Catholic Info
Traditional Catholic Faith => Fighting Errors in the Modern World => The Earth God Made - Flat Earth, Geocentrism => Topic started by: Ladislaus on August 13, 2022, 03:58:15 PM
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So I bought his PDF book and just started skimming it. I must say that I'm incredibly disappointed. I skipped ahead to the Church Fathers, where Sungenis asserts that there's a Patristic consensus that the Earth is a sphere.
So his first proof text here is from St. Ambrose:
They ask us to concede to them that heaven turns on its
axis with a swift motion, while the sphere of the earth remains
motionless, so as to conclude that waters cannot stay above the
heavens, because the axis of heaven as it revolved would cause these to
flow off. They wish, in fact, that we grant them their premise and that
our reply be based on their beliefs.
Italics were from Sungenis.
Who that wishes to be honest does not recognize that St. Ambrose here is describing the position of his adversaries? It's impossible to tell from this whether he rejects some of it or all of it. But he describes these as THEIR beliefs.
But then, what's more if you look at what he's actually saying, and not focus on the mere presence of the world "sphere," St. Ambrose is talking about a sphere on which the WATERS rest (and his opponents claim would flow off if the heavens rotated). So this notion of "sphere" refers to the idea of the FIRMAMENT as being the surface of the sphere, on which the waters flow. It is not the surface of the earth, the inhabited land, that he describes as a sphere, but he's clearly talking about the firmament dome on top of which the waters above rest. So, what?, Dr. Sungenis, human beings are marine creatures that live admidst waters that are directly on top of the inhabit sphere of the earth?
How is St. Ambrose's description of a sphere on top of which the waters rest consistent with Sungenis' believe that the firmament is "space"? It doesn't.
This is a huge strike right out of the gate from just my initial random selection of where to start in his book.
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Here's the full passage cited by Dr. Sungenis:
They ask us to concede to them that heaven turns on its
axis with a swift motion, while the sphere of the earth remains
motionless, so as to conclude that waters cannot stay above the
heavens, because the axis of heaven as it revolved would cause these to
flow off. They wish, in fact, that we grant them their premise and that
our reply be based on their beliefs. In this way they would avoid the
question of the existence of length and breadth in that height and depth,
a fact which no one can comprehend except Him who is filled with the
fullness of the Godhead, as the Apostle says. For who can easily set
himself up to be a judge of God’s work? There exists, therefore,
breadth in the very heights of heaven. …What prevents us, then, from
admitting that water is suspended above the heavens? How can they say
that the earth, although it is certainly heavier than water, stays
suspended and immobile in the middle? Following the same principle,
they can admit the water which is above the heavens does not descend
because of the rotation of that celestial sphere. Just as the earth is
suspended in the void and stays immobile in position, its weight being
balanced on every side, in like manner the water, too, is balanced by
weights either equal to or greater than that of the earth. For the same
reason, the sea does not tend to inundate the land without a special
command to do so.
I'll have to read this in a larger context to understand what's going on. But his ADVERSARIES are the one trying to get St. Ambrose to accept or concede as a premise the passage cited by Sungenis as indicating St. Ambrose's belief that the earth is a sphere. It's unclear to me how much of the premise he concedes, and how much he does not. But it's clear that both sides are speaking of a "sphere" on top of which waters rest. And the point of argument is the claim by these adversaries that the cosmology of St. Ambrose would result in the waters flowing off the top of the sphere. Clearly both sides agree that there are actual waters above the "sphere of the earth", and that we're not talking about globe earth here.
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Next passage from someone named Archelaus that I've never heard of:
But just as those Orientals have the light rising on them
earlier than the people who live in the west, so they have it also more
quickly obscured, and they only who are settled in the middle of the
globe see always an equality of light.
So we've just established that not every reference to a "sphere" or here a "globe" refers to a globe earth on which people LIVE, a globe surface of the earth.
We have Dr. Sungenis picking up every single reference to "sphere" or "globe" as if it's proof that the Fathers believed that the surface of the earth is a globe. This is clearly dishonest and applying confirmation bias. In the previous segment on St. Ambrose, it is absolutely clear to anyone who is honest and not applying said confirmation bias that he was talking about the "sphere" of the firmament on top of which the waters rest.
As for this passage, it's unclear, but without further proof, some more context, it is not possible to know what is meant here. This is not evidence, Dr. Sungenis.
If by "globe" here, Archelaus means a ball earth on which people live, please do explain what the "MIDDLE" of such a "globe" would be ... from East to West? On a globe as conceived by Dr. Sungenis and the globe earthers, there's NO MIDDLE between WEST AND EAST as described here. This suggests that once again he's speaking of a flat surface, with an East and a West EDGE or END, that's under a globe firmament.
And it's entirely unclear what he means that those in the middle (between east and west) "always see an equality of light".
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How many pages is the pdf? Can you post some more of it?
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How many pages is the pdf? Can you post some more of it?
These two quotes comprise one page of his PDF, which is about 800 pages long. And I would consider it theft if I simply posted the entire PDF. It can be obtained for $10 on his website. As I have time to go through it, I'll post pieces of it, with my commentary (with the notion of fair use), but I would not feel right posting the entire thing. Not to mention that it's nearly 100MB in size.
You can get it here.
http://flatearthflatwrong.com/
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Those quotes are certainly interesting. And between this and his Rob Skiba debate shows that he's either wilfully ignorant or intellectually dishonest.
It's becoming clearer and clearer that the Christian, Biblical cosmology is that of a geocentric earth which is a flat plane enclosed within a globe. And that the modern cosmology of an acentric universe filled with other worlds and a spherical earth, with the habitable land encompassing its surface, is wholly pagan.
Edit: I say this because of how it is laid out in that Pythagoras or Christ book I've referenced, specifically surrounding Giordano Bruno and how his Pythagorean thesis of many worlds was condemned as heresy by the Church, including St. Robert Bellarmine, not just heliocentrism. And yet today, nearly all of what modern science proposes aligns with the heretical cosmology of Bruno. Which, of course, stems directly from the influence of Fɾҽҽmαsσɳɾყ and pagan/occult wisdom.
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Next he cites Arnobius.
For whatever is round, and bounded on every side by the
circuмference of a solid sphere, has no beginning, no end; where there
is no end and beginning, no part can have its own name and form the
beginning. Therefore, when we say, This is the right, and that the left
side, we do not refer to anything in the world, which is everywhere
very much the same, but to our own place and position, we being so
formed that we speak of some things as on our right hand, of others as
on our left; and yet these very things which we name left, and the
others which we name right, have in us no continuance, no fixedness,
but take their forms from our sides, just as chance, and the accident of
the moment, may have placed us. If I look towards the rising sun, the
north pole and the north are on my left hand; and if I turn my face
there, the west will be on my left, for it will be regarded as behind the
sun’s back. But, again, if I turn my eyes to the region of the west, the
wind and country of the south are now said to be on my left.
Again, the italics are those of Dr. Sungenis. It is becoming increasingly apparent that every time Dr. Sungenis sees the word "sphere" or "globe", he checks it off as proof that the Church Father who uttered that word believed that the earth is a globe.
This is the ultimate confirmation bias.
So in most of the passage he's simply talking about how "right" and "left" are relative terms based on the direction you're facing. OK, and?
In the first sentence there, he says [presumably the earth] is "ROUND, and BOUNDED on every side by the circuмference of a solid sphere". So the earth is ROUND and BOUNDED by a solid sphere. He doesn't say that the earth on which we live is a solid sphere. In fact, this passage implies the exact opposite, that the surface of the earth is ROUND, as it's BOUNDED (at its edges) by a SOLID SPHERE (where the firmament touches down). That sounds again much more like the description of "snow globe" earth than that it's a solid sphere. He does not say that it IS a SOLID SPHERE, but that it is BOUNDED by a solid sphere. Can someone who interprets this to mean that the earth is a globe please explain how the expression "ROUND AND BOUNDED BY A SOLID SPHERE" possibly describes a solid globe on which people live?
Then he says something curious, that if he turns north, the West will be on his left, which is "regarded as behind the sun's back". I'm not sure what he would mean about the West behind behind the SUN's back. Does he regard the sun as facing East and travelling backwards? That's a side question, but interesting on its own.
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It's becoming clearer and clearer that the Christian, Biblical cosmology is that of a geocentric earth which is a flat plane enclosed within a globe.
Indeed, and I just added the next quote, which says the same thing, that the earth is round and BOUNDED by a sphere. Between this and the citation from St. Ambrose, they regarded the world as a sphere in the middle of the waters, so the "sphere" they are referring to is in fact the enclosure that they believed went all the way AROUND the earth in the shape of a sphere and which kept the waters out. When St. Ambrose is arguing with someone about whether the waters would flow down off of the sphere that kept them separated from the earth, we are clearly not talking about Dr. Sungen's "empty space". [Yes, I know he has a nuance where for him empty space is something of infinite density, but for that there is clearly no support from the Fathers.]
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Next are two separate quotes from Athenagoras:
For if the world, being made spherical, is confined
within the circles of heaven, and the Creator of the world is above the
things created, managing that by His providential care of these, what
place is there for the second god, or for the other gods?
and
Beautiful without doubt is the world, excelling, as well
in its magnitude as in the arrangement of its parts, both those in the
oblique circle and those about the north, and also in its spherical
form.
So, the "world, being made spherical" and "confined with in the circles of heaven". There's nothing about this that rules out once again the snow-globe view. This is yet another case of Dr. Sungenis seeing the word "sphere" and then interpreting it as proof for our living on a globe.
In fact, if you think about it, if this means that the SURFACE of the earth is a globe, and people live on the surface, then if the globe is suspended in the heavens, what exactly is the barrier between the heavens and the surface dwellers? In fact they would be on the edge of the line between the globe and the heavens ... which of course they believed to be WATERS. So with Sungenis' iterpretation, they'd have to have completely discarded the notion that there's a firmament above the earth separating the inhabitants of the earth from the waters above. So when did these Fathers abandon that notion?
This second passage probably requires some deeper analysis. So he describes "the world" (same term he used in the first passage) as consisting of "parts". And he refers to some parts being in the "oblique circle", some "about the north", and others "in its spherical form". Again we have some combination of a CIRLCE along with a SPHERE. How are the circle and the sphere related? If you recall, earlier we saw Arnobius saying that the earth is ROUND and BOUNDED by a circle. Between that passage and this one, you get the impression or a world more like this.
(https://undergroundmathematics.org/circles/cutting-spheres/images/sphere1.png)
It would be interesting to see the original languages, to see how they use the term translated here as "world" vs. when they might use "earth". It really does appear to me that the term "world" is much bigger than just the surface of the earth, and attempting to equate the term with the surface of the earth actually begs the question about whether they're talking about a globe earth surface.
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I have some work I need to go do, but I'll try to continue tomorrow, perhaps a couple pages a day. I've read ahead a bit (while not posting), but I assure that it's more of the same. EVERY SINGLE PASSAGE Sungenis cites (of the ones I've read) is perfectly consistent with (and some are MORE consistent with) the "snow globe" model of the world.
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Just a quick interesting thing I found among the Fathers that completely rejects the Glober assertion that everyone believed the earth was a globe. Several Fathers stated that there were competing notions out there among the "astronomers," with some holding that the "world" is shaped like a sphere, others that it's like a "cone," and others still that it's in the shape of a "hemisphere". Another Father refers to the fact that one group of astronomers after another come along and overturn the views of the previous ones. So this idea that it was universally believed since Pythagoras and Eratosthenes that the "earth" was a globe are just flat out lying.
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Sungenis goes on to absolutely BUTCHER St. Augustine (who from the texts clearly believes in a flat SURFACE of the earth). Throughout, every single time Sungenis sees "circle" or "sphere" or "globe" he interprets it to mean a globe earth. He cites Fathers who refer to the "circle of the earth" as being globers.
It is, thus, an astonishing irony that Sungenis claims of Flat Eathers:
I would add that Ferrari’s reluctance to admit the case is common to a flat
Earth mentality, that is, they search into every nook and cranny looking for
just the slightest possible nuance toward a flat Earth view in the person
under investigation and then jump to hasty and specious conclusions.
Ridiculous.
I'm afraid that I have completely lost the respect I initially had for Sungenis after reading these citations from the Church Fathers and how badly he butchers them (in a couple cases interpreting the to be saying the exact opposite of what they actually wrote).
I retract what I wrote earlier about considering Sungenis to be intellectually honest. This section on the Church Fathers exposes his dishonesty. As the Dimond Brothers would say, he is clearly "of bad will" on this particular subject.
These comments here are coming from someone who does not believe that the Church Fathers had a dogmatic consensus ONE WAY OR THE OTHER on the subject. But after reading these passages, I'm becoming more and more inclined to believe that they did in fact have a universal consensus, about certain ASPECTS of "flat earth" theory, based on their reading of Sacred Scripture. I don't regret spending the $10 because he does have lots of material from the Church Fathers.
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So, for instance, among the matters about which there was a total and universal consensus among the Church Fathers. Without exception they believed that there is an actual firmament (made of some substance ... one Father said there were differing opinions about what this substance was made of) and that there was ACTUAL, REAL, non-metaphorical-for-space WATER above the firmament, and it was these waters that were released through the firmament to cause the Great Flood. So, did space flow in onto the earth to drown all of humanity?
And Sacred Scripture CLEARLY describes various "windows" of the firmament that were opened up (along with the fountains of the deep, i.e. the waters that were BELOW the earth) to combine in a one-two punch to flood the world.
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So, for instance, among the matters about which there was a total and universal consensus among the Church Fathers. Without exception they believed that there is an actual firmament (made of some substance ... one Father said there were differing opinions about what this substance was made of) and that there was ACTUAL, REAL, non-metaphorical-for-space WATER above the firmament, and it was these waters that were released through the firmament to cause the Great Flood. So, did space flow in onto the earth to drown all of humanity?
And Sacred Scripture CLEARLY describes various "windows" of the firmament that were opened up (along with the fountains of the deep, i.e. the waters that were BELOW the earth) to combine in a one-two punch to flood the world.
If you've read Sugenis' analysis of Bl. Hildegard: he theorizes that there was a massive sphere of water surrounding the earth (millions of miles in diameter) that existed prior to the Deluge that ceased to exist once the Flood occurred, leaving empty "space" between the earth's atmosphere and the "firmament" some great distance toward the edge of the cosmos. He bases this on supposed "clouds" of water found through images of space.
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If you've read Sugenis' analysis of Bl. Hildegard: he theorizes that there was a massive sphere of water surrounding the earth (millions of miles in diameter) that existed prior to the Deluge that ceased to exist once the Flood occurred, leaving empty "space" between the earth's atmosphere and the "firmament" some great distance toward the edge of the cosmos. He bases this on supposed "clouds" of water found through images of space.
Yeah, the water canopy theory. No, that's not what the Fathers believed, but that there's a permanent physical barrier between these waters above and the earth and atmosphere below, and that the waters remains and were STILL up there at the time of their writing (long after the Flood). They describe how the heavier elements, earth and water settled lower and that above this layer of water, like a large Ocean, was the void, and that the earth is at the bottom center of creation.
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Yeah, the water canopy theory. No, that's not what the Fathers believed, but that there's a permanent physical barrier between these waters above and the earth and atmosphere below, and that the waters remains and were STILL up there at the time of their writing (long after the Flood). They describe how the heavier elements, earth and water settled lower and that above this layer of water, like a large Ocean, was the void, and that the earth is at the bottom center of creation.
Oh yes, I know. I thought I would share so there's understanding of just what Sugenis holds to. It's a pretty weak explanation, in my opinion.
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Oh yes, I know. I thought I would share so there's understanding of just what Sugenis holds to. It's a pretty weak explanation, in my opinion.
In the very first passage cited by Sungenis from St. Ambrose, St. Ambrose is debating with someone (can't tell who) whether the waters would fall down the sides of the firmament if the earth were stationary while the heavens rotated around it. Both there in St. Ambrose and in other Church Fathers, you can clearly see that they believe that DOWN is based on density. They speak of how the earth settled to the bottom being the heaviest element, then the water was next, and something unknown above the water (gases, void, etc.). That view is clearly contrary to the notion that the earth is a ball floating in space (or even in water) ... a model which assumes "gravity," which it is clear that none of the Fathers believed in. Even Lucretius, who first described the world as consisting of atoms, also attributed the formation of matter to the settling downward of the heavier particles.
To me, had he actually demonstrated that most of the Church Fathers thought the earth to be a globe, that wouldn't be a big deal to me unless they were arguing from Sacred Scripture or Tradition. I had actually assumed that the majority of Church Fathers believed that the earth was a globe ... simply due to the repetition of that assertion. Now that I've actually seen the text of the Church Fathers, that is clearly not the case.
And in reading the Church Fathers, yet another lie from the Globers was exposed, their assertion that everybody believed the earth was a sphere. That is false. Several Fathers talk about multiple competing theories, that the world was a sphere, that the world was cone-shaped, and that the world was hemi-spherical. One Father said there were many theories. But even then, the reference is nearly always to the world (likely kosmos in Greek), which is NOT identical to just the earth or the surface of the earth. When they are speaking about the shape of the world, it's not limited to the inhabitable surface of the earth by any stretch.
And I am rather appalled by Sungenis literally taking every reference to the "circle of the earth" as proof that the Father believed the earth was a globe. That's incredibly dishonest.
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And it gets worse. Sungenis cites multiple popes referring to the "globe". But then he cites the Latin word they used, orbis. Orbis does NOT mean globe, but rathe a circle. Latin, depending on the era, could use either globus or sphaera for globe or sphere. Our word "orbit" comes from the Latin. So, do planets orbit in spherical patterns, or in circular patterns?
There's just no end to his dishonesty in sight.
Lewis & Short Latin Dictionary (one of the more authoritative ones short of the Oxford):
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=orbis&la=la&can=orbis0
a ring, circle, re-entering way, circular path, hoop, orbit
Chariots and other races around a track were said to be moving around the orbis.
So, the popes were using the term orbis as meaning "the world". This in turn is short for the Roman orbis terrarum, the "circle of lands", a reference to the circle of lands around the Mediterranean sea that the Roman empire controlled. For them it was synonymous with "the world" since it was the civilized world, outside of which were only barbarians, etc. So this orbis terrarum expression came to mean the world, as in the inhabited world (vs. oceans, for instance). Originally meaning "circle" or "track" or "circuit", it therefore became synonymous with "the world" ... which is how it was being used by the popes. These Popes were NOT thereby claiming that the earth is a "globe" (as that's not the word for "globe").
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Scientific section opens with total garbage, nothing but illogical ad hominems against Flat Earthers.
This "respect" he attempted to convey in the interview he gave was clearly feigned.
So, for example, he starts by mentioning how a lot of FEs see in the UN and other symbols a reference to Flat Earth. Then he claims it's some contradiction to both hold that these are wicked institutions and at the same time believe that the UN and other institutions are "secretly trying to teach people about flat earth".
What utter stupidity! NOBODY believes this is a way to secretly teach about FE. Many of these conspiratorial secret societies have various occult symbols that have meaning for them even while they try to hide the truth from the masses.
This has to be one of the dumbest criticisms I've ever heard.
And, no, FEs do not believe these symbols are PROOF of anything ... just that they are another dot in the big picture.
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Then he explains that FEs are constantly at war with each other and says this is because it's really a "religion" and is not based on the scientific method.
What absurd dishonesty.
So, modern science all agree with each other about everything and don't often have competing theories about various things that are not fully understood?
Doesn't 99.999% of modern science, who follow the "scientific method", denounce Sungenis himself as a raving lunatic and as unscientific?
These stupid ad hominems are what he opens the scientific chapters with?
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And then it gets better. He hints that one of the chief rebuttals of FE will be on account of stellar parallax and stellar aberration.
:laugh1:
Those are precisely the SAME weapons that modern science use to attack his geocentrism. Is he going to end up refuting himself in his zeal to put down FEs? Cutting off his nose to spite his face here? We'll see.
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And then it gets better. He hints that one of the chief rebuttals of FE will be on account of stellar parallax and stellar aberration.
:laugh1:
Those are precisely the SAME weapons that modern science use to attack his geocentrism. Is he going to end up refuting himself in his zeal to put down FEs? Cutting off his nose to spite his face here? We'll see.
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/Paris_Tuileries_Garden_Facepalm_statue.jpg)
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… he's either wilfully ignorant or intellectually dishonest.…
I have never met him face-to-face but, as well as reading and viewing his works, have spoken and exchanged correspondence with Bob for over 20 years.
Please allow me to categorically state that Bob is neither willfully ignorant nor intellectually dishonest.
Obviously I disagree with him on some issues (e.g., the Novus Ordo, sedevacantism), but we do not disagree because of any kind of ignorance or dishonesty. Honest and informed men can and do disagree and honest and informed men are sometimes wrong.
On those charges I emphatically state that Bob has consistently taken enormous effort to inform himself on issues (e.g., geocentrism, JMF-ism) and, in the face of enormous opposition, has shown the intellectual honesty and Catholic courage to stick to his guns.
I'll add this—Bob has shown a kind and charitable disposition to his opponents that I have admired (and have not even remotely approximated), such kindness and charity that I cannot recall seeing from anyone here, myself included, who has locked horns here over an issue whether pivotal or trivial.
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Please allow me to categorically state that Bob is neither willfully ignorant nor intellectually dishonest.
He is on this issue, without question. It's very clear that he's on a mission here to debunk FE and that he's applying "evidence" with confirmation bias.
