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Al_Moritz
Guest
Is this a joke? I am asking as both a Catholic and a scientist, a biochemist.
- Status
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grannymh
Guest
Actually, in the early history of Catholicism, Cardinals, Bishops, Saints, and other world wide representatives of the Catholic Church would meet as participants in major Councils in order to study the Church Fathers along with the material in the Old and New Testaments. They would ask the same questions regarding matters of Faith–yes or no. Their study, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, would take months, sometimes years. This is way different from declarations made by some holy individuals in regard to decisions and degrees proclaimed at a local trial.
From what I am reading, there is an implication that a local trial overrules the Holy Spirit’s guidance when it comes to the early Church Councils.
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StAnastasia
Guest
I have demonstrated spontaneous generation by what grows in my refrigerator.
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Robert_Sock
Guest
One of these days you will open your refrigerator and a cat will jump out!
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Rick09
Guest
It’s quite a commentary on the geocentrists when my very silly satire can’t be distinguished from their serious statements.
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Rick09
Guest
Mr. Palm, how can you continue to function under the weight of such just condemnation? You have been called out as the gutless, faithless heretic that you are. Granny and Mr. Moritz, under the ancient Catholic principles newly minted by the geocentrists, you and your ilk thereby automatically all fall under the same condemnation.
Repent! Or face the tribunal of Excubitor, Sungenis and Salza. All of whom have been given special (and super-secret) authority to speak and judge for God and the Church. You may already have been excommunicated. We will let you know.
While they may be lacking in common sense and Catholic sense, I do admit that the geocentrists are certainly not lacking in dramatic sense. Maybe they could create their own daytime soap opera answer to the notoriously heretical As the World Turns with their own As The Universe Turns.
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Al_Moritz
Guest
Quite a commentary indeedIt’s quite a commentary on the geocentrists when my very silly satire can’t be distinguished from their serious statements.
Great job, you really got me worried for a while 
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Al_Moritz
Guest
Well, I may be condemned and excommunicated, but at least I can be consoled by the fact that the current Pope will be too, who, as Cardinal Ratzinger, ratified the following Satanic document (see paragraph 62 ff., “Science and the stewardship of knowledge”):Mr. Palm, how can you continue to function under the weight of such just condemnation? You have been called out as the gutless, faithless heretic that you are. Granny and Mr. Moritz, under the ancient Catholic principles newly minted by the geocentrists, you and your ilk thereby automatically all fall under the same condemnation.
Repent! Or face the tribunal of Excubitor, Sungenis and Salza. All of whom have been given special (and super-secret) authority to speak and judge for God and the Church. You may already have been excommunicated. We will let you know.
While they may be lacking in common sense and Catholic sense, I do admit that the geocentrists are certainly not lacking in dramatic sense. Maybe they could create their own daytime soap opera answer to the notoriously heretical As the World Turns with their own As The Universe Turns.
vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20040723_communion-stewardship_en.html
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Al_Moritz
Guest
But then perhaps Excubitor and others are not serious either. In fact, I am now convinced they can’t be. They are all making jokes.It’s quite a commentary on the geocentrists when my very silly satire can’t be distinguished from their serious statements.
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excubitor
Guest
It shows that you have failed the argument when they can no longer provide reasoned responses to the points which are made, but must resort to satire and ridicule.Mr. Palm, how can you continue to function under the weight of such just condemnation? You have been called out as the gutless, faithless heretic that you are. Granny and Mr. Moritz, under the ancient Catholic principles newly minted by the geocentrists, you and your ilk thereby automatically all fall under the same condemnation.
Repent! Or face the tribunal of Excubitor, Sungenis and Salza. All of whom have been given special (and super-secret) authority to speak and judge for God and the Church. You may already have been excommunicated. We will let you know.
While they may be lacking in common sense and Catholic sense, I do admit that the geocentrists are certainly not lacking in dramatic sense. Maybe they could create their own daytime soap opera answer to the notoriously heretical As the World Turns with their own As The Universe Turns.
You are also resorting to a logical fallacy of the strawman.
From Wikipedia
No Catholic geocentrist believes that those who believe in acentrism are excommunicated or that they even should be misguided. I certainly don’t believe so. I attend mass every week and am in full communion with people I love who I know believe that the earth is orbiting the sun. These people do not shock me because I know that they are simply misguided on the subject and are not aware of the history and facts of the matter.
