Me and Sungenis Answering Same Q

New blog on the kid : 1) Inanimate Balls of Fire are Not Fighting, 2) With Angelic Movers, No Need for ETs, 3) HGL's F.B. writings : Me and Sungenis Answering Same Q, 4) Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : What did Cornelius a Lapide REALLY write about the work of the Fourth Day?

MEL (posing Q)

To figure out the center of mass, would it be relevant to ONLY take the center between the sun and the earth, or the entire solar system? From what I have researched, the center between the sun and Earth is easy to calculate, but would that suffice?

BK

Barycenter must take into account every object in the universe. Everything is in relationship. Everything exerts influence on everything else.

In a universe which contained only the earth and the sun, it still would not be true that the earth revolves around the sun, per se. Both would revolve around a point slightly off-center of the sun, in the direction of earth -- the sun would have far more influence on the earth, but the earth would have some slight influence on the sun, shifting the fulcrum slightly off center of the sun (although still internal to it).

If there were another star "behind" the earth, but very far away, that would draw the fulcrum even further off-center of the sun, to some point between the center of the sun and the center of the earth.

Now add all the cosmos as they really are. Obviously, we have no way of actually calculating all these complex interrelationships. But, the concentric spheres of constellation arrangements around earth, which could not look the way that they do to us unless our perspective were near center, demonstrate at least that we must be somewhere in the vicinity of barycenter.

The modern geocentric idea is that if we could actually calculate all the interrelationships, barycenter would be just where earth has been positioned.

So, it is not so much that the sun revolves around the earth, but that the cosmos revolve around barycenter, at which earth has been neatly balanced.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Since barycentre is concerned with gravitation, the graviational cohesion of it would be relevant. If the Universe is as widespread as modern cosmology makes it out, then barycentre of ALL Universe might be much less forceful than barycentre of all Solar System.

Note also that barycentre of all solar system would be shifting in relation to the planets lining up differently - like if Jupiter, Saturn, Earth, Mars all lined up in one direction from the Sun, then the barycentre of the Solar System would shift away from centre of Sun into that direction.

Meaning that barycentre of Solar System may be such that it does not line up with barycentre of Earth and Sun, meaning the barycentres might conflict meaning the Solar System could very easily be derailed, as Newton, said, if barycentre physics was all there was to it.

New blog on the kid: Inanimate Balls of Fire are Not Fighting
http://nov9blogg9.blogspot.com/2014/09/inanimate-balls-of-fire-are-not-fighting.html

Robert Sungenis

The universe, as a rotating body, will have its own center of mass, which is determined by the consitution of the universe, which includes both the Firmament (space, which is not empty) and all the celestial bodies. In geocentrism, as the universe rotates, its gravity and inertial forces hold the celestial bodies in tow. Whatever way the universe moves, the celestial bodies will move (except for the proper motion of the celestial bodies that depends on their local gravitational and inertial forces). Each of the celestial bodies will have their own local centers of mass. As such, our planets revolve around the sun since the local center of mass for the sun and planets is located very close to the sun. Also, the center of mass for the sun is unaffected by the universe's center of mass, since the universe's center of mass has no gravity or inertial forces to affect the Sun or our planets. Since there is no gravity or inertial forces at the universe's center of mass, this is why the Earth will not move when it is placed at that center of mass. Speaking in terms of forces, it is as if the Earth doesn't exist to the rest of the bodies in the universe.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"In geocentrism, as the universe rotates, its gravity and inertial forces hold the celestial bodies in tow."

You mean in your and Gerardus Bouw's explanation of its physics. Riccioli famously (by now or by soon and in our restricted circle) was not a gravitationist but believed in angelic movers.

Our view of what fills space is different. In my view, aether has no mass and exerts no force, since it faithfully transmits forces between masses (both gravitayional and electromagnetic ones, including light). That way it cannot be counted as another quantity of mass adding to the masses which meet at a centre of gravity in the place where Earth is placed. Or the gravitational forces of which meet, etc.

Robert Sungenis

Hans, you are certainly entitled to believe that angels push the planets, as I said before. But it is an unprovable position since we have no evidence that angels do such things. All we have are pious opinions (and those not so definite, e.g., Aquinas) that angels may be a cause for celestial movement, but these are people who did not know about gravity. Since we now know from experiments that objects fall at a precise rate when dropped from towers and centrifugal force is created when objects rotate (and thus we wouldn't attribute such movement to the push of angels), we likewise attribute the movement of the planets to gravity and inertial forces that is a product of how the material universe is built. In today's world where empirical evidence is required, gravity is a far safer bet than angelic beings. Moroever, Scripure and Church teaching say that angels are messengers of salvation, not the force that moves objects in the material world.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Whoa! All the Church Fathers and Scholastics can be described as people who "did not know about gravity" in the Newtonian sense. So, one has come up with it and a very common theme among them is all of a sudden just "pious opinions"? No way, José!

We know that objects accelerate at a precise rate when falling.

Even if St Thomas did not know about the precise rate of acceleration (close to 10 m/s² and a bit lower, unless I misrecall) he also did not attribute objects falling to the ground to angels. A heavy body has a natural movement and it is down. It is when it is not falling and not resting on some material object but moving in a non-falling manner that we can start asking ourselves what is moving it.

We also know about centrifugal forces. I am pretty sure Aristotle had some explanation for them and it was accessible to St Thomas.

For a centrifugal force to make an object turn in a circle, we generally observe that the object is KEPT inside either the circle per se (motorbikes inside big tubs have the tub walls as circle) or inside its radius (stone on a string), by a material object which has a solidity superior to that of the centrifugal force. Try (or rather don't try) to swing a stone on a string that has been slightly damaged by a cut. The precise moment when the string at the cut is a bit weaker than the centrifugal force, same precise moment string breaks and stone flies off at a tangent.

Supposing even the main cause of such and such a heavenly object turning in such and such an orbit were gravitation balancing the centrifugal or more precisely tangential force that balance would in itself be so flimsy as to make it not very likely it is by itself alone keeping the object in its orbit. One would presume that if so many objects for so many thousands of years have been observed, neither falling down on Earth nor into the Sun (whatever the nature of a gravity be that would be involved far beyond the sublunar sphere where falling objects are observed and whichever of the two objects accordingly would be most appropriate) nor flying off at a tangent and out of observational reach, one might presume angels at least have a regulating function.

Have you considered a bike? Its barycentre being above the surface of the bike wheels or rather above the surface of ground covered by the bike wheels as extremes and by the space between them, it doesn't fall when being pedalled forwards. Speed also ensures the proper balance. But given the speed and the barycentre - how long will it go on wheeling for without a biker reacting to its every tendency to unbalance itself, without a biker regulating?

That is the likelihood you SHOULD attribute to strictly non-angelic movement of the planets or anything else.

However, two more considerations are relevant for assessment of likelihood.

One is that celestial objects have not been manipulated by us. None has first calculated "Jupiter has such and such a mass which influences the movement of the Sun and other planets in such and such a way by gravitation and by its orbital movement shifting where gravitation comes from, and then lifted Jupiter momentarily away from the system to check if it was right.

The other is that celestial objects have not been weighed. One could say "surface material has such and such a density and knowing size of planet we also know the volume" - but it seems that assessing mass of heavenly bodies according to density of surface material times volume would give unsatisfactory results. The physics wouldn't match. So one comes up with such and such cores being of a different density, so that the over all mass matches the celestial mechanics that should result from it.

You have masses proving (with speeds and gravitational constant and laws) the non-angelic, purely gravitational explanation exactly matches the observed movements. And then you have the observed movements to prove the total mass of such and such a body must be such and such and often enough different from the straightforward and empirical formula "density of surface material times volume".

So much for the supposedly superior likelihood of a mechanistic explanation.

"It is an unprovable position since we have no evidence that angels do such things".

If you call demons fallen angels, you are well aware that poltergeists do move bodies too.

On a less impure note, the guardian angel that lifted the car wheel over the child (see stories about guardian angels in Mother Basilea Schlink's book - alas she is a Lutheran, but a nun).

We have very little evidence about angels beyond theology and philosophy.

