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Author Topic: Has anybody got a question about the Galileo case they would like to ask?  (Read 6155 times)

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Online cassini

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Has anybody got a question about the Galileo case they would like to ask?

Offline Ladislaus

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  • So, do you know why in the Holy Office condemnation they distinguished between:

    1) heliocentrism:  heresy
    2) non-geo-centrism:  proximate to heresy and philosophically absurd (though I can't recall the precise language)

    It would appear that they condemned heliocentrism with a stronger note than they did promote geocentrism.

    Do you know what was behind that difference?


    Online cassini

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  • So, do you know why in the Holy Office condemnation they distinguished between:

    1) heliocentrism:  heresy
    2) non-geo-centrism:  proximate to heresy and philosophically absurd (though I can't recall the precise language)

    It would appear that they condemned heliocentrism with a stronger note than they did promote geocentrism.

    Do you know what was behind that difference?

    Great question Ladislaus. Here are the two condemnations.

    (1) “That the sun is in the centre of the world and altogether immovable by local movement,” was unanimously declared to be “foolish, philosophically absurd, and formally heretical [denial of a revelation by God already defined as heresy] inasmuch as it expressly contradicts the declarations of Holy Scripture in many passages, according to the proper meaning of the language used, and the sense in which they have been expounded and understood by the Fathers and theologians.” (heliocentrism)

    (2) “That the Earth is not the centre of the world, and moves as a whole, and also with a diurnal movement,” was unanimously declared “to deserve the same censure philosophically, and, theologically considered to be at least erroneous in faith.” (geocentrism)

    As you said Ladislaus, (1) a fixed sun was found to be heretical but (2) a moving Earth was not defined as heretical, only at least erroneous in faith. As both a fixed-earth and a moving sun are revealed explicitly in Scripture, their contradictions should both have been defined as heresy. The only reason I can think of is that while the Earth was revealed as fixed, nowhere in the Bible does it say anything else explicitly about it.

    That said, the fixed-sun heresy of heliocentrism does include a moving Earth.

    Offline Tradman

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  • Great question Ladislaus. Here are the two condemnations.

    (1) “That the sun is in the centre of the world and altogether immovable by local movement,” was unanimously declared to be “foolish, philosophically absurd, and formally heretical [denial of a revelation by God already defined as heresy] inasmuch as it expressly contradicts the declarations of Holy Scripture in many passages, according to the proper meaning of the language used, and the sense in which they have been expounded and understood by the Fathers and theologians.” (heliocentrism)

    (2) “That the Earth is not the centre of the world, and moves as a whole, and also with a diurnal movement,” was unanimously declared “to deserve the same censure philosophically, and, theologically considered to be at least erroneous in faith.” (geocentrism)

    As you said Ladislaus, (1) a fixed sun was found to be heretical but (2) a moving Earth was not defined as heretical, only at least erroneous in faith. As both a fixed-earth and a moving sun are revealed explicitly in Scripture, their contradictions should both have been defined as heresy. The only reason I can think of is that while the Earth was revealed as fixed, nowhere in the Bible does it say anything else explicitly about it.

    That said, the fixed-sun heresy of heliocentrism does include a moving Earth.

    From those two statements, is there even a remote possibility that the Earth could move since it was only erroneous in faith?

    Scripture is very expressive about the stationary nature of the Earth and approaches the subject from various angles. I'll point out just one: Scripture teaches that the Earth is built upon a foundation. Things built on foundations don't move. Even worse, globes also don't have foundations. Suggesting that sometimes they do, like a rotating home on a motor is a flawed snarky argument because the motor is founded. The Earth is also founded because Scripture says it over and over. Anyone who would suggest otherwise twists the words of Scripture, but also insults Jesus Christ Who is frequently compared with the Earth being the one foundation of the faithful.  Jesus is fixed in all perfections, unmoving, unchangeable, a sure place to build our lives because He is stable and true, like a foundation.  Here are just 3 examples from Scripture 

    1-Cor 3:10 "By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. 11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ."

