Nothing new under the Cosmos
Neil deGrasse Tyson pushes atheism like his mentor Carl Sagan
Jonathan Sarfati
Published: 23 March 2014
Section: Geokinetic revisionism
http://creation.com/cosmos-neil-degrasse-tyson-review#_Geokinetic_revisionism
Here is the quote:
Luther actually said:
Whoever wants to be clever must agree with nothing that others esteem. He must do something of his own. This is what that fellow does who wishes to turn the whole of astronomy upside down. Even in these things that are thrown into disorder I believe the Holy Scriptures, for Joshua commanded the sun to stand still and not the earth [Joshua 10:12].
Note the parts I have italicized. These show that a major reason for Luther’s objection was Copernicus’ challenging the establishment and common sense for its own sake (as Luther saw it). At the time (as opposed to 20-20 hindsight), there was no hard evidence for geokineticism. And Johannes Kepler (1571–1630), a devout Lutheran, saw no conflict between geokineticism and Lutheran theology. He showed how Joshua 10:12 could be explained as phenomenological language, using Luther’s own principles of biblical interpretation! See also Joshua’s long day: Did it really happen—and how?
OK, phenomenal language covers the narrator's words "and the sun stood still". Possibly, if these stood by themselves.* But does it cover Joshua's words while performing the miracle? When Jesus told a Legion of Demons "get out of him", was that also phenomenal language?
I think CMI might want to think again on this one. And Luther gave the right direction. Of course, unlike Kepler and Sarfati he had the advantage of being raised a Catholic.
I already had looked up the link to Joshua's long day and it has not bee updated to include the aspect I was missing in it earlier. I now looked up the Kepler link which does not deal with that either. While we do talk of Kepler, it seems Calvin had perfect acquaintance with Kepler's works and condemned them, repeating what Luther had said in the table talk. This was the century before the processes of 1616 and 1633 in the former of which Sidereus Nuntius was condemned as a book and Galileo forbidden to deal with the subject further and in the latter of which only Galileo had finally to abjure. On this topic Reformers and Catholics reached the same conclusion, only that the Reformers smelled the rat earlier.
When finally the Catholic Church did react, it were the Dominicans of San Marco in Florence** who rang the alarm bell - precisely in the topic "Josue did not order the Earth to stand still, but the Sun to do so". And similar ones, related to Holy Bible, including a certain Psalm which CMI treats a bit Cavalierly.
Now, Jonathan Sarfati is citing Buridan and Nicole Oresme (as well as Copernicus) against Tyson. But Copernicus, first did not dare publish his work, then published it with a preface (or a testament executor did so after his death) stating Heliocentrism (in the exact sense of Sun standing absolutely still in the Centre of the Cosmos) was being forwarded only as a Mathematical Model of a reality which in itself was of course Geocen- tric (in the similarily absolute sense). Buridan possibly, Oresme certainly arrived at same conclusion: Heliocentrism was mathematically possible, but it was pointless absurdity for its own sake*** (see how Luther agreed with them!) to consider it seriously as possible reality.
I am sorry the attack on Tyson (and he does not an attack for admiring the New Age Kook Bruno, and he does need one for recycling the Hypatia canard at the Centre of "Agora" as well) is disfigured by the attempt to still save Heliocentrism.
Chesterton said two things that come top mind here:
- a) it may happen that the Catholics will have to say what the Reformers tried to say, BUT when it really needs saying
- b) "it is really good news that the Earth is round". I e as a ball and not as a French or Dutch pancake.
I think you have already seen where I think a Catholic today would need to agree with the Reformers on point a. Fortunately a point where no condemnation from Trent came at all. You see, Trentine Council dealt with four kinds of Protestantism plus their recombinations:
- Luther's errors;
- Zwingli's and Oecolampadius' errors;
(Bucer and Calvin and Cranmer recombine these two) - Muenzer's errors of Anabaptism and revolution;
- Lelio and Fausto Sozzini's errors, leading up to George MacDonald at their best and Transcendentals at their worst and being revived in a less anti-Biblical way by Charles Taze Russell.
