Geocentrism and Young Earth Creationism among TLM Traditionalist Catholics?
  • francis
    Posts: 10,799
    Liam... that is too cryptic a statement for my simple way of thinking.

    (Hayel!... this thread has been a fun excersize in keyboard typing and yall have expanded my universe)
  • How are the Saints experts in the same way that we might consider Hawking a scientific expert? They lived holy lives; they were not direct and convenient conduits to divine Revelation on every topic known to man, including the scientific explanations of our universe.

    If Aquinas were not a Saint, I would consider his philosophy no more or less truthful.
    Thanked by 3Elmar CHGiffen Liam
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=bZfFdCknTQc

    Visualisation of data from the current GAIA project showing both stellar parallax and proper motion modelled on current observations. Below the video is a link to the data.

    Stellar parallax is being observed, currently, far past 300 light years now. The old number was, I'm guessing, based on the limits of precision achieved by the Hipparcos mission from the early 1990s, which got us parallax observations out to 300 ly. The GAIA satellite is doing way, way, way better than that - the upper limit is projected to be around 30,000 light years once we collate a few more years of data. The first 22 months of GAIA data already gave us parallax measurements out to 6500 ly, and combined with infrared surveys gives us, right now, accurate measurements for four times that distance - https://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Gaia/Gaia_starts_mapping_our_galaxy_s_bar , and we're just getting started.
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  • Liam
    Posts: 5,080
    Francis

    I was pointing you to a non-Google search engine* that can, like other search engines, offer you many sources on the difference. It was a play on the now-old "Google is your friend" or https://lmgtfy.com/ or similar such. I wasn't going to choose a specific explanation as exemplary; don't have the time or inclination for that here for now, and folks can do that for themselves.

    * https://duckduckgo.com/
  • Elmar
    Posts: 505
    Full ack., Schönbergian.
    What makes me worry:not that people proclaim Revelation to be more important than scientific knowledge - I mean, how could any committed Christian disagree - but that tendency of relativism against expertise and consensus in science, while being very outspoken against any relativism in religious matters.
    The result (we can see that around us) is that Christians are seen as hypocrites, doing lip service to open-mindednes, but actually dogmatic on everything - and therefore not to be taken seriously. And it's our own fault, not the one of the 'evil world'.
    This efficiently undermines what we are asked to do: put all our energy in spreading the Gospel among the peoples.
  • Elmar,

    We have some established information from (for example) the light emitted by elements when they are heated.

    On the other hand, you're quite right that we don't know for certain how our planetary system formed as a planetary system. We have hypotheses which haven't been contradicted by information collected, for example.

    There may be other procedures which solidify a claim as belonging within the realm of scientific knowledge, but falsifiability is fundamental to the scientific method.
  • Yes, Elmar, and Revelation is not a source of answers for third-grade math problems and anything else under the sun.

    It is the most important and unerring source we have on what is honestly a very limited scope - metaphysics and spirituality. It's a mistake to try and extend that beyond its rightful purpose.
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  • dad29
    Posts: 2,229
    The fossil record, with fossils of simpler species in earlier geological strata and more complex species in later strata, as well as shared DNA sequences among species support the theory that life on earth began in simple forms and evolved into more complex forms through gene mutations in offspring and the effect of the environment naturally selecting the best adapted individuals for survival to pass on their genes.


    Or it could be that God created V2.0, 2.1, 2.5, 3.0, etc., right?
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  • Liam
    Posts: 5,080
    We're just the beta version, btw.

    It's feature, not a bug.
    Thanked by 2CHGiffen dad29
  • simpler species in earlier geological strata and more complex species in later strata


    How does one define "simpler" or "more complex", for the purposes of this conversation?

    Amphibians, for example, have two developed breathing systems and the timing mechanism to replace one with the other. That sounds remarkably complex to me.

    Various kinds of bees are alleged to have developed language (of a sort), so this makes them more complex or less complex than those who managed to get everything done (including reproducing) with nothing but accident and reflex?

