Geocentric Universe?

[cassini]

What do you mean?

‘OK, I read the 1616 documents, and I can kind of see where you are coming from. But those documents don’t amount to an infallible definition of any doctrines that need to be held de fide. The only thing really said about Copernicanism is that it can’t be held as true becasue it is contrary to the literal sense of Sacred Scripture. But according to the Index decree, his books could be published if corrected, and I believe it was the fact that in the books it was proposed as fact that the earth moved and the sun is motionless. Correcting this to posit this as a theory would suffice for its puiblication and removal from the index.’

By documents I presume you mean decree. Immediately you pass judgement on the documents ‘But those documents don’t amount to an infallible definition of any doctrines that need to be held de fide’ This is the Lie version of the facts.

Pope Urban VIII said they (the 1616 decree) was final - cannot be reversed - end of story - Church’s last word on it. Read what he ordered.

 

[pickguard1]

Pope Urban VIII said they (the 1616 decree) was final - cannot be reversed - end of story - Church’s last word on it. Read what he ordered.

Pope Pius V also said that the Latin Mass could never be changed. But that doesn’t make it dogmatic or infallible either.

 

[Luke65]

Pope Pius V also said that the Latin Mass could never be changed. But that doesn’t make it dogmatic or infallible either.

Was the Tridentine Mass changed? :nope: Banned? :nope: The Pope’s decree was indeed binding on the whole Church - and immutable. :yup:

 

[GeorgeSword]

pickguard. Who do you think wrote the Catholic Encyclopaedia? God? No God, through men, wrote the Bible. Now what you get in Catholic encyclopaedia is Copernicanism, Copewrnicanism, and more Copernicanism, that is HERESY.

Note now that the man written book leads you to believe the word ‘hypothesis’ meand NOT YET PROVEN. Is this the kind of ‘hypothesis’ you think it is?

God wrote the Bible through men, protecting them from spiritual error, but not from historical or scientific error.

 

[pickguard1]

Was the Tridentine Mass changed? :nope: Banned? :nope: The Pope’s decree was indeed binding on the whole Church - and immutable. :yup:

Yes, it was changed. St. Joseph was added to the canon. Banned? not de jure, but de facto in many places. Immutable? the form of the mass is not a matter of faith an morals but discipline. Thus the Pope can do things like add a saint’s name to the canon.

Completely abrogating a tradition of the church such as the Tridentine Mass would be a violation of the faithful’s rights - if there is no just cause for it. But the Pope could completely supress the Tridentine Mass, if it posed a threat to the faith (how that could happen I don’t know - but hypothetically it’s possible.)

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Haven’t a clue what you are saying, Pope Gottle of Geer. I must be tired. I’m off to bed, Night all, God bless.

Did you sleep well ?​

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Why is it not taught ? And why is it not taught in the CCC?

For the simple reason that since 1735 those supposedly running the Church prefered to believe fallible human reason than put their trust in the Church’s judgement of 1616. Now go to Denzingers history of dogma and you will find doctrine laid down by that SAME HOLY OFFICE of the time - still the teaching of the Church. Can we dismiss it saying ‘it’s not infallible so hard cheese.’ Now search as you may you will NOT find the decree against the false interpretation of Scripture. In other words, SO-CALLED SCIENCE is considered a GREATER AUTHORITY IN THE MODERN CATHOLIC CHURCH than papal decrees.

So​

• …the Church has been, & still is, in error on what (according to you) is a major issue ?
• Isn’t this a rather serious accusation ?
• And doesn’t it deserve to be established with solid theological arguments ?
• And how are you going to build those solid theological arguments, if the Church which has the theology & the doctrine & the theological method that makes them possible, has been in error since 1735 ?
• For if it has, what is the point of constructing them ? By your way of it, the Church has been wrong for over 270 years - so it is a bit late to try salvaging the Church’s competence to teach doctrine
• Is this not rather a lot of fuss over something of very little importance ? The Apostles were preachers of Christ, not experts on astronomy. To make so much of something so insignificant shows a sad lack of proportion
• Looking in Denzinger won’t explain the theology that results in the propositions on the page
• I would still like some evidence from magisterial texts - such as catechisms - that support your position by emphasising the importance of geocentrism. Why should anyone believe you, & not the Magisterium, if you don’t produce them? I don’t think it’s I who am playing at being Pope.