I've cited numerous examples of this already. Every time he sees a Church Father using the expression "circle of the earth," he uses that to assert that the Father in question believes in a globe. He takes St. Augustine and butchers who he wrote, twisting it into saying the opposite of what he actually said. He regularly straman's the FE position and FE arguments.
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And I think we need to understand what is meant by intellectual dishonesty. This does not necessarily mean that Dr. Sungenis is deliberately and consciously setting out to be dishonest, to lie, to distort, etc. I do believe that he is of good character and would not consciously do anything of the sort.
What is meant by intellectual dishonesty is that he's made up his mind beforehand that FE is false and he's setting to to prove that it's false, to find evidence that it is false. That in turn leads to confirmation bias where he falsely reads things into various pieces of evidence that do not on their own support his thesis. If there's anything that MIGHT be interpreted as backing up his thesis, then in his mind, it's evidence or proof. He's not letting the evidence speak for itself but is reading into it. So, for example, every time he sees a Father (he cited about a dozen of these) referring to the "circle of the earth," he says, "aha! see! This Father here believes the earth is a globe." That is simply a citation from Sacred Scripture and clearly says circle, not globe, and most of the Fathers did believe the the shape of the earth (vs "the world" ... two separate things for them) was circular. One of Sungenis' first citations was a Father who described it as a circle bounded by a sphere. That doesn't even make sense for a straight globe. But Sugenis sees the world "sphere" and immediately jumps on it as if it's proof of globe. In reality, circle bounded by a sphere looks very much like that concept of the world where there's a spherical dome on top of the inhabitable earth. When you take a cross-section of a sphere, it is indeed a circle (bounded by the sphere). It's very clear to me that those Church Fathers believed that the WORLD was spherical, but that the actual EARTH we LIVE on was a circular cross-section of said sphere.
I'd like for Dr. Sungenis to explain how a circle bounded by a sphere refers to a globe on whose surface we live.
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So, at the beginning of the science section, he admits that it's much more difficult to refute FE if you take NASA out of the picture.
This [rejecting NASA as legitimate evidence], unfortunately, is what makes proving the case against a flat Earth difficult at times.
[As a side note, he finds it "unfortunate" that the case against FE becomes more difficult. Does this sound like someone who's interested in finding the truth, wherever the evidence may lead, or someone who's already decided ahead of time that FE must be refuted?]
He concedes that if we're limited to observations from the ground, that much of the data can be interpreted either way:
The reason is that both a flat Earth and a spherical Earth can, at times, be used to explain the same phenomenon if one is viewing the phenomenon from the surface of the Earth. Simple elements such as magnification, atmospheric distortion, perspective, lines of sight, temperature, pressure and sun light, can be used by both sides in varying ways to make it appear that one or the other view is correct or not correct, as the case may be.
He does concede one instance of fraud by NASA, and admits that it does shake NASA's credibility.
It is quite an understatement to say that this particular photo of the Earth gives NASA a credibility problem, not only with flatearthers but with many others.
Of course, by focusing on this one photo (that's obviously a fake, and even he has to admit it), he's minimizing the extent of NASA fraud. We could fill a book larger than his with all the evidence of NASA fraud. It's dishonest of him to imply that there's only one (or a small handful) of examples that NASA has committed fraud.
Then he goes on to strawman FEs (as he does on a regular basis):
This caveat is not for the purpose of condoning what may have prompted NASA to make the fake photo, but only to say that NASA’s foibles do not prove the Earth is flat.
Nobody says that NASA "foibles" (again an understatement, since there's a vast amount of evidence of deliberate fraud on the part of NASA) "prove" that the Earth is flat. What it does do is take anything produced by NASA "off the table" as reliable evidence. In other words, you can't prove that the earth is a globe because of "muh NASA".
So after realizing that taking NASA "evidence" off the table makes it much more difficult to refute FE, he tries to salvage NASA.
He begins by denouncing FEs via strawman:
The flat-earthers begin by claiming that all the images NASA has produced of either the Earth or of man-made objects in space are computer graphic images (CGI for short) that are manufactured on Earth so as to appear as if they come from outer space.
For flat-earthers, this out-of-the gate premise denying satellite photos of Earth is simply a black and white issue, an all-or-nothing game, and there can be no compromise.
Nobody concludes from the evidence of fraud that "ALL the images NASA has produced" are fake. That is not the argument. Argument is that this evidence of fraud makes anything produced by NASA inadmissible as evidence.
There's a legal principle where it comes to evidence: Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus. Literally, "false in one thing, false in all." If a witness at a trial is caught lying about one thing, that basically renders anything else he says "inadmissible" as evidence. While it's POSSIBLE that other stuff he says happens to be true, it cannot be proven due to the lack of credibility established even by a single lie.
He then goes on to cite an FE blogger here or there who claims that ALL NASA photos are fake. That's dishonest as well. You can find someone in any group who might say stupid things or exaggerate. And the context of some of these posts he cites is people mixing it up with globers, and much of it is gamesmanship or even just trolling the Globers. But to try to characterize the objective case for FE based on the comments of some individuals here or there is simply dishonest. I'm sure you can find a geocentrist who says stupid things or exaggerates some things, but that has nothing whatsoever to do with the case for or against geocentrism.
He then goes on to spend quite a few pages trying to save NASA. For pictures where NASA was clearly cutting and pasting cloud formations across a globe, he tries to claim that in nature you can see "similar" cloud formations when the conditions are similar. He shows a few pictures. Problem is that in his pictures, the various clouds are SIMILAR, but they are clearly not IDENTICAL, and the formations that were pasted onto NASA photos of earth are in fact IDENTICAL down to the pixel. He then goes on to use an earth curve simulator and then shows how a picture from NASA said to be taken from ISS shows the curvature exactly as predicted by the simulator. So if some chump can write an accurate simulator, we're to think that NASA is incapable of using the same simulation math to come up with a convincing CGI (or otherwise doctored) image ... given their enormous budget? None of his case is the least bit convincing. Even if NASA comes up with images that are accurate and convincing (they SHOULD given their budget), this does not prove that the photos are real or legitimate. So he spends about 20 pages trying to demonstrate that some NASA images are accurate, based on simulators. So? That proves nothing.
So NASA is a mortal enemy of Sungenis' geocentrism and labels him a kook and a nutjob. Now all of a sudden NASA has credibility. He criticizes FE for trying to paint NASA as some kind of sinister organization, despite the fact that in his geocentrist battle, he pointed out well that modern science is driven by a dishonest atheistic agenda. He passes over all of the occult and Masonic connections between NASA, where you even had Jack Parsons performing occult rituals as a devotee of Aleister Crowley. There was an entire book written about the occultism at NASA. In any case, now, suddenly Sungenis finds NASA redeemable. It's like when "Pilate and Herod became friends that day". He does realize the problem here, so that, at one point, and I can't find the exact quote at the moment, he has to reel back his defense of NASA, and so he says that both NASA and FEs have distorted evidence, with the arrogant assertion that only HE is honest and does not distort evidence. So NASA is both reliable AND unreliable, reliable when they back him up and unreliable when they don't, leaving him as the ultimate decider and arbiter of when NASA is right and when NASA is wrong. Are we starting to see the intellectual dishonesty yet?
So about 50 pages of Sungenis' argument falls on the basis of a very simple piece of logic. Without having to say that ALL NASA images are fake, the principle of falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus renders all evidence from NASA inadmissible. He could have saved himself 50 pages of attempting to show that SOME NASA images are REALISTIC. As mentioned earlier, showing that some NASA images MAY be real because they accurately follow various simulations, does not prove that they ARE real. Given NASA's huge budget, it's more of a surprise to me when they get so sloppy as to get caught committing obvious fraud than when they happen to come up with something realistic and plausible.
So, the final conclusion on the NASA front, FE wins that battle. There's sufficient evidence of NASA fraud to render all NASA evidence inadmissible. That was a waste of about 50+ pages of his book.
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So he spends about 20 pages trying to demonstrate that some NASA images are accurate, based on simulators. So? That proves nothing.
That's like FE proponents pointing to the fact that virtually all open-world video games take place on a flat plane as proof for FE. It's silly.
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That's like FE proponents pointing to the fact that virtually all open-world video games take place on a flat plane as proof for FE. It's silly.
I'm afraid that I simply don't understand the lack of logic, except that you tend to see that when someone is not being intellectually honest.
Argument is very simple, and it's not the strawman argument he presents (that FE hold ALL NASA images to be fraudulent), but if any are fraudulent, then none of them can be trusted ... even if they have happened to craft some that aren't obviously fake (i.e. that they're realistic).
Once the credibility of NASA is gone, he'd have to prove that any given image is real, and there simply is no way to do that. Demonstrating that any particular image is believable, credible, realistic does not suffice, as NASA clearly has the funds and the technology to create such images.
And, yes, you occasionally see some absurd arguments from FE. But this debate isn't about any given person's views, but about the objective question of whether the surface of the earth is flat. And some of the more absurd arguments come from places like the Flat Earth Society, which certainly appears to have been turned into a disinfo operation.
So, for instance, you occasionally see people making absurd claims about 9/11, but this does not prove that 9/11 was pulled off by a bunch of Arabs with box-cutters. So that would be like me arguing from a few absurd theories made either by nutjobs or else government disinfo agents deliberately attempting to discredit any doubts about the official story.
At one point, Sungenis spends 2-3 pages on the views of Mark Sergeant, that I'll get back to later
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He is on this issue, without question. It's very clear that he's on a mission here to debunk FE and that he's applying "evidence" with confirmation bias.
I've cited numerous examples of this already. Every time he sees a Church Father using the expression "circle of the earth," he uses that to assert that the Father in question believes in a globe. He takes St. Augustine and butchers who he wrote, twisting it into saying the opposite of what he actually said. He regularly straman's [sic] the FE position and FE arguments.
Damn it. Even if he has confirmation bias it can be (and, based on the pattern of his work, almost certainly is) a mistake.
Has Typhoid Meg infected the entire forum with her damned readings of the interior forum of others?
Bob deserves the most charitable interpretation of his disagreement with your opinions. If you said "Argument X is a straw man and Exhibit Y uses confirmation bias," that would be fair and objectively sinless, but to read his intent ("willful" and "on a mission") is objectively sinful reading of another's interior forum to which you do not have any access.
If and when you point out to him the errors you claim and he responds inappropriately, only then can you legitimately make these claims of willful dishonesty.
Bob has been very accessible and very responsive to criticism. Instead of doubling down on insulting him, I suggest that you email or call him and report back.
Mind you that I have no dog in the FE fight. I have no opinion on FE because I have not investigated it one iota. While I find geocentrism quite interesting primarily through St. Hildegard's and Bob's writing, I have ZERO interest if FE.
I will not get drawn into the FE argument, but will simply leave it at this—It is damn rotten behavior to impute ill intent to someone whose track record deserves better. I see irony regarding "intent." In your argument against martial arts male/female personal contact training (unless it's contacting the instructor :facepalm:) the intent of protecting innocent life mattered little to you, but in this case the intent of Bob's "willful" "mission" consumes noticeable attention from you.
I do have a dog in the fight about insulting a man who deserves better treatment than the Meg interior forum poison. Damn it. Call him or email him and report back. Until then, leave his interior forum out of it—PLEASE!
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So the first substantial argument that's worth discussing is where Sungenis claims that the rotation of the stars that we observe would not be correct on a Flat Earth.
This one I'll have to study more closely.
He doesn't really prove anything, but makes certain statements, and shows pictures of constellations (that appear to be drawn in) as they are allegedly seen from different parts of the world. I do not know how to confirm or deny what he's saying. I've seen counter-arguments from the FEs, and don't know how to confirm or deny those either.
So, based on these assertions, Sungenis claims that FE is discredited. He then goes on to mention that there's one FE who asserted that the prevalent FE model was wrong and had his own theory. Sungenis concludes by spending 2-3 pages reproducing an e-mail exchange he had with Mark Sargeant, where Sargeant makes some strange claims. Many FEs think that Sargeant is a disinfo agent, and in point of fact Sargeant believes the earth is actually some kind of artificial contraption. Very few FEs accept his position.
But the key distinction that's important here is this. It's certainly possible to find various shortcomings with different FE "models". These models are in fact hypothetical, and there's room for improvement or possibly some alternative views. Finding a flaw with a model does not address the larger question of whether the earth is Flat ... the central evidence for which has to do with seeing too far. One does not have to believe in the model where the sun and moon rotate over the earth completely parallel to the surface. Perhaps it goes up and down in an arc. Perhaps it is more of an electromagnetic phenomenon rather than a physical body. There are SOME flaws with the model that would discredit FE as a whole ... i.e. if someone could prove that the circuмference or perimeter of Antarctica is more like 12,000 miles than the nearly 70,000 it would be on a flat earth, but some smaller details could be addressed with an alternative model or adjustments to the existing one. FE do not have the funds or the scientific apparatus to conduct the types of investigations that would be needed to either confirm or deny details about the various models.
In fact, when reading the Church Fathers, many of them did not hold that the sun moved across a plane. They believed that it rose in the East, set in the West, and then did go beneath the earth during night-time. They believed that the firmament was not in fact a hemisphere only but that it went around all the way to form a sphere. But they denied that the bottom part of the earth was inhabitable. There is one Father who posited that there's a large mountain range that obscures the sun as it moves farther away. Then we read in the Book of Enoch the notion that the sun emerges from these "gates" and then disappears through gates on the other side of the firmament.
But the error that Sungenis REPEATEDLY makes is to mistake this spherical or hemispherical ENCLOSURE of the earth (their use of the term "world" rather than "earth" is key) for being a reference to a globe on whose surface people live. It's clear that the Fathers did NOT believe in gravity, a concept that wasn't invented until much later. So how would people live on the lower hemisphere. That's where we have St. Hildegard later stating that the underside was uninhabitable due to the great deep and the entrance to Sheol. These Fathers seemed to have the same view. So it's rather ironic that Sungenis uses that picture of Our Lord holding a sphere as if it were proof for globe earth. But if you look at the picture, it's a transparent globe that, when Our Lord's Hand is on the bottom, has the appearance of there being land at the bottom and blue sky at the top.
But the question of the constellations and movements of the stars is worth studying ... and here is finally some room (after hundreds of pages) for a substantial debate.
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Damn it. Even if he has confirmation bias it can be (and, based on the pattern of his work, almost certainly is) a mistake.
Are you capable of reading? I said it's likely that this is not deliberate (i.e. is a "mistake") but he makes it very clear from the outset that his intent is to discredit FE and not to objectively study the matter. He uses the expression that dismissing NASA as evidence "unfortunately" makes it more difficult to refute FE.
Thus his stated intention is in fact to refute FE even before having studied the evidence. That's a prior conclusion causing confirmation bias.
"Confirmation bias," however, is not a "mistake" ... but rather it's a SOURCE of making mistakes. He goes in with a certain attitude and then reads into the various sources what he wants to see there in support of his thesis. So his attitude of wanting to discredit FE instead of giving it an objective look actually causes the mistakes. Ironically, that is exactly what he accuses FEs of doing.
So, right back at you: "Damn it, man, learn how to read English." This is not, as I have already clearly explained, an attack on his integrity nor an assertion that it's being done deliberately, but it is what it is. He has a clear and obvious (pretty much admitted) bias going in that leads to him misinterpreting evidence.
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Damn it. Even if he has confirmation bias it can be (and, based on the pattern of his work, almost certainly is) a mistake.
Has Typhoid Meg infected the entire forum with her damned readings of the interior forum of others?
Either you missed it or didn't comprehend. Here's my earlier comment:
And I think we need to understand what is meant by intellectual dishonesty. This does not necessarily mean that Dr. Sungenis is deliberately and consciously setting out to be dishonest, to lie, to distort, etc. I do believe that he is of good character and would not consciously do anything of the sort.
What is meant by intellectual dishonesty is that he's made up his mind beforehand that FE is false and he's setting to to prove that it's false, to find evidence that it is false. That in turn leads to confirmation bias where he falsely reads things into various pieces of evidence that do not on their own support his thesis. If there's anything that MIGHT be interpreted as backing up his thesis, then in his mind, it's evidence or proof. He's not letting the evidence speak for itself but is reading into it.
This is not any reading of the internal forum. In fact, I explicitly state that I believe he is not doing this consciously and deliberately.
I am so sick of people not understanding basic distinctions. Every Catholic really should be required to take some good courses in scholastic logic, since lack of logic and the ability to make proper distinctions has been the root of so much error.
And if I am reading the internal forum by making these comments, then so is "Bob". He made the exact same statement about both NASA and Flat Earthers (in the same sentence) ... in fact, his comment was much stronger, claiming that FEs "distort" evidence. In fact, if you do a word search on his PDF, you'll find the word "distort" 115 times. Skimming through the search results, I find that about half the time he's using it innocuously, such as in the expression "atmospheric distortion", but the other have he's accusing FEs of "distorting" evidence (even though it's often painfully obvious that HE is the one doing the distorting ... as I have called out earlier regarding his misnterpretation of the Church Fathers).
At one point, he approvingly quotes a Globe zealot as follows:
The very act of entering into a discussion with them is to extend to them a level of respect that they do not deserve. They lie, they manipulate, they distort information, they invent pseudoscientific ideas. Everything that comes from the flat Earth community should be dismissed as white noise.
I had hoped for a respectful treatment of the debate from Bob, but that's clearly not what we have here in this book, and so the gloves are coming off where Bob is going to get a taste of his own medicine ... and see how he likes it.
Bob has been bouncing from one blunder into another for several hundred pages, to the point that it discredits him overall in my eyes ... one logical error after another that's easily exposed. Has he been properly trained in scholastic logic?
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I'm afraid that I simply don't understand the lack of logic, except that you tend to see that when someone is not being intellectually honest.
Argument is very simple, and it's not the strawman argument he presents (that FE hold ALL NASA images to be fraudulent), but if any are fraudulent, then none of them can be trusted ... even if they have happened to craft some that aren't obviously fake (i.e. that they're realistic).
Once the credibility of NASA is gone, he'd have to prove that any given image is real, and there simply is no way to do that. Demonstrating that any particular image is believable, credible, realistic does not suffice, as NASA clearly has the funds and the technology to create such images.
And, yes, you occasionally see some absurd arguments from FE. But this debate isn't about any given person's views, but about the objective question of whether the surface of the earth is flat. And some of the more absurd arguments come from places like the Flat Earth Society, which certainly appears to have been turned into a disinfo operation.
So, for instance, you occasionally see people making absurd claims about 9/11, but this does not prove that 9/11 was pulled off by a bunch of Arabs with box-cutters. So that would be like me arguing from a few absurd theories made either by nutjobs or else government disinfo agents deliberately attempting to discredit any doubts about the official story.
At one point, Sungenis spends 2-3 pages on the views of Mark Sergeant, that I'll get back to later
I doubt that you set out to write, "Sungenis: Flat Wrong", but the author assured himself nothing less when he shot this quiver of headless arrows against the flat earth. You probably thought there'd be some problems here and there, but this? The exasperation in each of your responses is loud and clear. Every page, every argument in Sungenis' book is a serious head scratcher. His poorly thought out responses to flat earth sound like a 5th grade challenge against a college graduate opponent, but the ultimate shocker is that Sungenis thought he won that debate when he published this book.
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I doubt that you set out to write, "Sungenis: Flat Wrong", but the author assured himself nothing less when he shot this quiver of headless arrows against the flat earth. You probably thought there'd be some problems here and there, but this? The exasperation in each of your responses is loud and clear. Every page, every argument in Sungenis' book is a serious head scratcher. His poorly thought out responses to flat earth sound like a 5th grade challenge against a college graduate opponent, but the ultimate shocker is that Sungenis thought he won that debate when he published this book.
Indeed. I went into this with a great deal of prior respect for Dr. Sungenis (you can read that in the posts I made prior to actually getting this book and starting to read it), but that's been seriously tarnished from what I'm reading here. Based on an interview he gave, I was assuming that there would be a respectful debate in the interests of seeking truth. That is clearly not what we have here in this book, and I must say that I'm incredibly disappointed.
Your reading of my attitude is spot on. I figured there would be some hole here or a hole there. Heck, I was even open to being convinced that I was wrong. But after a couple pages of what amounts to sheer nonsense, I am in fact exasperated with this ... perhaps partly because I had expected better before diving in.
I am still open to being proven wrong about FE, but this here doesn't do it. I'm still holding out for something convincing or substantial, wherein the book might redeem itself ... but I am no longer holding my breath.
I did read that this book was commissioned by the Kolbe Institute, and the clear intent of the enterprise out of the gate was to refute or disprove Flat Earth. That was the intent going in. I wonder what Kolbe would have thought had Sungenis given the topic a fair shake and concluded that the earth was flat. I suspect that whatever funding was behind this book would have been summarily withdrawn. And we do in fact have a fair bit of that going on in "science," where people's livelihoods depend on producing the "right" answer.
This is not how we seek the truth. We seek it by approaching it with an open and objective mind. I did not "set out" in reading Dr. Sungenis' book to "prove [him] wrong" or to "refute [him]". I actually was hoping to read some good stuff that challenged my beliefs, and even being open to being persuaded that I have been wrong.