    2 -Is 48:13: “My hand laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand spread out the heavens; when I call to them, they stand forth together.”

    2  -Ps 104:5: “Thou didst set the earth on its foundations, so that it should never be shaken.”

    God set the Earth on a foundation.

    Who has other information or explanations for what Scripture is saying here?  Should we just glaze over these passages and tell ourselves we can't be sure what Scripture is saying? Is there really any reason to draw from the trial that the Earth could possibly move? Or that the Earth could be a globe with a foundation?    

    Although it may not have been expressly defined as heretical, the docuмents from the Galileo Trial made it perfectly clear that the Pythagorean Doctrine of the moving globe was also basically heretical:   "On 2nd, July 1633, under orders of Pope Urban VIII, the condemnation of heliocentrism was made universally public, not just confined to Galileo alone as some apologists would argue later. Copies of the sentence and Galileo’s abjuration were sent to all vicar nuncios and inquisitors who in turn made them known to professors of philosophy and theology throughout the Catholic world. - Prologue, p. 9  Earthmovers.

    Galileo's works advocating Copernicanism (Pythagoreanism) were therefore banned, and his sentence prohibited him from "teaching, defending… or discussing" Copernicanism. In Germany, Kepler's works were also banned by the papal order.[50] --AA Martinez, Burned Alive

    On 13 November 1632, ...the Pope (Urban VIII) said, ‘one is dealing with an awful doctrine’.157 Years later the Pope reiterated that Galileo had defended ‘an opinion so very false and so very erroneous’, which had generated ‘a universal scandal to Christianity with a doctrine that had been damned’.158
     A A Martinez, Burned Alive

    Now, imagine saying to yourself, well the Pope didn't mean the globe theory was banned, only the moving earth and stationary sun. What kind of person would even suggest such a thing when the pagan moving globe is front and center in the Pythagorean Doctrine which was thoroughly condemned and forbidden? Just in this Pope's statement alone the whole thing was condemned, but there are still 3 Popes condemning this nonsense. It wasn't that Church authorities didn't understand science, but specifically because the moving globe and it's evil doctrine are directly at odds with dozens of passages of Scripture. Whoever believes in the globe has to prove the authorities didn't include the globe in the condemnations. But who would dare to try to prove the pagan globe of the Pythagorean Doctrine was excluded from the condemnation after what the Pope said?    




    Offline Ladislaus

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  • The only reason I can think of is that while the Earth was revealed as fixed, nowhere in the Bible does it say anything else explicitly about it.
    That said, the fixed-sun heresy of heliocentrism does include a moving Earth.

    Thank you.  I've always found that difference interesting.  Now that you cited it, it's even less than quite "proximate to heresy", but "at least erroneous in faith".  I would think they could have broken this down a bit if they wanted to where the non-movement of the earth could be considered a heretical contradiction of Sacred Scripture, where the "center of the world" might be open to some discussion.  I know that St. Augustine detailed a debate where some Church Fathers felt that the earth was at the bottom fo the universe / world, since the heavier elements (of earth, etc.) would "sink" to the bottom ... they had no notion of gravity.  Those holding that position argued that it was not possible for the heavier elements of earth to be suspended in the midsts of the waters (without their sinking).  St. Ambrose discusses a similar contention, believing that the moving vortext of the waters would allow the earth to remain suspended in the the middle of the waters.  St. Augustine responded that it's tenable to say that the earth is at the bottom of the world, since bottom center is still center, meaning that it doesn't have to be absolutely central in the x, y, z coordinate system, but just x, y.

    So perhaps the "centre of the world" part is what draws the note down from heresy.  I believe the Church Fathers held this universally but it may not be explicitly in Sacred Scripture.

    But I should think that the immovability of the earth on its foundations would render a moving earth heretical.

