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.

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.

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?

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: 

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.

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: 

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?"

This meme is approximately a year old.

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.