I did not say that I was shocked that David Palm believes in acentrism. Nor did I in any way imply that he was excommunicated or should be excommunicated. What I said was that I was shocked that having been shown the volumes of citations from church fathers which form a body of Sacred Tradition, that he could so readily sweep them under the carpet and explain them away.
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excubitor
Guest
You will notice what is happening here.
When faced with irrefutable arguments which cannot be opposed in a sensible and sound manner, the opponents deteriorate into satire and mocking statements.
I believe that this is a deliberate response to scuttle the argument, to bring it to a point of degeneration so that it becomes bogged down in ad hominen attacks and strawman slurs.
This is done so that the moderators will close down the thread. I have seen this time and again. Cassini, poor man, was driven to utter distraction by the mockers who would twist his words and manipulate the argument. In the end he reacted with frustration and sadly has been banned from the forum. Which is a great pity because he was a man with fire in his belly to defend the catholic faith once delivered.
I hope that we can all just stick to the facts of the argument and address the points raised without dragging the debate into the mud of satire and mocking.
When faced with irrefutable arguments which cannot be opposed in a sensible and sound manner, the opponents deteriorate into satire and mocking statements.
I believe that this is a deliberate response to scuttle the argument, to bring it to a point of degeneration so that it becomes bogged down in ad hominen attacks and strawman slurs.
This is done so that the moderators will close down the thread. I have seen this time and again. Cassini, poor man, was driven to utter distraction by the mockers who would twist his words and manipulate the argument. In the end he reacted with frustration and sadly has been banned from the forum. Which is a great pity because he was a man with fire in his belly to defend the catholic faith once delivered.
I hope that we can all just stick to the facts of the argument and address the points raised without dragging the debate into the mud of satire and mocking.
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Al_Moritz
Guest
Good to know.
So what do you say then about the official document of the Catholic Church that I linked to?
Honestly, when I said that you cannot be serious I was not primarily intending to mock you; mainly I just can’t believe that you really would be serious. It is just such a sad and literally unbelievable form of denial of commonly accepted mainstream science, and such a twisted understanding of the relation between religion and science. It is also such a weird understanding of literalistic interpretation of the Bible that is completely at odds with the teaching of the Catholic Church, and which would be much more expected from fundamentalist Protestantism.
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Al_Moritz
Guest
Talking about Church Fathers, here is what one of the greatest, St. Augustine, had to say (emphasis added):
catholic.com/library/Creation_and_Genesis.asp
“It not infrequently happens that something about the earth, about the sky, about other elements of this world, about the motion and rotation or even the magnitude and distances of the stars, about definite eclipses of the sun and moon, about the passage of years and seasons, about the nature of animals, of fruits, of stones, and of other such things, may be known with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by experience, even by one who is not a Christian. It is too disgraceful and ruinous, though, and greatly to be avoided, that he [the non-Christian] should hear a Christian speaking so idiotically on these matters, and as if in accord with Christian writings, that he might say that he could scarcely keep from laughing when he saw how totally in error they are. In view of this and in keeping it in mind constantly while dealing with the book of Genesis, I have, insofar as I was able, explained in detail and set forth for consideration the meanings of obscure passages, taking care not to affirm rashly some one meaning to the prejudice of another and perhaps better explanation” (The Literal Interpretation of Genesis 1:19–20 [A.D. 408]).
So if you want to take refuge to opinion and consensus of the Church Fathers, you should think twice.
catholic.com/library/Creation_and_Genesis.asp
“It not infrequently happens that something about the earth, about the sky, about other elements of this world, about the motion and rotation or even the magnitude and distances of the stars, about definite eclipses of the sun and moon, about the passage of years and seasons, about the nature of animals, of fruits, of stones, and of other such things, may be known with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by experience, even by one who is not a Christian. It is too disgraceful and ruinous, though, and greatly to be avoided, that he [the non-Christian] should hear a Christian speaking so idiotically on these matters, and as if in accord with Christian writings, that he might say that he could scarcely keep from laughing when he saw how totally in error they are. In view of this and in keeping it in mind constantly while dealing with the book of Genesis, I have, insofar as I was able, explained in detail and set forth for consideration the meanings of obscure passages, taking care not to affirm rashly some one meaning to the prejudice of another and perhaps better explanation” (The Literal Interpretation of Genesis 1:19–20 [A.D. 408]).
So if you want to take refuge to opinion and consensus of the Church Fathers, you should think twice.
