4 ms·

I detect sarcasm — are you saying the existence of solar eclipses are evidence for the existence of God? Aside from being a beautiful curiosity, solar eclipses

I detect sarcasm — are you saying the existence of solar eclipses are evidence for the existence of God? Aside from being a beautiful curiosity, solar eclipses aren’t very impactful for humanity (correct me if I’m wrong here), so I don’t see why they would indicate a creator.

practicemaths 3y ago
I'm going to assume when you say not very impactful to humanity that you mean in a physical sense that it doesn't significantly change our environment directly because of it. Certainly has had an impact on humanity in a cultural sense.
hnfong 3y ago
That aside, I think it can be a serious scientific question as well. i.e. Is there a scientific explanation for the fact that the ratio between the diameter of the Sun and Moon are the same as the ratio between their distances to Earth such that they look almost exactly the same size to us? We can of course say it's coincidence -- and that may be the case, but if we use "coincidence" to explain away anything we can't readily explain (instead of trying to find answers), there'd there'd be no scientific progress at all. Ideally, the model of how the Moon formed _should_ give an explanation to that. If that turns out to require (for example) the existence of ancient space aliens fine tuning parameters in our solar system, well, IMHO people can decide for themselves whether they think this is more likely, or the fact that the ratios of the celestial objects fit just perfectly. ------ Btw, slight nit with your logic -- if solar eclipses are impactful for humanity's survival, one can invoke the anthropic principle to explain why it's a necessity in an environment that gave rise to humans. But it seems they're not impactful, so in that way, it seems that the possibility of a creator is relatively increased.
- tekla 3y ago
  We were lucky and live in a time before the Moons orbit drifts too far away to have Eclipses
- not2b 3y ago
  As others have pointed out, the coincidence is temporary. It used to be that the moon's apparent size was significantly larger than the sun's, so you could get a total eclipse but you wouldn't see a full corona ring, when the moon's apparent diameter was twice to three times the sun's. Eventually the moon will look smaller and total eclipses will no longer occur. We live at the right time.

practicemaths 3y ago

I'm going to assume when you say not very impactful to humanity that you mean in a physical sense that it doesn't significantly change our environment directly because of it. Certainly has had an impact on humanity in a cultural sense.

hnfong 3y ago

That aside, I think it can be a serious scientific question as well. i.e. Is there a scientific explanation for the fact that the ratio between the diameter of the Sun and Moon are the same as the ratio between their distances to Earth such that they look almost exactly the same size to us? We can of course say it's coincidence -- and that may be the case, but if we use "coincidence" to explain away anything we can't readily explain (instead of trying to find answers), there'd there'd be no scientific progress at all. Ideally, the model of how the Moon formed _should_ give an explanation to that. If that turns out to require (for example) the existence of ancient space aliens fine tuning parameters in our solar system, well, IMHO people can decide for themselves whether they think this is more likely, or the fact that the ratios of the celestial objects fit just perfectly. ------ Btw, slight nit with your logic -- if solar eclipses are impactful for humanity's survival, one can invoke the anthropic principle to explain why it's a necessity in an environment that gave rise to humans. But it seems they're not impactful, so in that way, it seems that the possibility of a creator is relatively increased.

tekla 3y ago
We were lucky and live in a time before the Moons orbit drifts too far away to have Eclipses
not2b 3y ago
As others have pointed out, the coincidence is temporary. It used to be that the moon's apparent size was significantly larger than the sun's, so you could get a total eclipse but you wouldn't see a full corona ring, when the moon's apparent diameter was twice to three times the sun's. Eventually the moon will look smaller and total eclipses will no longer occur. We live at the right time.