    Of course, this notion that the earth rests on foundations and pillars is one of the arguments that we adduce favoring Flat Earth.


    Offline Ladislaus

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  • From those two statements, is there even a remote possibility that the Earth could move since it was only erroneous in faith?

    I made my response to cassini before I read yours.  I said something similar, that denying the immovability of the earth would be considered heretical for the same reason that heliocentrism is, clearly contradicting Sacred Scripture.  But it seems as though the Holy Office combined that with the notion of earth being in the "center", and I suspect wanted to prescind from addressing that controversy in any definitive manner, so kindof lumped it together.

    I think that perhaps they should have addressed the immovabilty of the earth separately and applied the note of heresy to it.

    Given Sacred Scripture's references to the earth's foundations and the immovable pillars, how would a ball in the middle of space have pillars or foundations?  What would it be founded ON?

    cassini, any thoughts about what would constitute the pillars and immovable foundations of the earth with the model of a globe in the center of the universe?

    Offline Ladislaus

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  • Separate question, cassini ... do you believe in the mainstream / conventional explanation for "gravity"?  If not, what do you believe on a globe model causes people and objects to stick to the "bottom" of the ball earth?

    I think that's one of the things we need to recognize in reading the Church Fathers.  They had no notion of "gravity", but merely of density, and that's why they had the debate about whether the earth could be suspended in the middle of the waters or would have to sink to the "bottom" of the world / universe, as detailed by St. Augustine.  If, then, without a notion of gravity, they believed that the surface of the earth that people walk on is a ball, how would they explain people and objects adhering to the bottom of the ball, when they appear to have had absolute notions of up and down and no concept of gravity?

    I know that Dr. Sungenis is fond of quoting St. Hildegard, but if you actually look at what she wrote, while she considered the earth to be shaped roughly like an egg, she also explicitly stated that the bottom part of this egg consisted only of Sheol and the Deep, which would include a hollow within the earth below the water line of the deep, and in which people continued to be right-side up ... and not sticking to the bottom of the globe by some as-yet-untheorized "force".

    BTW, I think that the mainstream notion of gravity as being some independent force is total bunk, but that it's more related to electromagnetism and the flow of ether.  I am, however, coming around to the notion that there's no such thing as completely empty space.  Of course, the notion of movement needs to be explained since movement would require the displacement of matter into some other location that was not occupied by said matter before, which in turn would have to displace other matter, etc.  So at some point there has to be an absence of matter for something to move into.  I do disagree with the Sungenis argument from nothing being unable to exist, since that non-nothingness doesn't need to be material, and I believe that the concept of movement does require some "empty" space to exist somewhere, at least relatively empty, empty of matter.

    Offline St Giles

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  • BTW, I think that the mainstream notion of gravity as being some independent force is total bunk, but that it's more related to electromagnetism and the flow of ether.  I am, however, coming around to the notion that there's no such thing as completely empty space.  Of course, the notion of movement needs to be explained since movement would require the displacement of matter into some other location that was not occupied by said matter before, which in turn would have to displace other matter, etc.  So at some point there has to be an absence of matter for something to move into.  I do disagree with the Sungenis argument from nothing being unable to exist, since that non-nothingness doesn't need to be material, and I believe that the concept of movement does require some "empty" space to exist somewhere, at least relatively empty, empty of matter.
    I think the "ether" may be made up of multi-dimensional placeholders which may be absolute unique individual points of space within the finite sized universe, that change in value depending on the specific substance occupying that point of space. There's really no telling what it could really be if there even is "ether" if all things are basically God's thoughts in His imagination, which is true, producing real things.


    Don't forget it's that time of year when gravity bolts go flying out of clouds when it rains. :laugh1:
    "Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect."
    "Seek first the kingdom of Heaven..."
    "Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall render an account for it in the day of judgment"


    Online cassini

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  • Separate question, cassini ... do you believe in the mainstream / conventional explanation for "gravity"?  If not, what do you believe on a globe model causes people and objects to stick to the "bottom" of the ball earth?

