A few oddball geocentric Catholics believe Galileo Galilei was wrong
An article in the Los Angeles Times featuring a few Catholics that hold to a Geocentric model has been doing the rounds:
A few conservative Roman Catholics are pointing to a dozen Bible verses and the church’s original teachings as proof that Earth is the center of the universe, the view that was at the heart of the church’s clash with Galileo Galilei four centuries ago.
The relatively obscure movement has gained a following among those who find comfort in knowing there are still staunch defenders of early church doctrine.
I must confess that I was sorely tempted to blog about this, simply for the whimsical factor, however, I resisted the temptation.
Tmatt over at GetReligion has blogged on this and I think he sums up this silliness in the first paragraph:
I realize that stories about Galileo Galilei and the Vatican are like catnip to some journalists who are anxious to portray the Catholic Church as several centuries behind the time on this or that cultural issue.
Tags: Church Life, Media, Science & Medical
August 31st, 2011 at 2:36 pm
Of course, Galileo was wrong – to a large extent. His actual proposal was that the sun was the centre of the Universe – heliocenticism. This was one of the theories that the Church asked him not to publish as “truth”. As we now (probably) know, the sun is not the centre of the Universe – so the Church, in that respect, was right to highlight this error in his teaching! lol. (Of course, Galileo was right in proposing that the earth travels around the sun, but this was something the Church – especially in the person of St Robert Bellarmine (the Cardinal Inquisitor) – was willing to debate and investigate, or even accept, which she does).
Also, as everyone well knows, Galileo remained a devout Catholic throughout his whole life, and was particularly devoted to his daughter, who was a Poor Clare nun. Pope Urban VIII was a lifelong friend of his, and ensured that Galileo was able to continue his studies. His heliocentric ideas were also merely a re-hashing of Copernicus’ theory. Copernicus was a Catholic cleric, who died in good standing (bar for the fact he might have fathered an illegitimate child!).
One of the more serious charges against Galileo, which the Church did not really seek to charge him with, was denial of the doctrine of transubstantiation (the Real Presence). This would have been real theological heresy, which could have landed him in hot water. Galileo basically denied that energy had an affect on matter, and therefore denied the fact that what appears to be one thing could actually be something else (bread being the Body of Christ). Thanks to Einstein and modern physics, we now know that Galileo was wrong, and that the Church is right in teaching that there can be a distinction between “substance” and “accidents” .
August 31st, 2011 at 5:49 pm
Ah, thanks for that Dylan, very informative.
September 2nd, 2011 at 3:36 pm
But it’s all relative isn’t it. Theoretically I presume any point in the Universe could be the ‘centre’ from/to/about which everything else moves, even though sometimes in very complex ways. From a personal perpective the only thing in what I perceive to be the Universe that is not moving is my own body. (well, not much anyway!). So maybe that means I’m the centre of the Universe – but then I suppose so are you…
September 2nd, 2011 at 3:59 pm
@Simian, heh, I had exactly the same thoughts.
I mean, let’s face it, as you allude, the universe revolves around me
September 5th, 2011 at 3:25 pm
Simian:
Congratulations on being a few steps down the road from each and all of the supposed “proofs” of the pre-Relativity era (Foucault pendulum, Mars retrograde, Venus phases, etc), which seemed so Goliath-like at the time, and all of which have now been necessarily abandoned.
Alas, the point you make is itself an assumption- that is, such a thesis must be experimentally confirmed, not merely assserted.
As you will see in the coming year or two, humanity has now at last arrived at the point where we are observing the universe on its very largest visible scales.
To the great astonishment of many in the scientific community, the universe we are seeing is, in important ways, at odds with the predictions of Relativity, concordance cosmology, and the Copernican principle itself.
The fact that this structure is, specifically, *geocentric* (including the CMB mulitpoles, the polarization of light from quasars, and the distribution of galaxies in preferred, periodic, earth-centered shells out to a billion light years) is certainly shocking.
It would be a good idea to become familiar with it however.
If you have a science background try here (posted only about five weeks ago, and includes a superb set of citations to about a decade’s worth of papers- dozens of them- reporting the same observations):
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1011.2425v2
Excerpts:
“Cosmological observations on the largest scales exhibit a solid record of unexpected anomalies and alignments, apparently pointing towards a large scale violation of statistical isotropy.”