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excubitor
Guest
I utterly deny that these words of St. Augustine apply to the Geocentrism debate. His whole argument is directed to issues which “may be known with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by experience”. The plain fact is, and I have done hundreds of hours research on this, IT JUST CAN’T. There are significant problems with the conventional scientific theories, whereas there are many scientific observations which greatly lend themselves to the conclusion that we are in the centre of the universe. Very few people in the last several hundred years have actually applied themselves to understand geocentrism. I am one of them. I can attest that to the limit of my ability to grasp them, the observations of all the planets and satellites can be explained and factored into the geocentric model. Robert Sungenis has written a 500 page volume on all of these scientific observations which support Geocentrism. What surfaces from this is that both models work out mathematically and the choice of one or the other is entirely driven by philosophy.
Here are a number of quotes from scientists support the notion of an earth central in the universe many of which directly oppose the Copernican principle. Point of all this being that clearly Geocentrism should not be in the category of “issues known with the greatest certainty”. The reason we regard the alternative view of Geocentrism as being ridiculous and laughable is because it has become the mass conventionally held opinion, not because acentrism is proven.
Here are the quotes:
“A great deal of research has been carried out concerning the influence of the Earth’s movement. The results were always negative." Henri Poincaré 1901
“I have come to believe that the motion of the Earth cannot be detected by any optical experiment.” Albert Einstein 1922
“The departures from uniformity are positive, the numbers of nebulae increase faster than the volume of space through which they are scattered, thus the density of the nebulae distribution increases outwards symetrically in all directions, leaving the observer in a unique position.” Edwin Hubble
“…nor has any physical experiment ever proved that the Earth actually is in motion.” Lincoln Barnett, 1957
“There is no planetary observation by which we on Earth can prove that the Earth is moving in an orbit around the sun. Thus all Galileo’s discoveries with the telescope can be accommodated to the system invented by Tycho Brahe just before Galileo began his observations of the heavens. In this Tychonic system, the planets…move in orbits around the sun, while the sun moves in an orbit around the Earth in a year. Furthermore, the daily rotation of the heavens is communicated to the sun and planets, so that the Earth itself neither rotates nor revolves in an orbit.” I. Bernard Cohen, 1960.
Whether the Earth rotates once a day from west to east, as Copernicus taught, or the heavens revolve once a day from east to west, as his predecessors believed, the observable phenomena will be exactly the same. This shows a defect in Newtonian dynamics, since an empirical science ought not to contain a metaphysical assumption, which can never be proved or disproved by observation." Bertrand Russell, quoted in 1961
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excubitor
Guest
And some more quotes from scientists to show that the science which opposes Geocentrism is far from settled. And that not all who hold a Geocentric position are part of the lunatic fringe.
** “It is really quite amazing by what margins competent but conservative scientists and engineers can miss the mark, when they start with the preconceived idea that what they are investigating is impossible. When this happens, the most well-informed men become blinded by their prejudices and are unable to see what lies directly ahead of them.” Arthur C. Clarke 1963.**
“…the quasars in the 57 groups…are arranged on 57 spherical shells with the Earth as the center…The cosmological interpretation of the redshift in the spectra of quasars leads to yet another paradoxical result: namely, that the Earth is the center of the universe.” Yatendra P. Varshni 1976
“Studies of the cosmic background radiation have confirmed the isotropy of the radiation, or its complete uniformity in all directions. If the universe possesses a center, we must be very close to it … otherwise, excessive observable anisotropy in the radiation intensity would be produced, and we would detect more radiation from one direction than from the opposite direction.” Joseph Silk, The Big Bang: The Creation and Evolution of the Universe, 1980.
“…all this evidence that the universe looks the same whichever direction we look in might seem to suggest there is something special about our place in the universe. In particular, it might seem that if we observe all othergalaxies to be moving away from us, then we must be at the center of the universe.” Stephen Hawking 1988
“There is, however, an alternate explanation: the universe might look the same in every direction as seen from anyother galaxy, too. This, as we have seen, was Friedmann’s second assumption. We have no scientific evidence for, or against, this assumption. We believe it only on grounds of modesty: it would be most remarkable if the universe looked the same in every direction around us, but not around other points in the universe.” Stephen Hawking 1988
“Observations show that the universe is nearly isotropic on very large scales. It is much more difficult to show that the universe is radially homogeneous” [as Einstein expected] “This, is usually taken as an axiom, since otherwise we would occupy a special position.” Jeremy Goodman, “Geocentrism Re-examined,” Princeton University Observatory, 1995.