But Luther's words from Table Talks are not on the list of Anathemata. Or rather, not the particular ones just cited.
On the other hand "Bible as Capable of Containing Errors", a very bad heresy, was definitely on the list due to the both Sozzinis. Trent defines that Bible as such is without error, and that Original Manuscript of any one book is in that way Bible as such. As for copies and translations, errors can have crept in as to "mere fact",° but not as to salvific doctrine in the translation commonly used by the Church, i e the Vulgate by St Jerome of Stridon.°°
Now, as to the other little reference to Chesterton ...
In Manalive the Character Innocent Smith says "it is really good news that the World is Round" ... and it was news that Giordano Bruno seems to have missed, despite them being available for so many centuries since Eratosthenes, despite the Church not hiding or condemning it, despite him having a training as a Dominican (which is perhaps why Dominicans at San Marco were vigilant a few years after he was burned). Why "miss- ed"? Well, if he had got it, he would have known that his "proof" (by extrapolation ... uh uh ...) for infinity of Universe was flawed in its most observable part.
He reasoned - I learned a few months ago - that "as the wanderer will always find new horizons, so also if one could fly through space, one would always find new constellations, therefore the Universe has to be infinite".
Innocent Smith set out wandering for the point where "new horizons" give way to "old horizons once again", the beautiful morning of a νοστον αημαρ. Since the surface of the earth is only without an outer rim, but not actually infinite, anyone even not setting out for that point and that morning voluntarily would if travelling long enough reach it by fluke. And if travelling but not long enough he would of course not have any infinity of horizons either.
If St Thomas More was a saint (as a Catholic I am not doubting it, not for a moment) and was right when saying about the Sun "I'll be above that fellow", then he may have gone pretty quickly, or his soul at least (await- ing his body to join it on the Day of Resurrection) to a point where the stars no longer give new constellations, but only turn the nearest ones inside out. Heaven is a place, because it already contains two or three bodies, Our Lord and the Queen-Mother of Heaven°°° and probably St John the Disciple's body as well.
Now, this is what Bruno missed out on, for one of his lines of thought. He concluded for a mathematically infinite universe (which is mathematically impossible, size as in distance between two points, like number, can only be finite, except "potentially"~ And he did so because he had not thought the roundness of earth through thoroughly. He was denying, mentally, in the "observable" part of his parallel reasoning, that Earth had an outer rim, quite correctly, but concluding that it was basically an infinite flat extension, as it might have appeared to one Rahan. And even Rahan one day (fictional though he was) had to conclude that the Sun was cheating, he was going back under earth each night.~~ Which would imply either rim or roundness, and deny Giordano Bruno's infinite flatness.
I am not sure whether Bruno's preference for Heliocentrism as to Our World and Polycentrism/Acentrism as to Infinity of Worlds came from his reasoning in favour of an Infinity of Worlds. I do know that once he reaches that point, he reaches a point where St Thomas Aquinas's philosophical proof for God being exactly one creator and ruler of one world breaks down in favour of Bruno's and Joseph Smith's conclusion "He" is only the "God" of Our World/Solar System. How so? St Thomas Aquinas does not say it is impossible to prove the existence of God from the mind of Man, as CSL did in Miracles, but he does not pursue that proof, he prefers more extrovert methods of proving God. Now, in a sense the Five Ways cited in Prima Pars, Quaestio Secunda, Articulus Tertius or First Part, Second Question, Third Article (abbreviated I, Q2, A3) does prove there is a God. But at that specific point the God proven is so unspecific He could be St Thomas' own God, the Triune God of the Bible and of the Tradition, or, the "god of Dawkins", or even "the god of Bruno and Joseph Smith". The specific point at which St Thomas rules out that particular spectre even further mixed up with "world soul", another one not yet refuted in Q2 A3 (for belief in which Bruno got burned in 1600), was precisely (I, Q11, A3) the Unity of God's action on the world. If we want a conspectus of Q2 A3 with Q11 A3, we could do worse than going to John Calvin or ... Steven Dutch.~~~
If the earth isn't rotating, and everything is rotating around the earth, then everything more than a mere 4.1 billion kilometers away from earth (2.5 billion miles) is moving faster than the speed of light. Jupiter and Saturn are actually moving at appreciable fractions of the speed of light as they whip around the earth once a day. They should show easily observable relativistic length contraction. So relativity is wrong, too. The speed of light either is not a limit, or must vary from place to place in space. So all the formulas in electronics and quantum mechanics that make lasers and solid state electronics possible must be wrong too. Curiously enough, the spacecraft we send to the distant planets behave as if their electronics are following exactly the same laws of physics as on earth. Somehow these spacecraft get accelerated by the rotating universe to far beyond the speed of light, something terrestrial physics considers impossible, yet all the data we get back mimics the terrestrial laws of physics. More prosaically, these spacecraft are being flung outward by huge centrifugal forces, but the forces have absolutely no effect on their trajectories.