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I would have hoped that Dr. Sungenis learned from the treatment to which he's been subjected by the scientific establishment and "orthodoxy" regarding his geoecentrist views: mockery, derision, being labeled a kook and a nutjob, a liar, a distorter, etc. -- and so not subject flat earthers to the exact same treatment that he himself has received. No, instead, he JOINS this same scientific establishment that has derided and mocked him in their chorus of derision and ridicule directed at flat earthers. Here he has allied with the same people that he's been at war all these years about geocentrism.
So here we have FEs, who by and large also support geocentrism, and should be his allies against the largely-Satanic Luciferian Masonic establishment, many / most of whom share his respect for Sacred Scripture ... being thrown overboard to the same wolves that have been attacking him. If I didn't know any better, I'd almost think that he was throwing us under the bus to the wolves in order to regain some "respect" with the scientific establishment ... like when a herd of animals will leave behind the slow or infirm animals to be ravaged by the wolves, so that they can save their own skin.
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At the end of the day, does Dr. Sungenis really believe that this type of an attitude will actually be effective or persuasive? If he were sincerely seeking the truth and treating people with respect, he'd have a much better chance of persuading people about any solid arguments he may have. But his attitude simply makes them put up their guard and distrust anything he has to say. So, who is his audience here? Is he preaching to the choir? Or is he trying to persuade FEs? If the latter, he's adopted very poor tactics. Or was he in fact using this to try re-establishing his credibility with the scientific establishment? Or was it simply about making some money to support his family?
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Indeed. I went into this with a great deal of prior respect for Dr. Sungenis (you can read that in the posts I made prior to actually getting this book and starting to read it), but that's been seriously tarnished from what I'm reading here. Based on an interview he gave, I was assuming that there would be a respectful debate in the interests of seeking truth. That is clearly not what we have here in this book, and I must say that I'm incredibly disappointed.
Your reading of my attitude is spot on. I figured there would be some hole here or a hole there. Heck, I was even open to being convinced that I was wrong. But after a couple pages of what amounts to sheer nonsense, I am in fact exasperated with this ... perhaps partly because I had expected better before diving in.
I am still open to being proven wrong about FE, but this here doesn't do it. I'm still holding out for something convincing or substantial, wherein the book might redeem itself ... but I am no longer holding my breath.
I did read that this book was commissioned by the Kolbe Institute, and the clear intent of the enterprise out of the gate was to refute or disprove Flat Earth. That was the intent going in. I wonder what Kolbe would have thought had Sungenis given the topic a fair shake and concluded that the earth was flat. I suspect that whatever funding was behind this book would have been summarily withdrawn. And we do in fact have a fair bit of that going on in "science," where people's livelihoods depend on producing the "right" answer.
This is not how we seek the truth. We seek it by approaching it with an open and objective mind. I did not "set out" in reading Dr. Sungenis' book to "prove [him] wrong" or to "refute [him]". I actually was hoping to read some good stuff that challenged my beliefs, and even being open to being persuaded that I have been wrong.
Well, you'd naturally expect something rich from a book written by a notable Catholic on a subject so epic in scope and full of controversy. Instead you get a lot of words, but no content.
In Texas they call it big hat, no cattle.
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What is meant by intellectual dishonesty is that he's made up his mind beforehand that FE is false and he's setting to to prove that it's false, to find evidence that it is false.
You appear to be clearly inferring here that Sungenis went into his study of the FE question beforehand with a closed mind. I would submit that you can infer this till the cows come home, but if you believe you know what you are inferring to be a fact go ahead and prove it beyond any reasonable doubt. Perhaps, you think you already have, but you have not. You, yourself appear to so strongly disagree with him that you have made an assumption that he MUST have had a closed mind going into this. Are you some sort of mind reader that you can state as a fact that Dr. Sungenis had a closed mind going into this?!
Sungenis by his own admission stated that he firmly believed in heliocentrism at one time. So did Dr. Robert J. Bennett, the co-author of Galileo was Wrong -- The Church was Right. Nevertheless, he saw something one day that caused him to question his belief and he started studying the issue and ended up rightfully believing in geocentrism. He was being intellectually honest and his intellectual honesty -- to put it mildly -- cost him a lot.
This FE thread is like a big re-enforcing (confirmation bias?) echo chamber. Instead of going on a seemingly non-stop rant about Sungenis' book without him here to defend his views why not exercise some fortitude and intellectual honesty by doing what Mark 79 suggested you do -- call or e-mail Sungenis and communicate directly with him on this matter and then get back to us. If you are not willing to do that could you please be so kind as to tell us why not. In the past Sungenis has made public by placing them online certain email exchanges he has had with individuals who have vehemently disagreed with him. Perhaps, you could ask him to do that for you as well.
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I would have hoped that Dr. Sungenis learned from the treatment to which he's been subjected by the scientific establishment and "orthodoxy" regarding his geoecentrist views: mockery, derision, being labeled a kook and a nutjob, a liar, a distorter, etc. -- and so not subject flat earthers to the exact same treatment that he himself has received. No, instead, he JOINS this same scientific establishment that has derided and mocked him in their chorus of derision and ridicule directed at flat earthers. Here he has allied with the same people that he's been at war all these years about geocentrism.
So here we have FEs, who by and large also support geocentrism, and should be his allies against the largely-Satanic Luciferian Masonic establishment, many / most of whom share his respect for Sacred Scripture ... being thrown overboard to the same wolves that have been attacking him. If I didn't know any better, I'd almost think that he was throwing us under the bus to the wolves in order to regain some "respect" with the scientific establishment ... like when a herd of animals will leave behind the slow or infirm animals to be ravaged by the wolves, so that they can save their own skin.
This is a reasonable assessment and it's difficult to escape the fallout from Sungenis' continued push to undermine FE.
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I doubt that you set out to write, "Sungenis: Flat Wrong", but the author assured himself nothing less when he shot this quiver of headless arrows against the flat earth. You probably thought there'd be some problems here and there, but this? The exasperation in each of your responses is loud and clear. Every page, every argument in Sungenis' book is a serious head scratcher. His poorly thought out responses to flat earth sound like a 5th grade challenge against a college graduate opponent, but the ultimate shocker is that Sungenis thought he won that debate when he published this book.
Great idea! Lad, if you're going to do all the work to go through an "echo-chamber" book, why not publish your own balanced book?
As to the motivation of Sungenis, I think he may fit into that category of Trads who are so brainwashed that they're incapable of critical analysis. Therefore they jump to the conclusion that FE Trads must be silenced because we discredit Traditional Catholicism.
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Great idea! Lad, if you're going to do all the work to go through an "echo-chamber" book, why not publish your own balanced book?
As to the motivation of Sungenis, I think he may fit into that category of Trads who are so brainwashed that they're incapable of critical analysis. Therefore they jump to the conclusion that FE Trads must be silenced because we discredit Traditional Catholicism.
Yes.. This is one of the most outrageous conclusions from anti-flat earthers because it is an admission they are embarrassed without discerning whether or not the premise is true.
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So I bought his PDF book and just started skimming it. I must say that I'm incredibly disappointed. I skipped ahead to the Church Fathers, where Sungenis asserts that there's a Patristic consensus that the Earth is a sphere.
I agree that this is an untenable position and that his arguments that you have quoted are extremely weak. (For those who don't know, I believe the earth is a sphere.)
I would, however, find it easier to see you as a champion of intellectual honesty, if you had made similar critiques of those who claim that there is a consensus or near consensus among the Fathers that the Earth is flat. The flat earth trads site is an example.
Perhaps I missed you dissecting their misuse of quotes and their unwarranted conclusions, as you have done in this thread. Please excuse me if that is the case. Otherwise, please make more of an effort to apply the same standards to both sides of the issue.
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And I think we need to understand what is meant by intellectual dishonesty. This does not necessarily mean that Dr. Sungenis is deliberately and consciously setting out to be dishonest, to lie, to distort, etc. I do believe that he is of good character and would not consciously do anything of the sort.
What is meant by intellectual dishonesty is that he's made up his mind beforehand that FE is false and he's setting to to prove that it's false, to find evidence that it is false. …
Your personal definition of intellectual dishonesty is a neologism, a new and personal definition that is not shared by most others.
"An argument which is misused to advance an agenda or to reinforce one's deeply held beliefs in the face of overwhelming evidence contrary. The terms intellectually dishonest and intellectual dishonesty are often used as rhetorical devices in a debate; the label invariably frames an opponent in a negative light." —entry "intellectual dishonesty,"{ Urban DIctionary
Hence, the common understanding of "intellectual dishonesty" is necessarily ("invariably") an attack on the opponent, something that I have repeatedly stated Bob does not deserve.
As I said earlier, I disagree with Bob on certain issues (e.g., N.O., SVism, Fatima), but in no way is he dishonest.
Here's what I think you misinterpret about Bob.
When he believes Roma locuta est, that is his first and absolute premise. Because of that, he is obligated to causa finita est. Of necessity (the necessity of his perceived duty to submit), "from the outset … his intent is to discredit [whatever he believes, not what you believe, opposes dogma]." One or both of you may be wrong, but neither of you is intellectually dishonest according to the common understanding of the insult.
Do the apparent contradictions in the Bible (e.g., the sequence of Jesus' appearances after His Resurrection) mean Sacred Writ is buncombe??? No, of course not. The apparent contradictions must be reconciled.
Again I am chiding you for wrongly insulting Bob. He may be wrong (I don't know who is wrong in this uninteresting-to-me FE tempest in a teapot) about FE, but you are definitely objectively wrong to impugn his character. He is not some subversive dirtbag like Poche or given to shrewish obsession and soul-reading like someone we know. He is a good Catholic apologist, man, and father. I request again that you respect that.
Are you capable of reading? …
No. I am not capable of reading. I am an effing moron, uneducated, and have bad breath.
But… Are you capable of reading?
I was excruciatingly clear that I have not read the FE arguments. I made the mistake of wondering why this thread was so long-lived and saw the insults against Bob.
If you are capable of reading, read this: I don't give a hoot about the FE. I care about a good Catholic man's reputation.
I think it is a sorry commentary on you that you double-down trying to justify a pride-filled character assassination.
Bob doesn't deserve that. Besides, who are you?
You are not the Pope. You are not even an anti-Pope. You are not a credentialed theologian. You are a layman with some seminary education and post-seminary self-learning. Frankly I am surprised that a man of your background, education, and Catholicism would be such a proud jerk. "Unbecoming" is an under-statement.
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Bob has been bouncing from one blunder into another for several hundred pages, to the point that it discredits him overall in my eyes ... one logical error after another that's easily exposed. …
Have you had the decency to discuss these "easily exposed" "blunders" with him?
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Have you had the decency to discuss these "easily exposed" "blunders" with him?
Why is it a problem that he critiques his book? Do you call up every author you disagree with to discuss the faults of their books?
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I am so sick of people …
Igen, én is elegem van azokból az emberekből, akiknek büszkesége tönkreteszi azt a jót, amit tesznek.
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…call or e-mail Sungenis and communicate directly with him on this matter and then get back to us.…
Yes, precisely that.
This is not how we seek the truth. We seek it by approaching it with an open and objective mind.
Shockingly erroneous as a generalization… and worse, from the keyboard of a former seminarian. :facepalm:
Some truths are revealed and we are bound to those truths or we are bound for Hell.
You gripe about everyone else's reading/writing comprehension.
Damn it. Look in the mirror! Lad, I have long respected your contributions, but, of late, I do believe that pride is feeding the worst on you, not the best in you. I mean this as a friend. A distant friend, but nonetheless a friend.
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but you are definitely objectively wrong to impugn his character. He is not some subversive dirtbag like Poche or given to shrewish obsession and soul-reading like someone we know. He is a good Catholic apologist, man, and father.
Mark, you can’t be serious. You said you’ve never met Bob personally but only through email. How can you be so sure about a man, based on written words alone?
I’ve met Robert a few times at ISOC conferences in DC. He seems like a nice guy. Down to earth and cheerful. But he’s also novus ordo/indult. I could never trust anyone who is an indulter. The lack of critical thinking required to be an indulter is proof of a mentality that is easily capable of being manipulated. Thus, I can’t trust their conclusions on anything important.
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Why is it a problem that he critiques his book? Do you call up every author you disagree with to discuss the faults of their books?
Yes, I do—frequently!
If I don't have a phone number, I use an email… or mail the publishers requesting my comments be forwarded to the author. In fact, in the time I have "known" you here, I have posted a fraction of such correspondence. My most recent such critical correspondence is this one:
Re: Archie, T. Sicut Judaeis: Pope Callistus II’s Jєωιѕн Bill of Rights, The Reign of Mary (53)184: Spring 2022. 20-21.
Esteemed Rev. Editor:
The author states his purpose is to underscore the just protections constantly afforded Jєωs by Holy Mother Church. That premise is completely non-controversial for well-catechized Catholics and so we have no objections on that count. The author’s recitation of anti-historical shibboleths, however, is seriously objectionable.
Having diligently searched for the complete and original Sicut Judaeis non, the earliest such we have found is from Pope Alexander III, September 14, 1199 A.D. in The Popes and the Jєωs in the Middle Ages by Edward Synan, (NY, NY: Macmillan Company) 1965, Paperback Edition 1967. Appendix VI, pp. 229-232. If the author has the complete 1120 A.D. content from Pope Callistus II, we would appreciate a copy of that content to replace the 1199 A.D. Latin and English translation we archived here: http://judaism.is/the-church-on-the-J (http://judaism.is/the-church-on-the-J)єωs.html#sicutjudaeisnon
The author claims “widespread persecutions, even expulsions” that were “quite lucrative.” He echoes Anti-Defamation League (ADL) laments about professions closed to Jєωs so that “to make a living” some Jєωs practiced “money lending.” Why such a bland description for the practice of usury damned repeatedly by God and His Church? http://judaism.is/usury.html (http://judaism.is/usury.html) The author carefully side-steps any discussion of either the sinfulness or criminality of usury, but laments that the victims of the usurers sometimes reacted against the criminals.
The author also repeats ADL claims that Jєωιѕн ritual murder is a “Blood Libel.” In 2007, following years mining the Vatican Archives, Dr. Ariel Toaff, Bar-Ilan University Historian and son of a former Chief Rabbi of Rome, published his first edition of Pasque di Sangue: Ebrei d’Europa e omicidi rituali (Bloody Passover: European Jєωs and Ritual Homicide). Toaff published his meticulous docuмentation of original sources concluding that there is indeed an αѕнкenαzι cult of ritual murderers. As you would expect, docuмentation of hundreds of ritual murders of Christian children by Jєωs, especially docuмentation contributed by the son of the former Chief Rabbi of Rome, caused an enormous furor. Initially Dr. Toaff courageously stood tall promising to stand by his findings from medieval archives, but he suffered death threats and threats of prosecution by the Israeli Knesset. Within a week, publication of his first edition was stopped and the books were recalled from bookstores. Dr. Toaff promised—and provided—a heavily revised second edition, bleated that he had been misunderstood, and promised all the profits of his revised edition to the Anti-Defamation League that dictated the revisions.
Fortunately, enough copies of the first edition survived to be distributed in the original Italian http://www.vho.org/aaargh/fran/livres7/pasque.pdf (http://www.vho.org/aaargh/fran/livres7/pasque.pdf) and in translations http://www.bloodpassover.com/ (http://www.bloodpassover.com/) that are readily available online. Of course, the revised second edition is readily available to anyone who would want it. The risible premise in the second edition is that Christian children died at the hands of Jєωs, but that the children were voluntary donors of blood and things just accidentally went wrong time and time again. The second edition is meticulously deconstructed with exact quotes here:
“Prof. Toaff has since partially recanted, and now maintains that:
• yes, Jєωs are a corrupting and disruptive element in society;
• yes, Jєωs lend money at 40% and seem to do little else;
• yes, Jєωs buy and sell justice with huge bribes;
• yes, Jєωs pull off all sorts of fraudulent bankruptcies and swindles;
• yes, Jєωs resort to poisoning and assassination when thwarted;
• yes, Jєωs are obsessed with hatred for Christians and the Christian religion;
• yes, Jєωs kidnapped and castrated Christian boys on a large scale and sold them into slavery in Islamic Spain for centuries;
• yes, Jєωs used [and still use?] human blood in all sorts of quack remedies, despite the Biblical prohibition, even for minor complaints;
• yes, Jєωs used [and still use?] Christian human blood in their matzoh balls at Passover;
• yes, Jєωs used [and still use?] Christian human blood in their wine at Passover;
• yes, the blood had to be from Christian boys no more than 7 years of age;
• yes, the blood had [has?] to be certified kosher by a rabbi;
• yes, there was [is?] a large and profitable trade in fake blood products and animal blood, which were [are?] unsuitable to the purpose;
• yes, Christians tried to sell the blood of Christian boys to Jєωs, but were rejected because the Jєωs feared it was animal blood; but no, no Christian boys were ever killed to obtain the blood. Never, never! Or hardly ever. It all came from ‘voluntary donors’!”
http://www.cwporter.com/toaffdonor.htm (http://www.cwporter.com/toaffdonor.htm)
The ritual murder of Christians by Jєωs is a well-docuмented fact, not at all a “libel.” We have aggregated a partial list of such ritual murders from 1160 A.D. through 1955 A.D.: http://judaism.is/ritual-murder.html (http://judaism.is/ritual-murder.html) Not only did Toaff docuмent ritual murder, he docuмented that medieval Jєωry was as averse to honest labor as Jєωry today. Toaff docuмented that Jєωs engaged extensively in prostitution, violent extortion, and murder-for-hire, especially as physician poisoners.
There are consequences to Jєωιѕн behaviors: Jєωιѕн supremacism, instigating gentile-against-gentile wars, fomenting revolutions, suborning heresies, undermining Christian society, fαℓѕє fℓαgs, big lies, inflicting multiculturalism, and perpetrating vice, ritual murder, genocide, slavery and economic crimes against humanity, including usury, fractional reserve banking, swindling, and tax farming. The perpetual pose of Jєωs as innocent victims is a fraud. Are there innocents among the Jєωs? Initially, yes! But those innocents, in shielding the guilty, have made themselves accomplices of the guilty, over the millennia earning the expulsion of Jєωs from over a thousand nations, principalities, and city-states. 1,043 of those “lucrative” expulsions of those Jєωs are docuмented here: https://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=12596 (https://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=12596)
Full of solicitude for the “constant fear and insecurity in which the Jєωs had to live,” Mr. Archie offers no solicitude for the Catholics who “had” to suffer deceit, looting, slavery, perversion, and death at the hands of those Jєωs. He seems as clueless as Israeli President Herzog who claimed the existence of antisemitism in the world today is “inexplicable.” https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/article-701842 (https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/article-701842) We pray for a return to the vigorous restraints placed by Christendom upon Jєωs. However imperfect those restrictions and their enforcement, the Jєωs’ Kabbalistic plans for us were better kept at bay than by the gutless submission and inappropriate solicitude of Catholics today. http://judaism.is/kabbalah.html (http://judaism.is/kabbalah.html)
Little St. Hugh of Lincoln, pray for us.
St. Simon of Trent, pray for us.
St. William of Norwich, pray for us.
All the Holy Martyrs, pray for us.
In the Sacred and Immaculate Hearts,
[name redacted]
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…You said you’ve never met Bob personally but only through email. …
No, this is what I said:
I have never met him face-to-face but, as well as reading and viewing his works, have spoken and exchanged correspondence with Bob for over 20 years.
Admittedly not as arm-in-arm buddies, but enough to know he is not a dishonest man.
I make no claim that Bob is infallible or impeccable, only that he deserves better that our proud ex-seminarian extends to him and anyone who deviates one iota from the Magisterium of Lad. "Are you capable of reading?" What an ass.
Lad, if you are out there, in the keyboard time that you have been accusing and doubling down on Bob's putative "intellectual dishonesty" and my reading comprehension, you could have called him or sent him an email. My experience is that he answers his phone and he answers email within 1 workday.
Damn it. The older I grow the better I understand the one and only problem with Catholicism: Catholics! (I do not exclude myself.)
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I agree that this is an untenable position and that his arguments that you have quoted are extremely weak. (For those who don't know, I believe the earth is a sphere.)
I would, however, find it easier to see you as a champion of intellectual honesty, if you had made similar critiques of those who claim that there is a consensus or near consensus among the Fathers that the Earth is flat. The flat earth trads site is an example.
Perhaps I missed you dissecting their misuse of quotes and their unwarranted conclusions, as you have done in this thread. Please excuse me if that is the case. Otherwise, please make more of an effort to apply the same standards to both sides of the issue.
I did, JayneK, on the other thread, about the video from FlatEarthTrads, which is what inspired me to get his book in the first place:
https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/trad-catholic-video-on-church-fathers-and-flat-earth/msg840435/#msg840435
I personally would have like to see them cite those Church Fathers who did hold the earth to be a sphere. Let's be objective and look at all the evidence. I don't care for it when either side of any issue simply ignores any evidence from the other side. It's OK to reject it for various well-argued reasons, but don't just ignore it and pretend it doesn't exist.
This was in response to the Flat Earth Trads video where there was no reference made to Church Fathers who believed that the earth was a sphere.
I didn't believe that there was a DOGMATIC consensus regarding the shape of the earth based on Sacred Scripture.
As of this moment (and I haven't gone through all the quotations) there are some Fathers who say that night is caused by the sun going underneath the bottom of the earth, which could be read that way, but it's not unambiguous. From others, I get the impression that they believe that the firmament goes all the way around as a sphere and that the sun travels through this firmament under the earth. It could be taken as their believing in a globe, but I'm not seeing it in any unambiguous terms yet. I will come back and post those quotes. I've just been skipping around the book, as I don't have time to read it straight through.
