Geocentric Universe?

[cassini]

What follows is general information. Thus anyone can answer. And many so far have pointed out that general information is general.

This is general information regarding individuals speaking either about science, geography, literature, faith or morals etc. There has been a lot of such material since day one. When a person goes back to early Church history, one finds a lot of yelling and name calling on both sides of any issue. Because humans belong to the Church, the Holy Spirit is present to protect actual Divine Revelation regarding faith and morals…

As pointed out in post 362. This kind of speaking in the ordinary and usual forms of teaching by high ranking prelates or of highly educated and holy people is not infallible. Obviously, a lot of good regarding faith and morals is taught through the usual means of Catholic teaching. Apostolic authority is a source of teaching about issues of faith and morals, not the earth’s shape.

I would truly like to see such. Could you possibiy be referring to teachings which place “The Catholic Deposit of Faith” above all else? Divine Revelation trumps.

What you are saying is what we are trying to tell you. The Pope only has the charism of infallibility when it is exercised in conjunction with the major councils or in special circumstances in very recent history. This is not a personal charism which covers all opinions especially ones regarding to science.

This does not sound at all like the Catholic Church. However, there have been some nasty fellows beginning with a few in the Gospels. Yet, even in the bad times, actual Catholic teaching on faith and morals has remained steady. Divine Revelation trumps.

Are you saying that the Catholic Church has the important responsibility for its Deposit of Faith which includes faith and morals?

I assume this refers to the science of the Copernicans who lived centuries ago. There may be modern Copernican organizations around but I doubt if they qualify as a church in the old traditional sense.

Note: I realize that one can be passionate about science. That is understandable.
But one does need to be careful about mixing science in with doctrines of faith especially on a Sunday.

Blessings,
grannymh

All human life is meant for eternal life with God.

As I said, this is the Church of the Copernicans. Granny, we see by her rhetoric, has no problem with the points below.

1. Decrees confirmed by, and virtually included in, a Bull addressed to the Universal Church may be, not only scientifically false, but, theologically considered, dangerous, i.e. calculated to prejudice the cause of religion, and compromise the safety of a portion of the deposit committed to the Church’s keeping. Or, in other words, the Pope in and by a Bull addressed to the universal Church, may confirm and approve with Apostolic authority decisions that are false, unsound, and perilous to the faith.
2. Decrees of the Apostolic See and of Pontifical Congregations may be calculated to oppose the free progress of science.
3. The Pope’s infallibility is no guarantee that he may not use his supreme authority to indoctrinate the Church with erroneous opinions, through the medium of Congregations he has erected to assist him in protecting the Church from error.
4. The Pope, through the medium of a Pontifical Congregation, may require, under pain of excommunication, individual Catholics to yield an absolute assent to false, unsound, and dangerous propositions.
   We have often been told that the Church could not get on unless she possessed a living judge of controversies, always able to decide questions of importance with infallible truth.

This then is the CHURCH OF THE COPERNICANS

 

[cassini]

Notice that you’re once again shifting into ad hominem attacks, and not actually responding to my arguments. But yes, since you ask, there are many things that I’m not an “expert” on. In fact, I wouldn’t exactly consider myself an “expert” in most areas; more often than not, I simply have a general understanding of the basic principles involved across a broad range of subjects. I’m only an “expert” in any given subject from the perspective of people who clearly know far less about it than the little I do.

What are you talking about? There’s no absurd regress of “younger” and “younger” individuals. The twin that remained on Earth becomes the older twin, while the one who traveled becomes the younger twin. Because less time passed for the twin traveling at relativistic speeds, and more time passed for the twin who remained on Earth. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_paradox

Please rephrase. Your second sentence makes no sense, neither grammatically nor in context.

I’ve been through this with you before…

First of all, the entire content of that underlined portion is uncalled for: there is nothing theologically dangerous about geocentrism, even if it is scientifically false; and none of the decrees in question were “calculated” to prejudice or compromise anything. Second of all, you seem to have trouble understanding that “the ordinary and usual form of the Papal teaching activity is not infallible”. There is no guarantee that decrees confirmed by and/or virtually included in a Bull addressed to the universal Church cannot be scientifically false or irreversible.

The Pope, in and by a Bull addressed to all the faithful, may use his ordinary Apostolic authority to confirm and approve fallible decisions that may later be reversed. And again, the language of “unsound” and “perilous to the faith” is unnecessary and uncalled for.

Nothing was “calculated” to oppose anything. Not only were those who issued the decrees were justified in acting to prohibit the spread of teachings which they deemed harmful to the faithful, but the true progress of science was clearly not impeded: Newton turned up just fine in 1687, a mere 50 years later.

The Pope’s infallibility is no guarantee that he cannot use his ordinary authority to approve the fallible opinions of Congregations which were established to (among other things) assist him in protecting the Church from error in matters of faith and morals.