Any rational analysis of the observations we make taking them at prima facie value as far as is possible, is far more likely to result in an angelic view of celestial movements than in a purely mechanistic one.

Not quite universal, since Epicurus used a mechanistic explanation - but it breaks down when confronted with astronomic obserevations accessible in his time.

The modern mechanistic view is what has grown in influence and social prestige since ... the guy who was wrong in 1633 (up to abjuring) was believed to be right.

The question is not how many or few Church Fathers who positively support Angelic views (stars being living creatures with angelic like souls as per St Jerome or stars being moved by angels as per St Augustine and St Thomas and Riccioli). The question is if you find ANY Church Father at ALL who supports the modern mechanistic view. Or even a similar mechanistic view.

And you ignored my link about Judges V settling this question. If stars fight out of their orbits, they are angels. Inanimate balls of fire do not fight.

How you come to construe St Thomas' opinion as NOT so definite when he said same thing at least three times, including in a work you tried to quote against me by quotemining and over interpreting the actual words, is beyond me, insofar as you are both honest and free.

You might be arguing against textual evidence about historic positions because these evidence would make your own model superfluous. Or you might be repeating what a severly modernistic bishop told you you had to argue for.

Robert Sungenis

Angels moving planets is a "pious opinion," and it was only suggested by a few churchmen. None of them would want to be quoted as stating as a matter of fact that angels moved planets, especially Aquinas.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

a) Oh, you are the Latinist and you spent the lonely years keeping up your Latin with St Thomas and the Missal? Or would that rather be me?

And was Jesus not the one who would not want to be quoted for Young Earth Creationism according to some or for Trinity according to others or for Apostolic Succession according to some third?

You have the advantage here in a way unless I am fetching it from you : you can pose as knowing St Thomas as well as I do, since our common audience is so unfamiliar with him and since your position is one they are more familiar with!

b) [St Thomas Aquinas] Only suggested? FIDDLESTICKS!

Robert Sungenis

As for inertial forces, when a planet revolves around a more massive object, it is considered "falling due to gravity" in the Newtonian model, so there is really no difference between dropping a stone from a tower and a planet revolving around the sun. Unless you are prepared to say that angels move all objects that we moderns attribut to gravity, choosing that angels only move planets is selective reasoning.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

a) You need to read the impressing list given by Riccioli in favour of angels not ensouling but moving stars and planets. And it was the position - after considering yours - which he considered (with wider learning than either of us) the most common one.

b) No, it is not selective reasoning. Gravity is a model for objects falling to the ground, not a solid fact about them - gravity in Newtonian sense that is. St Thomas did not attribute objects falling to the ground to angels, he definitely did attribute planets moving eastward along the zodiak to them (but heaven's overall westward movement to God alone). X claims the two movements have same cause, and all of a sudden it becomes "selective reasoning" to say "no, they don't".

Robert Sungenis

Yes, demons have preternatural power and angels have miraculous power, but this means you are saying that planets move by miraculous power, not by natural power or forces. There is a simple model that doesn't not depend on miraculous power to move planets, and non-miraculous forces to see stones drop from towers. It's called the Gravity Model of the Universe, such that a rotating universe provides all the forces necessary to move the celestial objects. Your alternative is suggesing that the angels make the universe rotate (since we see all the stars go around us daily), not just move the planets. Are you prepared to make that assertion?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

And, thank you VERY much for bringing up that planets are considered as falling towards the objects they gravitate around. This brings us to the blasphemy in which Earth is high up and is all the time falling into the Sun and if that were true on a Solar System level we would be getting our sunshine from below.

Robert Sungenis

Riccioli couldn't consider our model since he had no notion or measurement of gravity. Riccioli understanding of the solar system, as were all the medievals, was confined to geometry. Thanks to the Pythagorean theorem, they could make reasonable models of the geometry. But they had no notion of forces, except Aristotle's thesis that everything went toward the center. Today we call that gravity, and we can measure it. So there is absolutely no reason that we need to attribute celestial rotation to angels. You don't need the miraculous when you have natural forces. I would suggest that we leave angels to the miraculous acts that God wants them to do, not the mundane.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

The power by which demons move kettles and pans and by which guardian angels move car wheels up so they don't crush a child are not preternatural to the angelic being. They are beyond us, but NOT beyond what God created these angelic beings to have.

God is moving planets by using secondary causes, these being the higher than them creatures we call angels.

I suppose the objection to stars and planets actually being alive is that Satan is "the fallen morning star". If he was just moving Venus or Mercury before he fell, and now some other angel gets to do it, no problem. On the other view, would either of them be a corpse since its soul was condemned to Hell? Or was a star or planet blown up when he fell? That is why St Thomas view has more likelihood than St Jerome's.

BUT this is not preternatural in God's providence. It is only to US that the use of angelic powers is preternatural.

In Latin Mass Magazine a decade ago or so, an African bishop who had been disciple of Mgr Lefèbvre, I think, explained the powers of the angels.

If he said that "Satan has so much power that he could blow up the Earth, unless God's superior power stopped him" this means that this is a power Satan naturally has. Not one that is preternatural to Satan.

And similarily, the good angels who still get to shove planets in orbits or stars in "parallax" orbits, they are not using powers preternatural to them in doing so, they are using the power God created them with.

Robert Sungenis

Yes, but when angels stop car wheels from moving, that is a MIRACULOUS act, not a natural act. Planets revolving around the sun is a NATURAL act, not a miraculous act. You are confusing the natural with the miraculous.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

a) Riccioli's understanding of the solar system was confined to geometry ... well, no.

We do not have a superior understanding about gravity being the cause of planetary movements, since we have no way at all of proving that position.

Riccioli certainly did not confine his precisions to geometry alone, he very clearly argued about four positions:

• celestial bodies moved by bodily or similar causes only (position of Kepler)
• celestial bodies moved as having souls of angelic type (position of St Jerome whether he lists him or not)
• celestial bodies being each and several moved by God alone (cannot recall whom he listed)
• celestial bodies being moved by angels.

For deciding which he observed we have no empiric criterium - and I will add we have not got one so far, except as to exclude practically the position of Kepler - but probabilities (fittingness of God using creatures inferior to Himself and superior to celestial bodies as bodies) and the WEIGHT of authority on authority on authority he cites gives him the conclusion : angelic movers. He had already discussed the position two in the previous section that I have not yet read.

b) When an angel stops a car wheel from crushing down that is not miraculous for the angel. The miraculosity is for the angel to show the act and is not a metaphysical miraculosity as if needing extra powers from God to do so, but only a "miraculosity of form" if I may coin the word or of convention. God has told them not to show themselves freely to us or to interfere openly with what we do. Due to our propensity for idolatry.

No, I am NOT at all confusing the miraculous with the natural. You are.

On top of that you just accused both St Thomas and Nicolas if Cusa of confusing the natural and the miraculous, since their positions according to Riccioli and to my own reading of St Thomas are identical to mine.

I could of course pretty easily trace who would according to his wits consider my position miraculous - the guys who would think the mere existence of God or of angels would be impossible miracles.

Any Catholic agreeing with them is unduly ecumenic, not to say syncretistic.

Robert Sungenis

You are confusing the two, and this is the basic problem with your approach to cosmology. A miricle is something that sets aside the way things normally operate. That is why Jesus walking on water is a miracle. It sets aside the normal operation in which gravity pulls one down. If there is no distinction between miracle and normality, then Jesus has no way of testifying to his divine nature. Angels may have an innate supernatural power, but when they use it to alter the normal operation of the world, that is called a miracle. Angels pushing planets would thus be a miracle, since it sets aside the normal operation of how objects move by gravity.

For the record, I'm not accusing Thomas of not knowing the difference between a miracle and a natural operation. Thomas simply didn't know about how gravity could move planets, therefore he adopted a supernatural answer. But now we know that the supernatural (in the form of a miracle) is not necessary.

Even then, Thomas wasn't dogmatic about angels moving planets. As I quoted it to you previously, he said specifically that angels "MAY" move planets, not that they do as a matter of fact.

MSH

Side note, the eminent St. Thomas Aquinas was not perfect. Recall it was Blessed Duns Scotus offering the defense of the Immaculate Conception.

