dr. dino's point of view

[archaeologist]

No, it is not that simple. In human communication we normally take for granted that people say what they mean and mean what they say unless we have reason to believe otherwise. Without that axiom, communication would be impossible

and thatis why your are wrong so often. none of you were there at the time of their living so you assume based upon your own limited research and fail to allow other options to be a part of what these peopel say.

until you can provide credible proof thatis whatthese people believed, you are just reading into their words, what you want them to believe.

find credible proof.

 

[Rudolph Hucker]

OTOH, why do you not show us how you came to believe that before 1543 the church(es) believed the earth orbited the sun?

That might improve your credibility.

 

[gluadys]

and thatis why your are wrong so often. none of you were there at the time of their living so you assume based upon your own limited research and fail to allow other options to be a part of what these peopel say.

until you can provide credible proof thatis whatthese people believed, you are just reading into their words, what you want them to believe.

find credible proof.

No, you do not have to provide a reason or evidence that people mean/believe what they say. That is the starting point of all communication. It is a given that people mean/believe what they say.

So, when you decide that they don't, you need a reason to doubt them.

Maybe they are joking or teasing. Maybe they are being ironic or sarcastic. Maybe they are being manipulative and deceitful.

In many cases, especially when people are joking or being sarcastic, there are signs in the way things are worded or in a tone of voice, or in factual circumstances, that people do not mean what they say. When someone stares out the window at the pouring rain and says "What a beautiful day for a picnic!" we know enough not to accept that as a serious statement.

But without such signs, we normally expect people to mean/believe what they say unless we suspect deceit. But deceit needs a motive. Generally speaking, people do not deceive unless there is some benefit in it for them.

So alleging deceit requires evidence of a motive or belief in how the deceit will benefit the speaker.

This is the evidence you must provide to show that there is credibility in thinking the Church Fathers did not believe straightforwardly in what they were writing.

1. How could we know they believed differently?
2. Why would they express themselves geocentrically if they did not believe geocentrism?
3. What would be their motive in keeping their readers in the dark about the actual structure of the universe?

Unless these questions can be answered, the default position is that they communicated what they believed to be accurate fact.

 

[archaeologist]

It is a given that people mean/believe what they say.

that idea is foolish for it opens one up to all sorts of misleading information and they pass that misinformation on to others. one has to be cautious and make sure the other person is using the words as one perceives.

ball is still in yor court

 

[Rudolph Hucker]

that idea is foolish for it opens one up to all sorts of misleading information and they pass that misinformation on to others. one has to be cautious and make sure the other person is using the words as one perceives.

ball is still in yor court

Nonsense. You have postulated that the church(es) did not hold the view that the sun orbited the earth. Please show us how you came to believe this.

If this were not so, why was the reaction to this 16th century scientific revelation so similar to the more modern reaction to the 19th century scientific revelation of evolution?

 

[gluadys]

that idea is foolish for it opens one up to all sorts of misleading information and they pass that misinformation on to others. one has to be cautious and make sure the other person is using the words as one perceives.

ball is still in yor court

Of course one has to be cautious. That is why I said "unless we have a reason to think otherwise".

But we could not function if we always assumed that we must verify that someone believes what they say before we act on it.

When the sportscast says Team X won the game, we don't stop to ask if the reporter believes what he is saying. We assume he does unless we hear a different report that gives a different result.

If we find our child crying and moaning and saying "I don't feel well" we assume that she is telling the truth and prepare to excuse her from going to school, unless we notice that it is exam day for a subject she does not do well in.

We are always cautious with a sales pitch, because we know the other party will make money on the deal, so we know there is a motivation to mislead.

In every instance where we get suspicious, it is for a reason.

So we need a reason to be suspicious of the sincerity of the Church Fathers. If we have no reason to doubt their sincerity, that is sufficient grounds for thinking they meant what they said and said what they did because they assumed the accuracy of geocentrism.

So, give me a reason to doubt their sincerity.

 

[archaeologist]

find some credible proof for your claims or i am done with this topic

 

[gluadys]

find some credible proof for your claims or i am done with this topic

I take it that means you can suggest no reason to doubt the sincerity of the Church Fathers on their geocentrism.