Well, this very great speed is of course a great credit to the Might of God in the category "strength" (infinite such). But when it comes to either spacecraft passing Saturn (if such occurred) or stars staying in their place in the "sphere of the fixed stars" or planets going calmly about their usual orbits within that ... and all this without bursting ... that is a fine credit to God's Wisdom and Control. We Catholic Geocentrics are not saying that a Geocentric Universe can be explained in purely natural terms, as something God set rolling but which runs itself "without further intervention from its maker" (until it runs down). We say that Geocentrism, i e taking the Universe as it is directly observable, is a major argument that there is a God. To Bruno the denial of Geocentrism did not yet spell Atheism (after all each of his "Worlds" might need as much internally in order to stay in shape even if the star was in the centre), but it dis spell Polytheism, and that was one thing he was put on the stake for. It was - as obviously - one thing that Freemasons admire him for having thought. And Freemasons were Heliocentric from the start. Or became so within a century.
They also believe in "the great architect of the universe" ... which is a title given to "god" - or nearly so - before them by one Kepler.#
As Kepler said: ‘We see how God, like a human architect, approached the founding of the world according to order and rule and measured everything in such a manner.’ (Johannes Kepler, quoted in: J. H. Tiner, Johannes Kepler-Giant of Faith and Science, Mott Media, Milford, Michigan (USA), 1977, inside front cover).
To St Thomas Aquinas, God had more like constructed an Instrument during Creation, and since then He has been playing on it, both in miracles and in "ordinary providence". If God shows Himself in His universe, He is not an Intruder. But an Architect who signed over the house he had built, say to an Adamson, would be an intruder if disturbing Adamson by showing up in the house he had built. That is one way in which "architect" is not a theologically bright comparison for God. Though it is also actually there in Medieval Iconography. And it cannot be totally lacking as to Earth (a place where the Creator has sometimes not even a stone to use as a pillow and a place about which He used the words about "laying foundations" to Job, also a place in the Middle of which He is leaving people pretty much alone, since Hell is situated there), but it is hardly appropriate as to the Universe as a whole. I am not sure whether Kepler was also guilty of Arianism. I thought he had been involved in Astrology all his carreer and find with some relief he actually attempted to disprove it after a while, but his fondness of calculating the exact positions of the planets at any given time was of no practical value, except to astrologers. It was at least where he came from. And Newton was both an occultist and an Arian, as I learned from Lyndon LaRouche (who, however, heroise Kepler).
Steven Dutch actually cites that Celestial Mechanics of the latter one (perhaps updated a bit by Laplace) as proof of Heliocentrism (as to Solar System):
First of all, there are no known cases anywhere else in the universe of large massive objects circling around small light objects.
OK, are socker balls more massive than Zlatan? Are hockey pucks larger than Russian Hockey players? That was some news to me! Or perhaps Dutch is claiming socker and hockey are myths? Or they are in some other universe with laws totally separate from those of our universe?