    I think that's one of the things we need to recognize in reading the Church Fathers.  They had no notion of "gravity", but merely of density, and that's why they had the debate about whether the earth could be suspended in the middle of the waters or would have to sink to the "bottom" of the world / universe, as detailed by St. Augustine.  If, then, without a notion of gravity, they believed that the surface of the earth that people walk on is a ball, how would they explain people and objects adhering to the bottom of the ball, when they appear to have had absolute notions of up and down and no concept of gravity?

    I know that Dr. Sungenis is fond of quoting St. Hildegard, but if you actually look at what she wrote, while she considered the earth to be shaped roughly like an egg, she also explicitly stated that the bottom part of this egg consisted only of Sheol and the Deep, which would include a hollow within the earth below the water line of the deep, and in which people continued to be right-side up ... and not sticking to the bottom of the globe by some as-yet-untheorized "force".

    BTW, I think that the mainstream notion of gravity as being some independent force is total bunk, but that it's more related to electromagnetism and the flow of ether.  I am, however, coming around to the notion that there's no such thing as completely empty space.  Of course, the notion of movement needs to be explained since movement would require the displacement of matter into some other location that was not occupied by said matter before, which in turn would have to displace other matter, etc.  So at some point there has to be an absence of matter for something to move into.  I do disagree with the Sungenis argument from nothing being unable to exist, since that non-nothingness doesn't need to be material, and I believe that the concept of movement does require some "empty" space to exist somewhere, at least relatively empty, empty of matter.

    Let us first address gravity on a global body. This is the means by which, say on Earth, everybody on this globe, no matter where, top, bottom or sides, has the ground beneath them and the sky above them. For me, who has pondered on this 'miracle' a long time, cannot find a cause based on human reason. As a believer in God, the Maker of heaven and Earth, I attribute to Him the cause.

    That said, Universal gravity, what causes the cosmic bodies to spin around the Earth, well Domenico Cassini solved that puzzle many years ago, but because he  was a geocentrist his astronomy and metaphysics was ignored. Not only that, but he is presented mostly as a heliocentrist.


    Cassini, the most capable astronomer ever to validate positional astronomy’s empirical observations, knew that Kepler's elliptical orbits were compromises. Newton based his theory of universal gravity on Kepler's ellipse. Cassini therefore did his own measurements of the sun's orbit around the Earth. What emerged was that all bodies in the universe, the orbits he found of the sun and planets - and even the stars around the Earth as shown in stellar aberration, move in Cassinian ovals. Years later, it was discovered that these ovals are used for modelling electro-magnetic activity in the case of wires of equal current and direction or like-point charges shown in the left side of the  diagram below.

    In other words, Cassini discovered orbits in the universe are directly related to electromagnetism. confirming God’s creation of light in His universe on the first day of Creation. Light, as we know, is but one of the effects of electromagnetism.

    ‘Day 1: In the beginning God created Heaven, and Earth. And the Earth was void and empty, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God moved over the waters. And God said: Be light made. And light was made. And God saw the light that it was good; and he divided the light from the darkness. And he called the light Day and the darkness Night; and there was evening and morning.’-Genesis. 

    As we know, modern heliocentric physics have looked for an electromagnetic effect for newton and Einstein' gravity but never found it.

    Cassini was also Pope Alexander VII’s surveyor. He then decided to see if Newton's claim that the Earth bulges at the Equator so much that it spins like a gyroscope that causes seasons in their heliocentrism. Cassini measured the curve of the Earth and his findings showed more of a egg shaped Earth just as St. Hildegard said.