 

[archaeologist]

take it that means you can suggest no reason to doubt the sincerity of the Church Fathers on their geocentrism

NO! it just means you refuse to provide proof to back your claims and there is no point in continuing the discussion.

 

[Rudolph Hucker]

NO! it just means you refuse to provide proof to back your claims and there is no point in continuing the discussion.

Not quite right Archie: many, including myself, have suggested that you show evidence of the church(es) believeing that the sun orbited the earth before the 1540's.

That you have failed is answer enough.

 

[theFijian]

NO! it just means you refuse to provide proof to back your claims and there is no point in continuing the discussion.

You mean like proof that Jerome was a liar? Yes until you provide proof for your claims you really shouldn't take part in the discussion

 

[KEPLER]

that idea is foolish for it opens one up to all sorts of misleading information and they pass that misinformation on to others. one has to be cautious and make sure the other person is using the words as one perceives.

ball is still in yor court

Stanley Fish? Phone call for Stanley Fish!

 

[busterdog]

Heliocentrism was known in many cultures prior to the time of Jesus.

So, why do we arbitrarily yoke the BIble to Ptolemy?

Why should I care what St. Jerome thinks? The Church father had many things wrong.

The Bible itself has almost nothing to say about the subject except to say the sun rises in one place, sets in another and appears in the place where it rose in the first place. Is that cosmology? No. It is tendentious hermeneutics.

 

[gluadys]

Heliocentrism was known in many cultures prior to the time of Jesus.

So what? It was not widely known in the Christian culture of Western Europe and the few who were aware of ancient Greek heliocentrism followed Aristotle in thinking it foolish.

So, why do we arbitrarily yoke the BIble to Ptolemy?

Because the Church did. The Church saw Ptolemy's system as representative of the biblical witness. And even those who broke with Ptolemy did not break with geocentrism.

The Bible itself has almost nothing to say about the subject except to say the sun rises in one place, sets in another and appears in the place where it rose in the first place. Is that cosmology? No. It is tendentious hermeneutics.

It has even less to say on the age of the earth and is even more ambiguous in terms of whether what it says is to be understood literally.

So we get back to the inconsistency of the YEC hermeneutic. Why the blithe willingness to overlook the geocentrism of the bible, considered literal truth for 1500 years, yet staunch refusal to treat in a similar way the timing of creation despite the fact that non-literal interpretations go back to the Church Fathers and even earlier in rabbinic writings?

To me, such a hermeneutic simply does not make any rational sense. I can't use it to guide my understanding of scripture in any meaningful way.

 

[busterdog]

Well, I guess that's that.

Summary of ancient heliocentrist viewpoints:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliocentrism

Galileo was incarcerated for his belief. Does that suggest that the Church authorities of his day were being Biblical? Obviously the Church had made an ENORMOUS botch of the Biblical theology of the day (assuming the Bible was even read, which largely was forbidden anyway).

Yet they are supposed to speak for the Bible when it suits the TE perspective?

Everyone understands the geocentrism argument. But how is it supposed to be convincing in this form?

 

[gluadys]

Everyone understands the geocentrism argument. But how is it supposed to be convincing in this form?

I think the idea is that we should learn from our mistakes and not repeat them.

 

[Assyrian]

Well, I guess that's that.

Summary of ancient heliocentrist viewpoints:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliocentrism

Galileo was incarcerated for his belief. Does that suggest that the Church authorities of his day were being Biblical? Obviously the Church had made an ENORMOUS botch of the Biblical theology of the day

Ad Hom. The church had the authority to incarcerate Galileo because it was both a religious and secular authority. The is was a serious mistake, but I don't think American Christians should suggest a church's theology and exegesis be judged solely on the basis of their political mistakes...

But the Catholic church in the time of Galileo was not only looking at their own understanding of these scriptures. They also realise that the church fathers, men of God from long before the church became the political and civil institution you dislike here, men who stood for God in the face of persecution from pagan Rome, these church fathers read the geocentric passages the very same way, not one of them raised a question about other interpretations.