    Then there are human beings, who "developed" the internet, gossip, the capacity to sin either gravely or less gravely.
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  • GerardH
    Posts: 456
    @francis Just to briefly engage with the article you've just posted:

    You've called for scientific and empirical data. This is hardly a source that meets those requirements. Tbh it just looks like you're sharing any article with a headline that supports your argument.

    What information it does reference - the Cosmic Microwave Background, the orbital planes of other stellar and galactic systems, and so on - rely on Newtonian and later physics to make sense in the first place.

    I think what we're seeing here is two different definitions of geocentricism. (1) is that the Sun and everything physically revolves around the Earth. (2) is that the Earth (which revolves around the Sun which revolves around the centre of the Milky Way) seems to be remarkably placed, and that there are a few alignments which are so improbable as to seem designed (a moon of the perfect proportion and distance to mask the sun during an eclipse fits in this boat.

    (1) is the generally understood definition of "geocentricism". It is categorically false. The Sun couldn't possibly be revolving around a fixed Earth, as it is orders of magnitude more massive than the Earth. Newtons laws of gravity have been proven time and again (until Einsteinian relativity comes into play). There is no other system of mechanics proposed which stands up to testing.

    (2) is NOT the generally understood definition of "geocentricism". Yes, there are many things about the Earth which are remarkable and seem to defy probability. This is where Christians could praise God for the wonders of creation. It is also where Christians and all people (with our God-given intellect) can continue to search for a mechanism we've missed which perhaps produced such coincidence. But it hardly rocks the scientific consensus on the position and movement of the Earth in the universe.
  • MarkB
    Posts: 1,076
    To kind of get back to the original point of this thread, can anyone speak from experience about FSSP communities and priests? Do they tend to be young earthers? Fr. Ripperger, for example, is. Is he representative or anomalous?
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  • tomjaw
    Posts: 2,770
    @MarkB I cannot think of an example of an FSSP priest spending too much time arguing with modern atheist led view of science. My experience is limited to England, Scotland and Switzerland.
    In England many Catholic homeschooled students are using the US based science textbooks, "Exploring Creation with..." This is o.k. if they are doing a distance US High school diploma. But I recommend Catholic parents should use the International GCSE books, it only takes a couple of minutes to clarify what "Theory" means. Many of the state approved biology books are also pretty vague and hardly dogmatic about Evolution. The Physics course I teach did not have an astronomy section until recently and the section added is also vague, that it does not contradict a young Universe, interestingly it does explicitly contradict a geocentric universe.

    In the U.K. we have a strong pro-evolution group https://www.faith.org.uk but a number of scientists have actively attacked their ideas on Evolution and have converted many to an Intelligent design based understanding of creation. The key groups that are part of this movement are http://www.daylightorigins.com and of course the http://kolbecenter.org Hugh Owen is regularly invited to give lectures in parish halls across Great Britain and Ireland. So in someways the Creationist movement is equally popular among O.F. Catholics.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,799
    Gerard

    The reason I bring forward the less known data is simply to give it a hearing I suppose. I have no stakes in any position actually... (read scripture from Job above... I believe GOD created the universe, and maybe this CMB thing is one of Gods big jokes on godless science? I mean, it took science until my lifetime to finally take a picture of the known universe!) Just presenting data that has been brought forward by the experts over the years. I am curious to hear the experts on both sides. As YOU see it, is earth “remarkably placed”? Or, is the “axis of evil” just a universal coincidence?
  • francis
    Posts: 10,799
    @shonbergian

    There is a universal difference between Hawking (who speaks untruth) https://www.rzim.org/read/just-thinking-magazine/stephen-hawking-and-god and the Saints.
  • Francis,

    An ad hominem against Hawking (wrong as he may be) is not an answer to my question.
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  • francis
    Posts: 10,799
    It would be Ad Hominem if Hawkin’s religion didn’t interfere with his science, but unfortunately, he ties the two together. Hawkins should never have ever talked about God in any of his scientific papers, books or theories. He is totally out of his sphere, so to speak, at that point.
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  • Francis,

    Whether or not you or I like Hawking, he is widely respected as a physicist. My question pertained to what made the Saints, purely based on their sainthood, experts on wide and varied topics. Last I checked, we weren't exactly treating Joan of Arc as a master of military strategy like we do Sun Tzu.
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  • francis
    Posts: 10,799
    I was simply saying: don’t waste your time reading nonsense science when you could be reading things that are true and actually benefit your eternal existence. I neither like nor dislike Hawking as a person. I don’t know anything about him except what he has written.

