Geocentrism: why doesn't it just die and be done with?

[buffalo]

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

Jesus said to him, “I am the way and the truth 5 and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you know me, then you will also know my Father. 6 From now on you do know him and have seen him.” 8 Philip said to him, “Master, show us the Father, 7 and that will be enough for us.” 9 Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own. The Father who dwells in me is doing his works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else, believe because of the works themselves. 12 Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 And whatever you ask in my name, I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask anything of me in my name, I will do it. 15 "If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate 8 to be with you always, 17 the Spirit of truth, 9 which the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows it. But you know it, because it remains with you, and will be in you. 18 I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. 10 19 In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me, because I live and you will live. 20 On that day you will realize that I am in my Father and you are in me and I in you. 21 Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me. And whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him."

 

[Al_Moritz]

Unfortunately, my first satirical comment was obviously too close to reality – so much so that both excubitor and Mr. Mortitz took it seriously! LOL

Yes, it was extremely close to reality – and that precisely is the sad and painful part about it.

 

[Al_Moritz]

Rick09 quotes Chesterton:

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.

This describes the mindset of Excubitor perfectly. See for example how he quotemines Hawking, Silk, Tegmark and others “sharpened to one painful point”.

First, Hawking’s sentence:
“In particular, it might seem that if we observe all other galaxies to be moving away from us, then we must be at the center of the universe” is clearly taken out of context (quotemined), since in the same breath Hawking would say that it would seem like that from any galaxy in the universe!

Second, even if cosmologists speak of “close to the center of the universe” they would never do this out of the much, much wider context of the fact that our observable universe contains at least 300 billion galaxies with each on average 300 billion stars in it – and the unobservable universe is probably even bigger than that. So this would make our solar system a single immensely tiny point in a vast canvas, and hence from that to make a distinction that our Earth rather than our sun would be at the center is ludicrous (if Excubitor would tell Hawking, Silk, Tegmark and others that from their remarks they must be geocentrists they would simply laugh at him).

So yes, the mind of people like Excubitor is “sharpened to one painful point” and takes things out of their wider context into their own much smaller world. Chesterton really said it perfectly.

If only the geocentrists could come out of the box they are trapped in. Mere intelligence really does not seem to be the problem.

 

[excubitor]

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

Please provide an example of a non-optical experiment which easily proves that the earth is moving.
Even Palm himself quoted one of the experiments which is supposed to prove a moving earth, the laser bouncing off the moon experiment. According to Einstein this could not possibly prove that the earth is moving because he stated that no optical experiment can prove that the earth is moving.

 

[excubitor]

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.

The faceless Geocentrists might do those things. I have never heard a Geocentrist say those things though. I have never said those things or made those claims. I never accused any Catholic of being a traitor. I never made any condemnations. I never lashed out with insults or invective.

Right here, Excubitor basically calls Palm a liar and a deceiver who has betrayed the Catholic faith. Palm is “crafty”,

David was being crafty, but I never accused him of being a liar and deceiver or a betrayer.
Being crafty means that you are prepared to use sly and inappropriate techniques in order to get one’s agenda put forward.

I also clearly explained how he was being crafty by sweeping aside all the Sacred Tradition of the Early Fathers by making the ridiculous assertion that none of them prefaced their statements with a de fide claim upon themselves or other Catholics. That is erroneus and any fair minded Catholic should see that clearly. Shall we sweep away every statement of the church fathers which are not prefaced in that manner? If we did that there would nothing left of the early church writings.

“disgraceful”, paying “lip service to Sacred Tradition”, “portraying a disgraceful…attitude”, “quite happy to sweep away Sacred Tradition.”

I stand by those adjectives Rick, I have good evidence for making such statements but those adjectives are very different to calling people liars, deceivers and traitors.

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.

Seeing you have besmirched my good pseudo-name, I have no reason to believe that you are doing any different to Cassini who is no longer here to defend himself. I certainly do not condone, nor would I ever engage in such invective against popes, saints or great churchmen. I believe that Cassini has made a good case in the past to show that in the 1700’s the great churchmen (as you call them) did a massive about face to pander to popular opinion rather than staunchly defend their predecessors who forbade the teaching of the doctrine of Heliocentrism. Betrayal is too strong a word, but weakness and disillusionment might be better. I doubt that anyone would agree that there have been popes and churchmen in history who have been weak and have pandered to the people. Not that you would call them “great”.

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?