Of those Fathers who think this way, that night happens because the sun goes under the earth, I don't see any of them who believe that people can inhabit this underside of the earth. Part of it is that the Fathers clearly don't believe in gravity. Some of them talked about how the heavier elements, such as the earth, settled to the bottom, and then the waters, and then there was void above it. They speak of how it's a miracle that the lands can float on the waters because they're heavier and should have settled down into it. That seems to follow the thinking of Lucretius (or perhaps others), who holds that the world was formed when the "heavier" elements settled to the bottom. So I don't think they would have any concept of people stuck to the underside of a ball on account of "gravity" ... since they clearly didn't have a concept of gravity, but, rather, density.
So, even if there are some who believed earth is a sphere (vs. the "world" which is not necessarily to be equated with the surface of the earth), it does not appear that they would have entertained our modern notion of it being a ball, with people living on the bottom of this ball upside down.
In any case, I don't have any sense that they are promoting their various opinions on cosmology as dogmatic. In my mind, even if the Fathers all happened to have a unanimous opinion about cosmology, not every aspect of their opinion would be a DOGMATIC consensus
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I'm beginning to question whether even the Greeks who believed that the earth was a sphere believed that there were people upside down stuck to the bottom of this sphere. I don't know that there was any scientific notion among them of what would permit that to happen. It's easy to superimpose our notions (after Newton came up with gravity) on the ancients, and think that if we see the word sphere (or, in the case of Dr. Sungenis, even "circle") that their notion lines up with our modern idea of the globe with people all around it.
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Damn it. Look in the mirror! Lad, I have long respected your contributions, but, of late, I do believe that pride is feeding the worst on you, not the best in you. I mean this as a friend. A distant friend, but nonetheless a friend.
This seems to be personal on your part. There's nothing "prideful" about calling out poor logic and faulty reasoning ... and getting frustrated about it, and then accusing Dr. Sungenis of applying a confirmation bias. It is CLEARLY there. I can probably cite pages to demonstrate that point, that he clearly set out from the beginning to disprove FE.
Even JayneK, who believes the earth is a sphere, admitted that Dr. Sungenis seems to be reading INTO the Church Fathers ... concluding that they believed the earth was a sphere every time he saw the word "circle" (not "sphere" or "globe") but merely circle.
So I'm proud, but when Dr. Sungenis does the same thing by accusing Flat Earthers of "distorting" evidence due to confirmation bias, that's OK? I took great pains to point out that I don't think he's doing it deliberately or maliciously, but confirmation bias is a real thing, whether intentional or not, and it can be demonstrated right out of his texts.
I need only cite where he said that due to NASA's credibility problem "unfortunately" it's more difficult to refute Flat Earth. Then I see him repeatedly reading things into texts from the Fathers that simply isn't there.
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I'm beginning to question whether even the Greeks who believed that the earth was a sphere believed that there were people upside down stuck to the bottom of this sphere. I don't know that there was any scientific notion among them of what would permit that to happen. It's easy to superimpose our notions (after Newton came up with gravity) on the ancients, and think that if we see the word sphere (or, in the case of Dr. Sungenis, even "circle") that their notion lines up with our modern idea of the globe with people all around it.
Recall that the Greeks, generally, believed that the earth was held aloft on the back of Atlas and that Hades and Tartarus were below the earth. This doesn't apply to the more learned, such as Aristotle, who were among those who speculated that the earth was spherical, as I think Aristotle was influenced by the conclusions of Eratosthenes' experiment to accept the more modern notion of the globe. As, if you look at the medievals like Dante, they did believe in a spherical earth but didn't believe that the antipode was populated or had any land. In Dante's vision in particular, he placed the mountain of Purgatory as the sole land on the antipode of Jerusalem.
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I'm beginning to question whether even the Greeks who believed that the earth was a sphere believed that there were people upside down stuck to the bottom of this sphere. I don't know that there was any scientific notion among them of what would permit that to happen. It's easy to superimpose our notions (after Newton came up with gravity) on the ancients, and think that if we see the word sphere (or, in the case of Dr. Sungenis, even "circle") that their notion lines up with our modern idea of the globe with people all around it.
If you can view docuмents on JSTOR, this might be of interest to you (https://www.jstor.org/stable/235736). It appears many of them did believe that, in fact.
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So does anyone else see the problem with this logic, as Dr. Sungenis attempts to interpret Scripture?
He's referring to this passage from Isaiah 40:22
It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in (RSV).
FEs ague that this calls the earth a "circle" vs. a "sphere". I agree that this is not definitive, since from above, the earth could in fact be viewed as a circle (even if it were a sphere). Of course, there's another issue about what it means for God to sit ABOVE the earth, and what does it mean to be ABOVE a sphere, similarly when Our Lord rose UP into Heaven, what does "up" actually mean on a sphere. But that's a side issue, and this could be debated either way.
But here's Dr. Sungenis' argument:
The fact remains, however, that not only does Is 40:22 compare the size of humans to grasshoppers, it also includes God’s “stretching out of the heavens.” One possible connection between grasshoppers and the heavens is that if we compare the size of a human to that of a grasshopper, a human is about 16,000 times as big.152 In the cosmological realm, an Earth of 25,000 miles in circuмference multiplied by 16,000, equals 400 million miles, give or take, as God’s local “distance” from Earth, if, indeed, we want to complete the analogy of Is 40:22 literally. From this distance, the Earth would certainly look like a circle.
WHAT? I think I had to read this 2-3 times to make sure I wasn't misunderstanding it. What this passage is CLEARLY saying is that from God's vantage point above the circle of the earth, the inhabitants appear to be the size of grasshoppers. Do you really have to be 400 million miles away for that to happen? I would venture to say that humans would be much smaller than grasshoppers even from a height of about 1,000 - 5,000 feet. You don't need to be 400 million miles away. At even 50,000-100,000 feet, the inhabitants of the earth would be more the size of a grain of sand ... if they were visible at all. I have no idea why he's comparing the size of a grasshopper to a human being and then multiplying that factor by the full circuмference of the earth. Seriously?
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If you can view docuмents on JSTOR, this might be of interest to you (https://www.jstor.org/stable/235736). It appears many of them did believe that, in fact.
This article does not appear to demonstrate this, simply mentions it and then goes on to discuss the situation of Isidore.
While the TERM existed as early as Plato, referring to the underside of a sphere, (part of the earth below our feet), yet the first evidence to suggest that anyone believed that actual people might live there was in AD 43 by a Roman geographer named Pomponius Mela. He hypothesized that there were people down there but that we couldn't get to them because of the heat from the equator.
Originally the term mean "under the feet" but then was changed by the Romans at some point
The term is taken up by Aristotle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle) (De caelo 308a.20), Strabo (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strabo) (Geographica (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographica) 1.1.13), Plutarch (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutarch) (On the Malice of Herodotus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Malice_of_Herodotus) 37) and Diogenes Laërtius (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diogenes_Laërtius) (Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lives_and_Opinions_of_Eminent_Philosophers) book 3), and was adopted into Latin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin) as antipodes. The Latin word changed its sense from the original "under the feet, opposite side" to "those with the feet opposite", i.e. a bahuvrihi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahuvrihi) referring to hypothetical people living on the opposite side of the Earth. Medieval illustrations imagine them in some way "inverted", with their feet growing out of their heads, pointing upward.
There seems to be a lot of confusion and disagreement about what this actually meant.
Given the shortage of evidence and the fact that the Greeks did not believe in gravity or explain what principle would allow people to hang upside down, I'm beginning to question whether anyone believed in an inhabited upside-down part of the world.
It would be nice to get a hold of this article, but I can't find it anywhere:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1179/008228810X12755564743525?journalCode=ytin20
In ancient times, philosophers conceived a suite of remarkable ideas about the southern hemisphere of the earth. First, they figured that there was a southern hemisphere. Second, they figured it was potentially habitable. And, third, they figured that there may well be a great land there. The question is, who conceived what, when, and why? Modern scholarship provides answers to these questions — explaining, for example, that the Antipodes were posited based on symmetry, or perhaps because the northern hemisphere needed a counterbalance. These and many other answers to these questions are wrong, as demonstrated in this article.
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Yeah, Isaiah 40:22 is not clear enough to prove anything either way.
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This seems to be personal on your part. …
Yes, friendship is personal. You have been insulting a friend and then invented a neologism to dodge the charge. (Are you the guy who re-defined "recession" for Biden?)
Your insults of him are explicitly of a personal nature.
I have been crystal "CLEAR" that I don't give a hoot about FE/GE. There is no "seems" about the personal nature of my annoyance. I care about the personal insults.
There's nothing "prideful" about calling out poor logic and faulty reasoning ...
The pride is displayed when you treat your opinions as dispositive (if not dogmatic) and your neologism(s) as generally accepted.
The pride is displayed when you think you are justified in calling a Catholic man with a courageous record "intellectually dishonest."
The pride is displayed when you insult my reading comprehension because I do not and will not read or hang on your every word and I am not interested in the topic on which you currently pontificate.
It is CLEARLY there. I can probably cite pages to demonstrate that point, that he clearly set out from the beginning to disprove FE.
Cite whatever you want. What is "CLEAR" is that honest people make mistakes, honest people weight evidence (and risk) differently, and honest people reach different conclusions. AND Stop the presses! YOU may be the one in error. Think about that. It is an antidote to your pride.
If you had insulted a dirtbag with a corroborating track record, I wouldn't have blinked at the charge, but Bob has a good track record.
In several peer-reviewed publications I have charged opponents with intellectual dishonesty but I first addressed them privately for redress of their illogic and errors of methodology and interpretation before going public with the insult à la Matthew 18:16 (except that my reading comprehension is so impaired).
You are still banging on your keyboard. Have you called or emailed Sungenis regarding his "blunder upon blunder"?
Even JayneK, who believes the earth is …
"Are you capable of reading?"
What part of "I am not interested in FE" didn't you comprehend?
It is high probability that you are not interested in many things that interest me (the correct use of particles in Japanese and Thai, how different curcurbits and solanacea tolerate heat, how the albacore run will go this year, best powder for loading subsonic 190gn .300 BLK, et al.), but a dead on certainty that I am not interested in FE/GE.
At the point you report back from a direct exchange of views with Bob, I may (or may not) become interested in the FE/GE spat. No promises.
What's more important to you—the truth or being the big frog in this small pond? I submit that most truthseekers would already have contacted Bob.
Anyway, I'm moving past this personal exchange. I've defended my friend as best I can. What you do next is on you.
As we used to say, "AMFYOYO" (Adios, mah [sic] friend, you're on your own).
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I agree that this is an untenable position and that his arguments that you have quoted are extremely weak. (For those who don't know, I believe the earth is a sphere.)
I would, however, find it easier to see you as a champion of intellectual honesty, if you had made similar critiques of those who claim that there is a consensus or near consensus among the Fathers that the Earth is flat. The flat earth trads site is an example.
Jayne, in an earlier part of this thread Lad DID raise the problem of lack of balance when I posted something from Flat Earth Trads, because it failed to include Church Fathers on both sides of the issue. His intellectual honesty has been evident throughout this thread.
The bottom line is that a person who truly and deeply examines both sides of the issue (without getting sidetracked by controlled opposition) with an open mind and not preconceived assumptions cannot reasonably conclude that the earth is a globe. This includes a close examination of Holy Scripture as well as the translations and mistranslations.
However in the same way that a fish doesn't know that he's wet, those who have been successfully brainwashed by the Occult, Freemasonic, NASA, "educational" system and what currently passes for "science" will default to the lies that permeate our current "culture."
And I still think Lad should write his own book from a Traditional Catholic perspective addressing both Church Fathers and science.
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Mark, since you have no interest in FE, then how can you adequately defend Sungenis on the issue? You can’t. If you don’t care to understand the details of the FE debate, then how can you say he’s not being biased? You can’t.
Assuming he’s a good-willed indult catholic, he’s still wrong for being indult. He can also be good-willed and wrong about FE.
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He can also be good-willed and wrong about FE.
Just as easily as you and a lot of others can be good willed and wrong about FE. The fact that pro FE can feed upon each other to their hearts' content in this re-enforcing (bias confirming?) echo chamber doesn't prove them right even if it may make them feel or even believe they are right.
Why not operate in a manly way and in good faith by communicating directly with Dr. Sungenis? I've known him for a long time. I promise he won't bite you.
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Why not operate in a manly way and in good faith by communicating directly with Dr. Sungenis? I've known him for a long time. I promise he won't bite you.
Some of you are being completely irrational here. You're letting your esteem and human respect for Dr. Sugenis derail a perfectly legitimate thread critiquing his book as if the original intent was to personally attack him just because the question was raised about there being confirmation bias in his book.
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Some of you are being completely irrational here. You're letting your esteem and human respect for Dr. Sugenis derail a perfectly legitimate thread critiquing his book as if the original intent was to personally attack him just because the question was raised about there being confirmation bias in his book.
We called you out on your manner of critique (and by now your apparent unwillingness to communicate in good faith with Dr. Sungneis) and you don't like it. OK, whatever.
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Some of you are being completely irrational here. You're letting your esteem and human respect for Dr. Sugenis derail a perfectly legitimate thread critiquing his book as if the original intent was to personally attack him just because the question was raised about there being confirmation bias in his book.
There is NOTHING—NOTHING WHATSOEVER "legitimate" about calling a good and honest man "intellectually dishonest."
Your (plural) objective sin of calumnious character assassination is not remitted by insisting I have "human respect" for Bob or by proclaiming your "rationality." If you were as rational as you imagine, I wouldn't have to repeatedly state that the calumny, not the FE evidence, is at issue.
You may be right and Bob may be wrong about FE, but you are "CLEARLY" (to borrow Lad's self-adulation) wrong in your calumny against him. You might also consider the possibility that you are wrong about both FE and your calumny. You do know that you just might be wrong, don't you? Do you (plural) have the "intellectual honesty" to admit that possibility?
Bottom lines:
Self-proclaimed "rationality" and blame shifting to me do not remit your (plural) objective sin of calumny.
The charge of "intellectual dishonesty" should be explicitly retracted (not merely implicitly retracted with some bullshit re-definition that is not in common use anywhere).
Bob's critics should have the Catholic decency to address their objections to Bob.
Another bottom line:
If it is sinful or an occasion of sin for a child to roll around ground fighting with an opposite-sex trainee, it is at least equally sinful or an occasion of sin for a child to roll around ground fighting with anyone, whether student or instructor, of any sex because there is no shortage of perverts in any age group and in any vocation.
If anyone has any more bones to pick with me, PM me. In the mean time, I'm going to puke.
We called you out on your manner of critique (and by now your apparent unwillingness to communicate in good faith with Dr. Sungneis) and you don't like it. OK, whatever.
Succinct and accurate.
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There is NOTHING—NOTHING WHATSOEVER "legitimate" about calling a good and honest man "intellectually dishonest."
Your (plural) objective sin of calumnious character assassination is not remitted by insisting I have "human respect" for Bob or by proclaiming your "rationality." If you were as rational as you imagine, I wouldn't have to repeatedly state that the calumny, not the FE evidence, is at issue.
You may be right and Bob may be wrong about FE, but you are "CLEARLY" (to borrow Lad's self-adulation) wrong in your calumny against him. You might also consider the possibility that you are wrong about both FE and your calumny. You do know that you just might be wrong, don't you? Do you (plural) have the "intellectual honesty" to admit that possibility?
Bottom lines:
Self-proclaimed "rationality" and blame shifting to me do not remit your (plural) objective sin of calumny.
The charge of "intellectual dishonesty" should be explicitly retracted (not merely implicitly retracted with some bullshit re-definition that is not in common use anywhere).
Bob's critics should have the Catholic decency to address their objections to Bob.
Another bottom line:
If it is sinful or an occasion of sin for a child to roll around ground fighting with an opposite-sex trainee, it is at least equally sinful or an occasion of sin for a child to roll around ground fighting with anyone, whether student or instructor, of any sex because there is no shortage of perverts in any age group and in any vocation.
If anyone has any more bones to pick with me, PM me. In the mean time, I'm going to puke.
Calumny: (the act of making) a statement about someone that is not true and is intended to damage the reputation of that person
I am not attacking Dr. Sugenis by speculating whether his misapplication (dict: the act or process of using something badly, wrongly, or in a way that was not intended) of the Fathers in support of his argument is either wilfully ignorant or intellectually dishonest is not an attack on his character or an attempt to calumniate him. But the misapplication is there and you used it as an opportunity to jump in and cause scandal.
He knows the subject he wrote an 800 PAGE BOOK against; and he knows which Fathers he is misquoting to support his thesis. It is not as though he blindly picked the quotes and they just happen to be out of context.
So either:
A. he's ignorant of what the wider context is and doesn't look at it;
or B. he knows the context and used the quote anyway.
That is the problem here.
You raising a big scandal does nothing to change that just because you have an esteem for him. You're right in that I don't personally know the man. So what? I have to gage him by the words that he says (or writes). And what he has written has shown not only that he is wrong, but that he's misquoted the Fathers on this subject.
Edit: And you also can't claim I'm somehow intent on calumniating him with the intent to damage his reputation when I've bought 5 of his books (including this one) and have encouraged others to buy Geocentrism 101 numerous times.
The man set out to write a book against a certain position, and has clearly misquoted Fathers in favor of his argument. He is liable to criticism for that. No amount of human respect and scandal-raising can cover up that problem.
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I am not attacking Dr. Sugenis by speculating whether his misapplication (dict: the act or process of using something badly, wrongly, or in a way that was not intended) of the Fathers in support of his argument is either wilfully ignorant or intellectually dishonest is not an attack on his character or an attempt to calumniate him. But the misapplication is there and you used it as an opportunity to jump in and cause scandal.
He knows the subject he wrote an 800 PAGE BOOK against; and he knows which Fathers he is misquoting to support his thesis. It is not as though he blindly picked the quotes and they just happen to be out of context.
So either:
A. he's ignorant of what the wider context is and doesn't look at it;
or B. he knows the context and used the quote anyway.
That is the problem here.
You raising a big scandal does nothing to change that just because you have an esteem for him. You're right in that I don't personally know the man. So what? I have to gage him by the words that he says (or writes). And what he has written has shown not only that he is wrong, but that he's misquoted the Fathers on this subject.
Edit: And you also can't claim I'm somehow intent on calumniating him with the intent to damage his reputation when I've bought 5 of his books (including this one) and have encouraged others to buy Geocentrism 101 numerous times.
The man set out to write a book against a certain position, and has clearly misquoted Fathers in favor of his argument. He is liable to criticism for that. No amount of human respect and scandal-raising can cover up that problem.
You claim that you've bought his -- in your words "800 PAGE BOOK." Ha, the only problem is it's not 800 pages. It's actually 736 pages. How in your flat earth world can you make such a blatantly erroneous statement as this and then expect others to respect your supposedly careful critique of the book's actual contents?!
Whether you pro FE folks intend it or not and or admit it or not you give the scandalous appearance of making FE a de facto DOGMA of the Catholic Church. Only problem is FE is NOT a dogma of the Church and you are absolutely wrong to make it appear as if it is.
Some of us are still waiting for any of you pro-FE outspoken keyboard commandos to communicate directly with Dr. Sungenis. Again, I promise you he doesn't bite. But, even if he did -- what's the big deal?
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I am not attacking Dr. Sugenis by speculating whether his misapplication (dict: the act or process of using something badly, wrongly, or in a way that was not intended) of the Fathers in support of his argument is either wilfully ignorant or intellectually dishonest is not an attack on his character or an attempt to calumniate him. But the misapplication is there and you used it as an opportunity to jump in and cause scandal.
He knows the subject he wrote an 800 PAGE BOOK against; and he knows which Fathers he is misquoting to support his thesis. It is not as though he blindly picked the quotes and they just happen to be out of context.
So either:
A. he's ignorant of what the wider context is and doesn't look at it;
or B. he knows the context and used the quote anyway.
That is the problem here.
You raising a big scandal does nothing to change that just because you have an esteem for him. You're right in that I don't personally know the man. So what? I have to gage him by the words that he says (or writes). And what he has written has shown not only that he is wrong, but that he's misquoted the Fathers on this subject.
Edit: And you also can't claim I'm somehow intent on calumniating him with the intent to damage his reputation when I've bought 5 of his books (including this one) and have encouraged others to buy Geocentrism 101 numerous times.
The man set out to write a book against a certain position, and has clearly misquoted Fathers in favor of his argument. He is liable to criticism for that. No amount of human respect and scandal-raising can cover up that problem.
The definition that you supplied
Calumny: (the act of making) a statement about someone that is not true and is intended to damage the reputation of that person
Here's a Catholic definition:
Calumny
(Latin calvor, to use artifice, to deceive)
Etymologically any form of ruse or fraud employed to deceive another, particularly in judicial proceedings. In its more commonly accepted signification it means the unjust damaging of the good name of another by imputing to him a crime or fault of which he is not guilty. The sin thus committed is in a general sense mortal, just as is detraction. It is hardly necessary, however, to observe that as in other breaches of the law the sin may be venial, either because of the trivial character of the subject-matter involved or because of insufficient deliberation in the making of the accusation. Objectively, a calumny is a mortal sin when it is calculated to do serious harm to the person so traduced. Just as in the instance of wrongful damage to person or estate, so the calumniator is bound to adequate reparation for the injury perpetrated by the blackening of another's good name. He is obliged (1) to retract his false statements, and that even though his own reputation may necessarily as a consequence suffer. (2) He must also make good whatever other losses have been sustained by the innocent party as a result of his libellous utterances, provided these same have been in some measure (in confuso) foreseen by him. In canon law the phrase juramentum calumniae is employed to indicate the oath taken by the parties to a litigation, by which they averred that the action was brought and the defence offered in good faith. —Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913 https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03190c.htm (https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03190c.htm)
(https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03190c.htm)
Unjust? —Yes, unjust. You (plural) blasted "intellectually dishonest" still having never discussed with Bob the weaknesses you think are in his writing.