    Online cassini

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  • BTW, I think that the mainstream notion of gravity as being some independent force is total bunk, but that it's more related to electromagnetism and the flow of ether.  I am, however, coming around to the notion that there's no such thing as completely empty space.  Of course, the notion of movement needs to be explained since movement would require the displacement of matter into some other location that was not occupied by said matter before, which in turn would have to displace other matter, etc.  So at some point there has to be an absence of matter for something to move into.  I do disagree with the Sungenis argument from nothing being unable to exist, since that non-nothingness doesn't need to be material, and I believe that the concept of movement does require some "empty" space to exist somewhere, at least relatively empty, empty of matter.

    'Empty space.' Now where did that nonsense come from?

    In 1929, the American astronomer Edwin Hubble (1889-1953), using a newly built 100-inch telescope, viewing faraway galaxies for the first time, found the spectral-light emitted by these stars showed a lengthening of the red end in ‘nearly all of them.’ These ‘red-shifts,’ he claimed, meant the stars are moving outwards into the universe. Two years later, in 1931, based on Edwin Hubble’s opinion, and a theory of Einstein’s, the Jesuit Monsignor Lemaître (1894-1966) came up with his claim that if all the stars in the universe are expanding outwards, then by extrapolation this movement had a beginning, which they later called the Big Bang, supposedly ‘proof’ for a natural evolutionary origin for everything. 

    But there was a problem here. If all the stars are moving outwards from the Earth, then the Earth must be at the centre of the universe, yes? So, they first had to find a way around this geocentric dilemma for their Big Bang. What if, said Einstein, now agreeing with Fr Lemaître’s Big Bang theory, the universe is a car-tube shape, with all cosmic bodies confined in a ‘space tube,’ then the Earth would not be at an empty centre. Indeed, he said, anywhere could now be at the centre of the universe.


    That's why they invented empty space.







    Offline Ladislaus

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  • Well, before Michelson-Morley, everyone believed that ether filled the universe ... so they had to get rid of it for that reason.  Of course, then Einstein snuck it back in with Special Relativity (which most people don't know), since nothing actually works without an ether.

    I was speaking at amore ontological level where in order for there to be movement there has to be some displacement of matter.  If I walk form point A to point B, then something, whether the air that was there, or whatnot, had to be displaced in order for me to take its place.  But then when I displaced the air, it in turn had to displace something else, etc.  At some point there has to be some place where there's nothing that needs to be displace.

    Movement is an actualization of a potency (and the findings of quantum physics back this up).  Yes, Einstein asserted (correctly) that action at a distance is "spooky" and didn't like it, but if you bring back the ether then it's easy to explain.

    In any case, what's there in the place I'm about to move to isn't an absolute / ontological nothingness, but a state of potency to accept my presence.  As to what that translates to in the material world, that's beyond me.

    Perhaps the matter of this "fabric" entails something that can expand and contract to allow movement through it.


    Offline Ladislaus

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  • In other words, Cassini discovered orbits in the universe are directly related to electromagnetism. confirming God’s creation of light in His universe on the first day of Creation. Light, as we know, is but one of the effects of electromagnetism.

    Thanks.  Yes, I've long believed that gravity doesn't exist as something independent of electro-magnetism.

    If you've seen that one video of the MIT professor, he says that on earth gravity has no effect, since it's too small a force compared to electromagnetism, but that gravity only kicks in on the "cosmological" scale, i.e. to govern the relative movements of the planets.

    Of course, with Newtonian physics and his concept of gravity, everything would move around the barycenter of the solar system, which is typically (but not always) within the physical boundaries of the sun ... depending on how the masses of all the other solar system bodies line up.  But that of course lies in the face of geocentric theory ... and IMO was invented quite deliberately to do exactly that, help undermine geocentrism ... just like Lorenz invented the "contraction" to explain away (mathetmatically but without any proof from physics) the results of M-M.