What makes you think I can’t handle it. As if I care what people think of me. I would hardly be a geocentrist if I was abjectly worried about the reactions of people. I was pointing out the satire and mocking, not because I was personally affronted but to show how opponents use these techniques in order to avoid having to argue the case on its merits.

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)

When I was reading it I had trouble determining whether you were being serious or whether you were using satire. As I regard satire as the lowest form of wit I decided to give you the benefit of the doubt and take you seriously. In any event, in the midst of your parody you made an effective point; germ theory is directly opposed to the theory of spontaneous generation of life which biology needs to justify its belief in the existence of life without a creator. A quite tantalising irony amidst your parody.

 

[excubitor]

(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)

more rhetoric. Now instead of dealing with arguments on its merits we engage in another logical fallacy, the ad hominen.

Now you seek to portray Geocentrists as madmen and maniacs.

 

[excubitor]

Rick09 quotes Chesterton:

This describes the mindset of Excubitor perfectly. See for example how he quotemines Hawking, Silk, Tegmark and others “sharpened to one painful point”.

Again, more rhetoric. Sweep aside a lot of quotes by labelling them as being out of context. The fact is that these quotes clearly support Geocentrism. Laugh all you like. That’s easy. Getting in there and doing the work and truly investigating what these scientists are saying is hard.

First, Hawking’s sentence:

Well at least you having a crack at addressing the issue. Hat’s off to you.

“In particular, it might seem that if we observe all other galaxies to be moving away from us, then we must be at the center of the universe” is clearly taken out of context (quotemined), since in the same breath Hawking would say that it would seem like that from any galaxy in the universe!

Clearly you did not follow the link of other quotes for if you had you would have read the clarification by Hawking

“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

His reference to modesty is like political correctness. He is saying that we have no evidence that the universe would look like the centre from every point in the universe. The only reason we are inclined to believe this is to avoid the politically incorrect alternative which is that the earth is at the centre of the universe as it certainly appears to be.

Second, even if cosmologists speak of “close to the center of the universe” they would never do this out of the much, much wider context of the fact that our observable universe contains at least 300 billion galaxies with each on average 300 billion stars in it – and the unobservable universe is probably even bigger than that. So this would make our solar system a single immensely tiny point in a vast canvas, and hence from that to make a distinction that our Earth rather than our sun would be at the center is ludicrous (if Excubitor would tell Hawking, Silk, Tegmark and others that from their remarks they must be geocentrists they would simply laugh at him).

Mr. Moritz, If our solar system is in the centre of the universe then that would be a heliocentric universe. Conventional science has long since rejected heliocentrism and now believe that the solar system is wandering through the vastness of space. Modern cosmology falls over itself to avoid stating that any point in the universe has a favoured central position. That includes galaxies. They cannot be central because they rotate which means that their centre/axis would be the centre of the universe, that includes solar systems because they have a centre. So much so that they make great pains to avoid stating that the universe itself is rotating (even though everything in the universe rotates). There is no scientific evidence one way or the other as to whether the universe rotates, the reason that they avoid saying it rotates is to avoid the philosophically immodest notion that there is a central point/axis of the universe. So if you don’t want to be immodest before your conventional scientist friends you really should avoid any kind of notion that anything no matter how large is at the centre or in the proximity of the centre of the universe.

The many quotes from politically incorrect immodest scientists, which I provided, clearly indicate that the universe has a centre and that the earth is close to that centre. Some of the quotes even pointed out that these findings are anti-Copernican.

 

[excubitor]

So yes, the mind of people like Excubitor is “sharpened to one painful point” and takes things out of their wider context into their own much smaller world. Chesterton really said it perfectly.

If only the geocentrists could come out of the box they are trapped in. Mere intelligence really does not seem to be the problem.

More rhetoric. I grew up like we all did believing what my teachers taught me, that the earth was rotating and orbitting the sun. I had to have an open mind to at least consider the arguments of Geocentrism. I spent the best part of a thousand hours reading everything I could on the subject. I studied models of the solar system, read the history of the church teaching on the subject. I did all this with the same open mind which saw me convert from a lifetime of protestantism to become a Catholic.
James 3:11 Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?

I am not mad. I hold down a job like all of us. I go to church every week and sing in the choir. I drive my kids to school and pay their school fees. I don’t foam at the mouth, hear voices, take psychotropic or hallucinogenic drugs.

I remind you of the words of Wolfgang Smith, which I suppose you will say I quote mined and took out of context.

