of the photo.) No telescope is involved, this is just a photo taken with a decently long exposure in a dark place by a skilled photographer. In the time of Abraham, there would have been no bright bit in the corner, no brightly lit cities, and _everywhere_ would have been this dark sometimes. Remember that this is only a small part of the sky; in a flat area, this would have been the view for 360 degrees around you. Does that look like only a couple thousand stars in the whole night sky to you? Or like an uncountable number that might as well be infinity? ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2010, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-for-religion-from-astronomy/560653/13 "2010-11-15T13:04:40Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > I don’t think the concept of “a million” existed prior to the bible being written. Roman numerals, for example, didn’t go over a thousand. Two or three thousand would have been the same as infinite to ancient peoples. You might want to read (or at least read about) Archimedes’ [The Sand Reckoner](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sand_Reckoner). ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2010, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-for-religion-from-astronomy/560653/14 "2010-11-15T13:42:04Z")
Religion, by definition, is a matter of faith. It cannot be proved. If it could, it would be science. ---
**Author:** ![Small\_Clanger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@Small\_Clanger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Small_Clanger)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2010, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-for-religion-from-astronomy/560653/15 "2010-11-15T14:45:38Z")
[QUOTE=Paul in Qatar] Religion, by definition, is a matter of faith. It cannot be proved. If it could, it would be science. [/QUOTE] Yeah, but look at the Babel fish that’s a dead giveaway! ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2010, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-for-religion-from-astronomy/560653/16 "2010-11-15T14:52:37Z")
Archimedes had names for numbers up to 10 to the (10 to the 64th power) power, and he lived in third century B.C. Sicily (then a Greek colony), as is discussed in the Wikipedia article that I linked to. As I mentioned, the Indians at least by the sixth century B.C. had names for numbers up to 10 to the 421st power. By the second century A.D., the Chinese (and apparently the Indians) had numbers up to 10 to the (7 times (2 to the 122th power)) power. No, these terms weren’t known to most people at the time, but there were intellectuals who thought about them. The claim in Genesis that there were more stars in the sky than grains of sand was meant poetically, not as a precise count. The people at the time of the writing of Genesis weren’t stupid. Quit trying to take the Bible as if it were a scientific treatise. ---
**Author:** ![schmeebly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@schmeebly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/schmeebly)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2010, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-for-religion-from-astronomy/560653/17 "2010-11-15T16:44:34Z")
> [@](#): > > Religion-promoting websites use astronomy to prove the veracity of their religions. I am interested in this - what are you asking of this question? As in, are you asking is it correct? Is it right to do? Why does it happen? I forget who said it, but someone has said this, so I will restate it as I remember it. A religion, or any organization, idea and that stuff, depends on its followers for survival. The most effective way to attract followers and keep them? Power. Inherent power is always a plus, too. What is a great way to obtain power? Reference your lineage/knowledge to something extremely ancient and esoteric. So astronomy is something that has been around pretty much from the start of civilization. That a Christian/Jewish (I am just following the examples) websites use a references of, i think, the salt covenant(?) as a suggestion that they were aware of the number of stars far before it was certain that man was aware of the number of stars is a technique to demonstrate their esoteric knowledge that is far more superior as 1)they knew it first, and 2) it came from God. It gives them rank, and it attracts the reader who can be a potential follower. As for the star count, you may want to check out this Chinese dude, Gan De (or Lord Gan) from the 4th-ish Century BCE. I am not sure if he tried to reach a star count or was concentrated mainly on observing planets, but it is worth a shot. ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2010, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-for-religion-from-astronomy/560653/18 "2010-11-15T17:14:54Z")
> [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](#): > > Religion, by definition, is a matter of faith. It cannot be proved. If it could, it would be science. And non-fiction. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2010, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-for-religion-from-astronomy/560653/19 "2010-11-15T17:50:20Z")
It’s actually a pretty obvious and mundane comparison anyway. Anyone who’s seen a moonless sky in truly dark conditions (and in pre-industrial times, that was everyone) could easily make the comparison between stars in the sky and grains of sand in a hand. It’s very obvious that there are more than a couple of thousand stars visible. ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2010, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proof-for-religion-from-astronomy/560653/20 "2010-11-15T19:44:03Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > It’s actually a pretty obvious and mundane comparison anyway. Anyone who’s seen a moonless sky in truly dark conditions (and in pre-industrial times, that was everyone) could easily make the comparison between stars in the sky and grains of sand in a hand. It’s very obvious that there are more than a couple of thousand stars visible. Incorrect, actually. > [@](#): > > On a clear, moonless night in a place far away from city lights, you should be able to see about 2000 stars. The darker the skies, the more stars you can see. Astronomers have calculated that there are about 6,000 stars potentially visible with the unaided eye, of course, there’s no way you could see them all at the same time. Some stars are visible from the southern hemisphere, while others are visible from the northern hemisphere. Some stars are visible in the summer months, while others are visible in the winter months. > > So if you’re heading outside and want to count stars, you’ll be lucky to count 2,000. [http://www.universetoday.com/24310/how-many-stars-can-you-see/](http://www.universetoday.com/24310/how-many-stars-can-you-see/)