More religious shenanigans at Ball State

September 24, 2013 • 10:21 am

An anonymous correspondent, fearing for his/her standing in the religious community that is Muncie, Indiana (home of Ball State University) sent me an announcement of events that the BSU planetarium (new home of IDer Guillermo Gonzalez) will be putting on this academic year. Have a gander.

Does one of these events not look like the others?

Picture 3

Hint: it’s this one:

Picture 2

Now I don’t know if Gonzalez had anything to do with this, and I doubt that it’s unconstitutional. After all, it’s merely an inquiry, and the answer of whether there’s a credible natural explanation for the Star of Bethlehem could well be “no.” (Somehow, however, I doubt that this will be the case!)  In principle there’s nothing wrong with seeing whether Biblical claims are scientifically credible: after all, that’s how science disproved instantaneous creation, the exodus story, and the story of Adam and Eve. But as far as I know (and I may be wrong), none of the astronomical explanations for the appearance of the SOB have held water.

What’s next: will Ball State’s geology department give a presentation asking if there could be natural explanations for Noah’s Flood? Will the ichthyologists give a presentation about whether it’s possible for a man to be swallowed and then regurgitated by a giant fish?

Really, this is a waste of a good chance to educate people about astronomy.

87 thoughts on “More religious shenanigans at Ball State”

  3. Planetariums all over the world have shows about the Star of Bethlehem. Have been since the 1930s.

    Fortunately, I have a book coming out very soon to show that it is all bunk. Wouldn’t mind if you read it.

    Also, Bill O’Reilly’s new book on Jesus supports these strange theories about the Star, so all the more reason to be concerned.

    2. Yup, I remember seeing one of these presentations at a local planetarium, one run by the Rosicrucians (who have an Egyptian Museum with a planetarium.)

      These kinds of things can really screw up one’s thinking for years. I should add that I also got an *alchemy* set from the gift shop as a kid and I was really confused by the instructions, which made no sense because they were about *alchemy*. I’d never heard of alchemy. It had lab ware and such and I thought it was a chemistry set, you know, based on stuff chemicals do, not the religiously imagined properties of herbs and chemicals. :-p

      1. Funny. I hadn’t thought of the Rosicrucians since I saw an ad for them in the back of my dad’s VFW Magazine. That must be 50 years ago now.

        1. Considering that there are serious doubts about whether this Jesus character ever existed, and considerable disagreements about the year of his birth if he did exist, then trying to pin the “Star of Bethlehem” down to a single astronomical event that lasted for a week or two seems a pretty forelorn undertaking to me.
          OTOH, you could well use such a strapline to try and get the punters in for a presentation on a range of rapidly varying astronomical phenomena, and you might manage to get some science into people’s heads. It’s probably more ethically defensible than trying to use a club to beat the information in.

          1. There is the dubiousness of picking a year for the birth of a person that some scholars can honestly ask if the individual was ever a man, but some of the shows are even worse than that. One of the popular ones actually argues for a different date for the death of King Herod. So they are literally changing history in order to argue for their thesis. That and they misconstrue what the Bible actually says about the Star.

            As for teaching some real science using this story, it’s possible, but it’s hardly efficient. You also only get to talk about these things in a cursory way. The audience is willing to hear about exploding stars, but are they willing to listen about how the physics works? I doubt it. In which case, you only have the Christian apologetic.

          2. Horses for courses, I guess. I posted earlier anticipating the impending minority of Christians of any stripe in this country (Scotland), and the proportion of full-on lunatic fringe Fundamantalists is much, much smaller. So if I were to go to such a presnetation at an observatory – or if Aberdeen Astro.Soc were to use the strapline – it would be a science lecture with sub-topics (novae, comets …) linked with a very light thread of the alleged SOB.
            Then again, everyone here is firmly educated in the raw coincidence of the 1066 CE apparition of P1/Halley and the successful invasion by William the Bastard. Literally, it’s one of the elements tested in the Naturalization exam and the National Curriculum for history. So lights in the sky being coincidentally coincident with interesting historical events is something that everyone is expected to know.

  4. Arthur C. Clarke wrote a rather effective short story about this many, many years ago.

    His idea was that it was a supernovae, and future scientists had discovered the remnants, including a planet whose advanced civilisation had been obliterated by the explosion.

    The religious narrator was astounded that God had wiped out all these “people” just to announce the birth of His Son on Earth…

    “The Star”?

    /@

    5. That is my all-time fave Clarke short story (though I haven’t actually read all of them).

      However, if this is the same planetarium show I saw in the 70s it goes for the more mundane suggestion that the star was a conjunction of three planets which I think included Mars and Saturn, and that the Magi were astrologers.

      Doesn’t explain why the star seemed to hover over the barn!! “the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was.” (Matt 2:9)

      1. I’m always expecting Betelgeuse will go nova and kill us but I’ve heard we are safe from it.

      2. Actuslly the story says the three wise men could not find the newborn child and went to Herod to ask about how to find “him”. Odd story! After that they somehow found out how toget there!

