Oh my.
In response to a caller who wanted absolution for teaching her child the world is only 5,000 years old, Dr Laura went ballistic. After suggesting that perhaps God uses the process of evolution to do his creation, she announced she now expects yet another boycott of her sponsors. She then went on to explain the sun doesn’t orbit around the Earth.
I was only half listening at the beginning, I think the caller said 5,000, but may have said 10,000. Either way, the battle has been joined. The caller seemed unhappy with the answer, but that’s pretty common for the Dr Laura show.
Perhaps Dr Laura is part of the Progressive Cabal! Has she ever met with Van Jones?
Has she no shame?
I put down my copy of “A Brief History of Time” long enough to read this, shake my head in sadness, laugh a rueful little laugh and resolve not to say what my mind is screaming for me to write. Now please, don’t take what I wrote here literally …
PS – Adam DID have a bellybutton, but when God created the universe, I’m not sure where he was. Sigh….
As near as I can remember it, Dr Laura said “If you really believe the world is only 10,000 years old, we can’t -possibly have a conversation”.
I’m sure, Art. My cerebral aneurysm relates to the caller and not the callee.
If you browse through my “polls”, you’ll find it isn’t a rare belief… To the point that people believe a “day” on the moon is 24 hours long “by definition”. Even if you accept the story of Genesis as accurate, why would the Creator of the entire universe measure time by how frequently one planet in one out of millions of galaxies spins on its axis?… Especially when that planet didn’t exist yet…
Day (Dictionary.com):
a. Also called mean solar day. a division of time equal to 24 hours and representing the average length of the period during which the earth makes one rotation on its axis.
b. Also called solar day. a division of time equal to the time elapsed between two consecutive returns of the same terrestrial meridian to the sun.
c. Also called civil day. a division of time equal to 24 hours but reckoned from one midnight to the next. Compare lunar day, sidereal day.
And, yes, quibblage is bound to happen when we start using distinct terms by connotation and not by denotation. A day on Mars or on Pandora is 24 hours unless one specifies a Martian day or a Pandoran day. Now my heads are beginning to hurt.
So, yes, Art … by definition. And, yes again, it was me.
And the questions did ask “on the moon” and “on the sun”
Allow me do add in the portion of the definition from dictionary.com you chose to not include
4. an analogous division of time for a planet other than the earth: the Martian day.
There is a distinction between siderial day and the normal use of the term (because the earth is orbiting the sun), but I didn’t want to get bogged down in that distinction – since it is apparent many people don’t even realize that a day on the moon is roughly 28 earth days.
Here is the definition from the more authoritative Merriam-Webster
Art, your grandma wears combat boots! Neener neener neener!
My my. Stunning when you consider time is “bendable”. Time is a dimensional manifestation of our physical existence. Travel one hour at something approximating the speed of light relative to your plane of existence and check afterwards to see how many earth/moon/martian/solar/sidereal days passed during your hour for someone who did not travel.
We should endeavor to discusss things that are rock-solid in the universe, such as bad politicians and used car salesmen.
If one used-car salesman travels at 3/4 the speed of light and another used-car salesman travels head-on toward him also at 3/4 the speed of light, then the distance between the two traveling salesmen diminishes at one and a half the times the speed of light, whether or not either or both salesmen are wearing combat boots.
And they’ll need those combat boots when they collide! Can we also include ambulance chasers into this scenario?