I suppose he meant "circling" as shorter expression for "circling through a balance of attraction to a centre and inertia as to an initia or previous path not going to or through it". In that case there are no known non-astronomical parallels in which the circling has been going on for billions of circles either. When stones on strings are being circled by a hand for illustration, it is actually not a two body problem with an attractive force, but a three body problem with string as third body limiting range of stone as second body. When water droplets circle statically charged knitting needles in NASA space stations (out of gravity field of earth)## the circles are replaced by a water droplet drawn onto the knitting needle afer about fifteen circles.
Of course, you could argue that inside the space station air is providing friction.
But that even complete lack of friction (if such were the case in space) could extend the lease from fifteen to fifteen billion circles (say for Mercury, since a Solar System formed 4.5 billion Earth Years ago) staggers belief. And, unlike the supposition of Galileo (who on top of that considered circular motion as an equivalent of rest if going on in a friction less environment after being set in motion by God), space is not a complete void (confer a redder light in part not attributed to famous red shift, but to dispersion of blue light due to interstellar matter, including but not limited to gas clouds.
I will actually get on a bit with Dutch now:
In issuing its challenge, CAI specified:
Now a word of caution. By "proof" we mean that your explanations must be direct, observable, physical, natural, repeatable, unambiguous and comprehensive. We don't want hearsay, popular opinion, "expert" testimony, majority vote, personal conviction, organizational rulings, superficial analogies, appeals to "simplicity," "apologies" to Galileo, or any other indirect means of persuasion which do not qualify as scientific proof.
Sounds reasonable, but is it? After we eliminate the arguments from authority, we are left with "direct, observable, physical, natural, repeatable, unambiguous and comprehensive." Nobody should have any issue with the proof being observable or repeatable, and "comprehensive" is so loose as to be meaningless, but what about the rest? Does "physical" rule out mathematical proofs? Does "natural" rule out observations by spacecraft?
Parallax can be arranged by angels moving the stars. As Christians, we cannot say as a certainty of faith God excluded angels from any merely material part in Ordinary Providence (excepting stationarity of earth). He only excluded them from directly producing our will. So, parallax, as observed by Earth will not do. The parallax of Alpha Centauri could be interpreted as a consequence of earth moving back and forth at a known distance (with two known angles), but also of an angel moving Alpha Centauri (unknown distance both of movement and to us). But there is a possible way of verification still open to those stating it is 4 lightyears (approx) away: I have, some time ago, suggested an observation of aberration and parallax be made, not just from Earth, but also from Mars. If Tychonian Universe is Has, as far as I know, not been done. I have also suggested that the space probes might have while going off in straight lines observed a zigzagging of Earth, IF of course Earth is moving annually in and out of the Origo of their trajectory lines, and I have not gotten any answer.###
So, as to Dr Jonathan Sarfati stating Bruno and Galileo had no proof back then I would extend that to nor do their inheritors now. But as to Dr Jonathan Sarfati stating that Mediævals were positively Geokinetic before Bruno, I will have, much as I detest the admiration of Bruno in deGrasse Tyson, have to say he is right. But if I do not count that as an admission, it is because I do not share the otherwise pretty common admiration for Heliocentrism or Geokinetism.
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Bpi, Georges Pompidou
III:d (? right?) Sunday of Lent
23-III-2014
Notes:
* Similarily an Atheist could say he didn't trust the Hebrew timeline of History more than the Egyptian or Greek ones, but he would be forgetting that Genesis, and even St Luke, like Ynglingatal (for Sweden-Norway-Iceland), has a chronological backbone of genealogies. Which Egyptian and Greek Paganism lacked.
** A Church where Bergoglio is either allergic against that Church as such or against the Latin Mass being said in it, I cannot recall which, but it was in the news earlier.
*** It is mathematically possible that every day the universe is shrinking ten times in every dimension, so every 24 h every solid has 1000 times less volume than the day before, and that natural laws are being readjusted (perhaps already by the overall shrinkage of every other object) so that no one would notice due to changed sizes playing out differently according to how many dimensions were involved. But it is patently a pointless absurdity to assume this is so, and that is how Nicolaus Oresme felt about Heliocentrism as well.