in “Our entire observable universe is inside this sphere of radius 13.3 billion light-years, with us at the center.” Max Tegmark, c. 1996
“… we are at the center of a series of explosions. This is an anti-Copernican embarrassment.” Halton Arp 1998
"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 choosing our models. A lot of cosmology tries to hide that." George Ellis, Scientific American, 1995
“Scientists…are used to dealing with doubt and uncertainty. All scientific knowledge is uncertain…. “Science alone of all the subjects contains within itself the lesson of the danger of belief in the infallibility of the greatest teachers in the preceeding generation…. “Learn from science that you must doubt the experts…Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.” Richard Feynman 1999
“The uniform distribution of burst arrival directions tells us that the distribution of gamma-ray-burst sources in space is a sphere or spherical shell, with us at the center (some other extremely contrived and implausible distributions are also possible).” Johathan Katz, 2002.
“If there has been little debate in recent times on the subject of geocentrism, the reason is clear: almost everyone takes it for granted that the geocentrist claim is a dead issue, on a par, let us say, with the flat-Earth hypothesis. To be sure, the ancient doctrine has yet a few devoted advocates in Europe and America, whose arguments are neither trivial nor uninformed; the problem is that hardly anyone else seems to care, hardlyanyone is listening.” Wolfgang Smith, 2003
Here is a gem:
“A fundamental presupposition of modern cosmology is the Copernican principle, that we are not in a central or otherwise special region of the universe. Studies of type 1a supernovae together with the Copernican principle have led to the inference that universe is accelerating in its expansion. The usual explanation for this is that there must exist a dark energy to drive this acceleration.Alternatively, it could be the case that the Copernican principle is invalid, and that the data have been interpreted within an inappropriate theoretical framework. If we were to live in a special place in the universe near the centre of a void where the local matter density is low, then the supernovae observations could be accounted for without the addition of dark energy.” Timothy Clifton, Oxford University, Astophysical Review, 2008
Thanks to this website for these excellent compilations.
geocentric.shawwebspace.ca/pages/view/quotes_from_scientists__etc_/
** “It is really quite amazing by what margins competent but conservative scientists and engineers can miss the mark, when they start with the preconceived idea that what they are investigating is impossible. When this happens, the most well-informed men become blinded by their prejudices and are unable to see what lies directly ahead of them.” Arthur C. Clarke 1963.**
“…the quasars in the 57 groups…are arranged on 57 spherical shells with the Earth as the center…The cosmological interpretation of the redshift in the spectra of quasars leads to yet another paradoxical result: namely, that the Earth is the center of the universe.” Yatendra P. Varshni 1976
“Studies of the cosmic background radiation have confirmed the isotropy of the radiation, or its complete uniformity in all directions. If the universe possesses a center, we must be very close to it … otherwise, excessive observable anisotropy in the radiation intensity would be produced, and we would detect more radiation from one direction than from the opposite direction.” Joseph Silk, The Big Bang: The Creation and Evolution of the Universe, 1980.
“…all this evidence that the universe looks the same whichever direction we look in might seem to suggest there is something special about our place in the universe. In particular, it might seem that if we observe all othergalaxies to be moving away from us, then we must be at the center of the universe.” Stephen Hawking 1988
“There is, however, an alternate explanation: the universe might look the same in every direction as seen from anyother galaxy, too. This, as we have seen, was Friedmann’s second assumption. We have no scientific evidence for, or against, this assumption. We believe it only on grounds of modesty: it would be most remarkable if the universe looked the same in every direction around us, but not around other points in the universe.” Stephen Hawking 1988
“Observations show that the universe is nearly isotropic on very large scales. It is much more difficult to show that the universe is radially homogeneous” [as Einstein expected] “This, is usually taken as an axiom, since otherwise we would occupy a special position.” Jeremy Goodman, “Geocentrism Re-examined,” Princeton University Observatory, 1995.
in “Our entire observable universe is inside this sphere of radius 13.3 billion light-years, with us at the center.” Max Tegmark, c. 1996
“… we are at the center of a series of explosions. This is an anti-Copernican embarrassment.” Halton Arp 1998
"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 choosing our models. A lot of cosmology tries to hide that." George Ellis, Scientific American, 1995
“Scientists…are used to dealing with doubt and uncertainty. All scientific knowledge is uncertain…. “Science alone of all the subjects contains within itself the lesson of the danger of belief in the infallibility of the greatest teachers in the preceeding generation…. “Learn from science that you must doubt the experts…Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.” Richard Feynman 1999
“The uniform distribution of burst arrival directions tells us that the distribution of gamma-ray-burst sources in space is a sphere or spherical shell, with us at the center (some other extremely contrived and implausible distributions are also possible).” Johathan Katz, 2002.