Just so you know, Wolfgang Smith is a mathematician, physicist, philosopher of science, and I might add a Roman Catholic. From Wikipedia

Smith graduated in 1948 from Cornell University with a B.A. in Philosophy, Physics and Mathematics. Two years later he obtained his M.S. in Physics from Purdue University and, some time later, a Ph.D in Mathematics from Columbia University.

He worked as a physicist in Bell Aircraft corporation, researching aerodynamics and the problem of atmospheric reentry.[citation needed] He was a mathematics professor at MIT, UCLA and Oregon State University, doing research in the field of differential geometry and publishing in academic journals such as the Transactions of the American Mathematical Society, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Journal of Mathematics, and others. He retired from academic life in 1992.

In parallel with his academic duties, he developed and still develops philosophical inquiries in the fields of Metaphysics and Philosophy of science, publishing in specialized journals such as The Thomist and Sophia: The Journal of Traditional Studies.

NOW THIS IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT. This is what this man said as recently as 2003.

“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

So I urge you Mr. Moritz to listen, perchance it is you that is trapped in the box.

 

[rossum]

Please provide an example of a non-optical experiment which easily proves that the earth is moving.

Earthquakes. The recent earthquake in moved part of the Earth 20m with respect to another part. The Earth is not static.

Any accurate survey of Iceland will also show the Earth moving due to continental drift; Iceland is getting bigger as the continental plates underlying it move slowly apart.

rossum

 

[excubitor]

Earthquakes. The recent earthquake in moved part of the Earth 20m with respect to another part. The Earth is not static.

Any accurate survey of Iceland will also show the Earth moving due to continental drift; Iceland is getting bigger as the continental plates underlying it move slowly apart.

rossum

:sigh: Oh dear.

Please, anyone else?. Can we have some non-optical evidence than the earth is moving.

 

[hansgeorg]

Plant a stick of dead wood in the ground as high as the blade of grass. Preferably a chop stick that has lied around in your kitchen for ages. One you are sure neither grows nor diminishes. Draw a line just above where chop stick comes out of earth.

Come back to chop stick and grass blade day after day. Make sure the stick stays at same height. Either earth helps the chop stick grow smaller (since not deeper), or it is the grass blade beside it that is growing. Which is the truth.

A truth that is confirmed for less sceptical people in a less round about way: a lawn is made of grass blades. Now and then its owner will want to cut the lawn because grass blades have grown “too long” - i e longer than he wants them.

Grass blades are close enough for us to know it is not because of perspective that they seem to change size, but because they really do over a few weeks or months.

You are prepared to accept the results of this experiment over you immediate senses, yet you are not prepared to accept the evidence of other, equally valid, experiments over your senses. You are not being consistent.

You are not consistent about arguing honestly or not. On the one hand, you are honest enough to accept I found a way to experiment. …

As for the rest: we do know chop sticks do neither grow nor shrink. We do know pen strokes on a chop stick do not get higher and higher. We know that chop sticks and pen strokes are inert matter.

We do not know that about stars, at least not that dead matter is all there is to them. They are not close enough, we cannot see them from all angles, and so on. St Robert Bellarmine, possibly supposing there to be a sphere of fixed stars, a sphere with not much thickness and with stars without any movement whatsoever towards the sphere, as if the were only holes in an englobing wall shuielding us from the light of God, did devise an experiment. On what evidence they had it favoured geocentrism. Galileo appealed to future evidence with better telescopes. St Robert responded that we did not have that yet.

Meanwhile we do have better telescopes, we do know that 1838 proved that EITHER the fixed stars are not fixed OR they or not onto a thin sphere. Which removes the possibility of it being an experiment proving or disproving either heliocentrism or geocentrism.

There are so many double stars by which we knw the fixed stars are not fixed. There are at least 200 stars with “proper movement” (neither parallactically cyclic in a year, nor nutationally cyclic in a month) by which we can safely rule out even that fixed stars are fixed at all.

Whether this can be a matter of angels dancing or of inertia proven as much in “proper movements” and stars drifting, is as much a matter of physics as it is of theology. But it is not a question of calculation as such, it is a question of how to evaluate evidence.

When it comes to more practical than experimental proofs, your example of a lawn with grass blades will prove them to be growing very soon. Columbus gave practic proof once earlier in history, and it has been never refuted, always confirmed by voyages since, that earth is a globe. But such practical evidence we have none for heliocentrism, or acentrism. We might have had it if Star Trek were history rather than made up stories. We do not.