    Offline Pax Vobis

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  • Quote
    I think that's one of the things we need to recognize in reading the Church Fathers.  They had no notion of "gravity", but merely of density, and that's why they had the debate about whether the earth could be suspended in the middle of the waters or would have to sink to the "bottom" of the world / universe, as detailed by St. Augustine.  If, then, without a notion of gravity, they believed that the surface of the earth that people walk on is a ball, how would they explain people and objects adhering to the bottom of the ball, when they appear to have had absolute notions of up and down and no concept of gravity?
    Cassini, I appreciate your posts, but you didn't address this question.  The Church Fathers lived long before the Middle Ages/Renaissance...how could they believe in a ball earth, without the idea of gravity?  I'm not even sure how the Greeks explain it.

    Offline King Tailor

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  • Would the idea of a stationary rotating earth be erroneous because of the line in the declaration, "and also with a diurnal movement". The only way I can explain non-heliocentrism would be a stationary rotating earth with the sun and moon and all the other planets moving around the earth. Flat earth seems to contradict reason (eclipses, if true why you can't see the sun at night with a telescope, etc.).

    “That the Earth is not the centre of the world, and moves as a whole, and also with a diurnal movement,” was unanimously declared “to deserve the same censure philosophically, and, theologically considered to be at least erroneous in faith.”

    Online cassini

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  • Cassini, I appreciate your posts, but you didn't address this question.  The Church Fathers lived long before the Middle Ages/Renaissance...how could they believe in a ball earth, without the idea of gravity?  I'm not even sure how the Greeks explain it.

    first of all the theory of a global Earth had been around before the Church Fathers. A round earth appears at least as early as the sixth century BC with Pythagoras, followed by Aristotle, Euclid, and Aristarchus, among others, in observing that the earth was a sphere

    In the Aristotelian world there were four grades of terrestrial reality: mere existence (as in clay or rock), existence with growth (as in flora), existence and growth with sensation (as in fauna), and all above plus reason (as in mankind). The properties in matter were then only four, called the Four Contraries: hot, cold, moist and dry, and the four elements: fire, air, water and Earth. In the sublunary world – nature in the strict sense – the four elements had all sorted themselves out into their ‘kindly stedes,’ an early concept of gravity. The Earth, at the centre, has to be the heaviest. On the Earth sits the lighter water. Above that is the still lighter air. Fire, the lightest of all, whenever it was free, flies-up to the circuмference of nature and forms a sphere just below the trajectory of the moon. Over the moon, in the sky, forming the celestial spheres there was thought to be a Fifth Element or Quintessence, the lightest ‘aether,’ from the Greek aei therin, ‘always running,’ which permeates the heavens. The ancient perception was that it was the sun that illuminated the whole universe. The stars, they believed, had no light generating powers, merely reflecting the light of the sun that moves through the aether, just as we now know those ‘wandering stars,’ the planets, and moon, reflect the light of the sun. Aristotle then tells us ‘Outside the heaven, beyond the Primum Mobile, there is neither place nor void nor time. Hence whatever is there does not occupy space, nor does time affect it.’ Compliant with Christianity, the doctrine speaks loud and jubilant. What better place for Heaven, caelum ipsum, full of God, ‘pure light, intellectual light, full of Love’ as Dante saw it. We see then how in Aristotle’s natural reasoning he reflected the very first dogma of the Catholic faith, how God can be known with certainty by the things He made. To account for the specific movements of the sun, moon, stars and planets, Aristotle proposed that the heavens were literally composed of 55 concentric, crystalline spheres to which the celestial objects were attached with the Earth at the centre. The whole system, he thought, was kept in motion by fifty-five, unmoved movers (Metaphysics 12:8). Such reasoning was again pagan but ascending towards truth and seems to reflect the work of the angels of Christian revelation. This knowledge of God’s use of angels as His primary instruments arises from Christian theology and may well have been known since Noah’s time.


    The Venerable Bede (673-735AD) taught that the world was round, as did Bishop Virgilius of Salzburg (700-784AD), Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), and Thomas Aquinas (1224-74).