[Editorial note by the blogger/HGL: And Gregorios Palamas, on the East side of 1054 also affirmed it.]

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@MSH : in the case of attributing angelic movers to what causes celestial bodies to move, unlike Immaculate Conception, St Thomas has so far not been overruled.

Also, I think I recall that Duns Scotus was also on the list of authorities that Riccioli referred to. I e Duns Scotus ALSO believed heavenly bodies are moved by angels. Will check in a moment after posting this, and come back if I was wrong.

"A miracle is something which sets aside how things normally operate"

OK, if someone gets an annulment and marries someone he was previously apparently married to someone else than - is that a miracle?

The point is, lifting the car is NOT outside an angels normal capacity. Doing it so obviously it is spotted by men, and on top of that showing himself, that would be outside his usual authorisations.

He needed perhaps an extra permission for God, but he needed no extra powers from God.

My point about angels moving planets is not that angels previously did not do so, but started doing it yesterday miraculously (there the word miracle would be appropriate, unless you prefer absurdity) but that God gave them sufficient powers when he created them "in the beginning" and gave them an ordinary permission to use them on the celestial bodies when he created these on Day four. ERGO my system involves not any miracle at all, not even Creation, since creation is as much pre-miraculous as it is pre-natural.

And of course since St Thomas thought the exact same thing about the issue, he would be quite as open to your false charge of confusing the natural with the miraculous as I am.

So would Suarez. So would the Coimbra Jesuits. So would Nicolas of Cusa ... and a few more.

As to your previous quote in which he supposedly said angels may move planets (false translation of a subjunctive which was automatic in his Latin after licet, just as it was automatic after the Italian and French conjunctions of such a type), that was quote mining since elsewhere he says they actually do so as a fact.

Or are you better than Riccioli at determining what St Thomas really meant? You must recall Riccioli agrees withj my assessment of what St Thomas meant and very completely so.

You remember when TV tropes would call fake Spaniards and Medievals in Hollywood or Hal Foster "you fail history forever" or "you fail geography foerever"? Now the trope has been renamed "creative licence history" or "creative licence geography" ... well, some of Robert Sungenis' explanations of why Riccioli or St Thomas thought such and such a thing would tend to give me occasion of alluding to such tropes.

Like if he had read a book in "history of sciences" written by a scientist who was not a good historian.

I missed one.

"Moroever, Scripure and Church teaching say that angels are messengers of salvation, not the force that moves objects in the material world."

That is a sloppy reading. Angels or sth closely similar being stars of the material world (if you will call superlunar objects material, which you presumably do and which even Aquinas did) is Scriptural teaching.

Church teaching of St Augustine of Hippo and Pope St Gregory and of St Paul's disciple (unless you consider authorship pseudonymous) St Denys of the Areopagus all state that nothing material ever moves unless moved by the spirit of life. If the Moon is a piece of rock and nevertheless moves, some living spirit is moving it. If the Sun is a ball of fire and nevertheless moves, some living spirit is moving it. Etc.

Missed another one too:

"Your alternative is suggesing that the angels make the universe rotate (since we see all the stars go around us daily), not just move the planets. Are you prepared to make that assertion?"

No. I think God takes HIS might turning the universe daily from East to West around Earth, and angels take theirs modifying the course either as angels moving eastward along the zodiak (a year for Sun, a month for Moon) or as angels moving α Centauri in time with the Sun, or as angels moving some sighted exo-planet around the star, or as two or three angels dancing together in what are called double star systems or triple star systems.

However, if angels were directly responsible for moving all the stars westward each day, they would still need a Lord of their Dance to coordinate all of it.

Clarification in sequence of answers

As can be seen more than once, Sungenis is writing his comments faster than I can answer them. So sometimes I answer one of his comments only after he has already written then next after I had been answering the one before that. I suppose you can see why I am not engaging in oral debate, am not that quick a replyer. Same thing is apparent from the final two additions "I missed one" and "Missed another one too".

Usually I modify sequence of answers to suit logical rather than strict chronological sequence, here I thought I could take the opportunity of showing my handicap of slowness. Since we are only two, it does not become too unclear.

Continuation

This time Sungenis did his answering while I was away, so I had opportunity to answer each point (I hope I missed none) at leasure.

Robert Sungenis

One might believe that nothing moves unless moved by the spirit of life (whatever that really means), but that doesn't mean that natural forces do not move the material object. If I move a pencil on my desk by pushing it with my finger, granted, the spirit of life may be permit such a cause and effect reaction, but that doesn't discount that my finger was allowed to push the pencil.

Similarly, 185,000 angels were involved in the slaughter of an enemy of Israel (as revealed by God in the Old Testament) but that doesn't mean that the swords of the Israelites were not needed or permitted to do the killing of the enemy.

The other important point here, Hans, is that you cannot single out that angels move planets but are not involved in every other cause and effect reaction we experience. You could not discount, for example, that angels move the corpuscles of blood in my veins or hold the proton and the neutron together in the atom or move the pencil when my finger pushes the pencil. There is nothing special about planets, since, if we can explain their movement by a natural cause (gravity) just as I can explain the movement of the pencil by a natural cause (pressure), then there is no difference between the planets and any other object that moves.

By the way, your analogy about the annulment is misplaced. It is not a miracle. It is simply one natural event overriding another natural event. A miracle is an event that goes outside the laws of physical nature and processes. Walking through a wall is a miracle. Rising from the dead is a miracle. Putting limbs instantaneously back on people is a miracle. But if things move in the natural way they are supposed to move (e.g., planets move around the Sun due to gravity and inertial forces), there is no need for a miracle. Barring angels being involved in the way God is involved in every material process (that is, by permitting by His power or keeping all things in existence by His power), there is no need for angels to push planets. We now know that the same process that allows me to push a pencil across the desk with my finger is the same that moves the planets.

Hans Georg Lundahl

Angels do not move the corpuscules in your veins, since that is done by the presence of your soul. As for moving the electrons around the protons, we have no real proof that even happens. If it does, it is possible God does it himself since it pertains to the nature and not just the locality of the atom. However, whatever pertains to the locality of an atom, any angel is fully free to influence, unless he is forbidden by God - or forbidden to get as high as that.

It is preternatural to the pen that it writes, since it is preter naturam styli. It only writes as a tool of a higher nature, normally human. Similarily I hold it is preter naturam corporis celesti to move about and they move about within the aether through the action of angels, that is of a higher nature than their own. That human nature moves the pen by a material finger and angelic nature moves the planets without one since being pure spirits is only incidental to that.

You are denying the angels what St Thomas is all through his works affirming about them.

Putting a limb back after it has been cut off, raising a dead and turning a staff into a snake and a snake into a staff is indeed beyond angelic nature and only possible to God. But that is because in each of these cases more than just locality of the object is involved. The demons were very capable of very quickly exchanging a staff for a snake and then a snake for the original staff again. In other words, angels and demons have basically all the powers attributed to Superman in DC Comics - pour cause, since Superman was invented by two Jews who were influenced by Jewish angelology.

Walking through a wall is not so much a miracle as a property of glorious bodies, assuming the wall itself is just earthly.

Since all I attribute to angels - and all St Thomas attributed to angels - when it comes to moving the stars is:

• a spirit
• moving a material body locally

there is no miracle properly speaking involved.

"185,000 angels were involved in the slaughter of an enemy of Israel (as revealed by God in the Old Testament) but that doesn't mean that the swords of the Israelites were not needed or permitted to do the killing of the enemy."

You forget the occasion when angels of death did all the work. Herodotus attributed the same defeat of Assyrian army to "valiant mice" (I think here is where CSL got his idea for more than one talking mouse) nibbling off all their bow strings so they had to return as lacking weapons.

An angel is perfectly capable - without any miracle - of very different methods of killing (assuming God allows it, as He did on that occasion and with Egyptian first borns) simply by locally rearranging matter in or around the persons they are killing.