“If there has been little debate in recent times on the subject of geocentrism, the reason is clear: almost everyone takes it for granted that the geocentrist claim is a dead issue, on a par, let us say, with the flat-Earth hypothesis. To be sure, the ancient doctrine has yet a few devoted advocates in Europe and America, whose arguments are neither trivial nor uninformed; the problem is that hardly anyone else seems to care, hardlyanyone is listening.” Wolfgang Smith, 2003
Here is a gem:
“A fundamental presupposition of modern cosmology is the Copernican principle, that we are not in a central or otherwise special region of the universe. Studies of type 1a supernovae together with the Copernican principle have led to the inference that universe is accelerating in its expansion. The usual explanation for this is that there must exist a dark energy to drive this acceleration.Alternatively, it could be the case that the Copernican principle is invalid, and that the data have been interpreted within an inappropriate theoretical framework. If we were to live in a special place in the universe near the centre of a void where the local matter density is low, then the supernovae observations could be accounted for without the addition of dark energy.” Timothy Clifton, Oxford University, Astophysical Review, 2008
Thanks to this website for these excellent compilations.
geocentric.shawwebspace.ca/pages/view/quotes_from_scientists__etc_/
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grannymh
Guest
Geocentrism is a science issue so there are plenty of reasons to debate it. The following explains why the Catholic religion should not be misused in a scientific debate.
During the first 16 centuries, the Major Church Councils studied in depth the Church Fathers along with the Old and New Testaments. From the 13th century forward, the work of St. Thomas Aquinas has been used to formulate Catholic teachings into specific dogmas. As promised by Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit guided each Council. Yet, during this crucial period, not one dogma pertaining to one individual planet in the entire universe was declared as duly defined universal doctrine.
Now, centuries later, some people are attempting to claim that a scientific decree, which was a significant part of a local judicial trial in the 17th century, is really an early century dogma which for some reason never had to follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Furthermore, some people continue to deny Catholic protocol for defining doctrines by claiming that somehow infallibility can be transferred to any group for any purpose. In other words, there are some people who want to either update the actions of the Holy Spirit or ignore Him completely. This is a serious misuse of Catholicism.
Blessings,
granny
Genesis 1: 1
During the first 16 centuries, the Major Church Councils studied in depth the Church Fathers along with the Old and New Testaments. From the 13th century forward, the work of St. Thomas Aquinas has been used to formulate Catholic teachings into specific dogmas. As promised by Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit guided each Council. Yet, during this crucial period, not one dogma pertaining to one individual planet in the entire universe was declared as duly defined universal doctrine.
Now, centuries later, some people are attempting to claim that a scientific decree, which was a significant part of a local judicial trial in the 17th century, is really an early century dogma which for some reason never had to follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Furthermore, some people continue to deny Catholic protocol for defining doctrines by claiming that somehow infallibility can be transferred to any group for any purpose. In other words, there are some people who want to either update the actions of the Holy Spirit or ignore Him completely. This is a serious misuse of Catholicism.
Blessings,
granny
Genesis 1: 1
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rossum
Guest
Mmmm… I love the smell of quotemines in the morning. Quotemines are wonderful, you can “prove” all sorts of silly things with quotemines. Such fun they are. Hours of endless amusement. Here’s one I prepared earlier:Sheep have souls:
“one soul of five hundred, both of the persons, and of the beeves, and of the asses, and of the sheep.” [KJV - Numbers 31:28]
Jesus was a sheep:
“John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, ‘Look, the Lamb of God…’” [John 1:29]
Jesus only saves Israeli sheep:
“I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel” [Matthew 15:24]
These sheep hate their parents:
“For I have come to set a man against his father” [Matthew 10:35], [Luke 14:26]
They are all atheists:
“There is no God” [Psalms 14:1, 53:1]
They eat mutton:
“[H]e who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life” [John 6:54]
It is quite amazing what you can “prove” with out of context and misinterpreted quotes. Either that or a lot of humans are following a religion originally intended for an entirely different species.