Damage Bob's good name? —Yes, Bob has a good name among practicing Catholics and "intellectual dishonesty" damages that good name, especially in a forum read by far more Catholics than actually post here.
Of which he is not guilty? — Yes, Bob is not dishonest in any way. You have proven no dishonesty. You have amply proven that you disagree with him. It is the calumny, not the disagreement, that I called out.
Your intent? —You tell me. I am not Meg. I never imputed any "intent" to you (plural). Intent does not remit the sin. Intent only affects the level of sin and I made no such accusation of the level of sin, only that the charge of "intellectual dishonesty" against Bob Sungenis meets the objective Catholic criteria of calumny. If anything, I'd give you (plural) the benefit of the doubt, that you didn't intend damage, maybe got carried away in your righteous zeal. But in no way does your intent make the calumny objectively sinless.
Lad (your "pen pal"?) accused Sungenis of "intellectual dishonesty," then when called on it, instead of doing a simple thing ("Yeah, that was over-the-top. Bob is not dishonest"), invented a re-definition of "intellectual dishonesty" and re-asserted his calumny repeatedly.
Then, you (DL) offered a variety of risible justifications for the calumny, as you still do in your latest post. I believe that objectively descends to "accomplice."
So, you (plural) accused Bob of intellectual dishonesty and defended the calumny, but I am the one "causing scandal" and "irrational"???
The Catholic solution is quite simple:
1. retract the calumny and
2. contact Bob with your objections.
You need concede nothing in your FE position, so is there something other than pride that stops you calumniators from doing the Catholic solution? (<<< note the question mark. That's not an accusation; it's a question.)
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You claim that you've bought his -- in your words "800 PAGE BOOK." Ha, the only problem is it's not 800 pages. It's actually 736 pages. How in your flat earth world can you make such a blatantly erroneous statement as this and then expect others to respect your supposedly careful critique of the book's actual contents?!
Oh boy, you got me there. How dare I not provide the precise page count!
You are both being utterly ridiculous.
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so is there something other than pride that stops you calumniators from doing the Catholic solution? (<<< note the question mark. That's not an accusation; it's a question.)
I have no bone to pick except this one, as it seems to happen far too often on this website.
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that he's either wilfully ignorant or intellectually dishonest.
Fine. I retract the above statement. It was poorly-worded and paints a different picture of Dr. Sugenis than was originally intended.
Does it excuse his misapplication of the Fathers or his confirmation bias? No. No it does not.
Does it invalidate any critiques that have been laid out regarding his book? No.
Does it excuse the behavior of either Mark or Charity? Nope.
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Fine. I retract the above statement. It was poorly-worded and paints a different picture of Dr. Sugenis than was originally intended.
Does it excuse his misapplication of the Fathers or his confirmation bias? No. No it does not.
Does it invalidate any critiques that have been laid out regarding his book? No.
Does it excuse the behavior of either Mark or Charity? Nope.
Well done.
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Fine. I retract the above statement. It was poorly-worded and paints a different picture of Dr. Sugenis than was originally intended.
Does it excuse his misapplication of the Fathers or his confirmation bias? No. No it does not.
Does it invalidate any critiques that have been laid out regarding his book? No.
Does it excuse the behavior of either Mark or Charity? Nope.
Good that you retracted the statement.
But you are correct to ask the other three questions above. The buddies/fans of Sungenis aren't going to care about those questions though.
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I could be wrong, but I don't think that this is the first time that Sungenis has been called 'intellectually dishonest'. And no, I'm not calling him that. I think he truly believes in the globe earth, and will defend it no matter what.
He's been criticized strongly on the forum before now, a few years ago when FE was a main topic of the forum. Those who are new the subject of FE probably don't remember that.
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Good that you retracted the statement.
But you are correct to ask the other three questions above. The buddies/fans of Sungenis aren't going to care about those questions though.
Yes, I agree. Perhaps you missed that my compliment "Well done" included DL's entire post.
Maybe you also missed that days ago I stipulated that I have "ZERO" interest in FE, so, correct, I don't care about FE. Do you care about 助詞 and อนุภาค? Do you care about El Niño's effect on the albacore run off San Diego? Do you care if CFE223 is a good powder to load subsonic .300BLK? Do you care at what temperature Black Krim stop setting fruit?
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Oh boy, you got me there. How dare I not provide the precise page count!
You are both being utterly ridiculous.
I thought I had heard Dr. Sungenis himself use the 800 page number, so if I misheard it's on me. Or else Dr. Sungenis was just throwing a round number out there. Or else he said "nearly" 800 or "about". So the PDF copy I have has 727 (not the 736 cited above), plus 12 pages of preface in the beginning in small Roman numerals, so 739 total. And I suspect there may be some kind of bibliography or end notes missing from the PDF version, since it does appear to end very abruptly. In any case, there are probably different editions/versions. I know that on is website you can buy PDF, Paperback with B&W pictures, Hardback with B&W pictures, and Hardback with color pictures. In any case, it's a silly thing to argue about. Let's say it's between 700 and 800 pages (perhaps depending on the edition). It does have a rather large font size in my copy (which is good for us old guys who have issues with our eyesight). So it's rather large type size, does have lots of pictures, and there are many lengthy citations/quotations in the book.
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I could be wrong…
Commendable admission, then [faints].
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We called you out on your manner of critique (and by now your apparent unwillingness to communicate in good faith with Dr. Sungneis) and you don't like it. OK, whatever.
There's no unwillingness on my part. As I mentioned elsewhere, I don't have his contact information, nor did I really think he would care to engage in a lengthy debate from some unknown chump from the internet. Last I heard, he has 11 children, and I assume he'd be too busy for that and mostly just annoyed by it.
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There's no unwillingness on my part. As I mentioned elsewhere, I don't have his contact information, nor did I really think he would care to engage in a lengthy debate from some unknown chump from the internet. Last I heard, he has 11 children, and I assume he'd be too busy for that and mostly just annoyed by it.
Here's a copy of my reply to you on another thread. It's put down here for the benefit of anyone else who may not have seen it.
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That you "never even thought to communicate with him," the one person more than any other it would have made good sense to and human decency, not to mention the words of SS as in Matt. 18:15 would seem to call for, seems a bit of a stretch, but I'll give you the favor of the doubt any way that you "never even thought to communicate with him." Well now that you have thought to here's his e-mail address and his phone number which a man as intelligent as you are certainly could have easily accessed by yourself via his website at https://www.robertsungenis.org/p/about.html: (https://www.robertsungenis.org/p/about.html) cairomeo @ aol.com Phone: 717 - 597 - 8670
p.s. What a relief to know that you are not "accusing him of deliberate or conscious dishonesty," but (if we are to take you at your word in another thread) of rather merely being intellectually dishonest. (https://www.cathinfo.com/Smileys/classic/facepalm.gif) Hope you will make that known to him directly so he has a chance to reply to you directly.
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Excuses, excuses, Lad, three of us have spoonfed you his contact info.
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There is NOTHING—NOTHING WHATSOEVER "legitimate" about calling a good and honest man "intellectually dishonest."
Your (plural) objective sin of calumnious character assassination is not remitted by insisting I have "human respect" for Bob or by proclaiming your "rationality." If you were as rational as you imagine, I wouldn't have to repeatedly state that the calumny, not the FE evidence, is at issue.
Mark, I have repeatedly stated that the intellectual dishonesty has nothing to do with any judgment of him "in the internal forum" regarding his character or honesty. In fact, I'm convinced that he's a "good and honest man," as you describe. I'm not sure how many different ways I have to explain it.
What I'm referring to is a clear up-front intention to want to refute FE and a bias against it. It's very obvious, and can be demonstrated from Dr. Sungenis' own words, that he set out to disprove FE. This has led to his reading things into various citations that are no there in the text, "eisegesis" of the texts he has analyzed (that's his term, which I tend to avoid because it's regularly abused by Modernists). I can give clear examples where to an objective reader there's no evidence in the text itself for what he "sees" there. That can only be because he wants to see it there and is looking for it.
In fact, Mark, Dr. Sungenis does that repeatedly in his book, refers to "eisegesis" by flat earthers due to their bias. He's referred to them as clinging to their ideas on account of bias, and he's gone much further than I have against him by accusing FEs of distorting, and at one point approvingly cited a text from a glober that FEs are dishonest liars.
So, since you're in communication with Dr. Sungenis, will you send him an e-mail now excoriating him fro his "objective sin of calumnious character assassination" against flat earthers? As soon as you send such an e-mail to Dr. Sungenis, then I might take your posts seriously.
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Excuses, excuses, Lad, three of us have spoonfed you his contact info.
What an extreme hypocrite you are! So I tell you why I did not contact him and you're basically calling me a liar with this post.
See my previous post.
You calumniate me by accusing me of calumny. I've cited passages where Dr. Sungenis not only does the same thing I did, accusing FEs of "eisegesis" (reading into evidence what's not there) due to their bias, and he's gone further, using terms like "distortion" and in once case approvingly cited a post by a glober that called FEs a bunch of liars in extremely derogatory terms.
So please CC: me on your e-mail to Dr. Sungenis excoriating him for the calumny of character assassination, and I might take you seriously. Until then, just shut up with this nonsense.
Would like like me to pull all the passages where Sungenis engages in "calumnious character assassinatioin"?
... and, no, I don't think Dr. Sungenis committed "calumny" for his assertion that FEs are not honestly looking at the evidence due to their bias. That's his opinion and he's entitled to it. I am likewise entitled to call him out for doing the same thing, and I've cited evidence to back it up.
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If someone writes a book, and spends 100s and 100s of hours of research, writing and editing of it, for public sale, we can assume that what they wrote is what they meant. No one is under any obligation to contact the author to verify this or that. IT'S ALL IN THE BOOK. If the author didn't mean what they wrote, then they don't have the talent to write and the book shouldn't exist. Either way, if there exists valid criticism of the book, since the author put his thoughts in public, such criticism is the author's fault and should be expected. No author writes a book for sale and gets mad when many people enjoy it. Thus, he cannot get mad if people disagree with it. A public book, like a public politician, cannot expect the same level of privacy as a normal citizen, for he invited either adulation or criticism when he made his opinions public.
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Just as easily as you and a lot of others can be good willed and wrong about FE.
Absolutely. Except...none of us on here are scientists, nor did we write a book on a topic which is very controversial. Mr Sungenis invited the critique of his views by deciding to write the book. He cited sources which are easily verifiable (Scripture + Church Father's writings). Thus, any critique of his book is absolutely warranted because the interpretation of Scripture/Church Fathers must be defended and debated to find the truth.
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Damn it. Even if he has confirmation bias it can be (and, based on the pattern of his work, almost certainly is) a mistake.
Has Typhoid Meg infected the entire forum with her damned readings of the interior forum of others?
Bob deserves the most charitable interpretation of his disagreement with your opinions. If you said "Argument X is a straw man and Exhibit Y uses confirmation bias," that would be fair and objectively sinless, but to read his intent ("willful" and "on a mission") is objectively sinful reading of another's interior forum to which you do not have any access.
If and when you point out to him the errors you claim and he responds inappropriately, only then can you legitimately make these claims of willful dishonesty.
Bob has been very accessible and very responsive to criticism. Instead of doubling down on insulting him, I suggest that you email or call him and report back.
Mind you that I have no dog in the FE fight. I have no opinion on FE because I have not investigated it one iota. While I find geocentrism quite interesting primarily through St. Hildegard's and Bob's writing, I have ZERO interest if FE.
I will not get drawn into the FE argument, but will simply leave it at this—It is damn rotten behavior to impute ill intent to someone whose track record deserves better. I see irony regarding "intent." In your argument against martial arts male/female personal contact training (unless it's contacting the instructor :facepalm:) the intent of protecting innocent life mattered little to you, but in this case the intent of Bob's "willful" "mission" consumes noticeable attention from you.
I do have a dog in the fight about insulting a man who deserves better treatment than the Meg interior forum poison. Damn it. Call him or email him and report back. Until then, leave his interior forum out of it—PLEASE!
Well said!
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If someone writes a book, and spends 100s and 100s of hours of research, writing and editing of it, for public sale, we can assume that what they wrote is what they meant. No one is under any obligation to contact the author to verify this or that. IT'S ALL IN THE BOOK. If the author didn't mean what they wrote, then they don't have the talent to write and the book shouldn't exist. Either way, if there exists valid criticism of the book, since the author put his thoughts in public, such criticism is the author's fault and should be expected. No author writes a book for sale and gets mad when many people enjoy it. Thus, he cannot get mad if people disagree with it. A public book, like a public politician, cannot expect the same level of privacy as a normal citizen, for he invited either adulation or criticism when he made his opinions public.
^This.
There's little doubt Sungenis is aware of what is being said here, especially if he has friends watching. Cathinfo is one of the largest, if not the largest, independent, most diverse, most read, most engaged traditional Catholic forum online, thanks to Matthew letting it all fly for the world to see. If Sungenis wants to engage, he's free to do it here.
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Igen, én is elegem van azokból az emberekből, akiknek büszkesége tönkreteszi azt a jót, amit tesznek.
"Yes, I too am sick of people whose pride destroys the good they do."
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If Sungenis wants to engage, he's free to do it here.
Well, duh? No doubt, he keeps himself engaged in much more productive endeavors such as his duties of state for starters. If he allowed himself to get distracted and sucked into the potential quagmire/quicksand of CathInfo he might never make it out and if he did his detractors would no doubt call him cowardly for ceasing the engagement.
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Well, duh? No doubt, he keeps himself engaged in much more productive endeavors such as his duties of state for starters. If he allowed himself to get distracted and sucked into the potential quagmire/quicksand of CathInfo he might never make it out and if he did his detractors would no doubt call him cowardly for ceasing the engagement.
It's Sungenis' book and movies being questioned by traditional Catholics. The tide is changing and the truth is out. Everyone worth his salt that watch these exchanges wants to know how this ends. Sungenis would do a lot better bringing his case before thousands of views on Cathinfo than wasting time on Youtube with a dozen or so weekly participants. If he suffers a tough audience in this forum, all the better for all of us because that's what it takes to get the truth out. He'd be a hero either way. Prove his case, he wins. Humble himself, he wins. C'mon Sungenis. Let's get 'er done.
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It's Sungenis' book and movies being questioned by traditional Catholics. The tide is changing and the truth is out. Everyone worth his salt that watch these exchanges wants to know how this ends. Sungenis would do a lot better bringing his case before thousands of views on Cathinfo than wasting time on Youtube with a dozen or so weekly participants. If he suffers a tough audience in this forum, all the better for all of us because that's what it takes to get the truth out. He'd be a hero either way. Prove his case, he wins. Humble himself, he wins. C'mon Sungenis. Let's get 'er done.
What's there to prevent you from contacting him so to ensure that he can read for himself your words of ....wisdom(?) ?
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It's Sungenis' book and movies being questioned by traditional Catholics. The tide is changing and the truth is out. Everyone worth his salt that watch these exchanges wants to know how this ends. Sungenis would do a lot better bringing his case before thousands of views on Cathinfo than wasting time on Youtube with a dozen or so weekly participants. If he suffers a tough audience in this forum, all the better for all of us because that's what it takes to get the truth out. He'd be a hero either way. Prove his case, he wins. Humble himself, he wins. C'mon Sungenis. Let's get 'er done.
Well said. If Sungenis would join this forum, it might help to clear up a few things. Then, the subject could be thoroughly debated. It would probably become a bit of a nightmare, because of lack general of charity with trads, but that's nothing new. I wonder if his loyal fans here could convince him to join the forum?
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What's there to prevent you from contacting him so to ensure that he can read for himself your words of ....wisdom(?) ?
What's to prevent you from contacting him and letting him know traditional Catholics are discussing his book with hundreds, even thousands of online views? This could be a windfall for him. Better sooner than later in any event. Better for everybody if the discussion is public.
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What's to prevent you from contacting him and letting him know there are traditional Catholics are discussing his book with hundreds, even thousands of online views? This could be a windfall for him. Better sooner than later in any event. Better for everybody if the discussion is public.
Good question. Rest assured I keep him updated on certain matters of interest on CathInfo including this present thread. In the meantime be my guest -- he doesn't bite.
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Well said. If Sungenis would join this forum, it might help to clear up a few things. Then, the subject could be thoroughly debated. It would probably become a bit of a nightmare, because of lack general of charity with trads, but that's nothing new. I wonder if his loyal fans here could convince him to join the forum?
I trust that he is wise enough NEVER to get sucked into CathInfo.
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I trust that he is wise enough NEVER to get sucked into CathInfo.
This is where the debate is happening though. It's the only Catholic forum that I know of that allows the subject to be debated. Maybe Sungenis is afraid of debating his views here? If so, then he maybe shouldn't have put out his views on FE in a book called "Flat Earth, Flat Wrong." I mean, with a title like that, does he really expect that Catholics who believe in FE aren't going to be a bit offended?
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It's a public book, based on public knowledge, so the debate should be public. This whole "contact him personally" stuff is too individualistic; the debate/answers need to be available to everyone.
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This is where the debate is happening though. It's the only Catholic forum that I know of that allows the subject to be debated. Maybe Sungenis is afraid of debating his views here? If so, then he shouldn't put out his views in a book called "Flat Earth, Flat Wrong." I mean, with a title like that, does he really expect that Catholics who believe in FE aren't going to be a bit offended?
God bless you Meg and may God bless each and every one of His beloved creatures on CathInfo! As for me, I'm out of here. Hope to see you all in heaven. Let's pray for each other as we all hopefully try to work out our salvation in fear and trembling.
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God bless you Meg and may God bless each and every one of His beloved creatures on CathInfo! As for me, I'm out of here. Hope to see you all in heaven. Let's pray for each other as we all hopefully try to work out our salvation in fear and trembling.
God bless you too! It's a great idea to pray for each other.
I hope that you will change your mind, and keep posting here.
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"Yes, I too am sick of people whose pride destroys the good they do."
Give it a rest, people, and grow up. Sungenis is a big boy. If he can't take it, then he shouldn't be putting himself in the public arena. You guys are acting like I insulted someone's disabled child.
Your charges of both "pride" and "calumny" are closer to calumny and judging the "internal forum" than anything I've written, as you are speaking to my motivations (which are knowable only in the internal forum). I've backed up my findings of sloppy logic and reading into the "evidence" things that aren't actually there. None of my findings are motivated by "pride". I'm calling it as I see it ... right there in black and white, and sometimes color, in his book. I do notice that no one has refuted the specific findings I've made, but have simply emoted and howled about pride, calumny, character assassination, and the like.
Mark79 criticizes and attacks various public figures on a regular basis. What Sungenis wrote of the FEs makes my criticism look incredibly gentle (I'll take a moment to gather his findings). And you guys are piling on with accusations of pride and calumny. Do you not see the hypocrisy? Or the double standard? I see no one here howling and rending their garments about Sungenis' pride and his calumny and character assassination of FE proponents. And, rightly so. He's entitled to make his case and his arguments, but I am likewise entitled to make mine.
As for the confirmation bias, one could say that this is being rather charitable. What's the alternative, that I should accuse him of being incompetent? In point of fact, I don't think he is. That's why I attribute these errors and misinterpretations to confirmation bias. He's so set on refuting FE that the second he sees the world "sphere" and even "circle," he wants to check of the box for "one more proof" that FE is wrong. And I've repeatedly stated that I don't think that there's any intentional mendacity on his part, and that I believe him to be a man of integrity.
So, by all means, do continue. Carry on with rending your garments and "calumniating" me with accusations of calumny, reading "the internal forum" by accusing me of being motivated by pride ... while giving Dr. Sungenis a pass for writing much worse about FE proponents, and in fact defending his "honor" as he does the same thing as I have done (and much more).
I find that when people howl the most about my "pride" is when I've made an argument that they can't refute but simply don't want to hear. Had I been a glober and said the same things about Eric Dubay or Rob Skiba, just as Sungenis did, I would have received scores of up-thumbs of my posts.
I honestly find all this to be rather pathetic. But do carry on.
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It's a public book, based on public knowledge, so the debate should be public. This whole "contact him personally" stuff is too individualistic; the debate/answers need to be available to everyone.
I have no problem contacting him personally. I just figured, again, that he's too busy to correspond in great detail from some unknown chump on an internet forum. But then people try to impugn my motives (reading the "internal forum") regarding why I didn't write him directly.
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This is where the debate is happening though. It's the only Catholic forum that I know of that allows the subject to be debated. Maybe Sungenis is afraid of debating his views here? If so, then he maybe shouldn't have put out his views on FE in a book called "Flat Earth, Flat Wrong." I mean, with a title like that, does he really expect that Catholics who believe in FE aren't going to be a bit offended?