° Is for instance "60 stades" an error for "160 stades"? One Syrian manuscript has 160 stades between Jerusalem and Emmaus (and the original could have had that too, then), but on the other hand Emmaus has since been destroyed and rebuilt and if Amwaz is 160 stades (30 km, 20 miles) from Jerusalem this does not absolutely mean Emmaus was so too in Biblical times, the same population can have taken a new locality. Most radical interpretation of the conundrum: the real distance was 160 stades "as the bird flies", but by miracle Jesus and the Disciples walked from point A to B using less walking distance, only 60 stades (12 km, 8 miles) since He can create dimensions.
°° Same St Jerome based his Biblical chronology, cited each Christmas (except by certain modernists since 1994, in the English speaking world), not on the Vulgate but on the Septuagint. Trent did not define that St Jerome ought to have used his Vulgate nor that the Christmas proclamation should be changed to conform to the Vulgate. Trads are still reading it in conformity to Septuagint.
°°° I learned that Queen Mothers in the Davidic Court are not called with the same word for Queen as used about one Pagan "Queen of Heaven"; but even if this were not so, it is certain that a title can have a rightful as well as an usurping pretender, as with King of Heaven, rightfully a title of Our Lord, or similarily King of Angels. Is Our Lord a Pagan Divinity because Zeus is called "King of Gods"? But what about Henoch and Elijah? They have indeed risen up into the Heavens, but possibly to a lower sphere, from which they will return before martyrdom, lying three and a half days, being raised from the dead and only after that rising to join the real High Court.
~ God's aeternum is infinite "in time", but very unlike time as not a succession. The sempiternum of angels and saved souls and glorious risen bodies is a succession, which is only potentially infinite (and does in fact never end) but which at any given moment is a finite time after Creation.
~~ Rahan is a French Comic book of the Seventies, and it was translated - lucky me - into Swedish as well. It is the name of the main character as so many other good titles. He is a Cro-Magnon "Daedalus" type, sole survivor of his clan which was killed excepting only him, in an eruption of a Volcano. He wanders from clan to clan, from tribe to tribe, considering that all men are brothers ("those who walk upright" can of course be seen as an indirect reference to "all righteous men" but is meant for his word for mankind since he lacks so much vocabulary ... to a linguist it is a nightmare or a comedy, depending on taste, I was not yet such when enjoying the adventures as a child).
~~~ Steven Dutch : Pseudoscience : Geocentrism
https://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/PSEUDOSC/Geocentrism.HTM
# Johannes Kepler (1571–1630)
Outstanding scientist and committed Christian
by Ann Lamont
http://creation.com/johannes-kepler
## ZME SCience : Water droplets orbiting around a knitting needle in space [AMAZING VIDEO]
Published on Thu, Feb 9, 2012 by Tibi Puiu
http://www.zmescience.com/science/physics/water-droplet-orbiting-knitting-needle-space-video-33653/
### Suggestion of studying parallax or aberration from Mars was made on this post or rather editorial comments under it (i e PS:s, basically):
HGLundahl's FaceBook Writings : Creationism and Geocentrism are Sometimes Used as Metaphors for Obsolete Because Disproven, Inaccurate, Science
http://hglsfbwritings.blogspot.com/2011/04/cagasuamfobdis.html
From this other page on my blogs ...
Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : A thread from Catholic.com (more may be added)
[short link now : http://ppt.li/kp]
http://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/p/thread-from-catholiccom-more-may-be.html
... you can access, among other threads on Catholic.Com (i e Catholic Answers Forum) also this one which deals with the zigzagging of earth as seen from space probes if Earth is moving, and you can see the thread was closed without my precise point being in any way answered, only a general reference to Geocentrism being BS was given:
Catholic Answers Forums > Forums > Apologetics : Has Cassini-Huygens spacecraft earth flyby in 1999 disproven geocentrism [?]
http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?p=9120534#post9120534
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