As we come up on Columbus Day we honor the man who discovered our country. He thought he had come around on India, but that just shows that even mistakes can sometimes turn out really well. Contrary to popular belief, it was widely accepted in his time that the earth was round, thus his conclusion regarding India. But he made a bad assumption because he badly underestimated the size of the earth.
What is interesting is that the information he needed has been available since 240 B.C. A guy named Eratosthenes not only figured out the earth was round (a widely accepted belief in his time also), he figured out a way to calculate the circumference of the earth to within only a few percent error using shadows. You can look it up online. It’s pretty simple geometry. My 10th graders understood it easily.
My point is that Columbus had information available that would have kept him from miscalculating his destination, but I suspect he relied on more current scientific thought. How about you? Are you relying on the wisdom of the day to answer questions that have already been answered in that ancient book, the Bible. If so, you might want to consider Jeremiah 6:16.
Pastor Tony
No comments:
Post a Comment
If you have an account with Google, AIM, etc., you can sign in using the "comment as" drop down list below. If you do not have an account you can select anonymous from the list. If you use anonymous feel free to sign your name to the post.