Being "offended" isn't the right word in my case. I'm not "offended" by his having an opinion ... even if he expresses it very bluntly. I had a boss some years ago who was extremely afraid to hurt people's feelings, and he would talk around stuff. So, at one point, after he was going around in circles, I said, "Jim, it's OK. If you don't like it, then just say so. 'I think it's crap.' I can take it and I'm not easily offended. I'd prefer that you be direct rather than leave me guessing." If Sungenis were to come on here and post that he thinks I'm an idiot, more power to him. I'm not easily offended. But if someone takes off the gloves, and I disagree, then I am capable of responding in kind. In fact, as I said before, I was looking forward to being challenged. I had, however, hoped for a respectful treatment of FE proponents, and got the impression from an interview he had given that it would be. I'm more, perhaps, annoyed, than anything else. I get annoyed by poor logic and poor reasoning, especially when it's clearly being driven by emotion or bias. Perhaps I come across different when I'm writing about controverted subjects. In reality, I'm rather soft spoken. I recently spoke on the phone with a CI member who came to realize this. But that's just the way my mind works ... in ruthless logic. I view the world in syllogisms, and there are both pros and cons to it ... and my wife pokes fun at me all the time about being excessively "logical". If I believed in such things, I'd say that I was more Vulcan than human. There's a newer Star Trek episode when the crew are in danger and Spock remarks, "I find that the best way to defuse tension is to apply rigorous logic." My wife laughed out loud and, pointing at me, exclaimed, "That's YOU!".
Nor am I, as I read more, going to not consider any of the substantial arguments he might make and take them seriously simply because this did not start out well in my eyes. I've already noted his argument regarding the movements of the stars being inconsistent with Flat Earth. But that requires further study on my part, so I have mentally bookmarked it. I do distinguish, however, that if it's inconsistent, it does not refute Flat Earth per se but a model of FE. Now, if there's no model that can be devised to address the inconsistency, then that would be a cogent argument. What I saw, however, was a series of statements, and a few pictures with constellations drawn in, but not enough actual data that I could either confirm or deny. I have seen FEs also put out videos that counter these points. So I will honestly study both sides of every issue.
IF FE is wrong, then I have no problem changing my mind. I am not somehow dogmatically wedded to it, since I do not believe that there's any Patristic dogmatic consensus on the subject, nor has the Church taught FE. I do not particularly relish being mocked and ridiculed as a nutcase for holding that the earth is flat. So I have no particular prior motivation. I simply felt compelled to conclude that the earth is indeed flat by an objective examination of evidence from both sides. Nor does my "pride" (of which I am here accused) prevent me from admitting that I've been mistaken. I was for a number of years a dogmatic sedevacantist, but I have since changed my mind and admitted my errors.
So all this hullabaloo about calumny, character assassination, pride, etc. ... I find to be entirely misplaced and irrelevant.
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Quote from: Ladislaus on Today at 07:05:59 PM (https://www.cathinfo.com/members-only/the-only-problem-with-catholicism/msg841083/#msg841083)
Nobody ever said he wasn't an "alright guy" ... and I in fact said that myself. But for some reason accusing him of (confirmation) bias in his text means that I think that he's some evildoer.
What a crock of strawman shit and an outright lie (unless you want to make the case that calling Bob Sungenis "dishonest" is consistent with him being "an 'alright guy'").
Quote
"I retract what I wrote earlier about considering Sungenis to be intellectually honest. This section on the Church Fathers exposes his dishonesty." https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/dr-sungenis-flat-earth-flat-wrong/msg840749/#msg840749 (https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/dr-sungenis-flat-earth-flat-wrong/msg840749/#msg840749)
"There's just no end to his dishonesty in sight." https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/dr-sungenis-flat-earth-flat-wrong/msg840767/#msg840767 (https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/dr-sungenis-flat-earth-flat-wrong/msg840767/#msg840767) (https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/dr-sungenis-flat-earth-flat-wrong/msg840767/#msg840767)
"What absurd dishonesty." https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/dr-sungenis-flat-earth-flat-wrong/msg840769/#msg840769 (https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/dr-sungenis-flat-earth-flat-wrong/msg840769/#msg840769)
"Are we starting to see the intellectual dishonesty yet?" https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/dr-sungenis-flat-earth-flat-wrong/msg840820/#msg840820 (https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/dr-sungenis-flat-earth-flat-wrong/msg840820/#msg840820) (https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/dr-sungenis-flat-earth-flat-wrong/msg840820/#msg840820)
Lad, you accused him verbatim of "dishonesty" and "intellectual dishonesty." Even if we accepted your re-definition/neologism of "intellectual dishonesty," his good reputation still suffers from your repeated accusations of "dishonesty" without qualifying the type of dishonesty in any way.
No amount of repetition will divert us from those docuмented quotes. Your calumny is not remitted by his alleged illogic, his allegedly poor evidence, his allegedly erroneous conclusions, that he isn't a "disabled child," your "Mark79 criticizes public figures" whataboutism, your bullshit re-definition of "intellectual dishonesty," your sputtering series of excuses, or any other bullshit diversion. You unjustly impugned a good man's reputation, accusing "dishonesty" and "intellectual dishonesty"***—We are keeping our eye on the ball and we will not be diverted by your excuses, impromptu re-definitions, sleight-of-hand, or your concerted effort to avoid the simple, appropriate, Catholic response: a retraction.
The blather that accompanied your bogus re-definition of "intellectual dishonesty" (https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/dr-sungenis-flat-earth-flat-wrong/msg840812/#msg840812) already implicitly admitted he isn't really guilty of dishonesty of any kind, yet, thousands of words later, you still have not managed: "I retract my accusations of 'dishonesty' and 'intellectual dishonesty.'"
*** The Catholic definition:
Quote
calumny: …the unjust damaging of the good name of another by imputing to him a crime or fault of which he is not guilty. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03190c.htm (https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03190c.htm)
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I just finished re-reading the Church Fathers, and I am certain that absolutely NONE of them believed that the surface of the earth ... on which people dwell ... is a globe. Not one. Nada. Zero.
I will write something up about my findings as I have time.
There was a debate over whether the WORLD was spherical or hemi-spherical, whether it was in the MIDDLE of the waters and of the universe or whether it was at the BOTTOM (and therefore) hemi-spherical. In both cases, the Sphere or HemiSphere is that which was enclosing the entire world (including the sky) this side of the waters, and not a GLOBE on which people lived. They believed that this world was separated from the outer waters by an enclosure, or a firmament, and between this enclosure and the inhabited earth was the first heaven or the sky. Some of them who believed that this firmament went all the way around in a spherical shape (vs. just as a hemi-sphere over the top) also believed that the sun and moon continued passing through and in this firmament to the underside of the earth. There was also a debate (outlined clearly by St. Augustine) regarding whether the firmament above the earth was in fact shaped like a "sphere" (or "hemisphere") or whether it was more the shape of a tent. Some rejected the notion that the firmament was spherical or hemi-spherical because of the Scripture that said it was stretched out like a tent. But St. Augustine argued that it's not inconsistent that it could be spherical because he refers to how "footballs" and "wine containers" (the translation given, I'd have to check) were both skins, i.e. that a stretched out skin could in fact take the form of a sphere or hemi-sphere.
This resolves all the alleged contradictions, sometimes within the writings of the same Fathers, and reconciles ALL of the texts and makes sense of all of their different opinions.
This is absolutely clear and I intend to prove it. I will try to find the texts in the original languages if I can.
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What a crock of strawman shit and an outright lie (unless you want to make the case that calling Bob Sungenis "dishonest" is consistent with him being "an 'alright guy'").
I clearly defined the difference between "intellectual dishonesty" and intentional, calculated willful dishonesty ... very early on.
Your hypocrisy is incredible to behold. So you accuse me of calumny and character assassination and reading the "internal forum" ... while accusing me of pride, calling me a liar, etc. Sungenis repeatedly accused FEs of, uhm, intellectual dishonesty, distortion, and even of lying throughout his book. Have you writtten your buddy yet to excoriate him yet for these calumnies, lies, and his pride?
You're a piece of work.
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This post was made BEFORE you began your meltdown and started accusing me (falsely ... aka clumniating me), about nearly 36 hours ago now:
And I think we need to understand what is meant by intellectual dishonesty. This does not necessarily mean that Dr. Sungenis is deliberately and consciously setting out to be dishonest, to lie, to distort, etc. I do believe that he is of good character and would not consciously do anything of the sort.
What is meant by intellectual dishonesty is that he's made up his mind beforehand that FE is false and he's setting to to prove that it's false, to find evidence that it is false. That in turn leads to confirmation bias where he falsely reads things into various pieces of evidence that do not on their own support his thesis. If there's anything that MIGHT be interpreted as backing up his thesis, then in his mind, it's evidence or proof. He's not letting the evidence speak for itself but is reading into it. So, for example, every time he sees a Father (he cited about a dozen of these) referring to the "circle of the earth," he says, "aha! see! This Father here believes the earth is a globe." That is simply a citation from Sacred Scripture and clearly says circle, not globe, and most of the Fathers did believe the the shape of the earth (vs "the world" ... two separate things for them) was circular.
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^This.
There's little doubt Sungenis is aware of what is being said here, especially if he has friends watching. Cathinfo is one of the largest, if not the largest, independent, most diverse, most read, most engaged traditional Catholic forum online, thanks to Matthew letting it all fly for the world to see. If Sungenis wants to engage, he's free to do it here.
You have it ass-backwards.
Matthew 18:15-17 obligates the critic to initiate the contact privately.
The ex-seminarian "didn't think of that" and profers a mountain of excuses that the virtual theologian who pounds thousands of words, didn't think to contact Bob or take the 10 seconds that any grade-school Catholic would need to find his email and phone number.
I cannot speak for his other friends, but I haven't yet notified Bob of Lad's serial calumnies.…
Quote
"I retract what I wrote earlier about considering Sungenis to be intellectually honest. This section on the Church Fathers exposes his dishonesty." https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/dr-sungenis-flat-earth-flat-wrong/msg840749/#msg840749 (https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/dr-sungenis-flat-earth-flat-wrong/msg840749/#msg840749)
"There's just no end to his dishonesty in sight." https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/dr-sungenis-flat-earth-flat-wrong/msg840767/#msg840767 (https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/dr-sungenis-flat-earth-flat-wrong/msg840767/#msg840767) (https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/dr-sungenis-flat-earth-flat-wrong/msg840767/#msg840767)
"What absurd dishonesty." https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/dr-sungenis-flat-earth-flat-wrong/msg840769/#msg840769 (https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/dr-sungenis-flat-earth-flat-wrong/msg840769/#msg840769)
"Are we starting to see the intellectual dishonesty yet?" https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/dr-sungenis-flat-earth-flat-wrong/msg840820/#msg840820 (https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/dr-sungenis-flat-earth-flat-wrong/msg840820/#msg840820) (https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/dr-sungenis-flat-earth-flat-wrong/msg840820/#msg840820)
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It's a public book, based on public knowledge, so the debate should be public. This whole "contact him personally" stuff is too individualistic; the debate/answers need to be available to everyone.
Damn! The Protties are right! Catholics don't know the Bible. Matthew 18:15-17
(http://www.drbo.org/cgi-bin/d?b=drb&bk=47&ch=18&l=15-17#x)Maybe we can beg Gladius_Cacas to intercede with Bob. He could command Bob to appear in the docket at CI or suffer a schoolyard fistfight. :laugh2:
You have the testimony of at least three people here that Bob is readily accessible and responsive. I'd fall out of my office chair if Bob didn't respond to a (non-psychotic) challenge to his views. That none of you have even tried to contact him makes it all the more outrageous that you think he owes CI an appearance. What arrogance.
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The blather that accompanied your bogus re-definition of "intellectual dishonesty" (https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/dr-sungenis-flat-earth-flat-wrong/msg840812/#msg840812) already implicitly admitted he isn't really guilty of dishonesty of any kind, yet, thousands of words later, you still have not managed: "I retract my accusations of 'dishonesty' and 'intellectual dishonesty.'"
Whether you define "intellectual dishonesty" differently, that's your business. But I defined UP FRONT what I meant by it. DL initially used the expression. You objected to it. I replied by agreeing with DL, saying that he's intellectually dishonest on this issue at least, and then I immediately defined what I meant by the term (and it's not a re-definition but it's a widely-accepted use of the phrase). Whether you agree with my definition of the term or not, I clearly defined what I meant by it ... at the very beginning.
There was no "re-definition" after you started your utterly puerile and childish meltdown.
So, there's nothing to retract. I absolutely stand by and have proven the intellectual dishonesty.
I repeat, (and you refuse to answer), have you contacted Sungenis yet and excoriated him in these terms for accusing FEs of being intellectually dishonest ... for reading the internal forum, for saying that they distort the evidence, and even calling them liars? Until you do, you have no business typing another word attacking me.
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Mark79 criticizes and attacks various public figures on a regular basis. …
Essentially saying: "Bless me, Father, for I have not sinned. My last confession was a year ago. I haven't done anything wrong because Mark79 is a sinner…"
From the keyboard of an ex-seminarian. :facepalm:
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You have it ass-backwards.
Matthew 18:15-17 obligates the critic to initiate the contact privately.
The ex-seminarian "didn't think of that" and profers a mountain of excuses that the virtual theologian who pounds thousands of words, didn't think to contact Bob or take the 10 seconds that any grade-school Catholic would need to find his email and phone number.
I cannot speak for his other friends, but I haven't yet notified Bob of Lad's serial calumnies.…
Quote
Please seek psychiatric help. It is perfectly permissible to criticize a book put into the public domain publicly without prior admonition, despite your IDIOTIC misinterpretation of Matthew 18:15-17. If a person does something in PUBLIC, then no private admonition is required.
Have you contacted Jorge Bergoglio privately before criticizing him in public? Have you contacted the various Jєωs you attack on your website privately before publishing your materials? Before I criticize Mel Gibson for his public adultery, am I obliged to contact him privately before voicing such a criticism? I've rarely heard anything more stupid than this.
This is utterly absurd, and you've lost your marbles.
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Maybe we can beg Gladius_Cacas to intercede with Bob. He could command Bob to appear in the docket at CI or suffer a schoolyard fistfight. :laugh2:
Nice to see you saying something in an FE-related thread. Did you share your take on the issue during my absence, or are you just stirring the pot?
Did you realize and admit you have been an ignorant-yet-innocent and ardent promoter of the Pasteurian/Rockefellerian lie/fraud of Germ Theory/Virology, too? No? Ah well, all in good time.
Bob can do as he pleases. At least he isn't groundlessly afraid that the Mossad will firebomb his house and isn't hiding behind the women in his life.
got Cooties-19? No, because NO ONE does, ever did or ever will.
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Please seek psychiatric help.
Indeed. I hear it is strenuously promoted by the Rockefeller Medical Establishment and is supported by countless peer-reviewed studies, so it must be truly excellent.
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Essentially saying: "Bless me, Father, for I have not sinned. My last confession was a year ago. I haven't done anything wrong because Mark79 is a sinner…"
From the keyboard of an ex-seminarian. :facepalm:
No, idiot. I was pointing out your hypocrisy and your double-standards. I committed no sin in criticizing Sungenis the way I did. NOR, by the way, do I attribute any sin to him for doing the same thing with FEs, calling them intellectually dishonest, distorters of evidence, and liars. NOR, by the way, do I accuse YOU of sin in the way you've attacked me. I accuse you of being childish, puerile, and idiotic ... but I do not judge your internal forum, nor have I judged that of Dr. Sungenis, despite your calumnies to that effect.
And, you know what, I'll bet you that he would agree ... as he did it himself in his book.
I'll ask again. Have you contacted your buddie "Bob" and rebuked him for his calumnies, lies, lack of charity, character assassinations, and pride ... since he did exactly what I did and much more.
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…But then people try to impugn my motives (reading the "internal forum") regarding why I didn't write him directly.
Quote verbatim where anyone impugned your motives.
Objectively:
1) As brother Catholics you had a Matthew 18:15-17 duty to contact Bob privately before repeatedly accusing him of dishonesty.
2) You are an ex-seminarian.
3) You admit you didn't contact Bob à la Mt 18:15-17 while tendering a variety of excuses.
4) You still haven't contacted Bob.
5) You still have not retracted your accusations of "dishonesty."
These are exterior forum facts.
No judgment of your interior forum is involved.
Quote
"I retract what I wrote earlier about considering Sungenis to be intellectually honest. This section on the Church Fathers exposes his dishonesty." https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/dr-sungenis-flat-earth-flat-wrong/msg840749/#msg840749 (https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/dr-sungenis-flat-earth-flat-wrong/msg840749/#msg840749)
"There's just no end to his dishonesty in sight." https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/dr-sungenis-flat-earth-flat-wrong/msg840767/#msg840767 (https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/dr-sungenis-flat-earth-flat-wrong/msg840767/#msg840767) (https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/dr-sungenis-flat-earth-flat-wrong/msg840767/#msg840767)
"What absurd dishonesty." https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/dr-sungenis-flat-earth-flat-wrong/msg840769/#msg840769 (https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/dr-sungenis-flat-earth-flat-wrong/msg840769/#msg840769)
"Are we starting to see the intellectual dishonesty yet?" https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/dr-sungenis-flat-earth-flat-wrong/msg840820/#msg840820 (https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/dr-sungenis-flat-earth-flat-wrong/msg840820/#msg840820) (https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/dr-sungenis-flat-earth-flat-wrong/msg840820/#msg840820)
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Have you contacted the various Jєωs you attack on your website privately before publishing your materials?
They might track him down and harass him like Hoffman, who, facing such difficulties, remains man enough to publish openly. Despite pursuing such a dangerous path, he still lives and works and moves about like a free, real man.
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Please seek psychiatric help. It is perfectly permissible to criticize a book put into the public domain publicly without prior admonition, despite your IDIOTIC misinterpretation of Matthew 18:15-17. If a person does something in PUBLIC, then no private admonition is required.
Have you contacted Jorge Bergoglio privately before criticizing him in public? Have you contacted the various Jєωs you attack on your website privately before publishing your materials? Before I criticize Mel Gibson for his public adultery, am I obliged to contact him privately before voicing such a criticism? I've rarely heard anything more stupid than this.
This is utterly absurd, and you've lost your marbles.
Please seek spiritual help.
It is perfectly permissible to criticize a book put into the public domain publicly without prior admonition.
It is in no way permissible to make false accusations of "dishonesty" and "intellectual dishonesty."
There is no refuge in your "public figure" pleading because you are not free to make false accusation of dishonesty even of public figures.
My "marbles" have nothing to do with your calumny (or your asinine assertion last week that it is sinful to have opposite sex contact in martial arts training, but acceptable to have same-sex or opposite-sex contact with an instructor ) :facepalm:
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:popcorn:
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Whether you define "intellectual dishonesty" differently, that's your business. …
Pathetic.
Please explain how your pathetic neologism excuses these instances in which you simply accused Bob of being "dishonest."
"There's just no end to his dishonesty in sight." https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/dr-sungenis-flat-earth-flat-wrong/msg840767/#msg840767 (https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/dr-sungenis-flat-earth-flat-wrong/msg840767/#msg840767) (https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/dr-sungenis-flat-earth-flat-wrong/msg840767/#msg840767)
"What absurd dishonesty." https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/dr-sungenis-flat-earth-flat-wrong/msg840769/#msg840769 (https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/dr-sungenis-flat-earth-flat-wrong/msg840769/#msg840769)
(https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/dr-sungenis-flat-earth-flat-wrong/msg840769/#msg840769)
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Those quotes are certainly interesting. And between this and his Rob Skiba debate shows that he's either wilfully ignorant or intellectually dishonest.
I have only just begun to review this thread from the beginning, but has M79 been castigating you for the above assessment, too, or has he only been harassing Lad?
Has he plainly stated his own take on the matter yet?
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No, idiot. I was pointing out your hypocrisy and your double-standards. I committed no sin in criticizing Sungenis the way I did. NOR, by the way, do I attribute any sin to him for doing the same thing with FEs, calling them intellectually dishonest, distorters of evidence, and liars. NOR, by the way, do I accuse YOU of sin in the way you've attacked me. I accuse you of being childish, puerile, and idiotic ... but I do not judge your internal forum, nor have I judged that of Dr. Sungenis, despite your calumnies to that effect.
And, you know what, I'll bet you that he would agree ... as he did it himself in his book.
I'll ask again. Have you contacted your buddie "Bob" and rebuked him for his calumnies, lies, lack of charity, character assassinations, and pride ... since he did exactly what I did and much more.
So instead: "Bless me, Father, for I have not sinned. My last confession was a year ago. I haven't done anything wrong because Mark79 is an idiot and a hypocrite with double-standards…"
Still waiting for a verbatim quote of anyone judging your internal forum.
Hilarious to come off the keyboard of an ex-seminarian who thinks that I have lost my marbles.
Pathetic.
I have not contacted Bob. I would not inflict you on him.
EXTERIOR FORUM:
"There's just no end to his dishonesty in sight." https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/dr-sungenis-flat-earth-flat-wrong/msg840767/#msg840767 (https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/dr-sungenis-flat-earth-flat-wrong/msg840767/#msg840767)
"What absurd dishonesty." https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/dr-sungenis-flat-earth-flat-wrong/msg840769/#msg840769 (https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/dr-sungenis-flat-earth-flat-wrong/msg840769/#msg840769)
(https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/dr-sungenis-flat-earth-flat-wrong/msg840769/#msg840769)You hoist yourself on your own petard.
