This subject generates far more heat than light in Christian circles. Invariably the reaction is emotional because Christians do not want to be tainted with the labels of "scientific ignoramus" and such like. I here set out the basic arguments that are given more fully in my "True Science Agrees with the Bible" - Appendix 10.

(1) BIBLICAL SUPPORT.
There are many references to the sun "going down", "arising" etc. NOT ONCE does the Bible ever refer to the earth rotating or going round the sun. Those who say that the Bible is only recording the "appearance" of the movement of the sun are -
(a) having to ADD to the most obvious meaning of the understanding of the Bible passage; surely we can trust God to mean what He says and say what He means - as He does throughout the Bible.
(b) are adopting the same position as liberal critics who have tried to destroy the Bible by saying that many of the sayings of Christ were "adapted to the simple understanding and low education of His hearers" and that we are more educated today to correct what he said - or such like. The Bible is true in its normal sensible understanding of its statements. We say sensible because we do not literally interpret what are clearly allegories and metaphors - this is usually used by critics to ridicule Bible believers.

(2) THE SEQUENCE OF CREATION
There is a major Biblical problem facing Bible-believing Christians who believe the earth goes round the sun (heliocentrists). In the six days of creation, the sun is not referred to until Day 4. Most contend that it was created on Day 1 but only became visible on Day 4 so that they can have the earth going round the sun from the very first day of its creation. The problem is that the same word is used for the creation of the sun as for other material or animals in Genesis 1. "Bara" and "Asah" are both used for creation and there is no distinction between creation from nothing and creation from previously created material. Both words are used of Man's creation.
To say that the sun had already been created before day 4 is to twist the scriptures beyond acceptability in this one specific case to save the heliocentric position - and Hebrew scholars agree. If this interpretation is used in this one instance, why is it not used for all the other verses in Genesis. It would make nonsense of the whole record of events.

So the Hebrew insists that the sun was created on Day 4. How then did the earth rotate around a non-existent sun for three days? And when the sun was created on Day 4, did God give the earth a jolt and send it on its circular route around the sun? Surely the most obvious explanation is that the earth was created FIRST of all the universe - as the Bible says - and the universe rotated around it - with all the planets created later on Day 4. How this could take place scientifically we examine below.

(3) SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENTS
Geocentrists are ridiculed as "unscientific" and "getting their science from the Bible". However, there are four experiments which clearly point to a geocentric universe. Only the Michelson-Morley is ever referred to; the other three are hardly ever mentoned in our universities.
(a) The Michelson-Morley experiment (Enlarged 19 June 2004)
Most scientists know about the Michelson-Morely experiment. It was carried out to check that the velocity of the earth round the sun was about 30km/sec as it moved through the aether. When it found hardly any movement at all, the result stunned the scientific community! Little of this reached the ears of the public and this result had to be "explained away".
There is a simple model that can be pictured to explain the reason for the experiment.
Imagine that you are on a lake in a small boat with a very quiet engine (the earth), and not far away is a huge liner (the sun). You are at the centre of the lake and the shore is a long way off but you can see mountains on it etc. You notice that the shore (the stars) is going past the large ship fairly quickly, and you realise that either (i) you are circling the large ship OR (ii) the large ship is circling you - and you cannot immediately tell which one is circling which.You know the distance between the two ships and timing how long it takes for the shore to make a complete circle (1 year), you can say that either the large ship is going round you at 30mph or you are going round it at that speed.
There is a very simple test that will tell you which one is circling which. What can you do to find out???

The answer is very simple.

You put your hand in the water (the aether)!!!

If you are moving through the water, then it is you going round the large ship, and you can check your speed through the water to see if it is 30 mph. If it is, then the large ship must be stationary. HOWEVER, if you find that you are stationary in the water, then it must be the large ship that is GOING ROUND YOU.
The MM experiment showed that the earth was (almost) stationary! So they had to invent the Fitzgerald-Lorentz contraction, and eventually Einstein swept the whole problem under the carpet by mathematically removing the aether (the water). That this brought huge problems into scientific theories was ignored, and false evidence produced (Eclipse, travelling clocks, perihelion precession of Mercury) to support the theory. There have been many attacks upon the theory, but so powerful are the forces that support it that they have had little publicity or real damaging effect upon the "scientific" acceptance of the theory even today.

(b) The Michelson-Gale experiment.
(Reference - Astrophysical Journal 1925 v 61 pp 140-5 - I forgot to put this reference in my book!) This detected the aether passing the surface of the earth with an accuracy of 2% of the speed of the daily rotation of the earth! Thus, the Michelson-Morely experiment detected no movement of the earth around the sun, yet the Michelson-Gale experiment measured the earth's rotation (or the aether's rotation around the earth!) to within 2%! This surely speaks volumes for geocentricity.