    As for Joan and Sun comparison, I will let you know my views on that soon, but we shouldn’t do that on this thread. PM me.
  • I've probably counted equal or more biblical literalists in diocesan communities than TLM, and with the FSSP communities probably being the more "fundamentalist" than ICKSP. However, the YEC even in FSSP is dying pretty quickly. Again, just an observation..no actual data or science to back me up. :) On a related note, there was a well-learned and influencial SSPX priest who was attacked by the Kolbe Center, who is in this lovely SSPX podcast:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Da5aRKkSIc
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  • we weren't exactly treating Joan of Arc as a master of military strategy like we do Sun Tzu

    I think we enter dangerous territory when we speak lightly of the saints. In other threads we've seen posts that mock the intellect of the Cure of Ars, or speaking disparagingly of Pope Pius X. At the very least, we ought to be respectful of those who have earned the eternal Beatific Vision - the only thing we are here for, at the end of the day - even if we respectfully disagree with a position they may have held.

    To your point, saints are not infallible. Saints backed antipopes. Saints have denied Christ three times. Saints have made mistakes. On the other hand, Saints are also privy to higher councils than you or I, and the ways of God are often inscrutable.

    As for me, I'd rather have a Joan leading my army than a Sun Tzu. Just saying.
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  • jcr
    Posts: 138
    My comment regarding rejection of unsupported hypotheses was only intended to point out that when a particular idea fails in getting the necessary supporting data it will have to be modified (as in the natural selection hypothesis that, absent the expected fossil data was modified to one that assumes the idea that higher forms evolved from lower forms, but that it happened in fits and spurts rather than in a more long and drawn manner) so as to make further investigation possible. Any scientist who believes a hypothesis is leading to a worthwhile end will want to continue the study and a modified or closely related hypothesis may gain the support that the idea is worth. I also do not intend to malign any good work by conscientious scientists. In science, as in the fine arts, funding is often provided on the basis of things having little to do with the published intentions of the funding agency. I think this fact is important to keep in mind when learning about new reported research. Social "causes" often have more to do with funding music projects than the quality of the project itself.

    There is a fellow who has produced a great deal of Young Earth material claiming that it is scientific and logical. His name is Bob Ducot (I am not sure of this spelling) and he has a daily (M-F) on the Crawford Broadcasting Network (Evangelical). I have heard him make some of his arguments on the radio, but I haven't checked any of his supporting documentation out as I don't think I can share but little of his position.
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  • tomjaw
    Posts: 2,770
    “Ah, well, I’m curious to know if Adam and Eve never existed
    where did Original Sin come from?”...Richard Dawkins to George Cardinal Pell
    https://www.remnantnewspaper.com/Archives/2012-0415-mjm-dawkins-pell.htm

    I wonder how many here that believe in the theory of Evolution, would answer Richard Dawkins question.
    Thanked by 1Elmar
  • The theory of evolution does not deny the existence of an original human being, it requires it as a mutation from some previous hominid. So the question falls.
    Thanked by 1Elmar
  • I'm not trying to speak lightly of saints, Incardination. But we cannot draw a comparison between them and scholars or experts unless they themselves were such in their lifetimes. Should we take their word infallibly in areas which have nothing to do with their beatification? We can take much from St. Peter's life, but we obviously shouldn't follow his denial of Christ as some sort of imperative. Rather, we must take everything they said and did in context to learn proper lessons and more closely understand their relationship to God.