BTW, if you’re too tired to answer a post, & even if you’re not, there’s no need to answer it

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

pickguard. Who do you think wrote the Catholic Encyclopaedia? God? No God, through men, wrote the Bible. Now what you get in Catholic encyclopaedia is Copernicanism, Copewrnicanism, and more Copernicanism, that is HERESY.

Note now that the man written book leads you to believe the word ‘hypothesis’ meand NOT YET PROVEN. Is this the kind of ‘hypothesis’ you think it is?

So why were its volumes given the Imprimatur ? Maybe the clerics who provided these licences & permissions saw no heresy.​

If any of them were, or became, bishops, that would have serious consequences for the visibility of the Church & the perpetuity of the Faith. It would mean their authority in the Church was non-existent, illegitimate; & that their sacramental actions were illicit or fruitless (depending on the sacrament). If they had jurisdiction to judge after hearing confessions, they would lose it. ISTM we are heading to something close to a sedevacantist position.

This is a high price to pay for rejecting geo-centrism. A bit too high, in fact.

 

[buffalo]

diesel-ebooks.com/mas_assets/full/0595895549.jpg

The Doctrines of Genesis 1-11
Today the Catholic Church has well-developed theologies of redemption and sanctification but no well-developed theology of creation. That is because so many of her influential thinkers have abandoned the sound creation theology of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church and have embraced instead the false principles of evolutionism. The purpose of this book is to help restore traditional Catholic theology on origins to its rightful place in the belief of Catholics. The traditional teaching of the Church on Creation, the Fall, and the Great Flood and its aftermath is clearly presented in the form of sixteen doctrines abstracted from the text of Genesis 1-11. The doctrines are defended on theological, philosophical and scientific grounds from assaults made on them from the sectors of biblical criticism and scientism. The author attempts to present a story of origins that evokes true and vivid images of the creation of the world and the primal history of the human species. Accurate, thorough and readable answers are given to many questions about origins that perplex the modern Catholic. The exposition is kept as non-technical as possible so that the book will be accessible to everyone. Not everyone will be able to understand everything that is presented, but every reader will find enough to set his thinking straight and to nourish his Catholic faith. Foreword by Most. Rev. Robert Francis Vasa, Bishop of Baker

 

[PaulF2]

I think we can all agree geocentrism has nothing to do with morals…

You are joking, yes? Or are you seriously going to assert that if people believed the earth to be stationary we would NOT have a society drenched in pornography and every other kind of filth? How can one not see a connection there?

I’m just kidding.

 

[PaulF2]

There have been periods in the Church’s history where virtually the entire Christian population adhered to one heresy or another (i.e. Arianism). You don’t argue that the gates of hell prevailed then do you?

Well, actually, it was not the entire population - if it had been, then yeah, that would have been it!

What saint was it who had a vision in which she was told that the Body of Christ consists of all orthodox believers? There has never been a time when there are none on earth…

 

[PaulF2]

Again, I’m not exactly sure what you’re getting at. Despite what many YECs like to spout, evolution is agreed upon by 99% of reputable scientists in the world. There is literally no case for the world being a few thousand years old, according to a fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible.

What exactly is wrong with accepting theistic evolution? Isn’t God capable of speaking in metaphors in the Bible, just as he told parables whilst on earth?

I used to think just like you. Theistic evolution was obviously the theory that explained the origins of life on our planet.

Then I really, really studied it from all angles. You should really read Michael Behe’s “The Edge of Evolution”. He demonstrates mathematically, with examples from nature, and with extremely sound arguments, that it does not appear that there is any way macroevolution - species change - can occur randomly. The amount of time is irrelevant.

There’s no reason to believe in a young earth, though. That is batty.