But you might say moon landing gave at least practical proof of earth turning? Not so. Photos taken from a moon revolving daily around earth (and monthly around zodiak) will show same as photos or films taken of a daily revolving earth from a moon that only revolves once a month around it.

Or that we have a parallel to Eratosthenes proof in 1838? My point is that for a Christian thinking his creed when considering this, the ideological exclusion of attribution to dancing angels makes this an incomplete enumeration of possibilities and therefore a “pseudo-Eratosthenes”.

 

[hansgeorg]

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.

How generous.

As a geocentric in St Nicolas du Chardonnet (SSPX jurisdiction, the superior of the district made a canonic visitation this sunday) I am never quite sure if the priests who find me guilty of destroying apologetics* by being a geocentric (they have not said so directly, but given very broad hints) are treating me as an excommunicate or only being impolite.

Or even if it is about this thing or another. Canonically it cannot be about “all of it taken together” unless they be ready to condemn more or less severly each part of it. It seems to me, they are imolitely ignoring what they do not want to take into account and cannot canonically condemn.

• I do some of it on notontimsblogroundhere.blogspot.com

 

[rossum]

:sigh: Oh dear.

Please, anyone else?. Can we have some non-optical evidence than the earth is moving.

Here we have a classic example of the scientific content of modern geocentrism. Zero.

You ask for evidence and then dismiss it with a handwave. Again, you show the complete scientific bankruptcy of geocentrism. If the evidence is wrong then show us why it is wrong. If it is irrelevant then show us why it is irrelevant.

Is it perhaps that you cannot explain what happens to the centre of the universe when the Earth moves in an earthquake or in continental drift?

If you want some non-optical astronomical evidence, then the relative masses of the Sun and the Earth are enough to kill geocentrism. What force is keeping the Sun in its orbit around the Earth?

rossum

 

[Al_Moritz]

How generous.

As a geocentric in St Nicolas du Chardonnet (SSPX jurisdiction, the superior of the district made a canonic visitation this sunday) I am never quite sure if the priests who find me guilty of destroying apologetics* by being a geocentric (they have not said so directly, but given very broad hints) are treating me as an excommunicate or only being impolite.

Actually, you do destroy apologetics, the priests are completely right. Agnostics and atheists are laughing at types like you and become even further removed from the Church than there should be any reason to.

 

[buffalo]

Actually, you do destroy apologetics, the priests are completely right. Agnostics and atheists are laughing at types like you and become even further removed from the Church than there should be any reason to.

That is the most bogus reason for not continuing to search for the truth.

If a finding is true then Apologetics certainly can deal with it as faith and reason cannot be opposed.

Since the math works both ways the pursuit should continue. Isn’t that what science does?

Continuously argued is that science should be funded and we need to continue, but when two areas of pursuit come up all of a sudden it changes.

 

[Rick09]

David was being crafty, but I never accused him of being a liar and deceiver or a betrayer. Being crafty means that you are prepared to use sly and inappropriate techniques in order to get one’s agenda put forward. – Excubitor

I see. Well, that’s a rather crafty answer there, excubitor. You called Palm “crafty”, but you didn’t accuse him of being a deceiver or betrayer, you just meant that he was merely being “sly” and willing to use “inappropriate techniques” while sweeping under the rug something small like Sacred Tradition.

I ask this seriously - is English your first language? Because either you’re ignorant of the English language or you believe the people here at the CAF are ignorant of it.

Definitions

Sly:

1. Having or showing a cunning and deceitful nature
2. Marked by skill in deception

Here:

Crafty:
*Skilled in or marked by underhandedness, deviousness, deception.
*Skilled in deception…
*Marked by skill in deception

Here

And when you now say that Palm is “prepared to use” deception, you imply his knowledge and intention to deceive - thereby accusing him of sin. Combine that with the fact that we’re talking about something as grave and serious as Sacred Tradition and you’ve effectively accused him of mortal sin, excubitor. Nicely done. :tsktsk:

When I was reading [your comment] I had trouble determining whether you were being serious or whether you were using satire. – Excubitor

Exactly. And the fact that you thought my absurdly silly, paranoid and extreme comment was both serious and reasonable says something about the way you look at the world.

Take a look at how paranoid and silly that comment was again – here.

It’s telling that you thought it was serious and reasonable.