Yes, just like any other Bishop could. The excommunication of St. Joan of Arc comes to mind. The only guarantee we have regarding the Pope is his infallibility in defining a doctrine of faith or morals ex cathedra.
newadvent.org/cathen/07790a.htm
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infallibility_of_the_Church

the trouble masterjedi747 is that I do not have the time and patience to answer every point by point. Most of the Copernican stuff is rhetoric anyway and could go on forever. If I were to pick out all the points you guys DO NOT ANSWER coming from me, I would not get anything else done in my active life. Accordingly I will explain the twin paradox. Dingle, after many years defending the STR realised that TRUE STR necessitated BOTH TWINS being younger than the other. Now, that is not to hard to understand, is it? In other words, science needs you to believe this and getting a man with a 20 foot pole into a 5 foot sq room closing the door behind him TO PROVE THE 1616 DECREE WAS IN ERROR.

 

[tjm190]

The “twin ‘paradox’” is easily understood- did you even wiki the matter?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_paradox#Resolution_of_the_paradox_in_special_relativity

 

[Thing]

the trouble masterjedi747 is that I do not have the time and patience to answer every point by point. Most of the Copernican stuff is rhetoric anyway and could go on forever. If I were to pick out all the points you guys DO NOT ANSWER coming from me, I would not get anything else done in my active life. Accordingly I will explain the twin paradox. Dingle, after many years defending the STR realised that TRUE STR necessitated BOTH TWINS being younger than the other. Now, that is not to hard to understand, is it? In other words, science needs you to believe this and getting a man with a 20 foot pole into a 5 foot sq room closing the door behind him TO PROVE THE 1616 DECREE WAS IN ERROR.

If one twin died but was born before the other so he would always be younger than the other even though the other was younger…uch:
…the 20 foot pole is Telescopic…like…helloo…

 

[Luke65]

You’re missing the point… the fact that parallax is even observed in the first place is an indication that the earth is being displaced by a distance of approximately 300 million kilometers every 6 months. Not to mention that at the same time, we observe corresponding redshift and blueshift in the starfield as we repeatedly move towards and away from the same stars every 6 months. We claim this as observed evidence that the Earth is traveling in a defined orbit around the Sun every 12 months, while you have no reasonable explanation for why the universal aether vortex should regularly “wobble” around the immobile Earth in this manner.

Sorry, but you’re missing the point. You’re not proving anything. Under the neo-Tychonian model, the parallax and redshifts/blueshifts are the same as under your model, because the stars are rotating around the sun as the sun rotates around the Earth.

The neo-Tychonic model has been known to modern astronomy for quite some time and is still mentioned in some circles. For example, at the department of physics at the University of Illinois, one class lecture states:
It is often said that Tycho’s model implies the absence of parallax, and that Copernicus’ requires parallax. However, it would not be a major conceptual change to have the stars orbit the sun (like the planets) for Tycho, which would give the same yearly shifts in their apparent positions as parallax gives. Thus if parallax were observed, a flexible Tychonean could adjust the theory to account for it, without undue complexity. What if parallax were not observed? For Copernicus, one only requires that the stars be far enough away for the parallax to be immeasurable. Therefore the presence or absence of parallax doesn’t force the choice of one type of model over the other. If different stars were to show different amounts of parallax, that would rule out the possibility of them all being on one sphere, but still not really decide between Tycho and Copernicus.1044
The same course material adds the following conclusion:
In fact, if we don’t worry about the distant stars, these two models describe identical relative motions of all the objects in the solar system. So the role of observation is not as direct as you might have guessed. There is no bare observation that can distinguish whether Tycho (taken broadly) or Copernicus (taken broadly) is right.1045
(Galileo Was Wrong: The Church Was Right, Vol. I, p.340)

George Ellis: “People need to be aware that there is a range of models that could explain the observations. For instance, I can construct [for] you a spherically symmetrical universe with Earth at its center, and you cannot disprove it based on observations. You can only exclude it on philosophical grounds. In my view there is absolutely nothing wrong in that. What I want to bring into the open is the fact that we are using philosophical criteria in choosing our models. A lot of cosmology tries to hide that.”

Fred Hoyle: “Now the gravitational attraction of the sun is balanced by a real gravitational centrifugal force due to the annual rotation of distant masses around the earth (with a component having a period of one year). In this way the earth can remain at rest and at an essentially constant distance from the sun.”

Now, if these scientists, who are “hostile witnesses” for Geocentrism, can’t prove that it’s false, then I’m pretty sure you can’t! But you can keep trying…

:banghead:

 

[Alethios]

…we know that two objects always move about their center of mass- unless their is a singularity at the center of the Earth, the center of mass of the Earth and the Sun (or the Earth and the Moon for that matter) would be somewhere that is not the center of the Earth. Thus, the Earth would be in motion.

we use Tychonian aether vortices, not Newtonian gravity.