Honest evolutionists must admit that the mathematical odds against the origin of life itself- ‘pre-biotic evolution’ - are so staggering that it is a completely unsolved problem assuming any act of special creation is ruled out.

One of my favorite quotes, from “God’s Undertaker” by John Lennox, PhD, Reader in Mathematics at Oxford: “Life as we know it requires hundreds of thousands of proteins, and it has been calculated that the odds against producing these by chance is more than 10^40,000 to 1. Sir Fred Hoyle famously compared these odds against the spontaneous formation of life with the chance of a tornado sweeping through a junkyard and producing a 747 aircraft.”

If special creation is required at the outset, it is not unpalatable to accept it being present elsewhere.

 

[EphelDuath]

Then I really, really studied it from all angles. You should really read Michael Behe’s “The Edge of Evolution”. He demonstrates mathematically, with examples from nature, and with extremely sound arguments, that it does not appear that there is any way macroevolution - species change - can occur randomly. The amount of time is irrelevant.

Michael Behe is a laughing stock amongst scientists. I myself am not a biologist, but let me put it to you this way: Michael Behe is to science as is Dan Brown is to history.

Honest evolutionists must admit that the mathematical odds against the origin of life itself- ‘pre-biotic evolution’ - are so staggering that it is a completely unsolved problem assuming any act of special creation is ruled out.

This has been covered before. Many times. It’s a misunderstood argument that YECs cling on to because they hope uninformed people will buy it without checking out the rebuttal.

EDIT: In case that was a little vague. The theory of evolution has nothing to do with the origin of life. Completely different subjects. Whether or not species alter over a long course of time is 100% irrelevant to what the first cause of life was.

 

[PaulF2]

Michael Behe is a laughing stock amongst scientists.

Well, duh - he’s a laughing-stock to the entrenched materialist culture in his profession.

I seriously doubt you are actually familiar with any of his work. You would not be so cavalier if you were.

This has been covered before. Many times. It’s a misunderstood argument that YECs cling on to because they hope uninformed people will buy it without checking out the rebuttal.

Do you think Stephen Barr is a YEC? Do you know who he is?

So, what IS the rebuttal? I’ve read it all but why don’t you, PLEASE, enlighten everyone else.

 

[EphelDuath]

Well, duh - he’s a laughing-stock to the entrenched materialist culture in his profession.

Your beliefs are unfalsifiable, then. Anybody who disagrees with you is an “entrenched materialist” and can’t be trusted.

There are plenty of Judeo-Christian biologists, botanists, zoologists, archaeologists, et cetera in the field of science. Why do you place your trust in people who are unanimously discredited instead of real experts in the field?

Do you have any experience in biology? How can you make an informed opinion about it? Why do you choose to defer to somebody who is, and I have to emphasize this, a laughing stock as opposed to the hundreds of thousands of people with real experience in the field that think he’s a coot?

 

[PaulF2]

Your beliefs are unfalsifiable, then. Anybody who disagrees with you is an “entrenched materialist” and can’t be trusted.

Laughable - that is clearly not at all what I said or implied. It is a fact that the culture of the biological sciences is dominated by materialists. I can certain post references.

There are plenty of Judeo-Christian biologists, botanists, zoologists, archaeologists, et cetera in the field of science. Why do you place your trust in people who are unanimously discredited instead of real experts in the field?

Yes, there are, and there are plenty who do NOT think Behe is a dolt, either. Anyone who has problems with him has them on philosophical grounds and not his science.

You are clearly exaggerating Behe’s reputation - what is your agenda, I really have to ask?

Do you have any experience in biology? How can you make an informed opinion about it? Why do you choose to defer to somebody who is, and I have to emphasize this, a laughing stock as opposed to the hundreds of thousands of people with real experience in the field that think he’s a coot?

I must have a degree in biology to have any opinion of it at all? That is very interesting. Michael Behe has a PhD in biology, by the way.

I noticed you ignored my challenge to post the apparently simple and obvious counter to the statistical problems of pre-biotic evolution you implied exists; unless you do so soon I will have to conclude you were posturing.

