Tuesday, December 21, 2010

The Moon: Natural Satellite, or Artistic Orb?

Today on Conservapedia, their random entry is the Earth's Moon:

Let's take a look, shall we?

"The Moon is a natural satellite orbiting the Earth at an average distance of about 238,000 miles (380,000 km)."

Fine so far, if a bit sparse. What else?

"The Moon appears from the Earth to be the same size as the sun, in perfect artistic symmetry, unlike any known other planet-moon system....And the Moon has one more remarkable artistic attribute: it rotates and revolves in a way such that only one side is ever visible to the Earth."

I'm not sure why the Moon's apparent size when viewed from Earth is so important as to be listed in the opening paragraph. However, if something is called 'artistic' enough, one gets the impression that one is being set up to be told that there's some active agent--a grand Artist, let's say--waiting behind the curtain to be introduced, take a bow, say a few words.

Anything more we need to know about the Moon before we move on to the finer details?

"Atheists cannot explain the Origin of the Moon, despite many failed attempts."

Oh, those silly atheists. What do they know about the formation of natural satellites? Everyone knows that the Moon was just poofed into existence on Day number Four, along with the Sun, the Andromeda Galaxy, and Spitzer-Chandler Supercluster. I mean, come on!

Next we move to the section labeled "The Moon as God's Creation." What is the evidence that God created the Moon?

"The Moon is just far enough away from the Earth to appear the same size of the Sun. The odds of this occurring by chance are nearly zero."

And as we all know, if something is unlikely, then it must be of supernatural origin. That's just basic science, you know.

"Most astronomers assert that the Moon originated from a collision early in Earth's history which created an orbiting ring of debris from the iron-poor surface of the planet which eventually coalesced into the moon. This theory, however, is contrary to key observations of the Moon, such as the relatively low levels of iron in the Moon's crust."

Well, now I'm confused. If the Earth's surface was 'iron-poor' when it was smacked, wouldn't you expect the Moon's crust to be also iron-poor? Is there something else that can explain this discrepancy?

"Biblical history records the Moon being created on the fourth day of creation week, along with the Sun."

Whew. That explains it.

"While the Moon of Earth is the best-known satellite of any planet, other planets in our solar system also have moons. Earth has the least number of moons (one), while Jupiter has sixty-two."

I'll bet the members of the Mercury and the Venus fan clubs are waging letter-writing campaigns right now to get their favorite heavenly bodies restored to their rightful positions as the planets with the least number of moons, as even a Young-Earth Creationist must agree that zero is less than one.

"Earth's moon was, of course, known to the ancients, but the remaining dwarf-planet-sized moons were generally the first to be discovered in orbit around any given primary. Galileo Galilei discovered the first four of these in orbit about Jupiter early in the seventeenth century."

And Catholic priests refused to look through Galileo's telescope at the Jupiter moons because obviously they couldn't possibly exist as their very presence contradicted Biblical teachings. But that's not important right now.

What is important, is that all of this adds up to the irrefutable fact that God created the Moon out of water and transmogrified it into iron, silicon, and good old-fashioned rock, all so that humans can have pretty solar eclipses. Yay science!

















1 comment:

John said...

Ah, conservapaedia, thou art so ridiclueless.