As to Israelites doing the killing on other occasions, well, those killings were simply different occasions. The movement of the stars around earth and in their orbits are one occasion. God has assigned that one occasion, reaching from Creation to Doomsday to one set of causes. If that set of causes is angels only, it is not gravitation. If that set of causes is gravitation only it is not angels. If that set of causes is gravitation regulated by angels as bikes are regulated by bikers, well, then it is not one of the "alone" versions.

Of these the one that is clearly least credible, for reasons observable in experiments, is gravitation alone.

I had asked for an experiment on skating rinks with magnetism replacing gravitation. Here is an experiment in a space station, with static electricity replacing gravity. I have counted ten to twenty orbits around the charged knitting needle. I do not think gravitation alone would be capable of arranging thousands of orbits, not even if you scrap the Tychonian intricacies of orbits and stick to the much more straightforward Heliocentric ones:

[ISS] Don Petit, Science Off The Sphere - Water Droplets Orbiting Charged Knitting Needle
SpaceVids.tv
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyRv8bNDvq4

I was somewhat surprised - after my reanalysis years ago of the conceptual understanding of stone around string experiment - that the water droplets even made ONE orbit.

[a few stray points]

a) "One might believe that nothing moves unless moved by the spirit of life (whatever that really means),"

Oh, that nothing MATERIAL moves. And to clarify your quandary, it means simply: God, angelic beings, souls.

"but that doesn't mean that natural forces do not move the material object."

In Prima Via there is a point at which no material or natural force is moving at least one of the material objects, but rather God alone Himself without any intermediate.

You seem to be reasoning from:

"natural forces can move material objects" (correct)

to

"only natural forces can move material objects" (incorrect).

That second is of course a major tenet of atheism. And your close agreement with it makes you somewhat suspect of a kind of syncretism with Dialectic Materialism.

b) "There is nothing special about planets, since, if we can explain their movement by a natural cause (gravity) just as I can explain the movement of the pencil by a natural cause (pressure),"

You cannot explain the movement by pressure acting as a blind force in its own right - not its movements when you write at least. You have to explain its movements as the results of a will, that is of a spiritual cause.

"your analogy about the annulment is misplaced. It is not a miracle. It is simply one natural event overriding another natural event."

No, it is the authority of God - through the Papacy - overriding the usual consequences of what would usually have been a supernatural event (marriage being a sacrament) ex opere operato.

My point is that it is perfectly natural for the angel to be able to show himself, and perfectly natural for the angel to be able to lift the car at that wheel and all the angel needed was an act of AUTHORITY to sidestep the usual ban angels are under when showing off their powers to humans are concerned. Good angels always, except when God grants an exception, demons at least insofar as the world redeemed is concerned. If we do not at present fear that a temple of Ceres shall spit forth a demonic dragon like La Gratusse, it is because since the times of St Front very many masses have been said there.

Masses and Church bells, Holy Water ... that is what separates an Antiquity steeped in demonic power (ecept in Israel) from an era of Antichrist even more steeped in demonic power. A demon lifting a car wheel for an adult and then giving a false revelation would not be doing a real miracle.

Robert Sungenis

The authority of the papacy is not a miracle. A miracle is a setting aside of physical laws that govern the universe.

As for pencils, we are not talking about "willing" the pencil to move, but about the force that moves the pencil once the will decides to have it move. If not, then I would be able to move the pencil by mental telepathy, which I cannot.

Yes, God is the ultimate reason all things exist and can move, but it is my finger, not God, that is moving the pencil. Likewise, one may say God moves the planets, but he must also say that God uses gravity and inertial forces to do so.

Walking through a wall is a miracle. You cannot blur the distinction between an ordinary natrual event and a miracle. Certainly God and angels have an innate power to set aside natural laws, but when they do so, Scripture defines that as a miracle.

Hans Georg Lundahl

Now you are redefining miracle. The new definition you give is "setting aside of physical laws that govern the universe".

As to the laws that govern the visible universe, there are three sets of them.

• Since the material like the spiritual is created, first law is everything created does whatever God wills it to do. That includes but is not limited to all material objects.
• Second, since God made a hierarchy between spirit and matter, all bodies obey all of what any spirit wills them to do insofar as the will in question is within the power given that spirit by God. Human body (and nothing else directly, only indirectly through it) obeys human spirit.
• Any body obeys [the will of] any laws by which bodies influence each otehr.

If you said only material objects and forces inherent in their structure ever caused anything, you might have a coherent point here.

But you are admitting God, angels, souls exist.

This normally implies material objects can be moved by those too.

Admitting that "God moves x through material object y" logically involves God moves material object y without any intermediate and uses it as an intermediate for moving material object x.

For instance God moves the Primum Mobile Westward each day without any intermediate, but through the Primum Mobile He moves also the stars, planets (including sun) and even phenomena on earth like winds of passage, Oceanic equatorial currents, or coriolis phenomena.

It would be totally illogical to say that because God uses (in fact) an intermediate to move these things he also had to (as per obligation or habitual providence) to use also an intermediate to turn the Primum Mobile.

You can say that the human mind indeed moves the pen only through an intermediate, namely the finger. But that means there is something the human mind moves without an intermediate - for instance the body as a whole (insofar as it is capacitated by functioning parts to receive movement from the soul) or some part of the brain (through which the soul moves the rest of the body).

But if you say that there too the soul would need another intermediate and another and another and never be moving by itself any part even of its body at all directly - then you are in metaphysical major trouble as how to explain it has even an indirect causation of what the finger does.

This of course reflects on what you consider the normal way for angels to operate.

Walking through a wall is a miracle ... it won't be after the resurrection. Not with walls not glorified bodies.

Here we are back in ANOTHER meaning of what makes a thing miraculous, ANOTHER meaning of the word. Namely setting aside of usual procedure. And in that sense of course any glorified body being around before the General Resurrection is a miracle.

But given that miracle (miracle in procedural sense), it is not an extra miracle metaphysically speaking (miracle as in God giving powers a thing usually lacks) that Christ went through walls. Christ was all through His life in posession of beatific vision. That means His body was per se a glorified body. The real miracle metaphysically speaking (rather than "miracle" as = "sign") was rather His NOT showing this on each and every occasion, His limiting His body to properties of a mortal body.

That is sound scholastic theology.

You also said "Scripture defines that as a miracle" - well, insofar as it is a SIGN, yes.

But that is very far from the kind of definition of miracle you would want in order to say the way I (and St Thomas) consider God ordered the universe is one which would be a miracle rather than a natural order.

In fact, Scripture nowhere states the scholastic principle you just cited, precisely because Scripture is using miracle in another sense than St Thomas does.

An angelic being apparently giving a man telepathic powers is not a miracle. When Uri Geller holds or held a spoon at point a and not at point b or so as to have point b between point a and where he would also be holding it, and its bending at point b, is not a miracle. It is a spirit of angelic nature holding and bending the spoon at point b or beyond so it bends at point b, and it is doing it - unlike Uri using his fingers - without an intermediate body as a tool.

You are horribly confused about widely different definitions of miracle so as to find an excuse for calling my cosmology miraculous and therefore against usual providence. It is quite as much bait and switch as when an evolutionist will at one point ask whether one is a carbon copy genetically of one's parents and on another occasion, maybe only seconds later, argue that one has admitted apes can evolve to men or microbes to microbiologists. You are simply being rhetorical instead of being logical. You are replacing the straight arguments of scholastics with the pilpuls of a synagogue of Satan. Sad, considering you know the Yeshivot do not hold the Revealed truth. Sad, considering you know Jewry is not the people of God.

Robert Sungenis

I didn't change the definition of a miracle. I merely added a few more words to round out the description. Conversely, you are not addressing my major points. You're nit-picking on definitions so as to keep the blur between the miraculous and the natural. Bottom line: God controls all things, but God uses natural causes and events to do what he desires, unless He wants to intrude by a miraculous event. Gravity is a natural cause. Angels are a miraculous or supernatural cause when they work in the natural world. Unless you are prepared to argue that angels move every thing in life that moves, your attempt to bifurcate the angel's responsibility into one of actually pushing planets but not pushing my blood cells through my veins, is not convincing. Movement is caused by natural causes, whether it is blood cells or planets. Only on special occasions are angels called upon to move objects in the natural world, and when they do so it is a miracle, since it sets aside the natural laws of how the world is governed. That is all I'm going to say on the subject at this point.

