Solar Eclipse - How Common is It?

by Sea Breeze 47 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • Giles Gray
    Giles Gray

    It turns out that five of Jupiter's moons, Amalthea, Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto are either large enough or close enough to the planet to completely occult the Sun.


  • Sea Breeze
    Sea Breeze

    @TonusOH

    "Where the brain comes from" is your addition to the conversation.

    So what? You are the one who said on page one of this topic that the rules of logic are a "human construct". On page 4 you said they "come from our brains". Is there some rule of logic that states that it is "wrong" to examine where the brain comes from to determine if it is a reliable, trustworty and accurate guide ?

    Of course there is no such rule of logic. But, you would like for there to be one to protect your inconsistent worldview. If your brain creates the rules of logic, and if your brain is the product of explosions, unguided random chemical reactions and dna copying mistakes, why would you have confidence that your brain could create unchangeable, universal and standadized rules of logic? It makes no sense.

    My brain does not always think "correctly". It is rules of logic that expose logical inconsistencies that help me to think God's thoughts.

    Your position that says these unchangeable and trustworthy rules of logic are generated by untrustworthy and varied minds is like saying that Calculus was created by Newton. Newton simply discovered it. Its discovery helped people discover God's thoughts and mathmatical rules. Mathmatical rules are simply concepts, non material. But, they are very real all the same. They exist apart from the human mind, not because of them.

    You are one of my favorite posters on this board. So, we'll have to just agree to disagree on this one.

  • Sea Breeze
    Sea Breeze

    @Giles Gray

    But there is no place to stand on Jupiter (or any other gas planet) in order to experience a total solar eclipse as a person would on earth. It is totally obscured by clouds with nothing solid to stand on. Gravity would suck you or a spaceship down.

    Earth is the only planet in our solar system that you can stand on the surface and experience both a total solar eclipse and a total lunar eclipse, because the size and distance are perfect for both.

  • TonusOH
    TonusOH

    Sea Breeze: Is there some rule of logic that states that it is "wrong" to examine where the brain comes from to determine if it is a reliable, trustworty and accurate guide ?

    There isn't. But you are asking me to defend something I did not claim. My explanations are, as far as I can see, complete. They do not require a god, and they do not require a big bang. Either of those is an unnecessary addition to the explanation, and would require justification on their own.

    It is as if you had asked me why a rubber ball bounces, and I explained that one of the properties of rubber is elasticity, and this causes the ball to bounce. That explanation is complete, and requires no further additions. If someone wants to prove that rubber was a divine creation, they are welcome to explain themselves. If the explanation is a demand that I show how the big bang created rubber, I would point out that my explanation does not require this. Rubber balls bounce because rubber is bouncy. Humans use logic because our brains are capable of rational thought via deduction and inference. Anything beyond that must be proven by the person making the additional claim.

    As for the atheist worldview: I have mentioned before my issues with big bang cosmology, which is that the explanations do not make intuitive sense to me. I accept that scientists have a model, and that they have explanations, but those are complex and not easy to grasp. I do not claim that they are wrong; I accept that I may simply be ignorant or lack sufficient education. This is fine. The world works as it does, and while I am open to the possibility that gods exist, I have not yet found one that makes sense. Indeed, the gods that make the most sense to me are ones that we will never get to know, or even know of.

    If the atheist worldview demands that I accept things that I cannot accept, then I don't share the atheist worldview. And I can't defend something I don't believe, not very effectively, anyway.

  • Jeffro
    Jeffro

    See Breeze:

    You are the one who said on page one of this topic that the rules of logic are a "human construct".

    This is one of those concepts that creationists often (deliberately) confuse. Like the ‘laws’ of physics, and like mathematics, the ‘laws’ of logic are observations (which is the aspect that ‘requires a brain’) of how things are. The observed ‘laws’ themselves are not designed proscriptions nor human inventions.

  • titch
    titch

    I'd like to "echo" the words of ScenicViewer, on page 1 of this thread..."What difference does it make?" What does it matter? Yeah, we have, once in a while, a solar eclipse. Eclipses happen. So what, they are a "natural phenomenon" when a "new moon" happens. We also have "lunar eclipses" that happen once in a while. So, what? They happen. So? Titch.

  • joey jojo
    joey jojo

    I've been following this discussion and I'm still trying to figure out exactly why Seabreeze, you chose this particular curiosity of the solar system as significant from others?

    As others here have pointed out, the solar system is full of quirks and notable unique differences. The moon just happens to be the right size and distance so that when viewed from the earth, the moon and the sun appear to be about the same size. That's it.

    The moon is only the fifth largest moon in the solar system. Something like three of Jupiter's moons are bigger than the planet Mercury and would be considered planets in their own right if they weren't moons. The four big moons of Jupiter are all unique and interesting.

  • Giles Gray
    Giles Gray

    Sea Breeze – But there is no place to stand on Jupiter (or any other gas planet) in order to experience a total solar eclipse as a person would on earth. It is totally obscured by clouds with nothing solid to stand on. Gravity would suck you or a spaceship down.

    Total solar eclipses take place regardless of whether humans are there to experience them or not. Adding this premise entirely changes your claim. Your original point made no mention of only counting total solar eclipses which can be experienced by humans while standing on a planet’s surface.

    Total solar eclipses are extremely common in our solar system. During certain seasons, they are a daily occurrence on planets such as Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto. In fact, we have photos of the surface of Jupiter with up to three total eclipses on the planet’s surface in one single moment.

    Sea Breeze – Earth is the only planet in our solar system that you can stand on the surface and experience both a total solar eclipse and a total lunar eclipse, because the size and distance are perfect for both.

    Earth is not the only location in our solar system that total solar and lunar eclipses take place. Humans not being able to experience these other eclipses is totally irrelevant.

    The fact that total solar eclipses sometimes occur on earth is far from extraordinary.

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