    I would rather have Joan leading my army, too. But if we're seeking to understand military strategy on an academic level, she wouldn't be my first choice. There have been great popes - pope saints, even - without the academic rigour of a Ratzinger. I don't think it diminishes their importance if we choose our sources based on the situation.

    Francis, I don't read science to benefit my eternal existence. That's what philosophy and spirituality is for. Science is about a systematic understanding of our universe, and that is a niche that the Church has stayed away from. I see no reason we cannot accept the presence of both.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,799
    @shonbergian
    I love the study of science, astronomy, and greatly appreciate the natural world. God made it so we could enjoy it. In my view, the scientific community has become less and less a science based entity and more and more promotes a Godless, or perhaps a “minus God” attitude that leans away from truth and into speculation. (Hence, my mention of Hawking blending religion and science) E.g. a small example, naming the eliptic alignment the “axis of evil”. How can the position of radiation be dubbed evil? Science for me is no longer a “systematic understanding of the universe” as you say it is. The church did not stay away from science only until recently, and that is when science evolved into its own religion. Just my take.

    After that, we can then begin to talk about indoctrinization, new age, earth worship (gaia) and the spin goes on.

    Gaia - Wikipedia
    In Greek mythology, Gaia also spelled Gaea is the personification of the Earth and one of the Greek primordial deities. Gaia is the ancestral mother of all life: the ...
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  • I may be starting to understand your position more, Francis. Thanks for your patience.

    The Church has indeed supported scientific inquiry, but it does not make scientific proclamations as it does theological ones. Also, it has never been concerned with scientific minutiae as it is with theological minutiae. There have been countless debates, contradictory arguments put forth and settled, and heresies declared centred around the exact nature of Jesus Christ's existence and the composition of His soul. You'd never see that with precise scientific topics like CMBR or string theory.
  • Schönbergian, thanks for your clarification. Mine was more of a general observation, and largely I agree with what you say regarding seeking knowledge from one versed in the particular discipline. (I also think I was quite clear about the fallibility of the Saints).

    That said, I also think we have to at least consider what they may say on a subject they've weighed in on, even if ultimately we might choose to disagree.

    From the opposite side, I think sometimes we tend to give too much credence to those with "scientific" credentials or advanced degrees. Scientists and geniuses are just as fallible - even in their chosen discipline. Sad to say, the character of Dr. Robert Stadler (Atlas Shrugged) is often visible in today's society - a scientist who truly seeks truth will find God, but too many "scientists" today have an agenda driven by social causes, by pride, etc.. I'm sure that some of those fabricating data to advance "climate change" truly believed that they were somehow serving Science... but that doesn't speak to their level of knowledge if they are willing to so pervert the very foundation of their own discipline.

    I'm not arguing for one "side" of this discussion or the other. I'm merely pointing out reference to the Saints is not necessarily misplaced, and over-reliance on the word of "scientists" does a disservice to seeking truth / knowledge.
  • Schonbergian has said, correctly, that the Church, historically, has been concerned with theological 'minutiae', not scientific ones. This is true and should ever be so. The few times that the Church has weighed in on scientific minutiae it has been embarrassingly wrong - to wit, the Galileo affair, for which the Church finally made apology five hundred years too late.
  • tomjaw
    Posts: 2,770
    @MJO St Robert Bellamine would I think be quite disappointed with that apology. It seems that the Church has apologised for what it has been unjustly accused of. A more accurate synopsis can be found here, including vital background information, https://archive.org/details/The.Devils.Delusion/page/n225
  • So I leave for a week, and all the exciting drama on the forum all of a sudden pops up. Figures.

    As far as this topic goes, two groups of people I know qualify as Geocentrists. One is a family which runs the music program of a church I’ve attended in the past; they’ve always struck me as of above-average intelligence. The other group is the Missionaries of Saint John the Baptist, and woo boy- those guys invented the pugnacious homily, let me tell you. (Incidentally, I think both groups are Feeneyites, if that matters.)