Hans Georg Lundahl

No, I am saying there is a difference between what is miraculous to us when we see it and what is miraculous in itself whether we see it or not.

When St Thomas Aquinas discusses whether angelic beings can do miracles he is talking about what is miraculous in itself. An angel cannot heal the ear of Malchus nor raise Lazarus. But an angel can move atoms "not beloning to its body" if you like, and as many of them as he likes and can do in an unified and localised action. And an angel or a glorified body can pass through walls without that being a miracle in itself. Those are their NATURAL properties.

However, if ever the Bible describes as a miracle Christ passing through walls after the resurrection, it is in the sense of what is a SIGN. Merely because it is unusual.

You are confusing the two. When St Thomas says God's Providence over nature is not miraculous, he means God is not doing signs all the time. Angels moving stars and planets are NEITHER signs, since we do not see them as unusual, since we do not see the angels doing it, NOR beyond angelic nature, so there is no point at all to bring that saying in against my and St Thomas' theory (and Duns Scotus' and Nicolas Cusanus' too), unless one is blurring the two distinct senses of miracle.

An angel moving a body down here, for instance holding up the gloves of St Patrick which he hung up on a sunbeam, is miraculous only in the sense of working a sign. He is not miraculous in going beyond his created nature.

So, one cannot from there go on to say that if angels moved stars they would be going beyond their nature, since they aren't, nor that they are working signs, since they aren't showing themselves to men.

And therefore one cannot go on further from there to say that the kind of universe St Thomas and I believe in would be a miraculous one rather than one relying on natural order.

Unless in each step of association one is confusing the two senses of the word "miracle".

Which is what you are doing.

Gravity is certainly, insofar as it exists in any other sense than the quality of heaviness, a natural cause for bodies falling to the ground. That it is, coordinately with centrifugal force, also a natural cause for orbits of celestial bodies remains very much to be proven, and considering the number of orbitations it is even with some probability counterprioven by the experiment of those water droplets orbitting ten to twenty times around charged knitting needles.

Angels are not a miraculous but an ordinary cause when working in the natural world. The angels or demons who rocked a boat where Judas was sitting beside Our Lord asleep were not doing a miracle. The only sense in which a miracle occurred was that God for once showed that they obey Him, since He got angry at them.

If only what YOU call "natural causes" were at work in that storm, God was basically yelling or getting angry at His own handiwork. No, He was not, He was getting angry at wills who had a normal leeway of making storms, but who were using it on a very wrong occasion.

As for "all you are going to say on the subject at this point", is that because you are afraid of falling in error or because you want to be paedagogic with me? In the latter case it is tha kind of insult Christ promised his disciples that Pharisees would heap on them as on Him. (Yes, that would make me kind of a STRAWMAN, a very dry one.) In the former case, you have already said too much since you have contradicted Holy Writ, St Denys, St Augustine and St Gregory when claiming that angels working in the natural world would be miraculous causes. No, no.

(On top of that you contradicted St Thomas, but he was not a Church Father, just a doctor.)

Mark 4:39. If it was not an angel, but only lifeless air, why the rebuke? If the angel in the wind was miraculous (despite not showing as an angel in human form), why call it "wind" as if it was habitually, i e in the natural order, working it?

Next verse disciples state that wind and sea OBEYED Him. But obey is usually said of sentient and even intelligent causes. We do not see the Apostles later changed their mind on that point.

Afterthought : lest I judge hastily and give you only two possibilities, where there is a third, if you are stating "all you are going to say on the subject at this point" as secretly speaking on behalf of some ecclesiastic of the Vatican II Sect who dare not speak himself ("Cardinal" Schönborn has been contacted after I refuted him several months ago, december last year) and as not daring to go beyond your instructions, you might tell him he could speak for himself and that he could join the group to do so.

If he wants to spare me the supposed sin of not believing his authority, he is giving me no gain, as already I am not respecting it.

It gets better

I tried to verify in Cornelius a Lapide whether he agreed on my reading of Mark 4:39-40. Now, the edition I consulted (on the internet) is from 1891. Its Work of the Fourth Day comment is rewritten to suit Heliocentric and Newtonian cosmology and in that edition includes a comment by Schlegel. Whether that is the reason or Cornelius a Lapide didn't write any further, the edition gives for Mark 4 a chapter conspectus that is complete, but a comment reaching only to verse 36. My guess is, Corenius a Lapide just might have agreed more with me than the editor of 1891 (in Third Republic, as it was in Paris that year) liked to admit before a "scientific" world that considered such theories as "medieval superstition". Look for yourselves:

Cornelius a Lapide : Sanctum Jesu Christi Evangelium Secundum Marcum.
Caput Primum-Quintum.
http://cdigital.dgb.uanl.mx/la/1080014741_C/1080014755_T15/1080014755_50.pdf

Alaska has Funny Criteria for Statutory Rape

1) HGL's F.B. writings : Alaska has Funny Criteria for Statutory Rape, 2) New blog on the kid : Commenting, but not linking : female teachers sleeping with students

Friend, status/comment

Urgent prayers are needed for a 17 year old girl in Alaska who is 5 weeks pregnant, and whose boyfriend may be going to jail for statutory rape. Please pray that she does not have her child killed, that the courts have mercy on her boyfriend, and that her boyfriend chooses to take on the responsibility of marriage and fatherhood.

Received this e-mail from my county's right-to-life group.

MM

The courts should be filled!!! With the Faithful, family and the authoritative Magisterium.

That's how to check and balance the so called NWO. Not so new though is it?

Be there... Your feet take you where your faith is. And where your feet are is what your faith is

Does that clarify?

Friend

Yes…. I thought you meant that prisons should be filled.

MM

We need to expose and remember how "judges" are soon easily swayed. So if there is a presence of the faithful not only do we BY GOD'S GRACE SAVE THE accused but perhaps the accusers and the judge. Look how many conversations of the "free"masons SCOFFERS there were @ Fatima... WOW!!!

Friend

The courts should allow this man to marry her, and not fine him or put him in jail. There really is no point in putting him in jail - it will just hurt the new family.

MM

[@Friend] You're focused on the wrong thing. Pray to Jesus not the demonic masonic courts. That's what a pleading is (a prayer) so direct and put your feet where the need is greater according to your ability.

Right?

It's a perspective and placing what we see hear and think we know under the Authoritative Magisterium. Simple

Friend

Actually, it was the crisis pregnancy center this girl went to that filed a statutory rape report with the police. She left crying. Didn't they realise by doing that, they were only hurting the girl, the man's career, the baby, and ultimately, the new family?

MM

And that's what the devil wants. That's why direct intervention is needed, ie prayer and presence . The whole; where your feet are thing... Otherwise we are just filling a 2 dimensional fb thread....

CP

How old was the father???

Friend

Oh, I forgot to say! 23!!

CP

He couldn't wait a year? Men! I tell you

MM

It took two. Right? We could blame the parents too if you like for the way they brought up a "trollip", right? What's the point. There's a man, a girl and a child...

Let's move forward...

PH

will pray here at the miraculous icon of Czestochowa for her

MM

CP, is the girl a "victim" are you one too? Always? Give me a break... Different if you said "couldn't they wait" and more importantly "wait for" what....? How about marriage? Get your faith right and your judgemental self-righteous mind out of the gutter.

CP

Oh I am not excusing the girl. It is as much her fault as his. The one person I never blame is the parents. You can raise your child perfectly but ultimately they make all their own decisions. And don't you dare presume to judge me. I simply made an observation based on previous experiences

MM

You worded your post, and I'm sure no one but you. So back-peddle if you must but don't come off like a man hater then as a consummate victim tell me not to judge. You put your one sided position out there, in a judgemental way and now act indignant. Seriously? Hypocritical adgendaed response to post is still adgendaed hypocrisy. Wake up "victim" what you did at 17 belongs to you.

CP

Now who is judging who? I am damn proud of what I did at 17!

