Chaim Amalek emails: But first, a bit of commentary. Quoting from Menachem Schneerson:
“Science now declares—as categorically as it is permissible for contemporary science—that where two bodies in space are in relative motion, it is scientifically impossible to determine which is at rest and which in motion.”
This misstatement of physical law is fairly common among laymen who have never taken a course in physics, which, I believe, would include most litvish and hasidic gedolim. Schneerson’s comment regarding relative motion holds true ONLY with respect to inertial, that is to say, non-accelerating, frames of reference. It is NOT true with respect to non-inertial, i.e., accelerating frames of reference, which includes all rotation (i.e.. things that are going around something else). Once something starts to accelerate, one can measure, internally, that acceleration using things like accelerometers and calculate changes in velocity. Engineers build stuff like rockets around this principle. (You can check this for yourself. Sitting as a passenger with your eyes closed in a smoothly moving, non accelerating automobile traveling on a good road, you cannot tell how fast you are going. But once that car begins to accelerate, either along a straight line or by going around a curve, you feel it, and know it – even with your eyes closed. Hence, one can readily see that the notion that “all motion is relative” with respect to rotation is simply incorrect.
It is very well established, both through observation and as a consequence of modern physical theory, that the earth revolves around a point located deep within the sun called the bary center. Because the bary center of the sun-earth system is not exactly coincident with the sun’s center of mass, the sun wobbles a tiny bit about this internal point as well, but this simply is not the same as saying the sun revolves around the earth — it just does not. The literal reading of the Torah that… a rising fraction of Torah Judaism take is contrary to centuries of careful observation and experiment and theory. It is contrary to the basic science that enables NASA to calculate the orbits and trajectories by which it sends space probes into orbit around the sun, the earth, and to distant planets. (That’s one of the nifty things about science: you can use it to build things that simply would not work if your basic science were false. Try calculating the orbital mechanics of a space probe using Torah – it can’t be done.)
Perhaps a Litvish Jew should not be getting his science from a Lubavitcher rabbi.
Now, as for you, Luke Ford, what do you believe?
1. Is the earth about 6,000 years old as Torah teaches, or is it billions of years old?
2. Did dinosaurs ever walk the earth?
3. Was there ever a flood in human times that covered even Mt. Everest in water? (If so, where did all this water go afterwards? Presumably even Torah Jews must acknowledge that it could not have drained into the ocean.)
4. Was the universe created in six days, each of which was as long as one of our current 24 hour days, or did it take place across billions of years from the big-bang forward?
5. Does the sun revolve around the earth, as the Torah teaches, or does the earth revolve around some point in space inside the sun?
6. If the Torah can be shown to be literally incorrect with respect to any one thing, can it nevertheless be trusted to be correct about everything else?
Luke says:
1. I believe the earth is as old as the scientific experts say it is, which I think is around five billion years.
2. If scientific experts believe in the existence of dinosaurs, so do I.
3. I don’t believe there was ever a flood that covered the entire world. I do not take the first eleven chapters of Genesis literally.
4. I suspect the universe took billions of years to reach its current state. I accept whatever astronomers say. The sun was not created until the fourth day, so “day” in Genesis does not only mean 24 hours. The Hebrew word for day, “Yom”, in the Tanakh does not only mean 24 hours hours. It means a time or an age in places.
5. I believe the earth revolves around the sun.
6. Torah means teacher. It teaches about life. It never purports to teach science.
Chaim Amalek emails: Oh, I had a pretty good idea of what you believe, I just wanted to see it up in lights on Lukeford.net. Hence the baiting.
How widespread among the Jewish orthodox is this notion that the torah is to be read literally? That certainly is not what I was taught — not even by orthodox jews, mind you, way back when — it seems that this heavy biblical literalism is a recent development and of a piece with the rise of similar anti-science literalism among Christian fundamentalists (although even they do not think the sun revolves around the earth).
Regarding Menachem Schneerson’s scientific training, the Failedmessiah web site links to material that seriously disputes that he ever was an engineering student in France at the Sorbourne.
Given the ill-informed writings on science of this would-be messiah, I suspect he never took a university or gymnasium level course in physics.