Now you seek to portray Geocentrists as madmen and maniacs. – Excubitor

As your responses become even less coherent and reasonable, I’m becoming tempted to reply, “if the tinfoil hat fits….” but your characterization of what I wrote at that time isn’t quite right and you’d know that if you slowed down and read more carefully.

Immediately before the lengthy quote of Chesterton, I wrote: “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.”

That being said, I think there’s more than sufficient applicability of Chesterton’s statements to geocentrists in general.

“I am not mad.” – Excubitor

Just a suggestion? It’s not usually a good idea to make that kind of denial. It’s a bit too much like Richard Nixon’s “I am not a crook” statement. Even if it’s true, it just makes people wonder all the more.

“Again, more rhetoric” – Excubitor

In all seriousness, is English your first language? Your use of the word “rhetoric” here and other places suggests you believe there’s something intrinsically insulting or negative about it.

Definition of Rhetoric: the art of speaking or writing effectively

Here

So, you might consider working on your own rhetorical skills if you seriously want to convince anyone here at the CAF of something as… shall we say, “unusual” as geocentrism.

By the way, when searching the 'net today, I came across this statement by geocentrism’s leading man that others have picked up on. It would be a good idea if you, Sungenis and the other geocentrists would stick to it:

Let me also speak about the issue of geocentrism. As you know, I have recently published a book with my co-author, Dr. Robert Bennett, titled, Galileo Was Wrong. CAI will continue to promote and sell this book. In our promotion, however, we will avoid all implications that Catholics are required, by force of Catholic dogma, to hold the geocentric position (something we did not make clear previously)…If you can’t accept it, then, if I can impose on you, just consider it Robert Sungenis’ quirk and that will be fine with me. I know this issue is much too shocking and controversial at present for me to expect many people to consider what I have to say." – Robert Sungenis, Here

He’s right. Geocentrism is quirky, shocking and controversial and that’s why people understandably won’t give it the time of day.

But you go right on, excubitor. As I wrote before, I’m sure you’ll have an “answer”. Conspiracy theorists always do.

 

[Rick09]

David was being crafty, but I never accused him of being a liar and deceiver or a betrayer. Being crafty means that you are prepared to use sly and inappropriate techniques in order to get one’s agenda put forward. – Excubitor

I see. Well, that’s a rather crafty answer there, excubitor. You called Palm “crafty”, but you didn’t accuse him of being a deceiver or betrayer, you just meant that he was merely being “sly” and willing to use “inappropriate techniques” while sweeping under the rug something small like Sacred Tradition.

I ask this seriously - is English your first language? Because either you’re ignorant of the English language or you believe the people here at the CAF are ignorant of it.

Definitions

Sly:

1. Having or showing a cunning and deceitful nature
2. Marked by skill in deception

Here:

Crafty:

1. Skilled in or marked by underhandedness, deviousness, deception.
2. Skilled in deception…
3. Marked by skill in deception

Here

And when you now say that Palm is “prepared to use” deception, you imply his knowledge and intention to deceive - thereby accusing him of sin. Combine that with the fact that we’re talking about something as grave and serious as Sacred Tradition and you’ve effectively accused him of mortal sin. Nicely done. :tsktsk:

When I was reading [your comment] I had trouble determining whether you were being serious or whether you were using satire. – Excubitor

Exactly. And the fact that you thought my absurdly silly, paranoid and extreme comment was both serious and reasonable says something about the way you look at the world.

Take a look at how paranoid and silly that comment was again – here.

It’s telling that you thought it was serious and reasonable.

Now you seek to portray Geocentrists as madmen and maniacs. – Excubitor

As your responses become even less coherent and reasonable, I’m becoming tempted to reply, “if the tinfoil hat fits….” but your characterization of what I wrote at that time isn’t quite right and you’d know that if you slowed down and read more carefully.

Immediately before the lengthy quote of Chesterton, I wrote: “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.”

That being said, I think there’s more than sufficient applicability of Chesterton’s statements to geocentrists in general.

“I am not mad.” – Excubitor

Just a suggestion? It’s not usually a good idea to make that kind of denial. It’s a bit too much like Richard Nixon’s “I am not a crook” statement. Even if it’s true, it just makes people wonder all the more.

“Again, more rhetoric” – Excubitor

In all seriousness, is English your first language? If it isn’t, then I don’t want to be unfair to you. But your use of the word “rhetoric” here and other places suggests you believe there’s something intrinsically insulting or negative about it.