(c) "Airy's failure" (Reference - Proc. Roy. Soc. London v 20 p 35). Telescopes have to be very slightly tilted to get the starlight going down the axis of the tube because of the earth's "speed around the sun". Airey filled a telescope with water that greatly slowed down the speed of the light inside the telescope and found that he did not have to change the angle of the telescope. This showed that the starlight was already coming in at the correct angle so that no change was needed. This demonstrated that it was the stars moving relative to a stationary earth and not the fast orbiting earth moving relative to the comparatively stationary stars. If it was the telescope moving he would have had to change the angle.
(Imagine the telescope like a tube, sloped so that the light from one star hits the bottom of the tube. Even if the starlight is slowed down inside the tube (using water), it will still hit the bottom of the tube because its direction is already determined. If it were the tube that was moving, slowing down the starlight would mean that the angle of the tube would have to change for the light to hit the bottom of the tube.)
(d) The Sagnac experiment (Reference - Comptes Rendus 1913 v157 p 708-710 and 1410-3) Sagnac rotated a table complete with light and mirrors and camera with the light being passed in opposite directions around the table between the mirrors. The rotation of the whole apparatus was detected by the movement of the interference fringes on the target where they were recombined. This proved that there IS an aether that the light has to pass through and this completely destroys Einstein's theory of Relativity that says there is no aether. It is for this reason that this experiment is completely ignored by scientists. More recently Kantor has found the same result with similar apparatus.

These last three experiments are never taught at universities, so consequently, scientists, including most Christian creationists, are ignorant of this evidence for geocentricity. I asked 3 Christian physicists if they had ever heard of them; not one had! In October 2004 I commented on the UK creation forum -
"Re decrease in the speed of light - It MIGHT be constant now, but most certainly was not in the past; it was still falling until the 1950's. In addition, Sagnac's experiment proved that there IS an aether, whilst Einstein's Relativity Theorem is based on it NOT existing. Could I ask if ANYONE who did science at any university if they were ever told about Sagnac's simple experiment? I rather doubt it. So the fables of Relativity are passed down from generation to generation. What happened to truth? Malcolm."
I have just (1 March 2005) received an interesting response - "J, My agreement with all below [i.e. my comment "above"]. After 35 years as a professional physicist, with a thesis in relativity, I only learned of Sagnac's experiment last year...... R."
Is it any wonder, therefore, that Christian geocentrists find their most vociferous opponents are fellow Christian creationists to whom geocentricity comes as a shock. They do not want to be tarred with such a heretical brush that will only increase the great ridicule they are already receiving for their stance against evolution?

THE ROTATION OF THE UNIVERSE
How can the universe rotate so rapidly without disintegrating? There is growing evidence that the aether has "Planck density" - it is extremely dense and the sun and planets are like corks in very dense water comparatively. This whole universe sweeps round the earth because otherwise it would collapse in on itself due to its density. The mechanics of this system forces the other planets etc. to describe ellipses in their orbit around the sun.
Ernst Mach proposed that it is the weight of the stars circling the earth that drags Foucault pendulums around, creates Coriolis forces in the air that give the cyclones to our weather etc. Barbour and Bertotti (Il Nuovo Cimento 32B(1):1-27, 11 March 1977) proved that a hollow sphere (the universe) rotating around a solid sphere inside (the earth) produced exactly the same results of Coriolis forces, dragging of Foucault pendulums etc. that are put forward as "proofs" of heliocentricity! This paper gives several other confirmations of the superiority of the geocentric model.

Thus, there is evidence that the earth is NOT moving around the sun, but either the aether is moving around the earth carrying the planets with it, or the earth is spinning on its axis. The most likely model is that the aether is rotating around the earth as calculations show that if it did not, it would rapidly collapse upon itself.
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THE "WALLS" OF GALAXIES
The position of 200,000 galaxies have been plotted and they have shown that there are several "walls" of galaxies, all centred on the earth. The picture shows just a slice of the survey and contains 33,500 galaxies.
Evolutionists would expect to see a very random distribution of galaxies - or all heavenly bodies - but this in not what is found. Strips of galaxies in long chains are obvious and they are ALL roughly centred on the earth. This is far greater than pure coincidence could have obtained.
Notice also that even the thinning out of the galaxies is centred upon the earth. This sparser number of galaxies could have been over a large area not centred upon the earth - but even this is centred upon the earth.
There are, however, two other indications that the earth is the centre of the universe.

