Science Makes My Head Spin

(My family and I are Christian, and good friends with a local pastor. Unfortunately, he has ‘traditional’ Christian views regarding women, while my family is more modern. As a result, it causes a little friction when he passes me over in favor of my brothers, or tells me to go help prepare the food while the men talk. I usually ignore the treatment so I don’t cause problems between my dad and his best friend. Although I am a HD science student at university, I look very young and like to dress in pink frilly clothes, and I am quite ditzy and clumsy. On this occasion, I am seated opposite from the pastor at the dinner table, and have more or less been told to stay quiet so the men can have a proper conversation. They were discussing the mechanics of the miraculous lengthened day in Joshua: 10.)

Pastor: “Well, couldn’t He have just stopped the earth from spinning?”

(I bite my tongue. My brother glances at me and says what I wanted to say.)

Brother: “That would mean the whole world had a longer day or a longer night, [Pastor]. There are no records of that. It would have to be localised.”

Dad: “Besides, just stopping the world cold like that would fling everybody off, like if you were riding in car without a seatbelt and it crashed.”

Pastor: “But gravity would—”

Me: “It doesn’t work like that, I’m afraid.”

Pastor: “Yes, it would. You see, [My Name], gravity is what keeps us on the—”

Dad: “She’s right, [Pastor]. Gravity is not a solution. You couldn’t just stop the world dead.”

Pastor: “Well, what about the sun? You could stop it in the sky over one spot, so it would work. Does the sun rotate? You could stop it spinning. Does it spin? I don’t think it does—”

Me: “Actually, not only does the sun rotate, it rotates at different rates at its poles and equator because it is not solid like earth. More than that, stopping the sun from rotating on its axis would not affect the length of a day on earth, especially not in one specific area. The sun doesn’t just hang in the sky. A better bet would be stopping or slowing the earth, but we’ve already discussed why that couldn’t be what happened. A high school level understanding of the solar system tells us that much. Ultimately, we will just have to believe that God performed a miracle, which is exactly what happened, no matter how it happened.”

(The pastor remains silent.)

Me: “Oh, I mean, I don’t know much about all this science stuff, but I do so love little kitten things. They’re so soft and fluffy!”

(My brother fist bumps me.)