MM

I bet you are. Gee can you say self-righteous, prideful, judgemental hypocrite...? Oh wait you just did. Boy don't we all wish we could be just like you? Not!

Not asking for a confession but are you saying you waited until marriage for the fruits of marriage?

CP

I am very happily single! Not that it is your business to judge me. And you I suppose have never done anything wrong or that you regret.

MM

Well I see as I pointed out correctly you're a consummate victim even of your own doings. As you just tacitly confessed. And now look to talk of my sins so as to hypocritically further make your self-righteous conscience tolerable to your fragile self image and judgemental testimony of being "good". Read 2Tim.3:1-7 you're the poster child for that verse.

CP

How exactly am I a consummate victim? I guess I am just not seeing it.

MM

CP, there's likely no healing between us. After out banter. But I hope the best for you and your conversion to The True Catholic Faith outside of which there is no Salvation.

Please stop being a man hater and go to vaticancatholic.com., confession, and receive The valid Sacraments.

You'll be ok. You're obviously a driven person. Just pray for The will of Jesus upon you, and follow the Magisterium.

A great source for that is MHFM aka vaticancatholic.com.

CP

Yes well unfortunately the Church does not have the answer to everything

WB

You're right CP. The Church doesn't have the answer to everything. Since stuff that doesn't matter is part of everything, the Church only has the answer to things that truly matter. So you were actually partially right, although maybe not in the way you intended it.

MM

CP the Church certainly gives all that's necessary for justification and the hope of Salvation. So Wesley is correct.

Your statement is heretical, as if Jesus would leave us wanting

Hans-Georg Lundahl

statutory rape at SEVENTEEN?

wait - if he also had been seventeen and NOT very able to have a job, it would NOT have been statutory rape?

Isn't it sick if anything there are states where sex which could realistically lead to marriage is punished, while such where the guy is supposed to not be able to support a family is forgiven? Of course, that supposition is also bad.

Aidan Keller

With prayer. How old was she when she conceived?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

If she is 17 and five weeks pregnant, she must have been at least 16 years and fortyseven weeks when conceiving. I e nearly 17.

Canonic age used to be 12 for marriage. He is also across canonic age - 14 is less than his 23 years. So, canonically they could marry.

Aidan Keller

In some states the legal age is 16, others 17, others 18. In some states she can marry at age 14.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

In S[outh] C[arolina] it used to be 12 - exactly as the canonic age according to the Catholic Church, according to Spanish civil law a century ago, according to Russian law under the Czars, according to even English civil law as late as 1750 (it was 1753, I think, that England changed*).

Talking of statutory rape at 17 is plain ridiculous.

The question is less how much exploited she was by the guy who made her pregnant than how much exploited she is by the authorities of Alaska.

* "Until the passing of the Marriage Act of 1753, a formal ceremony of marriage before a clergyman was not a legal requirement in England, and marriages were unregistered. All that was required was for both parties to agree to the union, so long as each had reached the legal age of consent,[8] which was 12 for girls and 14 for boys.[9]"

8) Bryce, James (1901), Studies in history and jurisprudence, Volume II, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-559-45406-6 pp. 816–817

9) Leneman, Leah (1999), "The Scottish Case That Led to Hardwicke's Marriage Act", Law and History Review (University of Illinois Press) 17 (1): 161, doi:10.2307/744190, retrieved 16 December 2009

Wiki : Wife selling (English custom)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wife_selling_(English_custom)

Before spending money on cybers or copying machines I often make sure me benefactors know I am doing internet

I actually very often beg by holding up a cardboard with the url of one of my blogs. After that, for one thing they can go and entertain themselves with some reading, pretty much of it by now, and for another thing, if they don't do so, they can at least know internet and publicity for my blogs was part of what they were supporting, I haven't deceived them. I am not collecting government handouts, so noone can complain I am wasting their tax money. That said, I am not against those on the dole spending money on internet.

Here is a dialogue that took place - extracting the relevant pieces:

LD (answering someone else)

I never said the current system was beneficial or just. Just that "legalising drugs" is not the answer. The current system is broken, nobody questions that.

My original point was that the evidence presented do not sufficiently demonstrate that those uncharitable characters do not exist or make up any specific % - it only demonstrates that they aren't dumb enough to get caught (but we already knew that, or they'd be in jail).

You are in fact judging your "fellow man" when you assume they don't want to support the "less fortunate" when they ask for drug testing. The reality is that many of us witness these same "less fortunate" in public with their drugs, alcohol, and iPhones bought with the "charity" we have been forced to expend toward them. While I cannot speak for others, my support for drug testing would have stemmed from the abuse of public funds - although seeing how ineffective the testing is, I'd be inclined to discontinue it of course.

Charity should always be a free act, done without government coercion, and those receiving it should be respectful by requesting it themselves and not spending it on unnecessary things which many of those whom are giving it cannot themselves afford.

Those who work full time should also not need charity - capitalism has, as it usually does, led us back to effective slavery. I think the $11 minimum wage increase is too low. It should be upward of $30 for individuals, and higher for those who have a family to support. Of course, the fact that we need regulation to pay people a decent living wage tells a lot about us as a society...

Before continuing:

Most of what he said, I either agree on or consider a prudential option I cannot consider bad in itself. Especially his last paragraph I very much endorse as a realistic assessment. However, some things I did find outrageous.

HGL

LD, iPhones means a means of communicating with people ... and are you assuming anyone drinking alcohol in the street is a drunkard?

LD

iPhones and alcohol are luxury items, which people who need charity have no business spending on.

HGL

Not true. They are cheap luxuries compared to the comfort they can bring. Your attitude is idiotic and judgemental.

An iPhone is so cheap, someone selling it to show he had need for charity would get perhaps one meal or less. So how stupid your attitude is, is beyond believable.

LD

If you can't afford your necessities, you have no business spending money on any comfort. A landline is perfectly fine if you need a phone. Even the obsolete iPhone model available from Sprint is still $450 - at least 100 meals.

HGL

" Even the obsolete iPhone model available from Sprint is still $450 "

Oh, then there is a certain discrepancy between US and Europe. Here I have got mails about filling in the details and going to collect my iPhone. Haven't answered it though.

Then there is this, if the person on handouts were to sell his iPhone, he would hardly get the 450 dollars, he would have to sell lots cheaper.

Then there is also this, that a poor man can get his landline cut by the phone company for a long time, with an iPhone (or other cell phones) you pay unities. So their poorer owners may go a week or a month receiving messages but not being able to send back. Obviously text messages, not voice dialogues. And then when he has a few extra dollars, he may pay so he can "call" back, also with texting.

No, I think you are uncharitable.

" If you can't afford your necessities, you have no business spending money on *any* comfort."

Not an ice cream? Not a new pillow if your old one is scratched to pieces by a cat? Not an handkerchief if you have a cold? Nothing but water and bread until one starts earning one's own money again?

I very much think not!

St Francis of Sales told the widow whose spiritual director he was, that she should, when giving to the poor, take care to give according to their likes.

If you see a poor man drinking a beer, are you sure he paid for it himself and there was no kind soul giving him the bottle as following that advice and in order to be more sober than if pursuing the entire six pack with his friend?

By the way, I don't know you. Are you even a Catholic or might you be a Calvinist?

Oh, sorry about the Calvinist question. I saw you referred to Pope Michael: [Linked to his self correction on Sister Faustina, which I saw after looking up his profile.

LD

You may think what you like, but out of charity I feel I should point out what a hypocrite you are making yourself to be, telling me not to judge the poor man (not that I was doing so in any specific case) while you not only judge, but even assume to know my very intentions in the same paragraph.

HGL

• 1) I have not denied you any comfort that you need, excepting not being contradicted, for what you consider my judgment of you.
  
  
• 2) As to charge of hypocricy, I have in fact been judging your open statements, while those (whether doing so in a specific case or not) were temerariously judging certain classes of the poor and their comforts.
  
  
• 3) Where did I presume to know your intentions? I was only speaking about your words - and the implications they socially carry, independently of what you intend.

Out of charity, I had better ask you politely to drop the hypocrisy charge.