“As a matter of fact, as cosmology and astronomy measurements close up on such vast scales, some surprises appear, in the form of large scale anomalies of the microwave sky, or large scale unexpected correlations among distant objects such as quasars, forcing us to ingeniously rethink our perhaps ingenuous paradigm……
It is generally thought that we live in a perfectly isotropic Universe, which implies that whichever direction in the sky we are looking towards, we should be observing the same features (at large distances). This assumption is being challenged by a number of observations in a variety of different contexts, from radio and optical polarisations of distant objects to cosmic microwave background (CMB) spectra, that conjure against the simplest realisation of the standard cosmological model.”
Translation: the universe is *not* revealing structure which would allow us to continue to assume that “every point could be the center” (statistical isotropy/homogeneity).
This, of course, brings us right back to the situation- the profound crisis in fact- that existed when relativity was first introduced.
Two centuries’ worth of physical experiments had failed to detect the *universally assumed* motion of Earth in its orbit.
Relativity was advanced precisely as an explanation for that failure.
If Relativity’s predictions are overturned at present scales of observation……….
Well. I am sure you see what’s coming.
September 5th, 2011 at 3:31 pm
“Thanks to Einstein and modern physics, we now know that Galileo was wrong, and that the Church is right in teaching that there can be a distinction between “substance” and “accidents” .
>> Wow, what an amazing assertion. Got a citation showing where
this St. Einstein fellow rescued the doctrine of transubstantiation…….?
Man, I am telling you, the degree of this generation’s naive, touching, childlike faith in….*theoretical physics* is pretty disturbing, if you ask me.
Any Catholic who has ever conceived that it is the “effect of energy on matter” which confects the Eucharist is reading waaaaaay too much sic fi.
September 6th, 2011 at 1:18 pm
Ah yes Rick – The dangers of a little knowledge. It was of course a firmly tongue in cheek comment. One could end up going into all sorts of abstractions and metaphysical discussions with this one!
Actually I subscribe to the idea that we can know nothing with absolute certainty. What after all is reality? And how can we be sure about that? I think you know where I’m going with this…
And Einstein is of course so very last century!
September 6th, 2011 at 5:56 pm
“Actually I subscribe to the idea that we can know nothing with absolute certainty.”
Ahh! Pardon me, I had assumed you were Catholic. I often address blogs where I make this assumption and it is sometimes shown to have been unwarranted.
As a Catholic, I know that your assertion is false.
A whole lot is riding on it, so here, for your consideration, is the dogmatic teaching of the Church on this question:
CCC Paragraph 36:
“Our holy mother, the Church, holds and teaches that God, the first principle and last end of all things, can be known with certainty from the created world by the natural light of human reason.”11
So yes, I would have to say that I do think I know where you’re going with this, and certainly encourage you to consider taking the next off ramp
September 6th, 2011 at 5:59 pm
It strikes me as at least a bit ironic that the headline of this piece refers to “a few oddball Catholics” when the author has proposed that the doctrine of the Eucharist involves e=mc^2 and the contributor denies that anything can be known at all.
Who were the oddballs again?
September 6th, 2011 at 6:26 pm
I think, Rick, that one of the best things about this blog is that it is always an insightful and very civilised forum for those with various religious beliefs, and those with none, to discuss their views and to read those of others. I am an atheist Humanist, and yet I regularly learn new and unexpected things from this blog – and I am very grateful to our webmaster for allowing me to participate. Even when I don’t agree, I think I still benefit from other’s wisdom.
When you write:
As a Catholic, I know that your assertion is false…
I know there is a chasm between us in terms of faith, but maybe we do share many values. As you would expect, I dispute that it is conceivable for you to ‘know’ that my assertion is false, but maybe that’s not something we’re ever going to agree on.
My guidebooks are largely those by Humanist philosophers, with liberal doses of the “New Scientist” magazine to keep me current on new discoveries, and yet I still find the Bible an inspiring and helpful guide in many ways.
September 6th, 2011 at 6:28 pm
Rick, best not to assume anything, you are bound to be incorrect, as your posts confirm.
September 6th, 2011 at 6:57 pm
Thanks for the clarification, Simian, and I again, unfortunately, tend to assume the Catholic identity of posts on these kinds of blogs; again, not a very safe assumption to make as the present instance affirms.
I can certainly know your assertion is false, since God, the Creator and Author of all that is, has infallibly proclaimed it to be false.
Now we can also proceed to the logical corollary of this statement of Faith; to wit, that Faith, while superior to reason, is never in conflict with *right* reason.
Therefor if you should wish to employ reason to prove your assertion that nothing can be known( the very setup of the question reflects the contradiction- not a good sign for you imo)- then please be assured of my avid interest in examining the question.
It you truly have the courage of your stated convictions, of course, you are utterly immune to reason, since you deny that it is directed toward the acquisition of reliable knowledge.