Unless of course you make the 1/10^2312385724395634967593465903486593465 03476593476593465093274659 or so assumption that every sub atomic particle is positioned so perfectly that the Earth never moves, and that EVER SINGLE act of randomness that the uncertainty principle allows for is cancelled out with respect to every axis.

A classical strawman farce: falsely taking the GC position to be that ‘the Earth doesn’t move’ means nothing on the earth - not even an atom - moves !..

Does the Sungenis book cover the fact that parts of the earth move relative to other parts (place tectonics, earthquakes) and that hence all of the earth cannot be at rest relative to the rest of the universe?

Scripture says that the FOUNDATIONS of the Earth cannot be moved…

If so, does he cover the scientific experiments have been performed to show that those moving parts of the earth are indeed moving? Science should be able to show different results from different parts of the earth’s surface - for example the east and west coasts of Iceland.

Scripture says that in the time of Peleg the world was divided…

I do not want to purchase a book that does not answer this question.

Then get the Bible - it answers your queries. … if read as written.

Let me get my head around this. An inhabited planet which is the third planet out from its primary star, located in a spiral arm of one galaxy among trillions of galaxies, is the center of rotation of the entire universe, every object in which rotates around the earth in a fixed 24 hour period.

A few corrections:

• The Earth is the primary and immovable object, so ‘planet’ is misleading - try ‘statet’.
• Is the Sun a star? Its spectrum doesn’t match any star in the sky.
• The motion of the stars indicates the Earth is on the axis of rotation, not necessarily the center of rotation => cylindrical symmetry.
  Another good reason to use geostatism instead of geocentrism.
• Only the Sun has a 24 hr period; the stars are faster, the Moon, slower.

The universe has a diameter of about 156 billion light years.

… based on the Hubble law, which assumes the red shift is pure Doppler shift. Assumptions are not proof, when the method is scientific.
…based on the furthest galaxy observed… so when a galaxy further away is seen, the universe will get bigger!

If the entire universe rotates around the earth, then those galaxies at the far edge of the universe must cover a distance of about 490 billion light years every 24 hours. That is quite a bit in excess of the speed of light. Improbable? I think so.

Aether has no known speed limit.
If you walk at 5 mph down the aisle of a jet flying at 500 mph, is your ground speed 5 mph or 505 mph?

… having physicists agreeing and teaching that faster than light travel is workable in view of a geocentric universe strikes me as equally improbable!

We make no claim that faster than light travel is workable… the strawman returns?

Current thinking in cosmology considers the universe to be a closed expanding spherical system, wherein the “surface” of the expanding sphere is ordinary 3D space. Such a universe has no ‘center’ in a geographic sense, any more than the surface of the earth can be said to have a center. The internal center of the expanding sphere represents that point some 18 billion years ago at which the universe began its expansion. There is a lot of scientific evidence for such a view, philosophy aside.

A good example of mathematics over-riding the SM - scientific method.

Where’s the observation of the fourth spatial dimension of this science fiction hypersphere? SM requires this, not a version of mathemagic. .

18 billion years ago? That’s the biggest speculation yet; a century ago the universe was a few million years old. In another century it will be as large as the national debt.

a lot of scientific evidence for such a view? What SM evidence was collected 18 billion years ago?

A ‘geocentric’ worldview might be conceivable for a much smaller universe in which stars were much smaller objects. But the universe is not small.

A GC universe has no size limit, until the limit of aether motion is measured.

let’s say I throw a ball in the air. The center of mass of the ball-Earth system changes- both objects are pulled towards the center of mass.

In aetherodynamics, the center of the vortex replaces the Newtonian center of mass.

Walter van der Kamp: “Looking at the star Alpha Centauri from an Earth circling the sun, parallax measurements and trigonometry would assure us that the two are 1.3 parsecs, or more than 4.2 light years apart. But looking from an Earth circled by the sun, the distance turns out to be less than one twenty-fifth of that amount.” (p.343)

Walter is using the discarded Ptolemaic model, not the neoTychonian model of BCT - best current thinking.

So, if we assume that Alpha Centauri is actually 1/25 as far as it is, then instead of being 4.2 light years away, it is .168 light years away… or 0.168 light years away. That translates into being roughly 990 billion miles.

The Biblical geocentric model doesn’t predict stellar distances…

Do the stars orbit the Sun which then orbits the Earth? Or do the Stars orbit the Earth directly .

Parallax and aberration are consistent with the former - an example of geocentrism defined by experiments - according to the scientific method.

AMDG

 

[rossum]

Scripture says that the FOUNDATIONS of the Earth cannot be moved…

So we agree that part, if not all, of the surface of the earth moves. Please specify where these Foundations of the earth are to be found. Have any experiments been performed there? If so are there any results available?

