Religious Spam 4 – NASA and the Bible
It's a quiet evening and you're checking your e-mail. Suddenly and without thought your eyes begin to roll. You can't help it: a family member has just sent you Religious Spam™!
My family - nearly all of them - are religious. Hardcore Pentecostal and therefore I get these e-mails a lot. I thought it would be fun to share them, possibly offer humorous and/or witty comments regarding them.
NASA &THE BIBLE
Thought this was pretty amazing and interesting!!
For all the scientists out there, and for all the students who have a hard time convincing these people regarding the truth of the Bible, here's something that shows God's awesome creation, and 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 done for us today happened recently to our astronauts and space scientists at Green Belt, Maryland.
They were checking out where the positions of the sun, moon, and planets would be 100 years and 1,000 years from now. We have to know this so we won't send up a satellite and have it bump into something later on in 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 bog 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 with either 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 out. 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 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 lasted not to go down about a whole day!'
( Joshua 10:12-13)
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 canno t account for 40 minutes, you'll still be in trouble 1000 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, he 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 that told of the following story: 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?
References: Joshua 10:8 and 12, 13 and 2 Kings 20:9-11.
Forward this to as many people who you believe would think this is equally as cool.
If God could do this then; how much more can he do for us today. If we only believe in his word. Never be afraid to try something new.
All I have and all that I am is by the Grace 0f God!
Haha... ha haha... I would love for God to move the sun around in the sky. That would sure show them heathen scientist a thing or two.
The sad thing about this story - and that is all it is - is many of the recipients of this e-mail will truly think that this is told verbatim from an actual conversation that someone just so happened to witness and write down to spread around. Then again these are the same people who believe that the gospels are first hand accounts. Of course we know they were written many decades after the fact. It'd be like writing an autobiography about someone you never met and died before you were born with limited sources of information.
That being said... I have countless astronomical simulators, gravity simulators, and basic mathematics (ok, maybe not basic math) that shows no disturbed periods in the rotation of the earth. A simulation could not detect something like this anyways which completely falsifies this entire story. Even if we were to momentarily accept the idea that some higher power stopped and even reversed the rotation of the earth, there is no way a simulator would pick up on that.
Regarding the person that is explained as having witnessed this event, Mr Harold Hill:
Another problem is that NASA has denied that Harold Hill was ever one of its consultants.
James S. Lacy, from the Office of Public Relations for NASA, wrote in a letter to a journalist that the only trace they could find of a Harold Hill having any connection with NASA was a person who was involved in contracting for the operations and maintenance of some diesel engine operations. (Source)
Besides, 23:20 + 0:40 = 24 hours. Anyone with a bit of knowledge knows that the day is not 24 hours long.