Definition of “rhetoric”: the art of speaking or writing effectively

Here

So, you might consider working on your own rhetorical skills if you seriously want to convince anyone here at the CAF of something as… shall we say, “unusual” as geocentrism.

By the way, when searching the 'net today, I came across this statement by geocentrism’s leading man that others have picked up on. It would be a good idea if you, Sungenis, Salza and the other geocentrists would stick to it:

Let me also speak about the issue of geocentrism. As you know, I have recently published a book with my co-author, Dr. Robert Bennett, titled, Galileo Was Wrong. CAI will continue to promote and sell this book. In our promotion, however, we will avoid all implications that Catholics are required, by force of Catholic dogma, to hold the geocentric position (something we did not make clear previously)…If you can’t accept it, then, if I can impose on you, just consider it Robert Sungenis’ quirk and that will be fine with me. I know this issue is much too shocking and controversial at present for me to expect many people to consider what I have to say." – Robert Sungenis, Here

He’s right. Geocentrism is quirky, shocking and controversial and that’s why people understandably won’t give it the time of day. But Catholics are free to believe it or not believe it.

Still, you go right on with your campaign, excubitor. As I wrote before, I’m sure you’ll have an “answer”. Conspiracy theorists always do.

 

[Rick09]

David was being crafty, but I never accused him of being a liar and deceiver or a betrayer. Being crafty means that you are prepared to use sly and inappropriate techniques in order to get one’s agenda put forward. – Excubitor

I see. Well, that’s a rather crafty answer there, excubitor. You called Palm “crafty”, but you didn’t accuse him of being a deceiver or betrayer, you just meant that he was merely being “sly” and willing to use “inappropriate techniques” while sweeping under the rug something small like Sacred Tradition.

I ask this seriously - is English your first language? Because either you’re ignorant of the English language or you believe the people here at the CAF are ignorant of it.

Definitions

Sly:

1. Having or showing a cunning and deceitful nature
2. Marked by skill in deception

Here:

Crafty:

1. Skilled in or marked by underhandedness, deviousness, deception.
2. Skilled in deception…
3. Marked by skill in deception

Here

And when you now say that Palm is “prepared to use” deception, you imply his knowledge and intention to deceive - thereby accusing him of sin. Combine that with the fact that we’re talking about something as grave and serious as Sacred Tradition and you’ve effectively accused him of mortal sin. Nicely done. :tsktsk:

When I was reading [your comment] I had trouble determining whether you were being serious or whether you were using satire. – Excubitor

Exactly. And the fact that you thought my absurdly silly, paranoid and extreme comment was both serious and reasonable says something about the way you look at the world.

Take a look at how paranoid and silly that comment was again – here.

It’s telling that you thought it was serious and reasonable.

Now you seek to portray Geocentrists as madmen and maniacs. – Excubitor

As your responses become even less coherent and reasonable, I’m becoming tempted to reply, “if the tinfoil hat fits….” but your characterization of what I wrote at that time isn’t quite right and you’d know that if you slowed down and read more carefully.

Immediately before the lengthy quote of Chesterton, I wrote: “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.”

That being said, I think there’s more than sufficient applicability of Chesterton’s statements to geocentrists in general.

“I am not mad.” – Excubitor

Just a suggestion? It’s not usually a good idea to make that kind of denial. It’s a bit too much like Richard Nixon’s “I am not a crook” statement. Even if it’s true, it just makes people wonder all the more.

“Again, more rhetoric” – Excubitor

In all seriousness, is English your first language? If it isn’t, then I don’t want to be unfair to you. But your use of the word “rhetoric” here and other places suggests you believe there’s something intrinsically insulting or negative about it.

Definition of “rhetoric”: the art of speaking or writing effectively

Here

So, you might consider working on your own rhetorical skills if you seriously want to convince anyone here at the CAF of something as… shall we say, “unusual” as geocentrism.

By the way, when searching the 'net today, I came across this statement by geocentrism’s leading man that others have picked up on. It would be a good idea if you, Sungenis, Salza and the other geocentrists would stick to it:

Let me also speak about the issue of geocentrism. As you know, I have recently published a book with my co-author, Dr. Robert Bennett, titled, Galileo Was Wrong. CAI will continue to promote and sell this book. In our promotion, however, we will avoid all implications that Catholics are required, by force of Catholic dogma, to hold the geocentric position (something we did not make clear previously)…If you can’t accept it, then, if I can impose on you, just consider it Robert Sungenis’ quirk and that will be fine with me. I know this issue is much too shocking and controversial at present for me to expect many people to consider what I have to say." – Robert Sungenis, Here

He’s right. Geocentrism is quirky, shocking and controversial and that’s why people understandably won’t give it the time of day. But Catholics are free to believe it or not believe it.