The "walls of galaxies" centred upon the earth.

Fig. Varshni's rings of quasars.

REDSHIFT "STEPS"
Light from distant galaxies is redder the further you go from the earth, but it is not a smooth decrease. The redshift increases in distinct "steps" of wavelength. These steps are only apparent from the position of this earth. If an observer were to move a fairly small distance away from the earth, then these steps would become blurred and the redshifts would be more like a smooth curve.
From his examination of the structure of the atom, Barry Setterfield has produced a paper explaining how these redshift steps could have arisen.

VARSHNI'S "SHELLS" OF QUASARS.
In a very similar manner, Varshni showed that if quasars (large and bright star-like objects at great distances from earth) are plotted against their distance from the earth, they collect into "shells" with distinct gaps between them - just as for the redshift steps. Again, moving away from the earth, these shells would not be apparent, so the earth is at the centre of these shells - as well as the redshifts and galaxies!
If we accept that the earth was created on day one, all the other heavenly bodies could have been made by God on day four to centre on the earth as a sign of the earth's special importance in the universe - and for the bafflement of modern, godless, astronomers!

A Lecture on Geocentrism to Christian Scientists in Switzerland and its Surprising Results!
Philip Stott has lectured in many countries on a wide range of creation topics. In May 1992 he gave a lecture on geocentricity to a group of Christians in Switzerland. In an email he mentioned this event as follows.
"After a lecture on geocentricity in Switzerland to a group of Christian scientists (many of whom work at CERN), the physicists were so upset that some were actually in tears. Their biggest source of frustration was that they could not refute my lecture. Unbeknown to me they met afterwards and decided to send an audio tape of the lecture to Jean-Marie Mouseca, the physicist they considered the most competent to rebut it. He was in America at the time. On receipt of the tape he spent considerable time in the library checking my statements and looking for refutation. He found none, but found even more support for geocentricity than I had given. On my next lecture tour in Switzerland Mouesca (who had returned to his post as research physicist with the French nuclear research establishment at Grenoble) drove hundreds of kilometres to meet me and thank me for opening his eyes. He told me that he has come to the conclusion there is only one reference source that he can trust, and that is the Bible.
Many have told me that accepting geocentricity has changed their attitude to the Scriptures, changed their lives and strengthened their faith..
Yes, I agree with what you say about what the world will think. The world, and many Christians, look upon me as an utter fool (I have been devoted a whole chapter of ridicule in a South African theological text-book). Is that my criterion? God is true though all men be liars. I would rather be a fool for the gospel than keep quiet about their lies for the sake of respectability."
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In connection with evidence supporting geocentrism, there was an item in Richard Corliss' "Science Frontiers" No. 133 Jan-Feb 2001 which I copy here.

...........................................

ASTRONOMY - THE FINGERS OF GOD

We present the following quotation without comment because "tvf" (the author) has obliged in his review of a recent article in "Science".

LARGE SCALE STRUCTURE OF THE UNIVERSE

A vast redshift survey of over 100,000 galaxies shows hundreds of superclusters and "Great wall"-like structures, but also "the ends of the biggest structures in the universe". Vast clumps and dark voids are seen. [tvf: No comment is made (in Science) on the clumps and voids both being elongated in directions along our line of sight. This phenomenon is called "the fingers of God" because galaxies seem to line up in filaments pointing at us. The simplest non-theological way out of this dilemma is to jettison redshift as a reliable distance indicator.]

(Van Flandern, Tom; Meta Research Bulletin 9:48, 2000. Citing; science, 288:2121, 2000.)
............................................................ .
Whilst not evidence, it was interesting to learn of John Calvin's geocentric views from a friend who wrote;
I have just come across an interesting statement by Calvin that proves that he was wiser than many of his followers. In the "Argument" which prefaces his commentary on Genesis, he says: "We indeed are not ignorant, that the circuit of the heavens is finite, and that the earth, like a little globe, is placed in the centre."
Then comes an irritating and lengthy footnote from his nineteenth-century translator and editor. I quote in part: "The erroneous system of natural philosophy which had prevailed for ages was but just giving way to sounder views, at the time when Calvin wrote.... Up to that period, the earth had been regarded as the centre of the system, and the whole heavens were supposed to revolve around it......"
Interestingly, it is not the first time that I have distrusted the footnotes of nineteenth century editors of older works.

________________________________
Malcolm Bowden.
25.9.99 - updated with Philip Stott's talk 19.6.04

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