Scripture says that in the time of Peleg the world was divided…

That is not an answer to my question. I was asking about the contents of Sungenis’ book and what experiments it included to show the relative motion of parts of the earth’s surface relative to other parts.

Then get the Bible - it answers your queries. … if read as written.

I already have a copy of the Bible. I was asking specifically about the contents of Sungenis’ book. As far as I am aware the Bible does not contain a detailed précis of Sungenis’ work.

rossum

 

[cassini]

The “twin ‘paradox’” is easily understood- did you even wiki the matter?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_paradox#Resolution_of_the_paradox_in_special_relativity

tjm190, God blessed me with intelligence. Some things I can assess for myself. I do not need sites to tell me how to think like the Copewrnicans do. The M&M experiment left the earth stationary. After 17 years trying to get the earth moving again ‘science’ endorsed the ideas of a man whose wife did his maths for him, Einstein. It was his looney ideas (including one that had two twins, one younger than the other) that got the earth moving again from its revealed place. Now NOBODY will get me to believe that is possible in reality, maybe in STR maths yes, but not in reality.

My Catholic faith deals in reality and faith. St Thomas is my intellectual hero. His philosophical philosophy has eliminated heliocentrism and evolution as Catholic many years ago. You can believe what you want and read all the web sites you want, but I stick with common sense.

 

[cassini]

If one twin died but was born before the other so he would always be younger than the other even though the other was younger…uch:
…the 20 foot pole is Telescopic…like…helloo…

Yes Thing, I enjoyed this post. The pole must have been telescopic and the twin reasoning had a catch to it. Hardly the ‘science’ to get the earth moving though.

 

[cassini]

Sorry, but you’re missing the point. You’re not proving anything. Under the neo-Tychonian model, the parallax and redshifts/blueshifts are the same as under your model, because the stars are rotating around the sun as the sun rotates around the Earth.

George Ellis: “People need to be aware that there is a range of models that could explain the observations. For instance, I can construct [for] you a spherically symmetrical universe with Earth at its center, and you cannot disprove it based on observations. You can only exclude it on philosophical grounds. In my view there is absolutely nothing wrong in that. What I want to bring into the open is the fact that we are using philosophical criteria in choosing our models. A lot of cosmology tries to hide that.”

Fred Hoyle: “Now the gravitational attraction of the sun is balanced by a real gravitational centrifugal force due to the annual rotation of distant masses around the earth (with a component having a period of one year). In this way the earth can remain at rest and at an essentially constant distance from the sun.”

Now, if these scientists, who are “hostile witnesses” for Geocentrism, can’t prove that it’s false, then I’m pretty sure you can’t! But you can keep trying…

:banghead:

Absolutely correct Luke. The best analagy I use for this Copernican bias is the following:

A total eclipse of the sun causes dark streets, yes?
Does this mean dark streets prove there is a total eclipse of the sun?

 

[cassini]

we use Tychonian aether vortices, not Newtonian gravity.

A classical strawman farce: falsely taking the GC position to be that ‘the Earth doesn’t move’ means nothing on the earth - not even an atom - moves !..

Scripture says that the FOUNDATIONS of the Earth cannot be moved…

Scripture says that in the time of Peleg the world was divided…

Then get the Bible - it answers your queries. … if read as written.

A few corrections:

• The Earth is the primary and immovable object, so ‘planet’ is misleading - try ‘statet’.
• Is the Sun a star? Its spectrum doesn’t match any star in the sky.
• The motion of the stars indicates the Earth is on the axis of rotation, not necessarily the center of rotation => cylindrical symmetry.
  Another good reason to use geostatism instead of geocentrism.
• Only the Sun has a 24 hr period; the stars are faster, the Moon, slower.

… based on the Hubble law, which assumes the red shift is pure Doppler shift. Assumptions are not proof, when the method is scientific.
…based on the furthest galaxy observed… so when a galaxy further away is seen, the universe will get bigger!

Aether has no known speed limit.
If you walk at 5 mph down the aisle of a jet flying at 500 mph, is your ground speed 5 mph or 505 mph?

We make no claim that faster than light travel is workable… the strawman returns?

A good example of mathematics over-riding the SM - scientific method.

Where’s the observation of the fourth spatial dimension of this science fiction hypersphere? SM requires this, not a version of mathemagic. .

18 billion years ago? That’s the biggest speculation yet; a century ago the universe was a few million years old. In another century it will be as large as the national debt.

a lot of scientific evidence for such a view? What SM evidence was collected 18 billion years ago?

A GC universe has no size limit, until the limit of aether motion is measured.

In aetherodynamics, the center of the vortex replaces the Newtonian center of mass.
Walter is using the discarded Ptolemaic model, not the neoTychonian model of BCT - best current thinking.