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Mind you that I have no dog in the FE fight. I have no opinion on FE because I have not investigated it one iota. While I find geocentrism quite interesting primarily through St. Hildegard's and Bob's writing, I have ZERO interest if FE.
Ah...
Geo-centrism is merely "interesting"? Might want to investigate that matter further, good sir. It isn't up for debate, presuming you want to continue justifiably calling yourself a Catholic, and it never really has been.
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I do have a dog in the fight about insulting a man who deserves better treatment than the Meg interior forum poison. Damn it. Call him or email him and report back. Until then, leave his interior forum out of it—PLEASE!
You called me a liar and fraud based upon my hastily posting one video that I admittedly didn't vet as closely as I should have. Common enough these days.
Frankly, I do not care, as you may call me whatever you wish, and God alone knows I deserve much worse, for I AM worse: I am a sinner. Still, despite our own disagreements, I would not even consider calling you a liar or a fraud, although I do, as all can see, believe you are gravely mistaken about very important matters.
I am detecting a notable degree of inconsistency. Such are fallen men, myself included. Godspeed.
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Edit: And you also can't claim I'm somehow intent on calumniating him with the intent to damage his reputation when I've bought 5 of his books (including this one) and have encouraged others to buy Geocentrism 101 numerous times.
Apparently, M79 and Bob are such close pals that M79 hasn't even read Geocentrism 101, for he presently (after 20 years of 'friendship'?) finds the topic merely "interesting."
What, pray tell, do they email about? How to avoid Mossad Hit-Squads? Clearly it has nothing to do with cosmology, orthodoxy, etc.
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Mark, since you have no interest in FE, then how can you adequately defend Sungenis on the issue?
Don't ask such obvious, unanswerable questions, PV. ;)
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I have never met him face-to-face but, as well as reading and viewing his works, have spoken and exchanged correspondence with Bob for over 20 years.
Yet you still have your head so inextricably deep in your own posterior regarding Geo-centrism that you merely find it "interesting"? Yikes!!!! What do you old buddies discuss? Your good ole days in the yeshiva?
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Not that it matters, but impartial observers should note that while M79 and his Fan-Boys down-thumb all who oppose him, those of us who oppose him simply respond without bothering to make use of that lame feature. [Apologies to Matthew, as I know it is his forum and he can and will do as he pleases, as he should.] So, M79 maintains a better "score" than he likely deserves, while others experience the opposite. It is not just that men like me don't waste time down-thumbing our adversarii, we also fail to up-thumb the good men, too. Perhaps that is a fault, but it seems consistent with actual, meaningful participation on a forum predicated upon discussion, not popularity.
So, in TWENTY years of friendly contact with Sungenis, M79 doesn't even know or believe the Church's teaching on Geocentrism? How is that possible? That is like being good buddies with Elon Musk since 2000 yet remaining skeptical about whether electric cars are, in fact, an actual thing. NO ONE in the modern Catholic world has more visibly and actively promoted the Church's unchanging and unchangeable teaching on Geocentrism. So how, pray tell, is M79 still on the fence about something that is not now and has never actually been open for debate? Are we to accept that it just doesn't "interest" him? Homey said, "Modernist"?
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Summary of the debate:
1. People who have read Sungenis' book: He's misquoting the Church Fathers and Scripture and critiques FE. This is intellectually dishonest for a claimed "unbiased" book.
2. Mark: "It's wrong to call Sungenis intellectually dishonest because a. [bad Scripture quote] and b. [He's a nice guy].
3. People who have read Sungenis' book: "Uhh...Mark, do you understand why we're saying he's biased and not fair in his arguments?"
4. Mark: "No, I don't know much about FE nor do I care."
5. Everyone: :facepalm:
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Quote verbatim where anyone impugned your motives.
Uhm, with regard to the topic you're responding to, I stated why I did not write Dr. Sungenis, that it simply never occurred to me, 1) because I don't have his contact information, and 2) I figured that he'd be too busy to get 20 paragraphs of text dumped in his e-mail box from some unknown chump on the internet.
To which people responded that it was nonsense, essentially accusing me of lying and having some other motive (some implied bad motive) for not writing to him directly.
More broadly, I've been accused of "pride" in objecting to his book, truly an "internal forum" matter, of committing calumny and character assassination. Should I go on?
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Not that it matters, but impartial observers should note that while M79 and his Fan-Boys down-thumb all who oppose him, those of us who oppose him simply respond without bothering to make use of that lame feature. [Apologies to Matthew, as I know it is his forum and he can and will do as he pleases, as he should.] So, M79 maintains a better "score" than he likely deserves, while others experience the opposite. It is not just that men like me don't waste time down-thumbing our adversarii, we also fail to up-thumb the good men, too. Perhaps that is a fault, but it seems consistent with actual, meaningful participation on a forum predicated upon discussion, not popularity.
You're not wrong. I rarely make use the up- or down- vote feature, nor do I take much note about getting them on my posts, except occasionally, when I notice that I get down-thumbs out of spite for every post I make, even the innocuous ones. There was one earlier in this thread where I took the blame for putting an apparently incorrect "800 page" number out there, for which DL was criticized. I said that was on me, since I had recalled (perhaps mis-recalled) hearing the number in an interview Dr. Sungenis had given about the subject. So for some reason, that relatively innocuous post received a down-vote.
While I have no intention of hitting people with down- votes, I should be more mindful of hitting the up- vote button when it's warranted.
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Uhm, with regard to the topic you're responding to, I stated why I did not write Dr. Sungenis, that it simply never occurred to me, 1) because I don't have his contact information, and 2) I figured that he'd be too busy to get 20 paragraphs of text dumped in his e-mail box from some unknown chump on the internet.
To which people responded that it was nonsense, essentially accusing me of lying and having some other motive (some implied bad motive) for not writing to him directly.
More broadly, I've been accused of "pride" in objecting to his book, truly an "internal forum" matter, of committing calumny and character assassination. Should I go on?
Your ruminations and misinterpretations are NOT verbatim quotes.
Objective fact:
Instead of using my phone or rolodex, I figured I'd pretend I had no contact information for Bob. I searched "Robert Sungenis," clicked his website, and then clicked "about (https://www.robertsungenis.org/p/about.html)." In less than 10 seconds I had his website, his email, and his public phone number.
I kept the thought to myself, "What a lazy bugger Lad is."
Knowing that you are an ex-seminarian, your plaintive "I didn't think [blah, blah, blah]" gave me an especially deep laugh. I thought to myself, "An ex-seminarian didn't think about talking to a good man before he accused him repeatedly (a couple of dozen times now?) of dishonesty. What a sorry ass [expletive deleted]!"
I posted that you were "pathetic." Being pathetic is not a sin.
Similarly I recall no other person accusing you of sin for your sorry ass excuses.
"Are you able to read?" If you have an instance of anyone judging your interior forum, quote it verbatim.
ver·ba·tim | vərˈbādəm |
adverb
in exactly the same words as were used originally [not your whiny victim crap]: used in a sentence—"Mark79 returned Lad's snide insult verbatim, 'Are you able to read?'"
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Summary of the debate:
1. People who have read Sungenis' book: He's misquoting the Church Fathers and Scripture and critiques FE. This is intellectually dishonest for a claimed "unbiased" book.
2. Mark: "It's wrong to call Sungenis intellectually dishonest because a. [bad Scripture quote] and b. [He's a nice guy].
3. People who have read Sungenis' book: "Uhh...Mark, do you understand why we're saying he's biased and not fair in his arguments?"
4. Mark: "No, I don't know much about FE nor do I care."
5. Everyone: :facepalm:
That is bullshit. I'll fix it for you.
An accurate version of #4:
It is the false accusation of dishonesty (saying something that he doesn't actually believe) to which I object. I have absolutely no problem with criticism of bias, illogic, weak evidence, erroneous conclusions.
An accurate version of #5
Everyone: How many times do Mark79 and others need to state that only the false accusation is the problem. "Are you able to read?" :facepalm:
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It is the false accusation of dishonesty (saying something that he doesn't actually believe) to which I object.
Have you written Sungenis yet to excoriate him for his "false accusations of dishonesty" against FE proponents? Let us know how he responds.
I object to your false accusation that I made a false accusation of (intellectual) dishonesty. Prove that I made a false accusation that Sugenis is biased and reading into texts from the Fathers things that are not there. Would you like me to cite (again) all the evidence so that you can refute it?
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This meme is approximately a year old.
(http://judaism.is/images/definition%20whataboutism.jpg?crc=4036326322)
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Have you written Sungenis yet to excoriate him for his "false accusations of dishonesty" against FE proponents? Let us know how he responds.
I object to your false accusation that I made a false accusation of (intellectual) dishonesty. Prove that I made a false accusation that Sugenis is biased and reading into texts from the Fathers things that are not there. Would you like me to cite (again) all the evidence so that you can refute it?
Love your "post-processing" of:
"There's just no end to his dishonesty in sight." https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/dr-sungenis-flat-earth-flat-wrong/msg840767/#msg840767
"What absurd dishonesty." https://www.cathinfo.com/the-earth-god-made-flat-earth-geocentrism/dr-sungenis-flat-earth-flat-wrong/msg840769/#msg840769
Even if we accepted your post-processing:
dishonesty≠mere errors
a false accusation of (intellectual) dishonesty≠ a false accusation that Sugenis is biased and reading into texts from the Fathers things that are not there
As Jone makes clear, lying/deceit/dishonesty requires that the liar states something, but does not really believe what he states.
(https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1400,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/113/615/318/original/00a32fd4b3dc5ebd.png)
You have no access to Bob's interior forum, so you have no knowledge that Bob "states something, but does not really believe what he states."
Why so much effort squirming, re-defining, and post-processing?
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I did find reading the Church Fathers fascinating, and do intend to write something up about it.
As I mentioned there was in fact a universal consensus that the earth is at the center of the Universe. Nevertheless, there was some debate about how it's possible for the earth (solid matter) to be held in suspension in the MIDDLE of some water. They clearly had a notion that there was an objective bottom, and that heavier material settled to the bottom. So some argued that it was center of the universe in the sense of being bottom center (so St. Augustine said it's possible that it be both bottom and center (so horizontally center but vertically bottom) but also did not rule out that somehow it could remain in suspension in a middle place, despite this seeming to contradict the laws of density where it should sink to the bottom. I saw a few arguments about how it would be possible for it to remain in suspension in the middle.
Then they all believed in a firmament, and between the land/earth itself there was the air gap of our atmosphere and the dry land, etc. There was a debate about the shape of said firmament and some discussion about what it was made out of. Some argued that this FIRMAMENT was shaped like a sphere (for those who believed it was in suspension in the center) and others that it was a hemisphere (those who believed it was at the bottom). Still others argued, based on Scripture, where it was said that it was stretched out by God like a tent, that it could not be curved (spherical or hemispherical). St. Augustine countered that by saying even a skin (like a tent canvas) CAN be curved, and he used the example of what's translated as a "football" (though I'm sure they didn't have footballs back them).
So, when some of the Fathers say that the shape of the world is spherical, they are NOT talking about a globe on the surface of which we live. They're talking about the entire world, including the atmosphere and the firmament, being shaped like a globe, or a hemisphere, etc. There was some mention by Fathers of those who claim that the world was shaped like a "cone" and I haven't worked that one out in my mind yet. Not sure if the pointy side of cone is up (and the firmament goes up to a point) or if the pointy side is on the bottom, and it's more like a snow cone.
So one father spoke of the earth being ROUND and BOUDNDED by a sphere. That has no meaning on a straight sphere. But it makes perfect sense if you're talking about a circular surface that's created by a cross-section of a sphere (the outer sphere that bounds it), not sure whether it's IN or THROUGH the firmament or not. Another spoke of an oblique circle in a sphere, the exact same concept, where the land surface is circular based on it being a cross-section of a sphere.
So with these options, some of the Fathers (those who believed that the world is a sphere held in suspension in both the horizontal and vertical center of the universe) believed that night was created by the sun travelling below the lower hemisphere (underneath the earthen part of it), [so they didn't believe in the notion that the sun circle around the earth parallel to it as the most prevalent FE model), whereas some others believed it was hidden by distant mountains, and others still (like in the Book of Enoch) that it came out of and then re-entered various "gates" around the firmament.
So the precise course of the sun was debated, and whether the world was in the middle or on the bottom, and therefore whether it was a sphere or a hemisphere, and there was SOME (although a bit less) belief that the firmament was not in fact spherical or hemispherical, but more looking like a tent (perhaps these are the ones who believed it was cone-shaped, with the point at the top, as you might see on a tent?) But they all agreed that there was a firmament, an air gap in between, and their reference to spheres are CLEARLY a reference to the shape of the FIRMAMENT and not of the terra firma on which people lived.
THIS is what makes all the quotations from the Fathers make sense. But, alas, it eluded Dr. Sungenis, as he was dead set on turning any reference to a sphere into a reference to a globe earth on which people lived. No Father believed that. And I intend to prove it conclusively from the Patristic sources.
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I'm thinking more and more that those who believed that the world (no, not the surface of the earth, but the world, INCLUDING the firmament) was shaped like a cone were the same ones who argued that "stretched out like a tent" precludes the firmament being semi-spherical or spherical (curved). I'm guessing that they had this type of an image in mind (picture of Bedouin tent below).
(https://www.greenprophet.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/bedouin-tent-jordan.jpeg)
I have no idea whether they believed there was a hemisphere at the bottom (look like a snow cone) or whether it was just flat across the bottom. But it's clear that they would not imagine people living on the SURFACE of this cone, but rather underneath it on the flat bottom surface, exactly as those who believed it to be spherical or hemispherical did.
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Finally, Dr. Sungenis opened by citing St. Ambrose (debating against some adversary that I couldn't determine from the short citation itself), adversaries who we arguing that if the earth were still and the heavens moving around it, that the waters would flow down off the top of the sphere. They CLEARLY could not be talking about the LAND surface on which people dwell, since that would mean the water would directly contact the globe earth and that they would be submerged in water. It's absolutely clear that he was talking about the spherical FIRMAMENT that the waters would flow off of (or not, based on his argument).
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Perhaps a cone like this? Like a snocone? :laugh1:
(https://phuulishfellow.files.wordpress.com/2018/11/dantes-inferno-c1520-granger.jpg?w=786&h=844)
(http://<a href=)(https://i.ibb.co/8Pnytjt/download-4.jpg)
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That's a cool wedge picture there. It would be interesting to analyze all the stuff in the different layers.
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Perhaps a cone like this? Like a snocone? :laugh1:
(https://phuulishfellow.files.wordpress.com/2018/11/dantes-inferno-c1520-granger.jpg?w=786&h=844)
(http://<a href=)
Reminds me of Dante's 9 circles of hell.
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Reminds me of Dante's 9 circles of hell.
lol that's because it is :cowboy:
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I ran across this and it's fascinating. I recommend reading it. I've only skimmed it, but it's the best treatment of the subject that I've come across.
He comes up with an alternative to the normal FE paradigm of the sun and moon rotating parallel above the surface of the earth, based on the Book of Enoch, and it makes sense if you think of the firmament or dome rising up in the middle (whether a sphere or a tent shape).
https://www.hanotzrim.com/resources/Hebrew_Cosmology/Hebrew%20Cosmology.pdf
He cites many non-Biblical sources to back up what Sacred Scripture teaches.
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I ran across this and it's fascinating. I recommend reading it. I've only skimmed it, but it's the best treatment of the subject that I've come across.
He comes up with an alternative to the normal FE paradigm of the sun and moon rotating parallel above the surface of the earth, based on the Book of Enoch, and it makes sense if you think of the firmament or dome rising up in the middle (whether a sphere or a tent shape).
https://www.hanotzrim.com/resources/Hebrew_Cosmology/Hebrew%20Cosmology.pdf
He cites many non-Biblical sources to back up what Sacred Scripture teaches.
You ran across this? Out in the open where people could find it? Like, online? I guess Sungenis' internet was down at the time.
Gets into flat earth early: "William Blake, aware of the alleged science advancements in his day, observed: The clouds bow to meet the flat earth and the sea in such an ordered space […] As to that false appearance which appears to the reasoner [Newton, Bacon, Locke et al.], as of a globe rolling through voidness, it is a delusion." 24
So much for the illusion that nobody believed the earth was flat.
Addition to the above, by Enoch.
I saw the ends of the earth whereon the [vault of] heaven rests. (1 En 33:2)
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Cosmas of Indiocopleustes and the Church Fathers' viewed the earth as the model for the Jєωιѕн Tabernacle (dwelling place) which coincides, not surprisingly, to the tabernacle in Catholic churches where the Our Lord dwells to this day.
The author explains:
Since the heavenly abode of God finds its counterpart in the earthly tabernacle or mishkan (משכן’ | dwelling’), it seems obvious that the vault answers to the veil which separated the holy from the most holy place and thus divided the sanctuary. Behind the heavenly veil, that is, above the vault is the Throne of God:41
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I ran across this and it's fascinating. I recommend reading it. I've only skimmed it, but it's the best treatment of the subject that I've come across.
He comes up with an alternative to the normal FE paradigm of the sun and moon rotating parallel above the surface of the earth, based on the Book of Enoch, and it makes sense if you think of the firmament or dome rising up in the middle (whether a sphere or a tent shape).
https://www.hanotzrim.com/resources/Hebrew_Cosmology/Hebrew%20Cosmology.pdf
He cites many non-Biblical sources to back up what Sacred Scripture teaches.
I'm about halfway through it, but, it affirms exactly what I've been envisioning the flat earth to be.
It's also interesting just how much Enoch corroborates FE findings. I've never seriously delved into the text since it's apocryphal, but I'll have to make a point of doing so.
The exact location is given to us by the fallen cherub who used to guard the throne:
I will climb to the sky; higher than the stars of Hashem I will set my throne. I will sit in the mount of assembly, on the summit of Zaphon. (Isa 14:13)
The summit of Zaphon (‘north’) is the crown of the dome; it is located above the North Star aka Polaris, one of the luminaries.
Very interesting. And it would make sense that Lucifer (the light-bearer) would have fallen from this point of the dome.
And this footnote is a solid description of what many have been seeing with the cymatic phenomena upon viewing stars.
The firmament acts as a prism. Spinning water droplets scatter the spectral colours into perfect white, but do not produce a rainbow. Yet, ice or water particles can act as a screen if the light is split between the source and the particles. Since sunlight is dispersed by the dome, i.e. by a vaulted arch, the spectrum projected to the droplets forms an arch. Rainbows are ever-present as any lawn sprinkler will reveal; a secondary rainbow is the dome’s reflection of the main bow (as evidenced by its reversed spectrum); halos are caused by the same refractive properties of the vault. “Atmospheric refraction is technically not possible without a solid extension above the earth.” M. Eugenio, Dossier 111 (Turin, 2018), 293.
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The author is obviously not Catholic and has conveniently left out the Church's role in shutting down heliocentrism in the 1600's. Doubtful that the infiltration to destroy the Church started in Constantine's time, that's Protestant gibberish. 'Rome' never attempted to replace the worship of God with the worship of the sun...until recently of course. It's obvious that the enemies of the Church (Jєωs/Freemasons) desperately needed to infiltrate the Church in order to broadcast their errors. Heliocentrism was a necessary tool for their virtual world. The same people all but buried vital information about the Church and creation throughout the centuries because it was so intricately tied to Catholic liturgy, to Christ, and to reality. Although the author has sourced his information well (mostly), his commentary falls short as he's caught justifying his own heresy by blaming the Church, who was also a victim in this centuries old smear campaign.
"From the days of Constantine, Rome has aimed to replace the worship of God with the worship of the sun, and when Holy Writ went public, she started to employ other means than merely corrupting Scripture and killing its readers. To undermine the Bible’s authority, Rome began to change the perception of the masses regarding reality. That way she would nullify its main opponent without having to burn people or Torah scrolls. Heliocentrism was simply a tool of the Counter-Reformation and has been the bedrock of Jesuit ‘education’ ever since. Like the big bang and macro-evolution, it is an ancient pagan belief that was revived by ‘the beast.’"
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Sure, he's not a Catholic, but his citations and footnotes are excellent, and his reading of Enoch is interesting.
While Enoch is not inspired Sacred Scripture, there are quite a few passages in New Testament Sacred Scripture that seems to be alluding to the Book of Enoch, and quite a few Church Fathers felt that it was part of Sacred Scripture. It seems to contain some very clear prophecies about Our Lord.
The Book of Enoch was viewed as scriptural in the Epistle of Barnabas (16:4), as well as by many early Church Leaders, including Athenagoras, Clement of Alexandria, Irenaeus, and Tertullian, who wrote around 200 that the Jєωs had dismissed the Book of Enoch since it includes prophecies about Christ.
I'm in between on some of these books. Simply because it wasn't inspired by the Holy Spirit, this does not mean that it isn't authentic, real, and accurate. I think there's a temptation to throw anything out that wasn't declared by the Church to be inspired as if it were a fraud. But it doesn't have to be all or nothing. I could be authentic ... and yet not inspired. So, for instance, we have some of the early works like the Epistle of Pope St. Clement of Rome that's very real, has authority, but not inspired.