Just to dissect one of these quotes:
Einstein (always good to quotemine a name everyone recognises, lots of Argument from Authority there) talks about “optical experiment”. That means light, and we all know that Einstein’s theory was about the behaviour of light, and how its speed remained constant no matter how fast the source or receiver were moving. No matter if the Earth is moving or stationary, the speed of light will always be measured to be the same value. What about the non-light experiments though: experiments using mass, momentum, angular momentum and so forth? Non-optical experiments can easily show that the Earth is moving.
rossum
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Rick09
Guest
Geocentrists never seem to notice that they demand to be treated with the utmost respect, deference and courtesy while coming in with pronouncements, condemnations, insults and invective against the people they consider to be Catholic dupes and traitors who have embraced to the evil heresy of non-geocentrism.
Right here, Excubitor basically calls Palm a liar and a deceiver who has betrayed the Catholic faith. Palm is “crafty”, “disgraceful”, paying “lip service to Sacred Tradition”, “portraying a disgraceful…attitude”, “quite happy to sweep away Sacred Tradition.”
People like excubitor’s personal martyr, Cassini, insult and condemn popes, saints and great churchmen of the past 300 years with impunity as dupes and traitors to the faith. And that gets a big “Amen!” from excubitor and the geocentrists. But when they get tweaked a little for their silly, insulting behavior and excesses with some satire and parody, they can’t stomach it?
Or, in keeping with the conspiracy prone world-view they generally seem to suffer from (and as excubitor just modeled), they imagine that the completely natural and expected negative responses they get from the many individuals they have attacked and insulted with their absurdities can best be explained as part of a grand, dark, coordinated scheme against them:
I’m not sure how you can you reach a person whose mind operates this way. I’d hoped that a little humor might help him (or anyone like him) to break out of the frame of mind in which he’s currently entrapped. Unfortunately, my first satirical comment was obviously too close to reality – so much so that both excubitor and Mr. Mortitz took it seriously! LOL
Excubitor might want to read a little about satire and parody after first loosening up his necktie a little bit.
virtualsalt.com/satire.htm
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parody
(continued below)
Right here, Excubitor basically calls Palm a liar and a deceiver who has betrayed the Catholic faith. Palm is “crafty”, “disgraceful”, paying “lip service to Sacred Tradition”, “portraying a disgraceful…attitude”, “quite happy to sweep away Sacred Tradition.”
People like excubitor’s personal martyr, Cassini, insult and condemn popes, saints and great churchmen of the past 300 years with impunity as dupes and traitors to the faith. And that gets a big “Amen!” from excubitor and the geocentrists. But when they get tweaked a little for their silly, insulting behavior and excesses with some satire and parody, they can’t stomach it?
Or, in keeping with the conspiracy prone world-view they generally seem to suffer from (and as excubitor just modeled), they imagine that the completely natural and expected negative responses they get from the many individuals they have attacked and insulted with their absurdities can best be explained as part of a grand, dark, coordinated scheme against them:
I’m not sure how you can you reach a person whose mind operates this way. I’d hoped that a little humor might help him (or anyone like him) to break out of the frame of mind in which he’s currently entrapped. Unfortunately, my first satirical comment was obviously too close to reality – so much so that both excubitor and Mr. Mortitz took it seriously! LOL
Excubitor might want to read a little about satire and parody after first loosening up his necktie a little bit.
virtualsalt.com/satire.htm
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parody
(continued below)
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Rick09
Guest
(continued from above)
This post explains the way I look at the matter:
forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=7488712&postcount=35
Geocentrists aren’t generally dumb and I don’t believe they’re complete lunatics either. But they do generally suffer from an unhealthy, overly negative imagination and paranoid world-view that leads them to adopt faulty assumptions and first-premises that in turn naturally lead them to silly conclusions.
“The Maniac”, chapter 2 of Chesterton’s classic, Orthodoxy, hits the crux of the problem.