The Biblical geocentric model doesn’t predict stellar distances…

Parallax and aberration are consistent with the former - an example of geocentrism defined by experiments - according to the scientific method.

AMDG

Great post Alethios, Boy I wish I could stay as calm as you do when rebutting the Copernican ‘science’.

 

[cassini]

So we agree that part, if not all, of the surface of the earth moves. Please specify where these Foundations of the earth are to be found. Have any experiments been performed there? If so are there any results available?

That is not an answer to my question. I was asking about the contents of Sungenis’ book and what experiments it included to show the relative motion of parts of the earth’s surface relative to other parts.

I already have a copy of the Bible. I was asking specifically about the contents of Sungenis’ book. As far as I am aware the Bible does not contain a detailed précis of Sungenis’ work.

rossum

Rossum, I do not have Sungenis’s book but maybe this re-enactment (mine - as there is no record of the original in 1616).of the qualificaters debate on the matter will help clear up your questions.

‘Very good. Let us now proceed to the second proposition, the idea that the earth moves and is consequently not at the centre of the world? Here then is a selection of some passages of Scripture for our consideration.

“One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth standeth forever.” —Ecclesiastes 1:14

“Thou who didst found the earth on its stable support (super stabilitatem suam); it shall not be moved for ever.” —Ps. 103:5

“He hath fixed the earth, which shall not be moved.” —Ps. 92:1

“Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me if thou hast understanding… Upon what are its bases grounded? Or who laid the corner stone thereof?” —Job 38:4-6

“He has made the world firm, not to be moved.” —Ps. 95:10

‘Our first consideration is that if the sun moves, the earth does not, for both cannot be moving. These passages, if language is to have any meaning at all, indicate the earth’s immobility. Take for example Ps. 103:5 ‘Thou who didst found the earth on its stable support; it shall not be moved for ever.’ If we are to accept a heliocentric view then we should now have to interpret it so: ‘Thou who didst place the earth in its orbit; it shall not cease from steadily revolving therein.’ We can of course apply the same logic with equal efficacy to every text we find. Now how in God’s name can we subject the Scriptures to such interpretation? This simply could not be done without totally departing from the meaning of words, which of course would render the Holy Scriptures totally redundant as a coherent source of revelation. Moreover it would mean that the Holy Ghost did not infuse Solomon, the Apostles, Fathers and those given the gift of knowledge and understanding with a full revelation of the Holy Books, for, according to the Copernicans, that would have to wait until the lesser sciences revealed the true meaning of the Bible. Such a proposition is outrageous, a threat to our very understanding of the Tradition and our Catholic faith. What passage of Scripture could the Church propound with certainty anymore? Where would it all end? It is that, or concede to the fact that the authors applied a false perception of immobility to the Scriptures, which then could only mean the Scriptures err in this matter. Neither of these options is open to us and therefore we have no choice but to read them in the same manner as all the Fathers.
But we have a job to do, and so we must consider all likely contrary entries.

“The earth shook and trembled.” —Ps. 76:19

“All the foundations of the earth shall be moved;” —Ps. 81:5

“At the presence of the Lord the earth was moved;” Ps. 113:7

“He shaketh the earth out of her place, and the pillars thereof tremble.” —Job. 9:6

‘Now I submit we qualificators are all trained theologians, well versed in Scriptural knowledge and in the interpretations and opinions of the Fathers, Doctors and eminent exegetes of the Church throughout the ages. We know instantly that particular texts of Scripture referring to the ‘earth’ differ from the others in that these and other similar ones are in these cases of a metaphorical movement of the whole earth, that is, by presenting the earth as representative of the men who live on it, and who either through fear or astonishment at some divine occurrences are moved in many different ways. In other cases sometimes such passages merely refer to earthquakes confined to certain parts of the earth, but not the whole earth itself.’

 

[rossum]

Rossum, I do not have Sungenis’s book but maybe this re-enactment (mine - as there is no record of the original in 1616).of the qualificaters debate on the matter will help clear up your questions.

If you look at the top right of my posts you will see that I am Buddhist. Whatever authority the events of 1616 may have for Catholics they have no religious authority for me. If you want to convince me of your case then you are going to have to use either science or Buddhist texts and authorities.

rossum

 

[cassini]

If you look at the top right of my posts you will see that I am Buddhist. Whatever authority the events of 1616 may have for Catholics they have no religious authority for me. If you want to convince me of your case then you are going to have to use either science or Buddhist texts and authorities.

rossum

Didn’t know you are a Buddhist rossum. In Catholicism theology is the queen of all sciences because it derives its principles from God Himself through revelation. It is used by believers to judge the truth or falsity of the conclusions and interpretations of all the other sciences.