One more thing. Alcohol may be a thing parents of small and many children cannot afford to pay for themselves. That does not mean that someone who is a celibate and receives their charity should avoid spending any cent on alcohol : he has no need to give babies milk, and in some cases drinking wine rather than milk is his duty in order to stay free that following night from sins against VI and IX.

Parents would, even without alcohol, be in a position to avoid sins by doing virtuous acts instead, after drinking milk. At least if lawfully wedded.

Here

it seems he decided to answer no further.

New debate with Rick DeLano and Robert Sungenis

My status:

I think I have been here before ...

Rick DeLano

Welcome back Hans-Georg Lundahl.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I have a hunch on why I was added back ...

This passage on this blogpost was sent to our friend Sungenis (after already getting to Chuck Missler):

You know Sungenis' theory of what keeps the Earth in its place, centre of Universe?

ALL mass in the Universe rotates around one spot which becomes gravitational centre, in which God put Earth, from which it cannot escape.

Now, he accepts conventional distances and sizes. One problem is that even so - I think you may have made the point about gravitation earlier - the gravitational pull from stars might really be too small to make a difference.

Now, as of lately, I do not accept conventional distances and sizes. Supposing the 0.76 arcseconds of alpha Centauri are an angel dancing with it (as per fourth theory of Riccioli) or as it (as per his second, rejected one, which was however accepted by St Jerome), alpha Centauri could be as close as a light day away.

And so on for all the other stars.

Would this make Sungenis' solution for Earth staying in place more plausible?

Not quite sure. Perhaps rather not. Gravitation would increase by the square as distances reduced, but as apparent size is an empiric given fact, and it relates to distance, this would, as I seem to comprehend, mean that the volume of alpha Centauri (and with it gravitation) would be decreasing by the cube as distance shortened.

However, if Earth was instead kept in place electrically? That or simple decree of God would be solutions.

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : Chuck Missler starts making sense on an electrical issue
http://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/2014/09/chuck-missler-starts-making-sense-on.html

Rick DeLano

There is absolutely no basis upon which to accept any claim that "the gravitational pull from stars might really be too small to make a difference", since the stars make up far less than 5% of the mass required to explain observations even under conventional theories.

95.9% of the required mass to make gravity work under consensus cosmology assumptions is missing.

They have been looking for it for 70 years so far without success.

Maybe they will find it someday.

Until they do, they invent the difference and call it dark matter/energy.

We call it the firmament.

It is conclusively certain that the Theory of Relativity absolutely requires the physics to be perfectly consistent with a geocentric universe.

If anyone can show that to be wrong, they will have simultaneously falsified and collapsed all of physics.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Ah, that is another matter.

"Even under conventional theories." Here we might agree.

It is not that the stars per se are enough to explain the model of Sungenis, but that they are as insufficient to explain other models.

Chuck Missler seems to call that matter "plasma" and identify it with "waters above the firmament".

Rick DeLano

Missler does seem to be thinking along the same lines lately, and we of course wish him and his co-thinkers every success, since the present cosmological world view is on the verge of collapse, and will have to be replaced. The fact that we observe from one and precisely one place in the cosmos is a *metaphysical reality* which can no longer be ignored, in the aftermath of the collapse of the Copernican Principle. We shall have to re-do cosmology from a geocentric premise, and the smartest scientists are already beginning to see this:

Geocentric cosmology: a new look at the measure problem
Mahdiyar Noorbala, Vitaly Vanchurin
(Submitted on 21 Jun 2010 (v1), last revised 20 Jan 2011 (this version, v2))
http://arxiv.org/abs/arXiv:1006.4148

Excerpt:

"In the emerging picture an infinite multi- verse is replaced with a finite geocentric region, and the search for the correct measure is replaced by a search for a 3D Lagrangian yet to be discovered.

There are two ways to look for the correct Lagrangian. One could either try to perform direct phenomenological searches or one could try to derive it from first principles. For the phenomenological approach one has to reinter- pret the existing cosmological data from the geocentric view point."

Hans-Georg Lundahl

If either Robert Sungenis' model or the standard one requires masses not found, what about returning to angelic model for stellar movements?

I will post link on a separate thread.

Robert Sungenis

Hans, the gravity model that I (and Dr. Bouw) are using does not have any "missing matter." The gravitational tension of the universe's sphere of stars, whatever its strength due to the distance of the stars from Earth, is going to be neutral at the center of mass. So we can have a large universe or a small one. It makes no difference to geocentrism.

Although the idea that angels moved the heavenly bodies was discussed in and out of the patristic and medieval eras, there was no consensus among either group that it was a reality. In fact, in De Potentia 6, 3, Aquinas quotes Augustine from De Trinitatae 2, 10, saying: “How angels do these things, or rather how God does them through his angels, my sight is not keen enough to see, my reason too diffident to unravel, my mind too slow to grasp; nor can I answer with assurance all the queries that could be made on this matter…” Aquinas himself makes no firm conclusion, but only says: “Although an angel may cause the movement of the heavens…” (“Ad quintum dicendum, quod Angelus etsi caelum moveat.” In reality, the whole purpose of De Potentia 6, 3 was to refute the ideas that angels could perform miracles at will without limitation. In other sections of De Potentia, Aquinas shows us his understanding of movement by natural causes: “Although the local movements of the lower bodies as well as other movements are brought about by certain fixed natural causes…” (“Ad undecimum dicendum, quod licet motus locales inferiorum corporum sint a determinatis motoribus naturalibus…,” De potentia, q. 6 a. 3 ad 11). As for Scripture, there exists no passage which states that angels move the heavenly bodies. The most that could be gleaned from Scripture is that angels can exercise extraordinary powers in the temporal realm. Secondly, the patristic and medieval eras give testimony of an absolute consensus to the doctrine of a fixed Earth and a moving sun, whereas no such consensus exists regarding angelic forces moving celestial bodies. Thirdly, geocentrism was confirmed by the magisteriums under several pontiffs, pontiffs that guided and approved the process of condemning Copernicanism from start to finish, whereas an angelic impetus for the heavenly bodies did not even come up for discussion within magisterial ranks.

[Editorial Note: lower bodies. Celestial bodies are higher. In fact, it seems St Thomas considered the movements of celestial bodies as physical causes of those of lower bodies, far beyond what modern physics does and well into what would now qualify as astrology - though excepting of course the free will of man and the providence of God. That moon moves ebb and flood, we admit now too, most of us. That Sun moves day and night, Summer and Winter, also. But he seems to consider Mars makes iron grow in mines and makes some of it magnetic, unless he considered the magnetic part as arising when Venus was in conjunction with Mars.]

[Editorial note II: in another paper Sungenis would include aether in the mass. I would not, since I consider aether is lightness rather than heaviness, levity rather than gravity, anti-mass or peri-mass rather than mass.]

Hans-Georg Lundahl

As to Scripture, the passages would rather suggest that stars ARE a kind of angels. Not meaning the passages do not exist.

The first milennium is more like St Jerome into thinking stars are living beings of angel like nature. The second millennium saw a condemnation of it in Paris, where the "angels move stars as immediate EXTRINSIC cause" took on as the majority view.

EITHER of the two views means there is some liberty of movement as compared to merely physical constraints - though none to disobey God - which is enough to dispense with the merely mechanistic explanations.

"The gravitational tension of the universe's sphere of stars whatever its strength due to the distance of the stars from Earth, is going to be neutral at the center of mass. So we can have a large universe or a small one. It makes no difference to geocentrism"

Even if tension of Sun mould be superior to all the rest?

That would be the moot point.

Rick DeLano

If it could be established established by direct experiment that the Sun is superior in its gravitation effect to the combined gravitation of the rest of the universe, one would have disproven General Relativity.

[Editorial Note: After this sth happened to his comments. After I had answered, before I could copy. As will become apparent later, the superiority would be local only in a huge universe, but still decisive perhaps, or absolute, in a small universe. If say fixed stars are in twice or three times or sth the distance of Pluto.]

Hans-Georg Lundahl

De Potentia would be speaking of angels moving HEAVEN (caelum), not moving heavenly bodies.

St Thomas has amply documented he thought God himself moved Heaven, and angels supplied minor movements that unlike this first one were not daily circles.