Orthodoxy - The Maniac
The whole chapter is really worth reading, but this section is particularly insightful:
“The madman’s explanation of a thing is always complete, and often in a purely rational sense, satisfactory. Or, to speak more strictly, the insane explanation, if not conclusive, is at least unanswerable; this may be observed specially in the two or three commonest kinds of madness. If a man says (for instance) that men have a conspiracy against him, you cannot dispute it except by saying that all the men deny that they are conspirators; which is exactly what conspirators would do. His explanation covers the facts as much as yours. Or if a man says that he is the rightful King of England, it is no complete answer to say that the existing authorities call him mad; for if he were King of England that be the wisest thing for the existing authorities to do. Or if a man says that he is Jesus Christ, it is no answer to tell him that the world denies his divinity; for the world denied Christ’s.”
“Nevertheless he is wrong. But if we attempt to trace his error in exact terms, we shall not find it quite so easy as we had supposed. Perhaps the nearest we can get to expressing it is to say this: that his mind moves in a perfect but narrow circle. A small circle is quite as infinite as a large circle; but, though it is quite as infinite, it is not so large. In the same way the insane explanation is quite as complete as the sane one, but it is not the world. There is such a thing as a narrow universality; there is such a thing as a small and cramped eternity; you may see it in many modern religions. Now speaking quite externally and empirically, we may say that the strongest and most unmistakable mark of madness is this combination between a logical completeness and a spiritual contraction. The lunatic’s theory explains a large number of things, but it does not explain them in a large way. I mean that if you or I were dealing with a mind that was growing morbid, we should be chiefly concerned not so much to give it arguments as to give it air, to convince it that there was something cleaner and cooler outside the suffocation of a single argument. Suppose, for instance, it were the first case that I took as typical; suppose it were the case of a man who accused everybody of conspiring against him. If we could express our deepest feelings of protest and appeal against this obsession, I suppose we should say something like this: “Oh, I admit that you have your case and have it by heart, and that many things do fit into other things as you say. I admit that your explanation explains a great deal; but what a great deal it leaves out! Are there no other stories in the world except yours; and are all men busy with your business? Suppose we grant the details; perhaps when the man in the street did not seem to see you it was only his cunning; perhaps when the policeman asked you your name it was only because he knew it already. But how much happier you would be if you only knew that these people cared nothing about you! How much larger your life would be if your self could become smaller in it; if you could really look at other men with common curiosity and pleasure; if you could see them walking as they are in their sunny selfishness and their virile indifference! You would begin to be interested in them, because they were not interested in you. You would break out of this tiny and tawdry theatre in which your own little plot is always being played and you would find yourself under a freer sky, in a street full of splendid strangers.”
“Curing a madman is not arguing with a philosopher; it is casting out a devil. And however quietly doctors and psychologists may go to work in the matter, their attitude is profoundly intolerant…Such is the madman of experience; he is commonly a reasoner, frequently a successful reasoner. Doubtless he could be vanquished in mere reason, and the case against him put logically. But it can be put much more precisely in more general and even aesthetic terms. He is in the clean and well-lit prison of one idea: he is sharpened to one painful point. He is without healthy hesitation and healthy complexity…They all have exactly the combination we have noted: the combination of an expansive and exhaustive reason with a contracted common sense. They are universal only in the sense that they take one thin explanation and carry it very far. But a pattern can stretch forever and still be a small pattern. They see a chess-board white on black, and if the universe is paved with it, it is still white on black. Like the lunatic, they cannot alter their standpoint; they cannot make a mental effort and suddenly see black on white… …It has just the quality of the madman’s argument; we have at once the sense of it covering everything and everything does not seem worth understanding. His cosmos may be complete in every rivet and cog-wheel, but still his cosmos is smaller than our world.”
~ G. K. Chesterton
(continued below)
This post explains the way I look at the matter:
forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=7488712&postcount=35
Geocentrists aren’t generally dumb and I don’t believe they’re complete lunatics either. But they do generally suffer from an unhealthy, overly negative imagination and paranoid world-view that leads them to adopt faulty assumptions and first-premises that in turn naturally lead them to silly conclusions.
“The Maniac”, chapter 2 of Chesterton’s classic, Orthodoxy, hits the crux of the problem.
Orthodoxy - The Maniac
The whole chapter is really worth reading, but this section is particularly insightful:
“The madman’s explanation of a thing is always complete, and often in a purely rational sense, satisfactory. Or, to speak more strictly, the insane explanation, if not conclusive, is at least unanswerable; this may be observed specially in the two or three commonest kinds of madness. If a man says (for instance) that men have a conspiracy against him, you cannot dispute it except by saying that all the men deny that they are conspirators; which is exactly what conspirators would do. His explanation covers the facts as much as yours. Or if a man says that he is the rightful King of England, it is no complete answer to say that the existing authorities call him mad; for if he were King of England that be the wisest thing for the existing authorities to do. Or if a man says that he is Jesus Christ, it is no answer to tell him that the world denies his divinity; for the world denied Christ’s.”