Still, go right on with your geocentric crusade, excubitor. As I wrote before, I’m sure you’ll have an “answer”. Conspiracy theorists always do.

 

[Rick09]

David was being crafty, but I never accused him of being a liar and deceiver or a betrayer. Being crafty means that you are prepared to use sly and inappropriate techniques in order to get one’s agenda put forward. – Excubitor

I see. Well, that’s a rather crafty answer there, excubitor. You called Palm “crafty”, but you didn’t accuse him of being a deceiver or betrayer, you just meant that he was merely being “sly” and willing to use “inappropriate techniques” in order to put his “agenda” forward. And, well, his “agenda” just happens to be sweeping under the rug a little thing called Sacred Tradition. That’s all.

You’re not exactly helping yourself with that “explanation.” I ask this seriously - is English your first language? Because either you’re ignorant of the English language or you believe the people here at the CAF are ignorant of it.

Definitions

Sly:

1. Having or showing a cunning and deceitful nature
2. Marked by skill in deception

Here:

Crafty:

1. Skilled in or marked by underhandedness, deviousness, deception.
2. Skilled in deception…
3. Marked by skill in deception

Here

“Deceiver” and “liar” are synonyms: here.

And when you now say that Palm is “prepared to use” deception, you imply his full knowledge and free will intention to deceive - thereby accusing him of sin. Combine that with the fact that we’re talking about something as grave and serious as Sacred Tradition and you’ve effectively accused him of mortal sin. :tsktsk: Nicely done.

At least you were candid enough to admit that you did mean to accuse Palm of being “disgraceful”, paying “lip service to Sacred Tradition”, “portraying a disgraceful…attitude”, “quite happy to sweep away Sacred Tradition.” But suggesting that true believers in geocentrism tend to be overly suspicious and paranoid is naughty.

When I was reading [your comment] I had trouble determining whether you were being serious or whether you were using satire. – Excubitor

Exactly. And the fact that you thought my absurdly silly, paranoid and extreme comment was both serious and reasonable says something about the way you look at the world.

Take a look at how paranoid and silly that comment was again – here.

It’s telling that you thought it was serious and reasonable.

Now you seek to portray Geocentrists as madmen and maniacs. – Excubitor

As your responses become even less coherent and reasonable, I’m becoming tempted to reply, “if the tinfoil hat fits….” but your characterization of what I wrote at that time isn’t quite right and you’d know that if you slowed down and read more carefully.

Immediately before the lengthy quote of Chesterton, I wrote: “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.”

That being said, I think there’s more than sufficient applicability of Chesterton’s statements to geocentrists in general.

“I am not mad.” – Excubitor

Just a suggestion? It’s not usually a good idea to make that kind of denial. It’s a bit too much like Richard Nixon’s “I am not a crook” statement. Even if it’s true, it just makes people wonder all the more.

“Again, more rhetoric” – Excubitor

In all seriousness, is English your first language? If it isn’t, then I don’t want to be unfair to you. But your use of the word “rhetoric” here and other places suggests you believe there’s something intrinsically insulting or negative about it.

Definition of “rhetoric”: the art of speaking or writing effectively

Here

So, you might consider working on your own rhetorical skills if you seriously want to convince anyone here at the CAF of something as… shall we say, “unusual” as geocentrism.

By the way, when searching the 'net today, I came across this statement by geocentrism’s leading man that others have picked up on. It would be a good idea if you, Sungenis, Salza and the other geocentrists would stick to it:

Let me also speak about the issue of geocentrism. As you know, I have recently published a book with my co-author, Dr. Robert Bennett, titled, Galileo Was Wrong. CAI will continue to promote and sell this book. In our promotion, however, we will avoid all implications that Catholics are required, by force of Catholic dogma, to hold the geocentric position (something we did not make clear previously)…If you can’t accept it, then, if I can impose on you, just consider it Robert Sungenis’ quirk and that will be fine with me. I know this issue is much too shocking and controversial at present for me to expect many people to consider what I have to say." – Robert Sungenis, Here

He’s right. Geocentrism is quirky, shocking and controversial and that’s why people understandably won’t give it the time of day. But Catholics are free to believe it or not believe it.