E g God moves Heaven full circle every 23 h 56 minutes AND angel of Sun moves backward along the Zodiak so that solar day is 24 h and its period along Zodiak one year. In St Jerome's thought it might rather have been celestial bodies animated by a kind of souls that did so. But the quote from St Augustine shows he agreed with St Thomas rather than with St Jerome. His diffidence is not IF but HOW according to your own quote.

Quoting De Potentia:

"Accordingly the corporeal nature obeys the bidding of the spiritual in the point of its natural relation to local movement, but not as regards the reception of a form"

In other words, an angel can move the sun, no problem, but cannot make it shine or not shine.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

As to the distinction between metaphysical and scientific propositions proposed by Rick DeLano, that seems somewhat irrational. Metaphysics is a science and so is physics. However, my point was that physically the movement of the Sun backward East along the Zodiak had as cause the potence of an angel, just as its movement West WITH heaven had as its cause the direct action of God on the outrmost primum mobile.

How a certain movement could have as its cause one thing metaphysically and not have it physically is totally unclear.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Wrong. Angels are NOT a privilege of revealed philosophy a k a theology.

They are equally (under other words) conclusions of say Aristotle or Avicenna, precisely in the domain of movements of celestial bodies.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I can say that the question what immediately moves a star or a planet is a physical question, and if so, supposing an angel does it, the angels action is the physical cause and the physical answer to the question.

I can also say that it is a metaphysical question, and if so, the other answer "heavenly bodies are immediately moved by gravitation and inertia, or perhaps also electricity to exclusion of spiritual agents" as as metaphysical an answer as "heavenly bodies are immediately moved by angels".

[As metaphysical, but not as right in metaphysics, that is.]

Hans-Georg Lundahl

What I cannot do is to say that the question is physical if the answer is the one and metaphysical if the answer is the other. Still less, have one answer for each discipline.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

If it is true of history that the movements of my pen on the paper depend on my fingers rather than on gravity (ink flowing would depend on gravity, but that does not say where it will flow), then very obviously it cannot be true in physics that gravity rather than my fingers direct the pen.

If angels are moving stars and planets, there can be two attitudes only:

• angels can be questioned rationally as to what they can and cannot do and what they must be to do what they can do (for instance move the stars);
  
  OR
  
  
• the question of what moves planets and stars is not a rational question.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I very definitely refuse to have a rational inquiry tied down to an answer which may be wrong because the one which may be right is for formalistic reasons painted out as lying outside the domain of the inquiry.

And I very clearly have St Thomas on my side, since I read the beginning of De Potentia up to where Robert Sungenis cherry picked a quote. St Thomas clearly does say angels are what God uses to direct bodies.

Let us take objection 7 and its answer:

7. According to Augustine (De Trin. iii, 4) all bodies are governed by God through the rational spirit of life; and Gregory says the same (Dial. iv.: so that seemingly the movements of the heavens and of all nature are controlled by the angels even as the movements of the human body are controlled by the soul. Now the soul produces forms in the body independently of the natural active forces of the body: thus a mere fancy makes a man grow hot or cold, or become feverish or even leprous according to physicians. A fortiori then it is possible that by the mere concept of the angel who moves the heavens certain effects be produced in this lower world without the action of natural causes: and thus an angel can work a miracle. ... Reply to the Seventh Objection. In the natural order the soul by its bidding moves the body locally: because its appetitive power commands the movement, and the body obeys its bidding, and this is effected by the motive powers affixed to the organs and derived by the body from the soul which informs the body. Other alterations such as heat, cold and the like derive from the soul by means of local movement. It is also evident that imagination gives rise to a passion whereby in some way the movements of the heart and spirits are affected: and that when the latter are drawn towards the heart or diffused throughout the members the body is likewise affected: and this may lead to disease especially if the matter be so disposed.

So, the principle of Sts Augustine and Gregory remains in full vigour. The parallel certainly suggests that angels have powers of local movement.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

No, it is not a completely legitimate job for physics to pursue a question while shutting out potentially right answers. As to them having done a reasonably good job, let me recall you to the fact that most of the job you here called good has been conducted by Heliocentrics.

If the right answer is God to a question, either physics must have a right to say at some point "goddidit" or "goddoesit" or physics must leave the question alone. If the right answer to a question is angels, either physics must have a right to say at some point "angelsdoit" or physics must leave the question alone.

NOTE that "natural philosophy" and "physics" are not coextensive. Traditionally physics has been considered as limited to a sublunary sphere.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

What moves planets and stars cannot ever be within the OPERATIONAL domain of human inquiry. We are not big and mighty enough to conduct experiments on them.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Physics "being itself" does not amount to angels being kept out of the question why the stars and planets move. Rather that would be physics bloated beyond recognition into a mosntruous pseudojudge of the real judges of physics.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

It is very much so limited under the operation of precisely right reason, because precisely right reason precisely has the faculty to recognise that water boiling in kettles, it can experiment on, planets and stars moving it cannot experiment on.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

You are acting as a fundie, of "natural sciences". Even when they contradict the truth, and on some matters even on matters directly revealed.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

As to your appeal to the "teaching of the Church", I am no more out on my own than you are after 1820.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Optical evidence of where the bodies move are perfectly legitimate and I am not disputing it. THAT is distinct from speculation on what makes them move. That is the whole point.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

And stop, will you, being so overbearing as to say things like "we have been through this before" I was right then and am right now.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Physics as such has no duty to account for those motions. Precisely as physics like physics has no duty to account for what patterns my pen may make on a paper.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

No, physics can not account for what patterns I choose to write on a paper.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

You have already become so. [Disagreeable.]

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Supposing that were sincere, it would be an apology for browbeating about what you feel are limits and scopes of physics, as if it were self evident. Supposing that were sincere, it would be renouncing for the future tones like "now now" and so on. IS it all that sincere?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

You said you quit school after it ceased being compulsory? Oh no. You have done quite a bit of adaptation to a rotten culture since then, you sound like a politician.

[Actually, I must admit, it was Dave Armstrong who said so about Rick DeLano's educational background.]

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I took that literally. I am sorry I was too tired to recall why I disliked your company when I added you again.

[Here I unfriended Rick DeLano again.]

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Now, Robert Sungenis, you want to give precisely a physical explanation to Earth staying in centre.

It being placed in exact centre of gravity. Speaking of gravity, btw, the translation of de potentia has a problem. Jordan was stopped while retaining its HEAVINESS, St Thomas was not speaking fo Newtonian "power of gravitation". But say Newton is right, say there are centres of gravity ... many things DOWN ON EARTH (recall the lunar sphere limit) look as if that were true. However, these are not equally forceful for whatever total mass there is, but less and less so, the more the total mass is dispersed.

That being so, if Universe includes giants very much larger than the Sun, that does not mean centre of gravity of all such things would locally be stronger than gravity of the Sun - since the immense distances play in. If on the other hand the universe is very much smaller, then the centre of gravity would perhaps be the Sun itself - insofar as that is relevant. At least it would be very probable that the stars considered as giants bigger than the sun are in fact smaller than Pluto, if as close as I think.

Either way, gravitation seems not quite the right thing to account for a Geocentric universe.

What about:

• a moving universe has God for a mover
• smaller moving objects have smaller movers
• Earth has no mover and so does not move ...

begins to sound like a deal?

[It seems Robert Sungenis also commented on this thread. Then something happened to this last comment of his. Before I could even see it.]

Link to De Potentia, Latin and English parallel, relevant passage in context.

QUAESTIONES DISPUTATAE DE POTENTIA DEI
ON THE POWER OF GOD by Thomas Aquinas
translated by the English Dominican Fathers
Westminster, Maryland: The Newman Press, 1952, reprint of 1932
Html edition by Joseph Kenny, O.P.
http://dhspriory.org/thomas/QDdePotentia.htm

QUESTION VI : ON MIRACLES
http://dhspriory.org/thomas/QDdePotentia6.htm

Q. VI: ARTICLE III
Can Spiritual Creatures Work Miracles by Their Natural Power?
http://dhspriory.org/thomas/QDdePotentia6.htm#6:3