An example of scientific speculation gone wrong.

Originally posted by Suzianne
Am I getting this right or are you pulling a massive joke over on us?

Light dawning?

Originally posted by Dasa
The Vedas (proper) do not say the earth is the centre of the universe - unless they are referring to some different context and referencing than that of the norm.

I can show you in more that one place where the Vedas clearly describe the sun as almost being the centre of the universe.

Googling Vedic information can be troublesome and there are many areas ...[text shortened]... rrect understanding allowing for interpretation.

Everything labelled Veda is often not Veda.

So how do you know the vedas you worship are the right ones then? You might be being fed a line of bull and you would not even know it.

Originally posted by sonhouse
So how do you know the vedas you worship are the right ones then? You might be being fed a line of bull and you would not even know it.

As I have said in the PM section I am not up on cosmology and it is my weakest subject because I simply do not study it (no interest actually)

My only interest is the Vedanta Sutra....the part about understanding God and how to return home back to Godhead through devotional service

I could know absolutely every single jot of information about cosmology - but if I do not develop love for God what is the point - so I leave cosmology for the intellectuals.

I actually have Vedic books at home and I always get nervous when going on-line to source Vedic information because you never know where that info is coming from but I try to stay with the sites that I have gone to in the past that have proved to be reliable.

Here are 2 site I find reliable but where persons have given there personal opinions caution must be exercised 1. "Veda online hare Krsna cz" and "the Hare Krsnas Views on Science"
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*Here is something I found online just recently and you would have a greater understanding than I would.

In Surya Siddhanta, bhaskaraachaarya calculates the time taken for the earth on orbit the sun to 9 decimal places (365.258756484 days). The modern accepted measurement is 365.2596 days.

The different between the ancient Indian measurement (1500 years ago) and the modern measurement is only 0.00085 days (0.0002%. Bharat has given the world the idea of smallest and largest measure of time – from 34,000th a second (Kranti) to 4.32 billion years (kalpa).

(Bhugoladhyaya , surya sidhanta). Arya bhatta was the first to deduce that the earth is round. It must be mentioned that western science accepted that earth is spherical only in 14th century. Also he was the first to postulate it is the earth that rotates and the stars are stationary. This was about a 1000 year before Copernicus.

The globe of earth stands suspended in space at the center of a circular frame that is at the center of the Bhagola surrounded by water, soil, fire and air and is circular on all sided that is spherical’.

(Aryabhattiya - chapter 4, verse 6)
[ modern science - earth has a core - molten magma, different layers of rocks, soil, water and atmosphere]

Day length -
23 hrs – 56 mts – 4 scds – 0.1 fractions – ‘aryabhatta’
23 hrs – 56 mts – 4 scds – 0.091 fractions – modern value

Aryabhatta gives the radius of the planetary orbits in terms of the radius of the Earth/Sun orbit as essentially their periods of rotation around the Sun. He believes that the Moon and planets shine by reflected sunlight, incredibly he believes that the orbits of the planets are ellipses. He correctly explains the causes of eclipses of the Sun and the Moon.

Aryabhatta gave an accurate approximation for π. He wrote in the Aryabhattiya the following:-

Add four to one hundred, multiply by eight and then add sixty-two thousand. the result is approximately the circumference of a circle of diameter twenty thousand. By this rule the relation of the circumference to diameter is given.

This gives π = 62832/20000 = 3.1416 which is a surprisingly accurate value. In fact π = 3.14159265 correct to 8 places.

The Surya Siddhanta contains the roots of modern trigonometry. It uses sine (jya, cosine (kojya or "perpendicular sine" and inverse sine (otkram jya for the first time, and also contains the earliest use of the tangent and secant when discussing the shadow cast by a gnomon in verses 21–22 of Chapter 3:

Of [the sun's meridian zenith distance] find the jya ("base sine" and kojya (cosine or "perpendicular sine". If then the jya and radius be multiplied respectively by the measure of the gnomon in digits, and divided by the kojya, the results are the shadow and hypotenuse at mid-day.

In modern notation, this gives the shadow of the gnomon at mid-day as

s = \frac{g \sin \theta}{\cos \theta} = g \tan \theta

and the hypotenuse of the gnomon at mid-day as

h = \frac{g r}{\cos \theta} = g r \frac{1}{\cos \theta} = g r \sec \theta

where \ g is the measure of the gnomon, \ r is the radius of the gnomon, \ s is the shadow of the gnomon, and \ h is the hypotenuse of the gnomon.

This would seem to give credibility to Vedic material.

Originally posted by Dasa
[blah blah blah] This would seem to give credibility to Vedic material.

Does it? Why? You believe it? Why should anyone else?

Originally posted by FMF
Does it? Why? You believe it? Why should anyone else?

one of the common things theists try to do is claim that there holy books contain knowledge about the
world that couldn't possibly be know way back when that turns out to be accurate and thus must have
been told to the people writing them by some omnipotent being.

This is frequently done for the bible, usually interpreting incredibly flowery language that could mean
almost anything to make it somehow fit with the latest scientific discovery (or some not so recent).
Or in some cases, wrongly make up scientific facts to fit the religious texts account.

The fact is, Even if the holy book contains bits that are true, it doesn't prove the existence of their god
and certainly doesn't prove everything else is true.

The fact that back then they knew the earth was a sphere, or how big it was, or calculate umpteen
digits of pi... Doesn't mean that information had to have been given by an omnimax being.

All that information is there in the world waiting to be discovered.
The fact that someone discovered it before anyone else is kinda neat, but doesn't prove that the
information must have been divine in origin.

Also it must be said that very often people fudge the facts retrospectively using the answer science has
and working backwards to deduce what some old unit that hasn't been in use for thousands of years
and no one has an exact conversion to si units for.


The only way this argument works as a proof (or even evidence of any calibre) for god/s is if the information
in the text could ONLY have been given by the deity in question.
If there was anything else that could have possibly known/discovered it then it isn't evidence for god.

God is always the least likely explanation, if you want evidence for an omnimax god, (or god of any calibre)
then the evidence has to be ONLY explicable by a being of that power. If it could be explained by a being less
powerful, then it is mearly evidence not inconsistent with a god, not evidence for one.

Originally posted by googlefudge
one of the common things theists try to do is claim that there holy books contain knowledge about the
world that couldn't possibly be know way back when that turns out to be accurate and thus must have
been told to the people writing them by some omnipotent being.

This is frequently done for the bible, usually interpreting incredibly flowery langua ...[text shortened]...
powerful, then it is mearly evidence not inconsistent with a god, not evidence for one.

When accusing religion of this and that you can easily justify many of your comments when Islam, Christianity and Judaism are the opponents.

Science does this all the time.

They say how can the be God because Christianity has said this or Islam is doing that.

If you always use false religion to drive home your points about how religion is false - then you will win most of the time. (agreed)

But your same arguments when up against true religion fall flat.

Discussing with false religion is like playing chess against a 4 yr old. and you have a definite advantage.

So why do you constantly bring up false religion when discussing.

However if you attempt to use the same arguments against true religion you will fail every-time.

The questions here are rhetorical.