 

[Daedelus76]

Galileo was an interesting case. It seems the historical consensus is moving away from the Deist and Atheist attack on the Church, towards the understanding that Galileo was a combination of political considerations (Protestant reformers) and his own ego getting involved. Galileo didn’t just make statements about science, but about the content of faith. I think the RCC has said they regretted this.

I personally believe in science alot, it’s something alot of people have benefitted from, and it’s troubling alot of Christians have issues with science. As somebody with an anthropology background, the fact that the Vatican has monogenesis as a doctrine is troubling. It’s noteworthy a few researchers on primates believe that there is evidence that some of the same cognitive faculties used in religious experience, are found in other primates, though not to the same degree. Another interesting thing is there was a huge explosion of artistic activity in modern Homo sapiens 50,000 years ago, perhaps having religious significance, whereas with Neanderthals there isn’t as much indication of a complex “inner life” that would be part of religion. The cave paintings and petroglyphs seem to paint an “inner world” or a “Dreaming” that primitive Homo sapiens were aware of, and was apparrently less developed or absent in other hominids.

But I admit the Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Orthodox, etc. are more open to scientific inquiry than other Christian groups. The cultural battles over evolution have cheapened the social-religious debates in the West, creating red-herrings, distractions, and misdirection of time and resources.

 

[Omyo12]

Exactly. And, not surprisingly, that was the same thing another Doctor of the Church, St. Augustine said a thousand years earlier. Remember?

“When they are able, from reliable evidence, to prove some fact of physical science, we shall show that it is not contrary to our Scripture. But when they produce from any of their books a theory contrary to Scripture, and therefore contrary to the Catholic faith, either we shall have some ability to demonstrate that it is absolutely false, or at least we ourselves will hold it so without any shadow of a doubt. And we will cling to our Mediator, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge [Colossians 2:3], that we will not be led astray by the glib talk of false philosophy or frightened by the superstition of false religion.” (The Literal Meaning of Genesis, 1, 41)

And that is precisely why I pointed out that Geocentrism has not been proven to be false, nor has Special Creation been proven to be false. So the Church has no need of changing Her doctrines, and especially not when we have been forewarned about all of this by our prophets.

I agree and respect most of your points.

However, lets assume that geocentricity was proven wrong without a shadow of a doubt. Will you accept the scientific evidence or reject it because “THE 1616 DECREE WAS PAPAL and IRREVERSABLE ( i.e. immutable, i.e., infallible)”?

And I wonder, are there any Christians who think that God could not have made the Earth the gravitational center of the universe? Are there are any Christians who think that God could not have created the universe in six days? If you do, then I have to tell you, and I don’t mean this in a pejorative sense, that you are not only ignorant of the power of God, but you are also ignorant of true science. Don’t you guys realize that what mainstream science is teaching the world as fact, is actually founded on anti-supernaturalistic assumptions - sand? Don’t you realize that these unbelievers have to believe their theories in order to be unbelievers?! Don’t you realize that the most important thing to God is that we come to Him of our own free will? And how can we have true free will if we don’t have options?

I see your points. I mean:
Could God have created the world in 6 days? OF COURSE!
Could God have created it instantly? OF COURSE!
Could God have created it in 14 billion years? OF COURSE!

What science does is it studies the nature of the physical universe God created.

Believing in evolution does NOT mean rejecting God or Adam and Eve as our first parents. It just calls for an alternative interpretation (which seems perfectly fine as long as it does not contradict Church dogma). It also does not take away from the spiritual truths found in Genesis.

You talk about something producing bad fruits but only when it’s convenient…

For example, there were corrupt popes in the past (not many thank God!) so does that mean the Church produced bad fruit?

Its the same logic…
Evolution in it of itself cannot produce anything. It is up to the people doing the interpreting.

What is “true science” in your book? There are creationist who present “facts” against evolution, however they usually lack understanding in their biology and misrepresent evidence because they want the conclusions to be what they want them to be. It lacks the scrutiny found true science.

Relatively, we are stationary and the Sun rotates around the Earth, but that’s only due to our perspective.

The biggest advocate against geocentricism is gravity.

