Friday 13 March 2015

Christopher Ferrara Bumps In And I Get Angry

1) New blog on the kid : Chris Ferrara the Conspirator, 2) HGL's F.B. writings : Debate with John Médaille on Geocentrism, 3) Correspondence of Hans Georg Lundahl : Getting Back to Tom Trinko on Geocentric Satellites and Some Other Things, Especially Whether Literal Belief is Protestant, 4) With David Palm and Sungenis, 5) With David Palm, Sungenis, Robert Bennet and Rick DeLano, 6) Christopher Ferrara Bumps In And I Get Angry, 7) Aftermath of the Quarrel, 8) Diatribe with Robert Bennett (Two Teas), 9) HGL's F.B. writings : Continuing Debate with Mark Stahlman and John Médaille and Others (sequel I), 10) Continuing Debate with Mark Stahlman and John Médaille and Others (sequel II), 11) Where I Get a Dislike to Mark Stahlman

Christopher Ferrara to Sungenis et al.
12/03/15 à 03h41
Re: On "Sungenis Looses What He Has Bound on Joshua 10"
I suggest that you end this seemingly endless war with a truce containing the following terms:

1. To hold to the heliocentric is not heresy per se.

2. Yet, the Copernican principle and modern cosmology in general are clearly, expressly and avowedly motivated by a philosophical aim, stated as such, by leading physicists such as Wolfson, whom I am reading now. That aim is to prove that that the Earth is nothing special, which is an indirect proof of the nonexistence of God. We inhabitants of Earth are just the incredibly fortuitous outcome of a long series of mutations occurring on a planet in a random location at the edge of a humdrum galaxy. They cannot abide a central earth for that reason, and they say so. You may say that God’s majesty does not depend on the location or the uniqueness of Earth, but the propagandists for the Copernican narrative know the public mind and know what works in terms demystifying the Universe and thus eliminating the need for God. It is naive simply to assert that their propaganda is of no consequence.

3. Thus, modern cosmology—part science, part philosophy driving the science (as it does evolutionary theory)---threatens to erode the Faith, as does evolutionism, even if it cannot be called formal heresy.

4. Catholics are free to argue for some version of the geocentric model precisely in order to counter the pretensions of modern cosmology, whose “dark matter,” “dark energy,” string theory, multiverse, balloon-like expanding Cosmos (the only way to avoid a center of the Universe with all of the problems that entails for the Copernican narrative) and other gimmicks are no more or less contrivances than the ether that even the modern cosmologist is, at this very moment, trying to sneak in the back door under a different name.

5. Geocentrism is not per se a crackpot theory. Even atheist cosmologists such as Krauss admit that the CMB data suggest either that Earth is indeed at the center of the universe or that the Copernican model has to be rethought completely. You may say Krauss is wrong, but’s an argument, not a per se demonstration that geocentrism is crackpot stuff. If he (and others) can see the problems for the Copernican narrative, Catholics should admit them and also admit that geocentrism is still arguable on the basis of empirical evidence that suggests Earth is centrally located. Krauss calls this “crazy” only on the basis of his a priori assumption that it can’t possibly be true, because, as Wolfson puts it: "Do you really want to return to parochial, pre-Copernican ideas? Do you really think you and your planet are so special that, in all the rich vastness of the Universe, you alone can claim to be “at rest”? On purely philosophical grounds, we should reject the notion that Earth alone could be at rest relative to the ether.” Wolfson, Richard (2003-11-17). Simply Einstein: Relativity Demystified (Kindle Locations 1009-1010). W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition. ” Wolfson, Richard (2003-11-17). Simply Einstein: Relativity Demystified (Kindle Locations 1005-1009). W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition.

Further, if serious problems remain for the geocentrist theory, they are no more serious than those confronting the opposing cosmology, whose continuous ad hoc additions border on the ridiculous. A universe whose constituent matter and energy are 95% undetectable? Really? Any Catholic geocentrist is entitled to reject that claim on the same philosophical plane as their opponents reject geocentrism. What is gratuitously asserted may be gratuitously denied. And even if some semblance of an evidential argument can be concocted for the missing 95%, that argument hardly renders geocentism per see untenable.