Still, go right on with your geocentric crusade, excubitor. As I wrote before, I’m sure you’ll have an “answer”. Conspiracy theorists always do.

 

[Rick09]

David was being crafty, but I never accused him of being a liar and deceiver or a betrayer. Being crafty means that you are prepared to use sly and inappropriate techniques in order to get one’s agenda put forward. – Excubitor

I see. Well, that’s a rather crafty answer there, excubitor. You called Palm “crafty”, but you didn’t accuse him of being a deceiver or betrayer, you only meant that he was merely being “sly” and willing to use “inappropriate techniques” in order to put his “agenda” forward. And, well, his “agenda” just happens to be sweeping under the rug a little thing called Sacred Tradition. That’s all.

You’re not exactly helping yourself with that “explanation.” I ask this seriously - is English your first language? Because either you’re rather ignorant of the English language or you believe the people here at the CAF are ignorant of it.

Definitions

Sly:

1. Having or showing a cunning and deceitful nature
2. Marked by skill in deception

Here:

Crafty:

1. Skilled in or marked by underhandedness, deviousness, deception.
2. Skilled in deception…
3. Marked by skill in deception

Here

And when you now say that Palm is “prepared to use” deception, you imply his full knowledge and free will intention to deceive - thereby accusing him of sin. Combine that with the fact that we’re talking about something as grave and serious as Sacred Tradition and you’ve effectively accused him of mortal sin. :tsktsk: Nicely done.

At least you were candid enough to admit that you did mean to accuse Palm of being “disgraceful”, paying “lip service to Sacred Tradition”, “portraying a disgraceful…attitude”, “quite happy to sweep away Sacred Tradition.” That’s fine, to you. But suggesting that true believers in geocentrism tend to be overly suspicious and paranoid is really naughty.

When I was reading [your comment] I had trouble determining whether you were being serious or whether you were using satire. – Excubitor

Exactly. And the fact that you thought my silly, paranoid and extreme comment was both serious and reasonable says something about the way you look at the world.

Take a look at how paranoid and silly that comment was again – here.

It’s telling that you thought it was serious and reasonable.

Now you seek to portray Geocentrists as madmen and maniacs. – Excubitor

As your responses become even less coherent and reasonable, I’m becoming tempted to reply, “if the tinfoil hat fits….” but your characterization of what I wrote at that time isn’t quite right and you’d know that if you slowed down and read more carefully.

Immediately before the lengthy quote of Chesterton, I wrote: “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.”

That being said, I think there’s more than sufficient applicability of Chesterton’s statements to geocentrists in general.

“I am not mad.” – Excubitor

Just a suggestion? It’s not usually a good idea to make that kind of denial. It’s a bit too much like Richard Nixon’s “I am not a crook” statement. Even if it’s true, it just makes people wonder all the more.

“Again, more rhetoric” – Excubitor

In all seriousness, is English your first language? If it isn’t, then I don’t want to be unfair to you. But your use of the word “rhetoric” here and other places suggests you believe there’s something intrinsically insulting or negative about it.

Definition of “rhetoric”: the art of speaking or writing effectively

Here

So, you might consider working on your own rhetorical skills if you seriously want to convince anyone here at the CAF of something as… shall we say, “unusual” as geocentrism.

By the way, when searching the 'net today, I came across this statement by geocentrism’s leading man that others have picked up on. It would be a good idea if you, Sungenis, Salza and the other geocentrists would stick to it:

Let me also speak about the issue of geocentrism. As you know, I have recently published a book with my co-author, Dr. Robert Bennett, titled, Galileo Was Wrong. CAI will continue to promote and sell this book. In our promotion, however, we will avoid all implications that Catholics are required, by force of Catholic dogma, to hold the geocentric position (something we did not make clear previously)…If you can’t accept it, then, if I can impose on you, just consider it Robert Sungenis’ quirk and that will be fine with me. I know this issue is much too shocking and controversial at present for me to expect many people to consider what I have to say." – Robert Sungenis, Here

He’s right. Geocentrism is quirky, shocking and controversial and that’s why people understandably won’t give it the time of day. But Catholics are free to believe it or not believe it.

Still, go right on with your geocentric crusade, excubitor. As I wrote before, I’m sure you’ll have an “answer”. Conspiracy theorists always do.