Given that their church is fairly sensible on evolution, I guess Catholics have to compensate somehow.
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Meta
As a Protestant I can say it’s a more interesting subject that our common kneejerk first reaction gives credit to. I’m no expert, but be careful if you go up against an engineer or astro-physicist knowledgable on the subject. You’ll learn things about NASA, satellites, the relativity of motion in space, and other things you didn’t know about.
I wouldn’t put a whole lot of faith in that website, they also make the “young earth” claim, are anti-evolutionary, and are demanding that women wear veils. From my study of Catholicism (I am one), none of these are doctrinal teachings, but are merely what a certain group believes.
Reminds me of an old Jackie Gleason Show exchange. They were lost on vacation, looking at a map. Norton pointed, “There’s north… there’s south… there’s east… there’s west. So here we are!”
Ralph snaps, “Where?”
“Right in the middle!”
Can you name a reputable, credentialed astrophysicist who is a believer in geocentrism? Name, please.
I studied Relativity (special & general) as an elective while taking a math degree. I’ll be glad to discuss “the relativity of motion in space” with anyone. We can do it with tensors if you like.
I can’t believe I’m talking about geocentrism. What next, the Philosopher’s Stone? The human race is going backwards.
The amusing thing is that some of these theories, though crazy, require considerable ingenuity and knowledge to construct. Martin Gardner wrote about a sect in Florida founded by Cyrus Reed Teed that subscribed to the theory that the Earth is hollow and we live on the inside. The entire universe is contained within the hollow sphere and suitable modifications can be made to the laws of physics to make this world obey all observed laws. (The theory was made rigorous by the mathematician Mostafa Abdelkader). See the Skeptical Inquirer, Vol XII No. 4 Summer 1988 for details.
Michael Shermer was right when he noted that intelligence does not make you any better at choosing what to believe. It merely makes you better at defending your choice.
Michael Shermer was right when he noted that intelligence does not make you any better at choosing what to believe. It merely makes you better at defending your choice.
I think Shermer is wrong then. Intelligent people are better at reasoning. But, they are still not very good, just better than average (by definition). Additionally, they can take ludicrous axioms very far, so their proportionate of incorrectness might be smaller but weighted far more strongly.
Bradlaugh: I don’t think Panopaea is intentionally being a thorn in our collective side, but I do get the strong sense that he/she is making a personal mission of “spreading the good news” so to speak. (To us secular, scientifically-minded areligious types that the site is intended for. It’s a spiritual battleground to him/her.)
I’m not suggesting that anyone’s comments are unwelcome here….clearly, it is not for me to say. What I am saying is that I get the sense that Panopaea is mainly trying to get us to “come to Christ”, not engage in a true exercise of freethinking.
Panapaea is going to respond to me here with something like “I have my convictions, which are just as reasonably grounded as yours are! Who are YOU to say that I should keep my sacred beliefs to myself! We have freedom of religion in this country. What, are you afraid of what I might say? That the Seed of the Word might blossom, and that a Soul might be saved?”
Which is fine….kinda. But I’ve taken to glossing over Panopaea’s comments, as his/her aim seems primarily to increase the amount of *regenration* among the readers of this fine blog. (Don’t ask about that term, believe me, thing’s will just get muddier.)
Best.
Bradlaugh, I just commented that when you first hear about geocentrism there are aspects to it that suprise you, like NASA making geocentric rather than heliocentric calculations because of greater accuracy and simplicity (and, again, not being an advocate of geocentrism what I just said may be totally false for all I know).
You can see by this Wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_geocentrism
that the subject is not as simple as one thinks when first encountering it. My reference to engineers and astrophysicists was based on forums I’ve read where those types can argue *for* geocentrism in sophisticated ways and language and be very clever (it’s like game of sorts for them). You have to find the dialogues themselves and read them for yourself.
Panopaea:
That’s from the Wikipedia link you sent. You want me to talk tensor calculus with these people?