As a Buddhist you of course do not have divine guidance so are stuck with the one source of truth if you can find it through the empirical way. in the question of a geocentric universe empirical science comes to a full stop at relativity or A-centrism as they call it. It is the limit of science so you are stuck with preferences not absolute truths or absolute reality. But within Catholicism we enjoy absolute truths and absolute reality. things not accessable by the lower sciences can be revealed to us through our Scriptures and the Church’s interpretation of them.

So, while you may not find the answer in traditional Catholicism, other readers of this thread could do so. I find it odd that a Buddhist is active on a Catholic forum for the simple reason that most threads deal with the Catholic perspective on things.

Is there a Buddhist forum? Anyway rossum, I will pray for your conversion and maybe someday as a Catholic you can decide the truth in a Catholic way. That is going to need a direct (name removed by moderator)ut of grace by God because anyone looking in on the history of faith and science in the Catholic Church today will find science the new dogma and theology the forgotten queen, now battered to death by the Copernicans, uniformitarians and evolutionists who are not only endemic in the flock but occupy the Chair of Peter as well.

 

[rossum]

As a Buddhist you of course do not have divine guidance so are stuck with the one source of truth if you can find it through the empirical way.

Firstly, I may have divine guidance, though I may not recognise it as such. If the Abrahamic God is as described then He can certainly provide me, or any member of any religion, with guidance. Secondly, I have two sources of knowledge: science and Buddhism. For example, I get “Love others as you love yourself” from Buddhist scripture, not from science.

in the question of a geocentric universe empirical science comes to a full stop at relativity or A-centrism as they call it.

Agreed. Which is why I am slightly puzzled at Sungenis’ apparent use of science in his to attempt to prove geocentrism. I have noticed that you tend to concentrate much more on the theolgical side than the scientific side in these arguments.

It is the limit of science so you are stuck with preferences not absolute truths or absolute reality.

As you can see from my sig, I have trouble with the concept of Absolute Truth:The emptiness of emptiness is the fact that not even emptiness exists ultimately, that it is also dependent, conventional, nominal, and in the end it is just the everydayness of the everyday. Penetrating to the depths of being, we find ourselves back on the surface of things and so discover that there is nothing, after all, beneath those deceptive surfaces. Moreover, what is deceptive about them is simply the fact that we assume ontological depth lurking just beneath.

Jay Garfield, “Empty words, Buddhist philosophy and cross-cultural interpretation.” OUP 2002.
Reality may appear to have hidden depths, but that appearance is deceptive - what you see really is what you get and nothing more. In approximate Thomist terms there is only Accident with no Substance.

I find it odd that a Buddhist is active on a Catholic forum for the simple reason that most threads deal with the Catholic perspective on things.

I started here in the evolution/creationism area, though I have branched out into the Non-Catholic religions forum as well. I find the general tone of discussion here more pleasant than on some of the other Christian sites I frequent. Remember that Buddhism is a missionary religion.

rossum

 

[grannymh]

If you look at the top right of my posts you will see that I am Buddhist. Whatever authority the events of 1616 may have for Catholics they have no religious authority for me. If you want to convince me of your case then you are going to have to use either science or Buddhist texts and authorities.

rossum

Your questioning in post 386 deserves an answer based on science simply because the key issue of geocentricism is in the area of science.

However, in addition to science, the issues of 1616 and surrounding years have expanded into a modern, very heated debate regarding “faith and science” and by extension religious authority for Catholics.

In my humble opinion, there is a lot of confusion about “Catholic authority” on CAF. Coming from an historical perspective, I believe that there should be an understanding of basic rubrics regarding how the visible Catholic Church conducted its affairs in history. In the case of geocentricism, it would help remove some of the clouds surrounding the topic as it is being discussed today.

The posts of masterjedi747 (#362 and others) give excellent explanations of how authority over Church doctrine was historically practiced during the Renaissance. In other words, the protocol is explained. Masterjedi747 public profile lists other threads where he has treated this topic.

Blessings,
granny

All human beings are worthy of profound respect.

 

[cassini]

Firstly, I may have divine guidance, though I may not recognise it as such. If the Abrahamic God is as described then He can certainly provide me, or any member of any religion, with guidance. Secondly, I have two sources of knowledge: science and Buddhism. For example, I get “Love others as you love yourself” from Buddhist scripture, not from science.

Agreed. Which is why I am slightly puzzled at Sungenis’ apparent use of science in his to attempt to prove geocentrism. I have noticed that you tend to concentrate much more on the theolgical side than the scientific side in these arguments.

As you can see from my sig, I have trouble with the concept of Absolute Truth:The emptiness of emptiness is the fact that not even emptiness exists ultimately, that it is also dependent, conventional, nominal, and in the end it is just the everydayness of the everyday. Penetrating to the depths of being, we find ourselves back on the surface of things and so discover that there is nothing, after all, beneath those deceptive surfaces. Moreover, what is deceptive about them is simply the fact that we assume ontological depth lurking just beneath.