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The author is obviously not Catholic and has conveniently left out the Church's role in shutting down heliocentrism in the 1600's. Doubtful that the infiltration to destroy the Church started in Constantine's time, that's Protestant gibberish. 'Rome' never attempted to replace the worship of God with the worship of the sun...until recently of course. It's obvious that the enemies of the Church (Jєωs/Freemasons) desperately needed to infiltrate the Church in order to broadcast their errors. Heliocentrism was a necessary tool for their virtual world. The same people all but buried vital information about the Church and creation throughout the centuries because it was so intricately tied to Catholic liturgy, to Christ, and to reality. Although the author has sourced his information well (mostly), his commentary falls short as he's caught justifying his own heresy by blaming the Church, who was also a victim in this centuries old smear campaign.
"From the days of Constantine, Rome has aimed to replace the worship of God with the worship of the sun, and when Holy Writ went public, she started to employ other means than merely corrupting Scripture and killing its readers. To undermine the Bible’s authority, Rome began to change the perception of the masses regarding reality. That way she would nullify its main opponent without having to burn people or Torah scrolls. Heliocentrism was simply a tool of the Counter-Reformation and has been the bedrock of Jesuit ‘education’ ever since. Like the big bang and macro-evolution, it is an ancient pagan belief that was revived by ‘the beast.’"
Yeah, that was apparent from the outset when he referred to the Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity, "coming into being" on the first day. I didn't expect Catholic orthodoxy here, I view it the same as I would Edward Hendrie's book on FE; as he also goes into a ridiculous tangent about the "evil" Roman Catholic Church and the Jesuits in the latter quarter of that book. You'll get that when utilizing Protestant sources, but that doesn't necessarily mean their observations are wrong in the case of FE.
Still, a lot of the connections this author has made are interesting. Specifically the nature of the moon's light, and consequently its phases, as a result of transduction:
Since Genesis defines the moon not as a reflector but as a luminary, we know that she emits her own light. Put another way, the moon illuminates not through reflec-tion but through transduction.58 As commonly held, her position in relation to the sun determines the phases, i.e. the visible area of the moon’s illuminated hemisphere:
On the first day she is called New Moon because on the day light appears on her. The whole time in which the illumination of the moon progresses, light is transmitted to her, facing the sun, until the fourteenth day when her light is complete; then it amounts to one seventh of the light of the sun. (1 En 78:12, 11; 73:3)
The moon then wanes over fourteen days until she exhibits zero illumination:59
In her waning the moon decreases from her light. On the first day she has 14 parts, and on the second day 13 parts… [and on the fourteenth day 1 part]. And all the rest of her light is removed, and her orb emerges, devoid of all light, hidden by the sun. (1 En 78:8, 14)60
Footnote 58:
The Ethiopic text of 1 Enoch portrays the moon as ‘taking’ from the sun. She acts like a fluorescent bulb which absorbs electromagnetic radiation and re-emits the photons in the form of cold light.
Footnote 59:
Lunar eclipse is a misnomer: “Since about the 15th century over 50 eclipses have occurred while both sun and moon have been visible above the horizon.” F. Cook, The Terrestrial Plane (London, 1908), 58. When the EM axis between the terrestrial and celestial North Pole alters the conductive potential of the moon, the latter appears orange. It happens on rare occasions when the sun and moon are opposing each other while having the same distance to the equinox.
This idea of transduction is probably one of the better explanations I've seen for how the moon not only appears as a reflector of the sun's light, but also how it emits its own "cold light" and goes through phases (the absorption of electromagnetic radiation).
I'm in between on some of these books. Simply because it wasn't inspired by the Holy Spirit, this does not mean that it isn't authentic, real, and accurate. I think there's a temptation to throw anything out that wasn't declared by the Church to be inspired as if it were a fraud. But it doesn't have to be all or nothing. I could be authentic ... and yet not inspired. So, for instance, we have some of the early works like the Epistle of Pope St. Clement of Rome that's very real, has authority, but not inspired.
I'm in a similar position. Especially since Sacred Scripture references them. As it is not as though it is forbidden to believe in them, it's just that they have no definitive basis for proven legitimacy as inspired works. Obviously, anything that was clearly crafted by heretics would be out of the question (the Gnostic scriptures, specifically), but I don't seem harm in having a personal belief in them, as they are still part of Tradition, provided one isn't elevating them to the level of Sacred Scripture.
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Don't be misled by the title. But they point out how St. Jude in his epistle cited prophecy from Enoch as if it were legitimate and real.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HtViNaODqs&t=73s
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Sure, he's not a Catholic, but his citations and footnotes are excellent, and his reading of Enoch is interesting.
While Enoch is not inspired Sacred Scripture, there are quite a few passages in New Testament Sacred Scripture that seems to be alluding to the Book of Enoch, and quite a few Church Fathers felt that it was part of Sacred Scripture. It seems to contain some very clear prophecies about Our Lord.
No complaints, he was very well sourced. Just had to say something up front or half of Cathinfo will come out of their chairs to throw a fit. Enoch, also, has plenty of support by the Fathers of the Church, so while his writings are not infallible, he went to an awful lot of trouble to explain the workings of the stars, sun, moon and flat earth just to get dismissed by those who prefer non infallible modern science.
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Don't be misled by the title. But they point out how St. Jude in his epistle cited prophecy from Enoch as if it were legitimate and real.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HtViNaODqs&t=73s
I was only able to get through about half on my break, so I'll listen to the rest later. But I think he has a very good point about the usage of Enoch as a cultural text rather than as Scripture. As it was very common among the Fathers to utilize ideas from philosophers in part to unpack Scripture, while not advocating for the entire philosophy. I believe that Enoch would serve well in that regard, as the author of that article proves in practice.
There's things that Enoch appears to cover in detail that are only mentioned in passing by Sacred Scripture, such as the Nephalim, the nature of the world, etc. to such a degree that it's difficult to completely dismiss it as anything less than possibly an early parallel of what we now know as private revelation in Church history. As clearly Enoch was a saint of the Old Covenant. And, if not that, at least one of the highest forms of natural wisdom and/or philosophy extant, given the claims of Josephus of how Enoch was a "primeval sage ... entrusted by God to record and disseminate this information". This aligns with what I've read in Pythagoras or Christ? on how one of the earliest, and most essential, forms of wisdom was that of astronomy and cosmology after the Fall. So, of course, Enoch being an ante-diluvian compiler and disseminator of the true cosmology makes perfect sense.
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Don't be misled by the title. But they point out how St. Jude in his epistle cited prophecy from Enoch as if it were legitimate and real.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HtViNaODqs&t=73s
They seem to point out 2 major errors in Enoch that discredits it though.
1. Enoch appears to claim that the fallen angels fell after Man was already created.
2. It appears to claim that an angel other than Lucifer taught Man to sin and, not only that but, also that Man only learned to sin after there were already a number of humans, i.e the Fall happened post-Adam and Eve.
I haven't read the book myself, so I can't comment on how accurate their interpretation is, but if it actually says these things, then it discredits the whole book in my view.
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I haven't read the book myself, so I can't comment on how accurate their interpretation is, but if it actually says these things, then it discredits the whole book in my view.
No it doesn't. The other point they made was that there's still a lot of good things in it that makes it worth reading, it's just that the contradictions that they point out prevent it from being considered inspired. It could still be viewed on the level of a "private revelation" or even Hebrew philosophy.
Just because Aristotle believed in the eternity of the universe doesn't discredit his conclusions about causality. And the same could be said about those conclusions that these books of Enoch come to that coincide with Sacred Scripture.
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The video on the Book of Enoch is from Catholic Answers (controlled opposition). Among other things, they have supported reception of Holy Eucharist for public adulterers.
And then they have Jimmy Akin.
https://youtu.be/DEUNpQ-H4Hk
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They seem to point out 2 major errors in Enoch that discredits it though.
1. Enoch appears to claim that the fallen angels fell after Man was already created.
2. It appears to claim that an angel other than Lucifer taught Man to sin and, not only that but, also that Man only learned to sin after there were already a number of humans, i.e the Fall happened post-Adam and Eve.
I've read the whole book; it's not that long. The version that I have did not say any of the above. Methinks these guys didn't understand what Enoch was describing.
1. Enoch describes, during the period before the Flood, how the world became more and more corrupt, which led to God deciding to send the Great Flood.
a. Enoch describes how God allowed angels to be tempted by women (and a lust for power) and choose to leave heaven to become fallen angels. Enoch does not say WHEN the angels fell by this temptation (i.e. before the world was created or after). Enoch also does not mention lucifer as part of this group, so those angels who were cast into hell by St Michael before the world was created were a separate group that "fell" from heaven.
b. Those angels who fell by lust for women/power were given very specific names by Enoch, as well as descriptions of their powers and interests.
c. The angels who fell during Noah's time had children by way of witchcraft, which produced the Giants/Nephalim.
2. The descriptions of the fallen angels who "taught men to sin" is not accurate. What Enoch describes is that these angels gave to those men/women who worshipped them the knowledge of all sciences, technology, metallurgy, chemistry, astronomy, etc. Before the angels came into the world, the world revolved around farming. The angels taught evil men how to do the following:
a. Find, develop and use metals for weapons, technology and Jєωelry
b. Find, develop and use herbs for medicine, potions and poisons
c. Find, develop and use chemistry, biology, etc (all modern sciences) for power, money and war.
d. All of these things led to luxuries, sinfulness and war
Scripture also tells us that all of mankind was "corrupted" but that Noah was "pure in his generations". This leads one to suspect that animal/Nephalim/demonic corruption (i.e. genetic manipulation) was also happening. As one guy argued, Satan wanted to corrupt all of mankind's gene pool so that Our Lord couldn't be born. This is a strong argument and fits into what Scripture implies here.
Also, many Church Fathers are very explicit when they say they believed that the Giants/Nephalim were, in fact, demonic/human hybrids.
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The video on the Book of Enoch is from Catholic Answers (controlled opposition). Among other things, they have supported reception of Holy Eucharist for public adulterers.
And then they have Jimmy Akin.
Yeah, I get that, but it's a good overview of Book of Enoch in any case ... except for I disagree for his reason to repudiate the book. He claims that Enoch holds that the angels fell only later. It doesn't say that. It's talking about these "Nephilim" ("sons of God") who mated with the "daughters of men" ... one of the most mysterious passages in the Sacred Scriptures (Genesis 6:4). Church Father Tertullian clearly held it to be Sacred Scripture. It was in fact cited by St. Jude in his Epistle.
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They seem to point out 2 major errors in Enoch that discredits it though.
1. Enoch appears to claim that the fallen angels fell after Man was already created.
2. It appears to claim that an angel other than Lucifer taught Man to sin and, not only that but, also that Man only learned to sin after there were already a number of humans, i.e the Fall happened post-Adam and Eve.
I haven't read the book myself, so I can't comment on how accurate their interpretation is, but if it actually says these things, then it discredits the whole book in my view.
No, I think he's completely wrong about #1. It's talking about the "Nephilim" (which they call the Watchers). THEY were the ones who are being said to have fallen here, not the original angels.
Nor, with #2, does it say that the Nephilim FIRST taught man to sin. It did say that they taught man all kinds of sinful things and that it was these types of things that spread and eventually led to God wiping out the world. He's saying that it led to the debauchery in the "days of Noah".
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Yeah, I get that, but it's a good overview of Book of Enoch in any case ... except for I disagree for his reason to repudiate the book. He claims that Enoch holds that the angels fell only later. It doesn't say that. It's talking about these "Nephilim" ("sons of God") who mated with the "daughters of men" ... one of the most mysterious passages in the Sacred Scriptures (Genesis 6:4). Church Father Tertullian clearly held it to be Sacred Scripture. It was in fact cited by St. Jude in his Epistle.
I don't have references at this point, (still looking) but I've seen them. References show Augustine and Aquinas both thought that the "sons of God" were people loyal to God, descendants of Adam, and the "daughters of men" were descendants from the pagan camps and of Cain. Both saints agree the Nephilim were natural descendants of forbidden unions between these two camps, under the influence of demons, and thus created evil giants. Both Augustine and Aquinas agree that angels do not have the capacity to procreate and were not involved in a material way. There is no reason to repudiate the book of Enoch, even if it is not part of the canon of scripture. As you show here, Fathers and Scripture referenced it. Enoch certainly carries more weight than modern science.
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I'm starting a new thread on Enoch/Nephalim.
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References show Augustine and Aquinas both thought that the "sons of God" were people loyal to God, descendants of Adam, and the "daughters of men" were descendants from the pagan camps and of Cain.
While I addressed this on the other thread, I want to answer it here too. On the other hand, Pope St. Clement of Rome (writing late 1st century) said that these were angels that transformed their nature. St. Augustine himself would not rule out the possibility that these were angels who took on "aerial" bodies. His big issue with it seems to be that he didn't know how to explain that these "angels" could fall. Thus he has the Sons of Seth theory. But other earlier Patristic sources seemed to indicate otherwise. One Father said that these were the angels who were stationed around the "first firmament" whose function it was to govern and interact with "matter and all its forms," so they did seem to have some ability to interact with the material world. So I have to disagree with St. Augustine's sons of Seth theory in favor of these other Patristic sources (one from a Pope who likely knew St. John and who certainly knew disciples of the Apostles).
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People here are still trying to push this whole angels mated with humans Gnostic garbage? Nowhere does The Church teach this and it goes against any Catholic sense and this type of belief, and others like it, were condemned at Fifth Ecuмenical Council Constantinople II and part of the 15 condemned errors of Origen. (A search should get you to see and read them)
The gnostics were around in the Early Church period and were spreading false Gospels and this is why The Church had to step in and go through a plethora of books to see which ones were ok to include and which were not. People shouldn't try to reconcile forbidden and rejected books, this goes into the realm of vain curiosity, and I fell victim to this Gnostic trash for a while and I would hope that others will listen and not go down this rabbit hole out of "vain curiosity" or for "more light/"gnosis"" If The Church did not include it then that should be good enough for us not to get into this trash. The Duoay-Rheims commnetary and Catholic sense tells us what the daughters of men are as Tradman alluded to earlier, we don't need these fantastical Gnostic ideas.
A lot of the New Agers, and certain New Age leaning "Protestants" have "revived" a lot of the Gnostic "gospels" for a reason...to sow confusion and bring Gnosticism back and get people thinking into those ideas.
Some of The Church Fathers had this opinion that it was demonically possessed humans that they're referring to and not actual demons themselves and I think a lot of their opinions on the matter are distorted or taken out of context, and even if they DID mean it that way, it might have been a loose opinion floating about due to the Gnostic trash out there and The Church condemned many of those types of ideas later anyway.
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Can you post these condemnations? I'm interested to read.
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Starting at around -45:00 In Robert Sungenis' most recent live video, he talks about a huge light that preceded the sun during the week of creation. It is about a billion times, um, no,...wait, he says, probably only ten thousand times, no wait, maybe a million times bigger than the sun. Yea, that's it. Then it dissipates. And it goes away. It's still there, but we don't need it. Earth is enveloped by water, which was ice at the time because the temp was zero. Now it's water thanks to the big sun before the sun. He says the universe is precessing; both vertically and horizontally, at about -34:50 and the universe is spiraling around the earth and it draws an oval over the earth except at the pole. He says the one reason geocentrism is superior to heliocentrism is because of stellar aberration and the speed of light only works within the geocentric system. At about -28:30 Sungenis says he studied (all) the hundreds of books on the Fathers of the Church to tie their understanding together to explain creation.
:facepalm:
Get ready people. Sungenis' new movie is coming in a couple of months! He says you'll get to watch a graphic creation of the universe as though you were there!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMHNVDZF9Do
I wondered what might happen if Sungenis showed up to the forum to chat about geocentrism, but all hope of any reasonable discussion went out the window after watching this video. In fact, I went straight away and looked up the term "intellectual dishonesty" and found this:
Intellectual Dishonesty
What is meant when one uses this term?
When one avoids an honest, deliberate and comprehensive approach to a matter because it may introduce an adverse effect on personally and professionally held views and beliefs.
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Sungenis' new movie is coming in a couple of months! He says you'll get to watch a graphic creation of the universe as though you were there!
:laugh1:
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Intellectual Dishonesty
What is meant when one uses this term?
When one avoids an honest, deliberate and comprehensive approach to a matter because it may introduce an adverse effect on personally and professionally held views and beliefs.
Like M79 respecting Cooties-19, modern so-called virology, Germ Theory vs. Terrain Theory, FE vs. GE, Geocentrism vs. Heliocentrism, or any number of topics unrelated to exposing the SS.
I have met MANY people throughout Traddieland during the past 25 years. There is an almost-universal desire to know the truth about everything, particularly because once one realizes that the modern anti-Church is a fraud, it is natural, especially for the intellectually active and curious, to question everything. It turns out that just about everything HAS been rendered fake, in one way or another: fake food, fake money, fake sex/marriage, fake medicine, fake cosmology, fake wars/enemies, and on and on and on. How can anyone hang out at CI for any length of time without questioning just about everything, knowing that the very Pillar and Foundation of Truth has, in some still-mysterious manner, been, at least to all appearances, rendered fake? FWIW, the SS has had a hand in a great deal of the aforementioned falsification.
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Starting at around -45:00 In Robert Sungenis' most recent live video, he talks about a huge light that preceded the sun during the week of creation. It is about a billion times, um, no,...wait, he says, probably only ten thousand times, no wait, maybe a million times bigger than the sun. Yea, that's it. Then it dissipates. And it goes away. It's still there, but we don't need it. Earth is enveloped by water, which was ice at the time because the temp was zero. Now it's water thanks to the big sun before the sun.
Maybe my calling him Bobby Sun is more fitting than I realized...
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I've read the whole book; it's not that long. The version that I have did not say any of the above. Methinks these guys didn't understand what Enoch was describing.
1. Enoch describes, during the period before the Flood, how the world became more and more corrupt, which led to God deciding to send the Great Flood.
a. Enoch describes how God allowed angels to be tempted by women (and a lust for power) and choose to leave heaven to become fallen angels. Enoch does not say WHEN the angels fell by this temptation (i.e. before the world was created or after). Enoch also does not mention lucifer as part of this group, so those angels who were cast into hell by St Michael before the world was created were a separate group that "fell" from heaven.
b. Those angels who fell by lust for women/power were given very specific names by Enoch, as well as descriptions of their powers and interests.
c. The angels who fell during Noah's time had children by way of witchcraft, which produced the Giants/Nephalim.
2. The descriptions of the fallen angels who "taught men to sin" is not accurate. What Enoch describes is that these angels gave to those men/women who worshipped them the knowledge of all sciences, technology, metallurgy, chemistry, astronomy, etc. Before the angels came into the world, the world revolved around farming. The angels taught evil men how to do the following:
a. Find, develop and use metals for weapons, technology and Jєωelry
b. Find, develop and use herbs for medicine, potions and poisons
c. Find, develop and use chemistry, biology, etc (all modern sciences) for power, money and war.
d. All of these things led to luxuries, sinfulness and war
Scripture also tells us that all of mankind was "corrupted" but that Noah was "pure in his generations". This leads one to suspect that animal/Nephalim/demonic corruption (i.e. genetic manipulation) was also happening. As one guy argued, Satan wanted to corrupt all of mankind's gene pool so that Our Lord couldn't be born. This is a strong argument and fits into what Scripture implies here.
Also, many Church Fathers are very explicit when they say they believed that the Giants/Nephalim were, in fact, demonic/human hybrids.
Yes, while I've not read the entire thing, I read the first sections of it, and Enoch was clearly talking about the fall of the Nephilim or "sons of God", aka the Watchers. One Church Fathers said that they were sent by God to help guide and direct men. Book of Enoch did NOT say that this was the same as the first or original fall of the angels, nor did it say that this was the FIRST time men fell into sin, but that these fallen Nephilim taught men all manner of sinful things.
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People here are still trying to push this whole angels mated with humans Gnostic garbage? Nowhere does The Church teach this and it goes against any Catholic sense and this type of belief, and others like it, were condemned at Fifth Ecuмenical Council Constantinople II and part of the 15 condemned errors of Origen. (A search should get you to see and read them)
What are you babbling about? This is not gnosticism. This is mentioned in Genesis 6:4, and several of the Church Fathers, including Pope St. Clement I (and several others cited by Pax) indicated that these were in fact angels of some kind who "changed their nature", that these were the angels who had been set up near the first firmament to govern the material world (so the lowest tier of angels). St. Augustine does not rule out the possibility that these angels had some kind of ethereal bodies. He cites examples (as credible) of, say, incubi demons who have physically and sɛҳuąƖly assaulted human beings and stories from the OT where angels could be seen and not touched. He eventually does go with explaining the passage in Genesis 6:5 as being the "sons of Seth" because he can't come to grips with how these angels would have fallen. But other Church Fathers disagree. See the citations from the Fathers cited by Pax on the other thread.
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Can you post these condemnations? I'm interested to read.
I re-read the condemnations of Origen in Constantinople II, and they have nothing to do with this issue.
https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3812.htm
Origen's thesis was that there were all these rational beings created by God (including evidently even the sun and the moon, etc.) and that they all grew cold to God except the one (which became Christ). Some grew slightly cold in their love for God and these became men, while the ones the grew even colder became demons. Strange stuff there, but that has nothing to do with the stories about the Nephilim.
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Thanks for the info, Lad.
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Thanks for the info, Lad.
Thanks for the citations from the Fathers on that other thread. I had in fact been inclined to go with the "sons of Seth" theory myself ... until reading those citations from the Church Fathers, which clearly indicate their belief that they were actually angels who had changed their nature somehow.
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Maybe my calling him Bobby Sun is more fitting than I realized...
Too funny. I may use that in the future. After watching it, his recent video makes me wonder if he feels forced into supporting his other movies and books with made up nonsense.