Saudi Cleric: The Sun Revolves Around the Earth

Washington FRee Beacon ^ | 18 February 2015 | Adam Kredo

[jda]

A Saudi cleric is garnering headlines for declaring that the sun revolves around the Earth, a clear rejection of all scientific evidence.

{snip}

The controversial cleric, Sheikh Bandar al-Khaibari, was caught making the comments in a short video clip posted to YouTube on Monday.

In response to a question posed by a student, al-Khaibari says the Earth is “stationary and does not move.”

While al-Khaibari’s remarks have been mocked on social networking sites such as Twitter, regional experts say his anti-science stance is embraced and promoted by leading Saudi clerics in charge of the country’s religious authority.

“It makes perfect sense for a Saudi cleric to be arguing that the sun revolves around the Earth because this is the sort of message they are getting from on high,” according to David Weinberg, a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD).

[DaveA37]

Bing a Saudi, perhaps he thinks the earth and sun revolve around Arabia.

[skinkinthegrass]

*

[jdege]

Imagine the mathematical gymnastics required to describe the motion of the other planets in a geocentric solar system.

Exactly.

Or consider the math required to describe the motion of a golf ball hit by a three iron, relative to the center of the galaxy.

Anytime we're making calculations of movement, we choose the origin we're measuring things from. We choose the origin that is most convenient. When we're calculating the flight of a golf ball, we assume the earth is stationary. When we're calculating the movements of the planets, we assume the sun is stationary. In most cases, we choose a non-rotating frame of reference. But sometimes, we do choose a rotating frame of reference.

It's all a matter of what we're interested in, what we're not, and what makes the math easiest to work with.

There are equations that will describe the motion of Mars, assuming the sun is the origin, and that it rotates relative to the frame, and there are equations that will describe the motion of Mars assuming that the Earth is the origin and that the universe rotates relative to it.

Neither is more or less true than the other, it's simply a matter of which is more convenient.

[KarlInOhio]

Now if we can just convince the entire Islsmic world that everything is made of fire, water, air and earth and any belief or experimentation on "atoms" or "protons" is merely a Jewish trick and they must stop it immediately.

[sportutegrl]

What else can you expect when flags from most Muslim nations feature a cresent moon with a star inside the points.

[Jack Hammer]

Clearly an error of judgment. The sun revolves around Obama’s butt.

[WhiskeyX]

The phrase, “centripetal acceleration”, may be somewhat ambiguous in this context, because there are few significant accelerating forces other than the gravitational forces. The principal gravitational force is the gravitational force of the Sun accelerating the other bodies of matter in the Solar System in a vector towards the common barycenter of the Solar System. Depending on their relative positions, the gravitational forces exerted by the other bodies of matter in the Solar System accelerate or decelerate the Earth towards their center of mass with very small effect, which may be variously closer and farther away from the Solar System’s gravitational barycenter at different points of time. This situation may be depicted by vector diagrams on a sheet of paper.

[SandRat]

They can’t figure out how to use TP either.

[Paladin2]

All weapons developed since the dear of Mad Mo’ are haram....

[Paladin2]

All weapons developed since the death of Mad Mo’ are haram....

[xp38]

That mighty Ptolemaic of him.

[Ditto]

Imagine the mathematical gymnastics required to describe the motion of the other planets in a geocentric solar system.

Which is exactly the problem Copernicus realized 500 years ago.

[Svartalfiar]

There is no fixed points in space. The sun is the best frame of reference for Earth though.

This is pretty much it. (Rest of comment is more directed at the rest of the conversation than you Bogey)

Any motion at all is always in relation to a certain point that you have to define. You may be sitting still in your living room, but you're actually moving at a thousand-ish miles per hour, just based of earth's rotation. But let's say if the Earth is defined as your fixed point, then yes, the Sun does 'revolve' around the earth. All the other planets 'revolve' around the Earth, with the Sun as the center or their respective orbits. Relative to Earth, you would get a slightly loopy, off-centered orbit.

Also, you can't really consider the Sun to be a fixed point either, as it is revolving around the center of the Milky Way, which is itself moving through space. And within the universe, how do you determine a fixed point that defines all motion universally? Where, exactly, in space can you set your 0,0,0 that gives you a definable movement for any given object?

[Billthedrill]

Third post. You win. ;-)

[Svartalfiar]

Imagine the mathematical gymnastics required to describe the motion of the other planets in a geocentric solar system. (or would it be a terra system?)

The math shouldn't be that difficult. Assuming we know the other bodies actually orbit around the Sun, and we're simply making Earth the fixed reference point, you should just have a pretty simple ellipse for planets farther out than Earth. The orbital math would stay the same, you just have to add in the rotational motion of the Sun around the earth. The center of each planet's orbit is simply making it's own circle around Earth. So, most planets would just have a slightly bigger elliptical path (far enough that I don't think they'd create the loops like below, but I didn't do any math on it!). Planets closer to the sun than the Earth would be different, as their revolution is contained inside the Earth-Sun circle. Their path would look more like a continuous looping path like so:

[Bogey78O]

[JayAr36]

This guy is dumb enough to number two in our State Dept.

[Thank You Rush]

NOW we know what the terrorists are qualified for per Harf’s analysis of the situation....SCIENCE! There you go. A simple solution to what turns them into terrorists - lack of OPPORTUNITIES! That’s why obozo gave NASA over to the muslims....And we thought he didn’t know what he was doing! HA! The mental midget never fails to surprise AND ANNOY us!

[zeugma]

Great graphic. You can just imagine Copernicus thinking to himself, “there’s gotta be a better way”.

[AmericanVictory]

In Ambassador Dore Gold’s book, “Hatred’s Kingdom,” about the Saudi Kingdom as dominated by fanatical Wahhabism, he tells of a professor at a Saudi “University” who taught his students that the Earth revolves around the sun is a western-Zionist plot.