“Nevertheless he is wrong. But if we attempt to trace his error in exact terms, we shall not find it quite so easy as we had supposed. Perhaps the nearest we can get to expressing it is to say this: that his mind moves in a perfect but narrow circle. A small circle is quite as infinite as a large circle; but, though it is quite as infinite, it is not so large. In the same way the insane explanation is quite as complete as the sane one, but it is not the world. There is such a thing as a narrow universality; there is such a thing as a small and cramped eternity; you may see it in many modern religions. Now speaking quite externally and empirically, we may say that the strongest and most unmistakable mark of madness is this combination between a logical completeness and a spiritual contraction. The lunatic’s theory explains a large number of things, but it does not explain them in a large way. I mean that if you or I were dealing with a mind that was growing morbid, we should be chiefly concerned not so much to give it arguments as to give it air, to convince it that there was something cleaner and cooler outside the suffocation of a single argument. Suppose, for instance, it were the first case that I took as typical; suppose it were the case of a man who accused everybody of conspiring against him. If we could express our deepest feelings of protest and appeal against this obsession, I suppose we should say something like this: “Oh, I admit that you have your case and have it by heart, and that many things do fit into other things as you say. I admit that your explanation explains a great deal; but what a great deal it leaves out! Are there no other stories in the world except yours; and are all men busy with your business? Suppose we grant the details; perhaps when the man in the street did not seem to see you it was only his cunning; perhaps when the policeman asked you your name it was only because he knew it already. But how much happier you would be if you only knew that these people cared nothing about you! How much larger your life would be if your self could become smaller in it; if you could really look at other men with common curiosity and pleasure; if you could see them walking as they are in their sunny selfishness and their virile indifference! You would begin to be interested in them, because they were not interested in you. You would break out of this tiny and tawdry theatre in which your own little plot is always being played and you would find yourself under a freer sky, in a street full of splendid strangers.”
“Curing a madman is not arguing with a philosopher; it is casting out a devil. And however quietly doctors and psychologists may go to work in the matter, their attitude is profoundly intolerant…Such is the madman of experience; he is commonly a reasoner, frequently a successful reasoner. Doubtless he could be vanquished in mere reason, and the case against him put logically. But it can be put much more precisely in more general and even aesthetic terms. He is in the clean and well-lit prison of one idea: he is sharpened to one painful point. He is without healthy hesitation and healthy complexity…They all have exactly the combination we have noted: the combination of an expansive and exhaustive reason with a contracted common sense. They are universal only in the sense that they take one thin explanation and carry it very far. But a pattern can stretch forever and still be a small pattern. They see a chess-board white on black, and if the universe is paved with it, it is still white on black. Like the lunatic, they cannot alter their standpoint; they cannot make a mental effort and suddenly see black on white… …It has just the quality of the madman’s argument; we have at once the sense of it covering everything and everything does not seem worth understanding. His cosmos may be complete in every rivet and cog-wheel, but still his cosmos is smaller than our world.”
~ G. K. Chesterton
(continued below)
R
Rick09
Guest
(continued from above)
I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings or offended you, excubitor (or any other geocentrist here). I’m just trying to get you to think outside the box in which you’re trapped – and to help other people to see that box for what it is. No one should be trapped there.
And by the way, there was a time when I had a good deal of sympathy for your theory. I was once open to it. There’s a certain attractiveness to it and I agree that science is in need of a good humbling from time to time. But the more I looked, the sillier it got and the more I noticed a couple of, shall we say, disconcerting patterns amongst geocentrism’s proponents.
God bless.
I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings or offended you, excubitor (or any other geocentrist here). I’m just trying to get you to think outside the box in which you’re trapped – and to help other people to see that box for what it is. No one should be trapped there.
And by the way, there was a time when I had a good deal of sympathy for your theory. I was once open to it. There’s a certain attractiveness to it and I agree that science is in need of a good humbling from time to time. But the more I looked, the sillier it got and the more I noticed a couple of, shall we say, disconcerting patterns amongst geocentrism’s proponents.
God bless.
- Status