If you haven’t written a pop science book, believe me, you have simply no idea how many varieties of antiscientific buncombe there are out there, and how many demented clowns promoting them. I see nothing to suggest that this lot is any worthier of my attention than any of the 10,000 others.
A-Bax: Well, a site like this is bound to attract some holy rollers looking to save our souls, sell Bibles, etc. So long as they are polite & not too long-winded, I see no harm, though if there are enough complaints we shall apply the moderator’s guillotine.
“I just commented that when you first hear about geocentrism there are aspects to it that suprise you, like NASA making geocentric rather than heliocentric calculations because of greater accuracy and simplicity (and, again, not being an advocate of geocentrism what I just said may be totally false for all I know).”
I don’t know for certain, but I would imagine that to the extent these things are done, it is done in the context of things such as satelites in Earth orbit, where the motion of the Earth and the satellite around the sun do not need to be taken into consideration.
But even if that model is helpful for calculations, that does not establish that the Sun goes around the Earth, it just means the model has limited utility.
I’ll just point out that the founder there, Robert Sungenis, is generally known to be a quack by the few Catholics who’ve heard of him.
In short-term calculations, yes, we (aerospace engineers) do use a geocentric model. However, after a length of time (dependent on the orbit altitude amongst other parameters), the sun, moon, and even other planets have enough of an effect that they must be accounted for. I do not know of a single aero who believes in a geocentric universe. When approaching other planets, we switch coordinate systems to be centered on that planet, yet that doesn’t mean we now believe that Mars or Jupiter is now the center of the solar system.
Laugh now, secular tools of Satan, but when the Voyager probe smacks into the crystal sphere (any day now…) we’ll see who’s laughing!
I jest, of course. I used to work with an evangelical minister, a very smart and decent man, who told me that he was envious of Catholics because (and here he lowered his voice, lest someone here his heresy) we didn’t have to believe all kinds of obviously wrong rubbish, we could just believe in Christ on one hand and let the scientists do their thing on the other.
Hope that’s not too much Bible salesmanship 🙂
“I used to work with an evangelical minister, a very smart and decent man, who told me that he was envious of Catholics because (and here he lowered his voice, lest someone here his heresy) we didn’t have to believe all kinds of obviously wrong rubbish, we could just believe in Christ on one hand and let the scientists do their thing on the other.”
The real shame of this is that he didn’t “have” to believe it, but chose to, to his clear intellectual detriment.
The real tragedy of this is that he most likely knowingly passed that same detriment along to defenseless children.
Check out this guy:
http://www.fixedearth.com/
I don’t know about this book, but Relativity teaches that the laws of physics can be written in any coordinate frame, including geocentric frames. It is not necessarily wrong to advocate geocentrism.
So this is an official Catholic Church site is it?
Find an idiot and arbitrarily make him a spokesman of that body. How I about I take Pol Pot and arbitrarily make him the spokesman for the atheist movement. It be an act of the same intellectual honesty as above.
You’ve got plenty of reasonable reasons to attack religion, setting up strawmen is unneccessary.
Strictly speaking, heliocentrism is as wrong as geocentrism; the Sun goes around the galaxy, and even the galaxy is moving with respect to other galaxies.
Perhaps the modern geocentrists are thinking of the relativistic argument that all frames of reference are equal, so the Earth’s frame of reference is as good as any other? But the Earth is in an accelerated frame of reference, since the sun pulls on it, and accelerated frames can’t be considered as fundamental as fixed ones under special relativity. There may be subtler arguments that can be made under general relativity, which I’ve never studied.
In general relativity, all frames are accelerated frames. So it is not wrong to use an accelerated frame.
Perhaps the modern geocentrists are thinking of the relativistic argument that all frames of reference are equal, so the Earth’s frame of reference is as good as any other?
Problem is, we all know they’re not, alas. I suspect many of them characterise anything beyond Newton as satanic or something, and have never read any Feynman in their lives.