6. To eliminate endless bickering over various conspiracy theories unrelated to geocentrism, the geocentrist proponents of such theories should simply admit that they are mere speculation, are unproven, are not worth pursuing to the detriment of more important issues, and should be definitively abandoned.

7. All parties should devote themselves to defending the Church against truly massive threats to the integrity of her liturgy and her doctrine, above all the astounding ongoing general eruption of neo-Modernism lamented by leading Churchmen, including Msgr. Pozzo, Archbishop Lenga, and Bishop Schneider during the run-up to the next session of the preposterous “Synod on the Family.”

In short, enough already. And, frankly, the notion that geocentrism threatens the Faith of anyone in the Magisterium is hard to take seriously in the midst of a situation in which leading Churchmen everywhere appear to be abandoning fundamental dogmas of the Faith while the Pope presides over a Synod whose controllers are clearly attempting to overthrow the teaching of John Paul II only 33 years ago—an effort which, were it to succeed, would destroy confidence in the entire Magisterium overnight.

In view of the above, can’t we all just get along?

Chris

Rick DeLano to Christopher Ferrara et al.
12/03/15 à 03h54
Re: On "Sungenis Looses What He Has Bound on Joshua 10"
I will run this by Karl tomorrow evening.

It certainly seems prudent and sensible to me.

Rick

Christopher Ferrara to Sungenis et al.
12/03/15 à 04h22
Re: On "Sungenis Looses What He Has Bound on Joshua 10"
This should go without saying, but out of an abundance of caution: I do not give anyone permission to quote me from any email in any forum. These are private remarks, and I ask that you respect my wishes in this regard.

Rick DeLano to Christopher Ferrara et al.
12/03/15 à 04h43
Re: On "Sungenis Looses What He Has Bound on Joshua 10"
Just to be completely clear- do you object to me sharing the email with Karl in a private meeting?

Rick

Christopher Ferrara to Sungenis et al. (including Rick)
12/03/15 à 04h48
Re: On "Sungenis Looses What He Has Bound on Joshua 10"
I do object. Strenuously. Private means private. I expect my request for confidence to be honored by all. Giving anything to Keating is like pouring gasoline on a fire.

Rick DeLano to Christopher Ferrara et al.
12/03/15 à 04h49
Re: On "Sungenis Looses What He Has Bound on Joshua 10"
Thank you for the clarification.

I will of course accede to your wishes.

Me to Christopher Ferrara and Sungenis et al.
12/03/15 à 12h48
Re: On "Sungenis Looses What He Has Bound on Joshua 10"
"This should go without saying, but out of an abundance of caution: I do not give anyone permission to quote me from any email in any forum. These are private remarks, and I ask that you respect my wishes in this regard."

No, your caution was NOT abundant.

Now, as to permission, that is a moral quandary.

Remarks as far going as yours and asking for agreements, are such that I consider the public held in the dark if it cannot have them.

In other words, Ferrara, I consider your social method to be that of Freemasons or of Jews from the Synagogue, and totally unworthy of a Catholic.

Do I make myself clear on this?

Hans Georg Lundahl

Me again to Sungenis, Christopher Ferrara et al.
12/03/15 à 12h54
Re: On "Sungenis Looses What He Has Bound on Joshua 10"
David Palm quoting Sungenis and agreeing with quote:

"There are inumerable [sic] ways God can accomplish the task at hand if and when the normal laws which govern the universe are set aside to make room for God’s divine ingenuity" (Robert Sungenis, GWW3 9th ed., p. 33).

I agree.


Hereto:

I agree too, as long as we talk of “God’s absolute power” i. e. His power considered without reference to His goodness. But the problem here is with God’s adequate power, i. e. His power as used precisely by His goodness, which includes perfect veracity.

Robert Bennet, interspersed with my comments:

« The firmament was set in rotation at the first gulp of forbidden fruit, not to stop until the Lion of Juda returns. This precludes complete cessation of cosmic rotation… “

In St Augustine, the firmament or the light within it, he doesn’t say which and at another point leaves the question undecided, and explicitly so, was set in rotation around Earth on day 1.

I am not convinced of the visionary Hildegard of Bingen.

“The 16 fixed stars(angels?) need only supply the aether winds to fully counter the sidereal rotation of Sun and Moon to conflate Scripture(necessary) and Hildegard(optional).”