        1. Before Tycho Brahe, astronomy lacked the precision instruments necessary for the pinpointing of messiahs. 🙂

          The final clue was a (typically Christian) misreading of an Old Testament passage that pointed to Bethlehem.

  5. I look forward to reading your book.

    It’s too bad there won’t be a Q&A period. I’d like to ask why the Egyptians and Chinese and Mayans all missed this wondrous event.

    1. Oh, either someone will argue you had to be a special astrologer to “get it” or it could only be seen with the eyes of faith. More often I see the former.

      I hope you will enjoy the book–The Star of Bethlehem: A Skeptical View.

    1. I always wondered; if the wise men saw a star in the east (Matt 2:1-2), why then did they travel west?

        2. Matt 2:7 Then Herod, when he had privily called the wise men, inquired of them diligently what time the star appeared.

          “Yea verily, it was 40 years ago. We came by way of Sinai.”

  7. My family and I went to a local science museum not long after they opened. I was dying to go to one of the actual astronomy presentations in the planetarium, but my super-Xian aunt made us go to the Bethlehem Star one. Maybe it’ll be just the same stupid video I sat through.

  8. Having been editor for Aaron Adair’s book to be released soon on this very subject, and given the excellent endorsements it has received in pre-publication, I am excited about its imminent release! Spread the word!

  9. A little googling shows that this program has been running for 40 years at Ball State.

    Chicago’s Adler Planetarium had a program that sounds a lot like it. It could be something like “The Aries region of the sky was associated with Judea in near Eastern astrology, and Jupiter was associated with kingship, so a conjunction involving Jupiter in that part of the sky might have been interpreted as ‘A new King of the Jews is born'”

    1. That hypothesis has been getting more ground in planetariums recently. It’s based on a book by Michael Molnar from 1999. But it’s flawed, something I prove in detail.

      Other planetariums will talk about conjunctions between Jupiter and Saturn, or Jupiter and Venus. Or other things. I used to show such things myself back in the day. Maybe this will change in the near future.

  10. Perhaps the science faculty could also offer these:

    Walking on water: insects can do it, why not the Son of God?
    Flying without wings: Vertical ascent into the stratosphere without a rocket – how to do it, and what could possibly go wrong.
    Smiting fig trees without the use of herbicides – be environmentally friendly and righteous (except to fig trees).

    And then the Biology Department for an encore could do:
    Getting your dad drunk for the sake of seduction & procreation – cautionary notes on genetics and how to deal with the hangover.

      1. Was Jesus in the pay of Monsanto, or was this a vicious smear campaign on the part of the Pharisees?

    2. About the first one: I was in an intro biology class years ago, and the instructor put it this way when talking about insects and surface tension … (paraphrasing) “I heard about 2000 years ago some guy did it, but I’m skeptical.” (And then moved on.)

    1. It is true, very widely planetarium folk use the acronym SoB (or SOB) for the Star. Some of them are sick of it as well, but they know it’s a popular topic and little else exists to replace it for the holidays.

      Also, thanks for the link. It actually refers back to an article I wrote on the subject in 2007.

      1. It’s too bad that the real Astronomical reason for the holiday (the Winter Solstice) is not of more interest than the “SoB” (thanks for that).

  12. Here is an amusing, but technically careful, analysis of the star of Bethlehem story.

    Similar pursuits are popular in certain segments in India, where people try to put dates on the (mostly mythical) battles in the great Sanskrit epics based on the detailed descriptions of accompanying astronomical phenomena that appear in the texts.

  13. I saw that nova that the first even talks about. It’s faded now but for a while there was a star where no star had been. 🙂

    Meh SOB. Let’s see what gets said.

  14. How disappointing that the viewing of Saturn’s rings could not be scheduled to coincide with Saturnalia.

  15. I always love it when religious people claim that the Star of Bethlehem was a supernova, or the parting of the Red Sea was caused by tides and winds, et cetera. Congratulations! By suggesting ways in which the stories in the Bible might describe actual historical events, you have just shown us that they are mundane, not miraculous! Maybe that’s what the Ball State astronomy department is really up to.

    1. Actually, if this is the same SoB show that they have been doing for decades at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, it will be a very skeptic-friendly show.

      Right off the bat it points out that the Gospel accounts are inconsistent with a midwinter birth and that the dating system is also probably a few years off. Discusses many options like comets and supernovas and rules them out.

      Then it goes into the history of Persian astronomy and astrology and points out that “star” might refer to any astronomical event and might have been something that only keen record keepers, like the Magi, would have noticed. Discusses the idea that a series of conjunctions might have suggested something to the Magi.

