Posted on 12/26/2005 11:19:28 AM PST by Markjwyatt
43.5% Polled on Catholic Apologetics Forum are Open to the Possibility of Geocentrism Catholic Truths Mark Wyatt, Dec. 23rd, 2005
OK, granted, the poll was not scientific, and the results are clearly skewed to a population sample who studies, has some understanding (and interest), or at least an awareness of these things. Still, the results are interesting and worth looking at a little closer. The poll was conducted on the Catholic Answers forum from Dec. 19th through Dec.23rd, 2005...
(Excerpt) Read more at veritas-catholic.blogspot.com ...
Surely you jest.
There's a guy named Bob Sungenis and his sidekick Robert Bennett who have some Catholic Apologetics website where they advocate geocentrism. Strictly kooks. Bennett is the "scientist" of the group. Whereas in the past a kook would be ignored by normal people, now every kook can have his own website!! The number of Catholics with an education past fourth grade who believe in geocentrism could be counted on one hand, probably. These guys are like "Pope Michael" and other sedevacantists. Sungenis used to say that the moon landings were a hoax. They cannot be reasoned with. They know the TRUTH, and probably not even God Himself appearing in a cloud and telling them they are idiots would shake their belief in their own infallibility. Basically, Sungenis still has the fundamentalist Protestant mindset:
it's me and my bible.
At least, unlike you, he does not claim that rotation is absolute in general relativity.
You still ahve not finished this discussion:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1499211/posts#comment?q=1
Mark Wyatt
www.veritas-catholic.blogspot.com
Just out of curiosity: How could an artificial satellite be placed in a "stationary" orbit, if the earth doesn't rotate?
Since I have been down with a cold, my family has been experiencing "Jeffocentrism".
The "results" are crap
I smell a ZOT
Faraday asks: Just out of curiosity: How could an artificial satellite be placed in a "stationary" orbit, if the earth doesn't rotate?"
http://www.catholic-forum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=875
Mark Wyatt
www.veritas-catholic.blogspot.com
It's all about us, guys and gals! The universe turns just around us, we're at the center of it all, Canon Nicholas Copernicus notwithstanding.
-Theo
Theo:"It's all about us, guys and gals! The universe turns just around us, we're at the center of it all, Canon Nicholas Copernicus notwithstanding. "
It's about God, and his decision to put us at the center.
Mark Wyatt
www.veritas-catholic.blogspot.com
Don't blame God for our obsessions!
God is the One who is at the "center," not us. We will be and remain at the center as long as we remain in Him.
I'm sorry, brother, but I disagree with your entire project and I question its value to the Church.
-Theo
Teofio:"God is the One who is at the "center," not us. We will be and remain at the center as long as we remain in Him. "
The previous thread was in regards to the universe. Yes, God is central to all.
Mark Wyatt
www.veritas-catholic.blogspot.com
Newton's First Law of Motion: In the absence of external forces, when viewed from an inertial reference frame, an object at rest remains at rest and an object in motion continues in motion with a constant velocity.
It doesn't matter where you place your inertial reference frame, as long as the math stays consistent. You could choose the satellite as the center of the universe if you want. The article is quite good at explaining the physics.
But the theology of geocentrism is a matter of faith, not science, and I think it is important not to confuse the two.
Teofilo:"...Perhaps those polled should visit http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/ and take a look at a couple of these: ..."
Some people are pretty easily convinced. What are these cartoons proving? Nothing. Move the circles around, put earth in the center, and whala, you have a geocentric solar system.
Mark Wyatt
www.veritas-catholic.blogspot.com
Mark,
I understand everything about translating coordinate systems, ok? I'm pretty much aware that mathematically, I can make that spider on my wall the center of the solar system, nay, the universe. Coordinate systems are arbitrary things designed to describe movement.
Sure, the solar system may be described geocentrically, or arachnocentrically, whatever.
But why? Why are you so obsessed with changing the metaphors? Why are these "cartoons" to you but your quaint attempt to restore an updated view of Ptolemy, "gospel truth" and all of the sudden, central to Catholic truth?
Dude, you're a man with great intelligence--and I'm not being condescending by saying this, you've given a lot of consideration to your point. Nevertheless, your picture is but a vast exercise in special pleading which undermines any theological you wish to do. Please, reconsider!
-Theo
Teofilo:"But why? Why are you so obsessed with changing the metaphors? Why are these "cartoons" to you but your quaint attempt to restore an updated view of Ptolemy, "gospel truth" and all of the sudden, central to Catholic truth? "
I am not the one who changed metaphors, Teofilo. Keep that in mind. Corpenicus, Galileo, Kepler, etc., caught the popular imagination of man (under whose guidance, I wonder) using incorrect models of the universe and they changed the metaphor. They placed the sun at the center of the universe instead of the earth. This had as much to do with anti-Christian mysticism as it did with cosmology. Of course in todays view (acentrism), they too are considered wrong.
Still, the amazing thing is that no scientist has been able to demonstrate that the earth moves (in a manner distinguishable from counter movement of the universe).
Why accept the changed metaphor, Teofilo? It has been more than 2000 years since Christ came. What has Lucifer been doing all this time? Do you not think he was behind the Orthodox Schism, the Protestant Revolution, Galileo, the rise of masonry, communism, abortion as a civil right, etc.?
How sucessful has the deception become? Is it to the point that man willingly pulls the cosmological wool over his own eyes in some distorted notion of truth?
There does not have to be a naturalistic explanation for the universe being in the configuration it actually is in. If it is geocentric, there really is only one explanation- God willed it so. The acentric view is easily reduced to a cosmic accident.
Mark Wyatt
www.veritas-catholic.blogspot.com
Teofilo: "...your quaint attempt to restore an updated view of Ptolemy..."
Actually, the view is closer to a modern Tychonian view than a Ptolemaic one. In the modern Tychonic, the earth is stationary in the center of the universe. The sun and universe revolve around the the earth. The planets (earth not being one) orbit the sun with approximately LKeplerian type orbits (plus all other pertubations, etc.).
In the Ptolemaic view, all the planets directly orbited the earth with epicycles.
Mark Wyatt
www.veritas-catholic.blogspot.com
Of course there is! Is called parallax. The stars "shift" position against the background as the Earth moves around the Sun. Of course, this only can be measured on the closest stars. The farther off a star is, the more difficult it gets to measure its parallax.
Also, orbital mechanics demand it. There are several probes in solar orbit, some of them in polar solar orbit. Their orbits are well known and would been quite impossible to figure out if the Solar System were geocentric.
It seems to me that your confusing a great deal of things regarding knowledge domains, and the interrelationship between natural philosophy ("science") and theology. This an old argument which I think was solved in one of the Lateran Councils of the Middle Ages. Back then, there were some that said that what is true in philosophy may not be true in theology and vice-versa, there was no Unity of Truth.
That's what you're doing, but you don't do it through dialectics, but by blurring the line, confusing categories, and special pleading.
I think that your protest against modernity has made you take an off-the-wall stance, a kind of sede vacantism of reason and faith, where both seem to be temporarily absent from your wits.
By adopting this stance, you undermine your own credibility, but thankfully, not that of the Church.
-Theo
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