Serious question: What is modern Christianity's take on the solar system?

Do the other planets fall under the ambiguous category 'heavens,' as in 'heaven and earth?'

Yes. The Sun, Moon and the stars get a specific mention, but not the planets.

Genesis doesn't mention single celled organisms either but I fairly sure most Christians believe they exist.

There is specific mention of planets in the bible. See section II here:

http://www.bible-history.com/isbe/A/ASTROLOGY/

in some ways i wish i had a religion to follow, to have something sacred and a helping hand for when life get's rough..

in other ways, such as questions like this, i'm kinda glad i believe in nothing because if i had to battle these sort of theories every day to keep my belief sustainable my head would have exploded by now.

OK, read "indirect" for those specific mentions - more like "this deity in the old testament is actually Saturn" (xpost)

I doubt that the Bible itself would say anything that would be challenged by discoveries in astronomy. Medieval commentators though are a different matter.

Ste OTM

Are there Christians who think the whole solar system thing is a big lie?

http://fixedearth.com

There is specific mention of planets in the bible.

Aren't Venus and Saturn both described as stars?

I was referring to creation/Genesis specifically when I said the planets weren't included.

xpostssss

Most modern Christians don't find this a problem at all, and whether there is life created on other planets is not really a doctrinal point worth discussing for anyone I've ever met - extra-biblical, rather than anti-biblical. C.S. Lewis wrote a sci fi/fantasy trilogy about the possibility of life on other planets that hadn't fallen from grace. Science addressing things the Bible doesn't is okay with most Christians in most ways. I can't answer for the type of people who set up creation museums because I really don't know what they think about the solar system, but they're not mainstream in my east coast experiences, and it's not fair to everyone else to define fundamentalists as the only serious Christians. (The closest I've met are people who have specific problems with specific aspects of evolutionary theory, or accept the process completely but prefer to say, "God still guided it!", which is not something you can argue with, so that could be a LOT worse.)

I can't answer for the type of people who set up creation museums because I really don't know what they think about the solar system, but they're not mainstream in my east coast experiences, and it's not fair to everyone else to define fundamentalists as the only serious Christians.

OTM.

Catholics comprise the vast majority of Christians and the Vatican even has an official astronomer. The type of people that believe in young earth are not representative.

Yes, because one thing we know about Catholics is that they all think the same.

They're a lot like Democrats in that respect.

They certainly aren't the denomination that's going to have a split-off group arguing for young earth creationism, though! Unless you count Protestants as the original split-off group.

There is specific mention of planets in the bible.

Aren't Venus and Saturn both described as stars?

I was referring to creation/Genesis specifically when I said the planets weren't included.

wait but didn't genesis 1:15 say
Then God said let there be celestial bodies orbiting a star or stellar remnant that is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity, not massive enough to cause thermonuclear fusion in its core, and has cleared its neighbouring region of planetesimals. and there were planets

1:15 into what track? I Can't Dance?

wait but didn't genesis 1:15 say
Then God said let there be celestial bodies orbiting a star or stellar remnant that is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity, not massive enough to cause thermonuclear fusion in its core, and has cleared its neighbouring region of planetesimals. and there were planets

Oh aye, forgot. Good job they dodged that Pluto reclassification bullet.

jesus he knows me, innit

xpost

Why I'll be... I thought I was just kidding, but

Hot sun beating down
Burning my feet just walking around.

Hot sun making me sweat
gators getting close, hasnt got me yet

I cant dance, I cant talk.
Only thing about me is the way I walk.
I cant dance, I cant sing
Im just standing here selling everything.

Blue jeans sitting on the beach,
Her dogs talking to me, but shes out of reach.

Shes got a body under that shirt,
But all she wants to do is rub my face in the dirt.

Then God said let there be celestial bodies orbiting a star or stellar remnant that is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity, not massive enough to cause thermonuclear fusion in its core, and has cleared its neighbouring region of planetesimals. and there were planets

Oh and checking everything is in place,
You never know whos looking on.

Young punk spilling beer on my shoes,
Fat guys talking to me trying to steal my blues.

Thick smoke, see her smiling through.
I never thought so much could happen just shooting pool.

But I cant dance, I cant talk.
The only thing about me is the way that I walk.
I cant dance, I cant sing
Im just standing here selling

Oh and checking everything is in place
You never know whos looking on
A perfect body with a perfect face - uh-huh.

No, I cant dance, I cant talk.
The only thing about me is the way I walk.
No, I cant dance, I cant sing
Im just standing here selling everything.

But I can walk.
No I cant dance.
No no no I cant dance
No I said I cant sing.
But I can walk.

Oh aye, forgot. Good job they dodged that Pluto reclassification bullet.

If only those scientists had looked to the Bible in the first place, we wouldn't have that problem at all now, would we?

It's really difficult to say what "modern Christianity" believes about a lot of issues regarding the intersection of science and the Bible, because there are so many different views, and the anti-science people usually speak the loudest - even if they're not the majority.

For most mainstream Catholics and several Protestant churches, the creation stories of Genesis are not scientific texts. They're myths. That doesn't make them any less significant, though. "Myth" has gained a sort of negative connotation, but I use it to describe a story with deep symbolic meaning, not outdated fiction. These Christians believe that the presence of two distinct creation stories (The first from Gen. 1:1-2:4a and the second beginning at Gen. 2:4b), combined with the various non-scientific concepts they introduce, such as:
- A six-day "work week" and the idea of a Sabbath
- The introduction of pain, suffering and mortality (and furthermore, the consciousness of that mortality) into human life, and
- The original "fall from grace"
Show that the various traditions of writers who composed the Pentateuch were not trying to explain anything scientifically. They were presenting a pair of stories intended to explain the meaning, not the scientific facts, behind human existence.

The Bible contains a huge number of historical and scientific errors, and anyone who claims that it is "inerrant" in those ways would have to bend over backwards to account for all of them. The real "inerrancy" that believers can claim to find in the Bible is one on matters of deeper spiritual truths.

"QUIET, THE LOT OF YOU!"

http://cas.fiu.edu/SpiritualityCenter/hitchensXart280.jpg

I doubt that the Bible itself would say anything that would be challenged by discoveries in astronomy.

But it does! And Bill Nye pissed someone off by saying something snarky about it!

that's very non specific and open to interpretation

Only if you're going to be really pedantic. I mean, it is true that a full moon in the sky results in more light than no moon, and less light than the sun, and the Bible isn't even that specific about the process. (xpost)

i would imagine that i know some christians who believe that we're it as far as sentient life that have souls and are made in God's image. [cue photo of an old bearded father-figure man floating up in space somewhere]

honestly, i'm not sure what a lot of christianity would know what the heck to do with sentient alien life. "do they have a jesus?" "when Paul wrote about there being no jew or gentile, slave or master, man or woman, did he also mean no human and klingon?" etc. theological minds blown. can you submervsively baptize an alien who is made of energy patterns? can they go to heaven? are they already there? are they angels? "Who Mourns For Adonis?"

m.

"I Can't Dance" is such a stupid song