      Nothing in it to offend the skeptic, and might weaken a believer’s faith because it flat out says there almost certainly wasn’t some weird bright thing like we see in Nativity scenes.

  16. “natural explanations”

    To steal from and paraphrase Penn Jillette (his face filling the frame fully, screaming with spittle flying)- “If there is a natural explanation then it’s not an effing miracle!”

  17. I’ve seen a similar show at Western Kentucky University’s Hardin Planetarium before. I wonder how many Universities do this kind of presentation during the holiday season?

    1. I think alot of them do. It’s like when NORAD, or space command reports sighting Santa on Christmas Eve.

      We know for a fact they never have sighted him, because if they had, someone would have shot him down during the cold war coming in from a polar trajectory.

      2. Dresses in red, redistributes wealth, spies on American children, oh yes, NORAD was watching for him.

  18. The planetarium in Chapel Hill NC did a similar Christmas show when I lived near there in the 1960’s and 70’s.

  19. My earth science teacher did a “Star of Bethlehem” presentation at my high school planetarium every year, and my undergraduate and graduate universities had similar programs for students and the public. These shows offered several explanations: supernova, planetary conjunction, meteor shower, or something of now-forgotten astrological significance. No explanation was presented as “preferred” and the tone of each lecture was skeptical and in no way religious. The purpose of these outreach events was to attract people to the planetarium who would otherwise be indifferent or even hostile to science, and deliver an entertaining but substantive and scientifically accurate astronomy lesson.

    I don’t see this particular event as accomodationist. Keep in mind that some of the attendees might be children who would be inspired to take an astronomy class based on this event, and (at least at my graduate school) some of the visitors were illiterate adults who could be challenging to reach with any kind of science education.

    1. At the same time it is giving credence to an event which probably didn’t even happen. Given the bible’s poor track record with the findings of science, there is no reason to single this out for study.

  20. It is constantly amazing to me that people who would never try to claim Earth is 10,000 years old will nevertheless spend so much effort trying to explain this star thing rationally when it is so obvious the whole Christmas story is pure fiction. If it really happened, even if only parts of it were true, why then would the book of Mark completely ignore it?

    1. Yes, why is it that people who extol the virtue of faith, belief without evidence or contrary to evidence, still try to prove their faith true with evidence? Seems that they don’t have as much faith as they profess.

      1. Oh, that’s easy. That “faith that can move mountains” claptrap is simply because they have no evidence worthy of the name. If an amputee grew a new limb after praying to Jesus you can bet it’d be the topic of every Christian sermon next Sunday.

        2. Well, what if a salamander grew a new limb after praying to Jesus?

          The growing would be mundane, but the praying a miracle.

  21. Apologists never seem to be realise that arguing for rationalistic explanations for biblical miracles entails tacitly admitting that the bible got it WRONG.

    David Frederick Strauss destroyed these arguments 150 years ago, but it seems most theologians haven’t noticed.

  22. I am not surprised at all about the “Star of Bethlehem” show. Perhaps 55 years ago or so, I saw a similar program at the Hayden Planetarium in New York. As I remember it, the explanation was that three planets aligned in a triangle, as seen from earth, and a nova appeared inside the triangle. I thought it was silly when I saw it (I was about 10 years old at the time).

        1. Good pt.

          Remember The Life of Brian when Brian’s mother (was it Terry Jones?) tells the Wise Men to forget the myrrh next time?

  23. The Star of Bethlehem has so many natural explanations that it’s impossible to decide which is the right one. Here is a comprehensive collection from a biblical scholar:

    http://www.bijbelaantekeningen.nl/bn/#View=Subjects&action=762

    Alas it’s in Dutch. Van der Giessen gives no less than 16 hypotheses. There is a 17th one (also in Dutch):

    http://mainzerbeobachter.com/2013/04/19/ster-van-betlehem/

    It’s just a literary theme and one that’s not unique in Antiquity. It’s not meant as a factual account.

    “this is a waste of a good chance to educate people about astronomy.”
    Worse: it’s also a waste of a good chance to educate people about history of antiquity and about biblical exegesis (meant as literary science).
    If so called liberal christians don’t protest it’s shame on them.

    1. I seem to recall that the event with SOB was not recorded by civilizations experienced with the sky and capable of leaving written records. Namely the Egyptians who used a solar calendar and would also therefore recorded an accurate date for the event.

      I could be mistaken though as it has been a while since I thought about such things

  24. HERE is a report of a “Star of Bethlehem” show at Chicago’s Adler Planetarium.

    I’m not particularly troubled that BSU is doing something similar. I take this to be part entertainment and part marketing the institution to the community. It isn’t supposed to be serious science.

  25. I think it was one of them darned Chinese Lanterns. They were lucky it didn’t burn the shed down, too.

  26. I also remember this coming up an a planetarium I was at – the Vancouver one, I believe. It wasn’t “seasonal”, though, since at the time it would have been summer.

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