I have no idea what you mean by “16 fixed stars” since the fixed stars (each probably not quite fixed and probably moved by an angel) are innumerable.

“God could grant Joshua’s request indirectly by using the angels of solar and lunar aether as instruments of His will… Wo ist der fehler? »

God is not said simply to have granted Joshua’s request, but to have obeyed him.

Furthermore, if the aether is the habitation of Sun and of Moon, for them to stand still as seen from Earth (Joshua 10) and also “in their habitation” (Habacuc 3:11)the habitation also needs not to move, since if it moved, either they would stand still in it, but move with it as seen from Earth, though faster, at stellar angular speed, or they would stand still as seen from Earth but by moving against the movement of their habitation. One could get around it by saying aether rotating around Earth is not what Habacuc meant by their habitation.

“Any one of Hildegard’s 4 aether types could be the source of the obvious global atmospheric circulation and jet streams eastward and its conflict with the firmament’s westward motion, balancing only in the GSZ. “

I have no idea of what her 4 aether types are.

Of 2 letters by Sungenis, 1 by Rick DeLano and a 3d by Sungenis, I am only concerned here to say I am glad Bob found my correction correct. And not going too far.

Chris Ferrara

Has made a proposal for a truce. I am not quite against the idea of not stamping Heliocentrics as heretics. However, there is a proviso. Independently of whether a theory is considered heretical by the magisterium or tolerated, every definite statement with every strictly logical implication in all the Holy Writ is de fide. That said, heliocentrism may be what is considered in Thomistic terminology a secondary heresy – one which one does not become a heretic simply for holding, but only for holding if one knows the contrary to be stated in Holy Writ.

I think I have caught three Popes cited by Heliocentrics giving with one hand but withholding intellectual assent with their mind, so as to stay Popes rather than autodepose by apostatising to heresy. They all gave the impression and none gave the actual words to say that Heliocentrism is a belief in itself undecided by Holy Writ: Pius VII, Leo XIII and Benedict XV. So, if I am interpreting their gesture correctly, they were all concerned that Heliocentrism despite appearances of being proven science, may well have been heresy even so, and they all avoided saying they believed it was true.

“Yet, the Copernican principle and modern cosmology in general are clearly, expressly and avowedly motivated by a philosophical aim, stated as such, by leading physicists such as Wolfson, whom I am reading now. That aim is to prove that that the Earth is nothing special, which is an indirect proof of the nonexistence of God. We inhabitants of Earth are just the incredibly fortuitous outcome of a long series of mutations occurring on a planet in a random location at the edge of a humdrum galaxy. They cannot abide a central earth for that reason, and they say so. You may say that God’s majesty does not depend on the location or the uniqueness of Earth, but the propagandists for the Copernican narrative know the public mind and know what works in terms demystifying the Universe and thus eliminating the need for God. It is naive simply to assert that their propaganda is of no consequence.”

Correct as far as it goes. But there is another philosophical tenet involved, as I discovered while via a forum discussing with a young man who had contact with an astronomer.

  • 1) They assume there is no God, at least not the kind who could rotate the unviverse around us.

  • 2) They assume there are no angels, at least not the kind who could carry the Sun Eastward around the aether in a year and on second Solar Miracle also hasten his Eastward journey so as to go back ten lines (five lines) on a sundial we don’t know the exact delimitations of.

  • 3) Assuming this, they conclude that anyone proposing this model must be a crackpot, i. e. their ultimate defense of Heliocentrism includes a Disjunctive syllogism in which one of the negations are the Christian possibilities.

  • 4) They also presume the Newtonian model of celestial mechanics (which Sungenis btw has tried to show workable for Geocentrism too) is more well proven than it is. Tides cannot really prove it, unless very recently satellites have been able to track variations of sea levels on the high ocean. Usually, the portal tides are results of too many factors to be direct confirmations of it, and oceanic tides, which would be more direct, are not measurable by the usual measures of tidal height.


Note that up to recent debate, the assumptions 1 and 2 behind accepting Heliocentrism were tacit. Pius VII could have understood that angels could fix Tychonian orbits and yet not had the courage to stand up for that explanation.