Jay Garfield, “Empty words, Buddhist philosophy and cross-cultural interpretation.” OUP 2002.
Reality may appear to have hidden depths, but that appearance is deceptive - what you see really is what you get and nothing more. In approximate Thomist terms there is only Accident with no Substance.

I started here in the evolution/creationism area, though I have branched out into the Non-Catholic religions forum as well. I find the general tone of discussion here more pleasant than on some of the other Christian sites I frequent. Remember that Buddhism is a missionary religion.

rossum

Thanks for that wonderful reply rossum. I must read up on Buddhism. That said I thank God I was born a Catholic as the Catholic faith explains all things for me. Moreover we have Christ, the Second Person of the Trinity. God become man. Absolute truth.

Regarding geocentricism, it is indeed a matter of faith. Were science able to prove it it would not be of faith. Only a fool would try to prove either geocentricism or heliocentricism on scientific grounds. That is why the truth had to be revealed and that is why the 1616 papal definition must be defended for what it was/is. I do not waste my time rerading up on the scientific exchange, only enough to rebutt the so-called proofs for H. How well your Buddhism allowed you to see this crucial point.

 

[masterjedi747]

You’re not proving anything. Under the neo-Tychonian model, the parallax and redshifts/blueshifts are the same as under your model, because the stars are rotating around the sun as the sun rotates around the Earth.

And again, my response is that your model is severely deficient and unreasonable.

George Ellis: “People need to be aware that there is a range of models that could explain the observations. For instance, I can construct [for] you a spherically symmetrical universe with Earth at its center, and you cannot disprove it based on observations. You can only exclude it on philosophical grounds. In my view there is absolutely nothing wrong in that. What I want to bring into the open is the fact that we are using philosophical criteria in choosing our models. A lot of cosmology tries to hide that.”

Of course that’s true. But I didn’t need George Ellis to tell me that. Try reading Aristotle, Ptolemy, Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton for yourself, and you’ll see exactly how it happened in the first place. The heliocentric model of the solar system arose, and eventually overthrew the ancient geocentric model, precisely due to philosophical criteria that were applied to the accumulating evidence.

Now, if these scientists, who are “hostile witnesses” for Geocentrism, can’t prove that it’s false, then I’m pretty sure you can’t!

It’s not about proving that geocentrism is false, it’s about proving that geocentrism is manifestly unreasonable in light of the combined observations. Our model can account for (not to mention predict) all of the observations with one simple motion, while yours is now one of the most complex, inelegant, and intellectually bankrupt systems imaginable.

we use Tychonian aether vortices, not Newtonian gravity.

And again, I ask: how do you propose to deal with the fact of Newton demonstration in the Principia that the circular aether vortex theory is necessarily incompatible with Kepler’s laws and the observed elliptical nature of planetary orbits?

Scripture says that the FOUNDATIONS of the Earth cannot be moved…

“Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion. [1 Timothy 1.7]” – Saint Augustine, On the Literal Meaning of Genesis

Is the Sun a star? Its spectrum doesn’t match any star in the sky

Keep telling yourself that.

Aether has no known speed limit.

The aether which you require has no known existence, so that’s hardly surprising.

We make no claim that faster than light travel is workable…

If you propose that distant stars and galaxies complete a circuit around the Earth every 24 hours, then yes, you undeniably do make such a claim.

Parallax and aberration are consistent with [stars orbiting the Sun which then orbits the Earth]

They’re more consistent with and better explained by having the Earth orbit the Sun.

St. Thomas is my intellectual hero. His philosophical philosophy has eliminated heliocentrism and evolution as Catholic many years ago. You can believe what you want and read all the web sites you want, but I stick with common sense.

Saint Thomas would be* ashamed* of such thoroughly anti-intellectual sophistry. Furthermore, his “philosophical philosophy” never did any such thing. You can believe what you want and read all the web sites you want, but I stick with the text of what Saint Thomas actually wrote, and he never taught that geocentrism was a truth belonging to the deposit of the Catholic faith. When he touches briefly upon geocentrism in the Summa, Saint Thomas appeals merely to the observations of Ptolemy (an ancient astronomer), and not a single one of the Church Fathers.

 

[masterjedi747]

These passages, if language is to have any meaning at all, indicate the earth’s immobility.