Cardinal Bellarmine 12 April 1615. www.galilean-library.org/bellarmine1.html

My Very Reverend Father,

I have gladly read the letter in Italian and the treatise which Your Reverence sent me, and I thank you for both. And I confess that both are filled with ingenuity and learning, and since you ask for my opinion, I will give it to you very briefly, as you have little time for reading and I for writing:

Firstly, I say that it seems to me that Your Reverence and Galileo did prudently to content yourself with speaking hypothetically [ex suppositione], and not absolutely, as I have always believed that Copernicus spoke. For to say that, assuming the earth moves and the sun stands still, all the appearances are saved better than with eccentrics and epicycles, is to speak well; there is no danger in this, and it is sufficient for mathematicians. But to want to affirm that the sun really is fixed in the center of the heavens and only revolves around itself (i. e., turns upon its axis ) without traveling from east to west, and that the earth is situated in the third sphere and revolves with great speed around the sun, is a very dangerous thing, not only by irritating all the philosophers and scholastic theologians, but also by injuring our holy faith and rendering the Holy Scriptures false. For Your Reverence has demonstrated many ways of explaining Holy Scripture, but you have not applied them in particular, and without a doubt you would have found it most difficult if you had attempted to explain all the passages which you yourself have cited.

Secondly, I say that, as you know, the Council [of Trent] prohibits expounding the Scriptures contrary to the common agreement of the holy Fathers. And if Your Reverence would read not only the Fathers but also the commentaries of modern writers on Genesis, Psalms, Ecclesiastes and Joshua, you would find that all agree in explaining literally [ad litteram] that the sun is in the heavens and moves swiftly around the earth, and that the earth is far from the heavens and stands immobile in the center of the universe. Now consider whether in all prudence the Church could encourage giving to Scripture a sense contrary to the holy Fathers and all the Latin and Greek commentators. Nor may it be answered that this is not a matter of faith, for if it is not a matter of faith from the point of view of the subject matter [ex parte objecti], it is still on the part of the ones who have spoken [ex parte dicentis].It would be just as heretical to deny that Abraham had two sons and Jacob twelve, as it would be to deny the virgin birth of Christ, for both are declared by the Holy Ghost through the mouths of the prophets and apostles.

Thirdly, I say that if there were a true demonstration that the sun was in the center of the universe and the earth in the third sphere, and that the sun did not travel around the earth but the earth circled the sun, then it would be necessary to proceed with great caution in explaining the passages of Scripture which seemed contrary, and we would rather have to say that we did not understand them than to say that something was false which has been demonstrated. But I do not believe that there is any such demonstration; none has been shown to me. It is not the same thing to show that the appearances are saved by assuming that the sun really is in the center and the earth in the heavens. I believe that the first demonstration might exist, but I have grave doubts about the second, and in a case of doubt, one may not depart from the Scriptures as explained by the holy Fathers. I add that the words "the sun also riseth and the sun goeth down, and hasteneth to the place where he ariseth, etc." were those of Solomon, who not only spoke by divine inspiration but was a man wise above all others and most learned in human sciences and in the knowledge of all created things, and his wisdom was from God. Thus it is not too likely that he would affirm something which was contrary to a truth either already demonstrated, or likely to be demonstrated. And if you tell me that Solomon spoke only according to the appearances, and that it seems to us that the sun goes around when actually it is the earth which moves, as it seems to one on a ship that the beach moves away from the ship, I shall answer that one who departs from the beach, though it looks to him as though the beach moves away, he knows that he is in error and corrects it, seeing clearly that the ship moves and not the beach. But with regard to the sun and the earth, no wise man is needed to correct the error, since he clearly experiences that the earth stands still and that his eye is not deceived when it judges that the moon and stars move. And that is enough for the present.

I salute Your Reverence and ask God to grant you every happiness.

(assuming the Bible was even read, which largely was forbidden anyway).

It was only the translation into the vernacular that was forbidden. Any scholar worth his salt could and did read the scriptures in Latin.

Yet they are supposed to speak for the Bible when it suits the TE perspective?

They show what an unbiased literal interpretation of these passages say.

Everyone understands the geocentrism argument. But how is it supposed to be convincing in this form?[/quote]They also show how the literal interpretation can be wrong and that when science shows a literal interpretation to be wrong, we need to look for other ways to read these passages.