Schoenborn seems to go further. Unlike St Thomas he takes the Thomistic notion of God ruling the universe “through secondary causes” to mean His ruling it through “natural laws. For St Thomas differently taking it to mean “through created wills”, see Q 110 in the I Pars.

“To eliminate endless bickering over various conspiracy theories unrelated to geocentrism, the geocentrist proponents of such theories should simply admit that they are mere speculation, are unproven, are not worth pursuing to the detriment of more important issues, and should be definitively abandoned.”

Depends on how much is provable from case to case. And in some cases on what is probable.

A general abandonment of all conspiracy theories is a blanket authorisation of conspirators getting undetected.

“In view of the above, can’t we all just get along?”

I am for my part definitely trying to, since I enjoy discussion, even of conspiracy theories, more than quarrels.

Note, that the proposition for a truce, between people known to publically debate this issue, and the subsequent request this proposition and this truce be kept secret certainly are two gestures that* fall well within my definition of conspiracy, as I said in the previous letter.

Hans Georg Lundahl

[* Taken together. The first as such would not have.]

Christopher Ferrara to me et al.
12/03/15 à 12h59
Re: On "Sungenis Looses What He Has Bound on Joshua 10"
The “public” has no right to know of private conversations between Catholics. If you cannot respect that principle, then this is the last email I will send.

Me to Christopher Ferrara et al.
12/03/15 à 13h20
Re: On "Sungenis Looses What He Has Bound on Joshua 10"
Christopher A Ferrara!

I did not consider this email exchange totally private in the first place.

I did not myself invite you. If you did not note, I was the one who took the initiative to this discussion.

If you wish to absent yourself, do so.

However, a private conversation is private insofar as it touches private matters, not insofar as private persons agree on what reaches the public. Or especially that it do not reach the public. Chesterton and Belloc would not have liked your idea one bit, and I consider them better Catholics than you.

Hans Georg Lundahl

David Palm to Sungenis et al.
12/03/15 à 13h48
Re: On "Sungenis Looses What He Has Bound on Joshua 10"
The misspelling was my mistake, Bob, and I apologize. I have corrected it on my site.

But the fact remains that you were correct on this point. You hit the nail on the head that there are not two, not three, but "innumerable ways God can accomplish the task at hand if and when the normal laws which govern the universe are set aside to make room for God’s divine ingenuity" . As you said just before this quote, "God's omnipotence has no limits." One of those ways would be to stop all motion in the universe. I agree.

Beyond that I'm stepping out of this conversation as it has taken a decidedly weird turn.

God bless.

Christopher Ferrara and David Palm

thereupon asked tob e removed from conversation, as per getting adresses removed. I told the others to omit such and such an email address from the to or cc bars between clicking answer all and actually sending the mail.

Robert Sungenis to David Palm et al.
12/03/15 à 14h35
Re: On "Sungenis Looses What He Has Bound on Joshua 10"
David, before you go, allow me to remark on a couple of things:

1) Your tone here is a lot different than what it is on your debunking site, which is refreshing. Please keep it up.

2) Yes, God could have stopped "all motion in the universe," which means he could have stopped the universe/stars in addition to stopping the sun and moon.

But the point remains (as Hans also noted) that God can only stop miraculously that which is already moving.

He cannot stop the Earth from moving if the Earth isn't moving, for it is impossible for God to lie (Titus 1:2).

Logically, if the stars, sun and moon are revolving around the Earth, and doing so at independently different rates (which we see every day and night) then the Earth cannot be rotating.

Logically, then, there are only two possible ways for the stars, sun and moon to go around us in 24 hours, not "innumerable" ways.

Of those two possible ways, the Fathers, Scripture and the Church (and now even science) tell us that it is the stars, sun and moon that revolve around a fixed Earth; not an Earth that rotates under a fixed star field.

Bob

So, we will see
if the continuing debate between David Palm and Robert Sungenis, into which I bumped in will improve in tone, and also whether my disclosing the „private“ truce proposed by Christopher Ferrara will give Keating more or less tenderness for Geocentrics in the future. He might even go along with the truce, who am I to say he wouldn’t? As for me, I found part of the ideas interesting, as you will recall, and part, especially the secrecy, less so./HGL

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