I was that other day that other year irritated over a man misusing the most famous quote from St Augustine to argue he would have today rejected Geocentrism because Geokinetism or Heliocentrism/Acentrism is sth which "can be known with greatest certainty". Now, David Palm is of course dragging St Augustine in on his side bar, but there are two more guests who are not left alone either:
"No; that argument about man looking mean and trivial in the face of the physical universe has never terrified me at all, because it is a merely sentimental argument, and not a rational one in any sense or degree.
But if we are seriously debating whether a man is the moral center of this world, then he is no more morally dwarfed by the fact that his is not the largest star than by the fact that he is not the largest mammal.
Unless it can be maintained a priori that Providence must put the largest soul in the largest body, and must make the physical and moral center the same, 'the vertigo of the infinite' has no more spiritual value than the vertigo of a ladder or the vertigo of a balloon."
(G.K. Chesterton, "Man in the Cosmos," cited in The Wisdom of Mr. Chesterton, ed. Dave Armstrong, 197.)
Chesterton was talking about size, not about place.
Perhaps the distinction is lost on people who claim changing the direction of the priest during the holiest moments of the Holy Mass is not changing the liturgy.
Chesterton is also known for less than complete intellectual respect for Modern Science. Notably he was suspicious of Psychiatry, Psychology, Economics and at least some Sociologists.
The insignificance of Earth was as much a commonplace to Boethius, King Alfred, Dante, and Chaucer as it is to Mr. H.G. Wells or Professor Haldane. Statements to the contrary in modern books are due to ignorance. . . . the spatial insignificance of Earth, [was] asserted by Christian philosophers, sung by Christian poets, and commented on by Christian moralists for some fifteen centuries, without the slightest suspicion that it conflicted with their theology
(C. S. Lewis, Miracles, 78).
Or without the slightest suspicion it conflicted with their geocentrism either. Which at least St Thomas Aquinas made part of his theology - unlike what he did about Ptolemaic astronomy in other respects.
By the way, I think they Palm left out a passage - unless that is elsewhere in CSL, but I think it is there - where the notoriously Geocentric Ptolemy is taken as a witness of ancients and medievals knowing about how small earth is.
Is David Palm even aware that CSL accepted ditching the medieval world view so to speak against his heart, because he believed it had been disproven? That he regretted the fact? That to him, a hint it might not have been disproven might have been welcome?
After all, he is best remembered for the Narniad - a fantasy set somewhat tongue in cheek, but not as much as disc world by far, in a flat earth and geostatic universe.
Also, though he certainly enjoyed Evolution as a romantic story and though he started out as an Apologist believing it had been proven (and he enjoyed Heliocentrism too, look at Perelandra trilogy), he later came to suspect it had been touted less to keep evidence in than to keep God out.* And with Heliocentrism I believe it is less about keeping evidence in than about keeping God and angels out.
So as to both give the source and not waste an opportuniy of linking to Palm by letting off refuting him (even on non-side bar matters):
The Politics of Promoting Geocentrism
Posted on January 22, 2015 by David Palm
http://www.geocentrismdebunked.org/the-politics-of-promoting-geocentrism/
I suppose one can understand why the new geocentrists might not want their adherence to strict geocentrism – a motionless earth at the center of the entire universe – tied too tightly to their movie,
Considering whom they are interviewing, and that they say less beyond the interviews themselves - did I get that wrong, I haven't seen it yet? - I consider it understandable too. If the main theme of the movie had been Geocentrism, would Strauss and the Jap have participated?
nor that they hold this view first and foremost as a matter of faith,
The movie is not about their faith. But about what scientists are discovering. Can one answer one question at a time or do certain someones only want one to answer same question over and over again and is it bad faith not to do so?
Or, is Palm giving in to the atheist bogus argument where any thing argued in favour of one's Catholic faith (or of parts of it not shared with all Catholics or "Catholics") can be debunked by observing it is held "first and foremost as a matter of faith", about like a certain debater I met considered me as "spouting Apologetics" rather than as being a reasonable honest debater, as if he defined a reasonable Catholic debater and an honest one as one who either agreed with the atheist or gave him an easy time to expose one's arguments. That overload of loaded dice in his definition of a good debaten even implied a somewhat deferred offer of making an honest debater of me. Well, I consider him not an honest debater (or a very stupid one, but I'll rather settle for not honest) precisely for that. And of course I am not admitting, I am not even secretly considering myself to be a dishonest debater in the first place. Is that the kind of company Palm keeps? His standing invitation to Dr. Alec MacAndrew seems to argue such a preference. C. S. Lewis and G. K. Chesterton would of course have considered him as badly informed as Dr. Haldane, unless they'd have concluded he was even dishonest.
that they insist that it’s an official teaching of the Catholic Church,
It was very certainly for centuries presented like that. Neither Anfossi case nor the words of Benedict XV directly adress a change of doctrinal law. There was never a real abrogation of the Galileo judgements. Unless you count Wojtyla.
and that they believe there’s been a conspiracy among scientists to cover up the facts, “They Know It But They’re Hiding It” (the title of Sungenis’ presentation at his conference on geocentrism).
I have not heard the conference, but I very hugely doubt he would have said "scientists know for certain geocentrism is true but are hiding it". And to people unfamiliar with Sungenis and reading this, that is about as kooky as Palm makes readers taking his word look.
Knowing him from other contexts, what "they" know and hide would rather be:
- inability in Machian and Newtonian physics to prove Geokinetism (opposite of Geostatism or Geocentrism : Earth moving around Sun moving around Galaxy ... which means Milky Way, since the latter is considered the visible bulge of the former and that as one part only - since 1930 - but a larger part than Solar System of the Universe);
- inability, pretty obviously, to prove it purely optically, since optical a priori likelihood is Geocentric by vast majority or near totality of human observations while living on earth, and since the dismissings thereof can be as easily used to dismiss exceptions, like "seeing the Earth turn on its axis" while on the Moon;
- oddities which are hard to explain, like the syllogism formed by Sagnac and Michelson Morley, I would add personally "negative parallax" (or how does the 63 Ophiuchi seem to move);
- plus "they" would not be each and every hack scientist, like Neil De Grasse, but real heavyweighters, like Einstein and a few more. Precisely as every "de Molay" preaching a Masonic ideal is not aware of the real intentions among 33:rd degree Masons or Illuminati.
Summarising someone's not well known theory in dismissive and not very explaining terms very often goes with dishonest attempts to describe someone as somewhat kooky. It seems clear that is exactly what Palm is trying to do with Sungenis and Rick DeLano. Just wondering why he is leaving me alone.
Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
Thursday after Ash Wednesday
19-II-2015
* A famous convert from atheism to Christianity, C.S. Lewis, commented, “Does the whole vast structure of modern naturalism depend not on positive evidence but simply on an a priori metaphysical prejudice? Was it devised not to get in facts but to keep out God?” With footnote: Lewis, C.S., Is Theology Poetry? in The Weight of Glory, HarperCollins, New York, p. 136, 2001 (published posthumously). From:
CMI : Arguments evolutionists should not use
21 bad arguments for evolution
by Don Batten
Published: 18 March 2014
http://creation.com/arguments-evolutionists-should-not-use
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