Now, could there be a supernatural force keeping the Earth at bay but also spinning as it naturally would around the Sun? sure, but it would have to be supernatural.

According to some modern geocentricists:
http://www.crownofchrist.net/images/GEOSYSTEM.jpg

of course, this would be physically impossible.

“And I wonder, are there any Christians who think that God could not have made the Earth the gravitational center of the universe?”

the “gravitational” center? of course He could have, but He didn’t. Why? because the planets still revolve around the Sun. That much is provable.

Now, could He be supernaturally keeping it the center of the universe? OF COURSE!

God has set before us life and death; the blessing and the curse; the Tree of Life and the Tree of (Death); Creation and Evolution; Geocentrism and Heliocentrism; the truth and the lie. So don’t be like Eve and prefer the Serpent’s version of events to the Word of God. Believe so that you may understand. God bless.

no disrespect but adding "creation and “evolution” and “geocentrism” and “heliocentrism” so broadly was rather shady of you.

Why not:
“6 day creation”, “instant creation”, “6 day creation with old Earth characteristics”, “instant creation with old Earth characteristics”, “theistic evolution”, and “atheistic evolution”

and

“geocentrism”, “heliocentrism”, “modern views”

As I keep stressing, heliocentrism says that the Sun is immobile and the center of the universe. That is NOT what the scientific community believes anymore due to advances in science.

I reject heliocentrism

the Sun is mobile and it is NOT the center of the universe.

 

[buffalo]

Michael Behe is a laughing stock amongst scientists. I myself am not a biologist, but let me put it to you this way: Michael Behe is to science as is Dan Brown is to history.

.

Bogus!

Here is another guy who was a laughingstock - Mystery of the Megaflood J. HARLEN BRETZ

 

[cassini]

God wrote the Bible through men, protecting them from spiritual error, but not from historical or scientific error.

Note all one of the fruits of heresy, more heresy. Once you depart from truth, the lie needs another lie to support it. Copernicanism - as Pope Urban VIII predicted - led to so many lies, denials and objections to traditional understanding of the Catholic faith that it IS THE HERESY OF ALL HERESIES. It is so good a heresy that Catholics - stuffed up with intellectual pride - will fight tooth and nail to defend it.

It has also been pragmatically argued since Churchmen adopted the heretical Copernican or cabbalistic interpretation of Scripture that the Bible is not intended to teach us the ways of nature, but the way to eternal salvation. This is a principle spawned by the hermetically inclined Cardinal Caesar Baronius, who not only claimed in his Annales Ecclesiastici of around 1610 that Hermēs Trismegistus was one of the pagan prophets heralding the birth of Christ, but in the wake of the Galileo affair gave posterity the now famous often used quip ‘the Bible is not intended to teach us how the heavens go, but how to go to heaven.’ Now whereas this could be so, the hard fact is that throughout the holy Books there are many cases where facts of nature are mentioned or stated, both implicitly and explicitly. Indeed we saw earlier that there are occasions where the Scriptures disclose laws and facts of nature some thousands of years prior to man’s own discovery of them. What really matters of course is that whatever the Bible says and truly means is the truth of it, whether the matter is of natural things or of divine things. We know this because this is what the Church has always taught. The most recent and accurate reiteration on this very point is to be found in Pope Benedict XV’s encyclical on Scripture: Spiritus Paraclitus of 1920, where he declares:

‘Yet no one can pretend that certain recent writers really adhere to these limitations. For while conceding that inspiration extends to every phrase –and indeed every word of Scripture– yet, by endeavouring to distinguish between what they style the primary or religious and the secondary or profane element in the Bible, they claim that the effect of inspiration –namely, absolute truth and immunity from error- are to be restricted to that primary or religious element. Their notion is that only what concerns religion is intended and taught by God in Scripture, and that all the rest –things concerning “profane knowledge”, the garments in which the Divine truth is presented- God merely permits, and even leaves to the individual author’s greater or less knowledge. Small wonder then, that in their view a considerable number of things occur in the Bible touching physical science, history and the like, which cannot be reconciled with modern progress in science.’