It’s called “phenomenological language”, and the Church recognizes this as a valid distinction. Furthermore:

Even though all Holy Writ is inspired and is the Word of God, still, following St. Thomas (Sent. II.d.12.q.I.a.2), a distinction must be made between that which is inspired per se, and that which is inspired per accidens. As the truths of Revelation laid down in Holy Writ are designed to serve the end of religious and moral teaching, inspiration per se extends only to the religious and moral truths. The data inspired per accidens is also the Word to the religious-moral truths. The data inspired per accidens is also the Word of God, and consequently without error. However, as the hagiographers in profane things make use of a popular, that is, a non-scientific form of exposition suitable to the mental perception of their times, a more liberal interpretation is possible here. The Church gives no positive decisions in regard to purely scientific questions, but limits itself to rejecting errors which endanger the faith. Further, in these scientific matters there is no value in a consensus of the Fathers since they are not here acting as witnesses of the Faith, but merely as private scientists.
– Dr. Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, p. 92.

Take for example Ps. 103:5 ‘Thou who didst found the earth on its stable support; it shall not be moved for ever.’ If we are to accept a heliocentric view then we should now have to interpret it so: ‘Thou who didst place the earth in its orbit; it shall not cease from steadily revolving therein.’

No, we don’t. We simply have to recognize that the author is speaking to the appearances.

We can of course apply the same logic with equal efficacy to every text we find. … This simply could not be done without totally departing from the meaning of words, which of course would render the Holy Scriptures totally redundant as a coherent source of revelation. … Such a proposition is outrageous, a threat to our very understanding of the Tradition and our Catholic faith.

No, we can’t. No, it wouldn’t. No, it’s not. You’re blowing the “implications” here way out of proportion.

Moreover it would mean that the Holy Ghost did not infuse Solomon, the Apostles, Fathers and those given the gift of knowledge and understanding with a full revelation of the Holy Books, for, according to the Copernicans, that would have to wait until the lesser sciences revealed the true meaning of the Bible.

I’ll quote it for you again… though it’s worth nothing that, if Saint Thomas really was your intellectual hero, you should have already been well aware of this distinction.

Even though all Holy Writ is inspired and is the Word of God, still, following St. Thomas (Sent. II.d.12.q.I.a.2), a distinction must be made between that which is inspired per se, and that which is inspired per accidens. As the truths of Revelation laid down in Holy Writ are designed to serve the end of religious and moral teaching, inspiration per se extends only to the religious and moral truths.

What passage of Scripture could the Church propound with certainty anymore? Where would it all end?

The Church is still in charge, and rules regarding the various levels of certitude of Church teaching are well in place. Quit with the unfounded fear-mongering.

It is that, or concede to the fact that the authors applied a false perception of immobility to the Scriptures, which then could only mean the Scriptures err in this matter.

Neither. This false dilemma is your own creation, which you’ve locked yourself into by irrationally insisting upon the literal truth of phenomenological language.

*The data inspired per accidens is also the Word to the religious-moral truths. The data inspired per accidens is also the Word of God, and consequently without error. However, as the hagiographers in profane things make use of a popular, that is, a non-scientific form of exposition suitable to the mental perception of their times, a more liberal interpretation is possible here. *

In Catholicism theology is the queen of all sciences because it derives its principles from God Himself through revelation. It is used by believers to judge the truth or falsity of the conclusions and interpretations of all the other sciences.

NOT AT ALL. Once again, you manifest a stunning lack of comprehension of what it means to say that Theology is the “queen” of the sciences. You could not POSSIBLY be MORE mistaken or confused on this point, or less in agreement with Saint Thomas.

Theology is called “queen” of the sciences because it is the highest science; because its object is the highest and most noble object which we can know. Furthermore, higher sciences (such as theology) are never taken and applied to lower sciences (such as mathematics or astronomy) in the manner which you suggest. Each science has its own proper starting principles, and proceeds according to its own proper method. Theology is the “queen of all sciences” not because it rules over the lower sciences and manipulates them, but because the lower sciences build upon each other and eventually serve as the foundation upon which theology, the highest science, is built.

…anyone looking in on the history of faith and science in the Catholic Church today will find science the new dogma and theology the forgotten queen, now battered to death by the Copernicans, uniformitarians and evolutionists who are not only endemic in the flock but occupy the Chair of Peter as well.

If they share your fundamentally perverse and anti-intellectual view of reality, perhaps so.

Regarding geocentricism, it is indeed a matter of faith. Were science able to prove it it would not be of faith. Only a fool would try to prove either geocentricism or heliocentricism on scientific grounds.

No, it is absolutely not a matter of religious faith. It’s a matter of natural science and natural philosophy. Only a fool would try to prove either geocentricism or heliocentricism on religious grounds.

I’m pretty much done here. As much as I would love to sit around and continue correcting your mind-numbing stream of scientific, philosophical, and theological errors, I really ought to get back to my school reading. I’ll certainly be keeping you in my prayers, but don’t expect me to respond further unless you actually begin engaging your opponents with carefully reasoned, well supported, and generally intelligent arguments.

 

[StAnastasia]

you guys are really debating the merits of geocentrism? : Wow … now I heard it all!

Why not? The really debate evolution too.