    Call it the Feyerabend in me, but I’ve always found this topic to be a prime opportunity to practice charity to those who disagree with us. There’s enough enlightened reasoning on both sides to merit hearing each of them out.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,799
    Schonbergian has said, correctly, that the Church, historically, has been concerned with theological 'minutiae', not scientific ones. This is true and should ever be so. The few times that the Church has weighed in on scientific minutiae it has been embarrassingly wrong - to wit, the Galileo affair, for which the Church finally made apology five hundred years too late.
    I think that apology was a mistake... look at the incoming data.
  • MarkB
    Posts: 1,076
    Regarding Galileo, he didn't have sufficient evidence to demonstrate conclusively that the Earth moves. He had some cockamamie idea that the ocean tides were caused by Earth's rotation, but he was widely ridiculed for that idea. Kepler was correct to suggest that the tides had something to do with the Moon, even though Kepler didn't understand gravity.

    So the Church didn't -- and didn't need to -- apologize for being wrong about the science since in Galileo's time the scientific discoveries weren't able to confirm the Earth's motion. Galileo was asserting more than he could prove.

    It was appropriate for Pope John Paul II to comment in 1992 that the Church's theologians in the Galileo affair had erred by thinking that Scripture was intending to teach something about the physical world's structure and for not distinguishing carefully enough between the words of Scripture and its interpretation. Yet even people like Cardinal Bellarmine realized that difference and, while prudently waiting for definitive proof of Earth's movement before abandoning traditional interpretation of the Bible, had proposed that if proof ever were available then the Church should be prepared to say that the Bible doesn't reveal nor teach about a stationary earth.
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  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,973
    I think what really got Galileo into trouble was contradicting the book of Joshua.

    Joshua, 10: 12-13 "Then spake Joshua... Sun stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon... So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hastened not to go down about a whole day."


    In order to stop the sun, the sun had to move. This meant Ptolemy was wrong and Copernicus was right. The Church said otherwise, proving the Church should stay out of that which it does not know.
  • MarkB
    Posts: 1,076
    Church authorities were fine with the Copernican model being discussed and taught as a theoretical model. Where Galileo ran afoul was in asserting the Copernican model as fact and suggesting, as someone not trained in theology, how the Church should interpret Scripture differently to accommodate the assertion of the Copernican model's reality. The Church had had enough of private interpretations of Scripture in the aftermath of the Protestant Reformation, and the concern to safeguard the Church's authority and unity motivated the response to Galileo.

    The Church was merely unwilling to accept an interpretation of biblical passages such as the one cited by CharlesW that departed from the tradition of a stationary Earth unless and until there was sufficient physical/scientific evidence and demonstration to prove that tradition's literalistic interpretation was wrong.

    Again, Cardinal Bellarmine was open to the possibility that the Bible wasn't teaching geocentrism and that passages seeming to teach a moving Sun and stationary Earth might have to be understood differently. However, at the time of Galileo there wasn't sufficient scientific evidence to compel that change.

    The Church was far more intelligent, wise, prudent and reasonable than the popular myth about Galileo's trial gives her credit for. We shouldn't retroject our current knowledge and standards and approach to biblical studies back into Galileo's time.
  • tomjaw
    Posts: 2,770
    St Robert Bellamine warned Galileo that starting sentences with how scripture was wrong was dangerous (we should remember St Robert had someone burnt! after a fair trial). Also Galileo was wrong because we don't have a heliocentric universe... Any way his house arrest was actually in a palace!

    I would like to hear a scientific explanation of the miracle of the sun 13 October 1917 10,000's of people saw this including many non-Catholics. What is very interesting is the sceptics saw something very usual, but some Catholics saw nothing unusual! I note that the criticism has more claims than the 3 main claims made by the witnesses.
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  • I would like to hear a scientific explanation of the miracle of the sun 13 October 1917
    Sorry tomjaw, but why? As a (sort of) scientist, I believe in miracles, and not that everything happens by mechanical cause and effect. At the same time I believe that simple cause and effect is far more common, and that miracles only happen for a sufficient reason.
    You are right to point out that Galileo was quite gently treated. Was his offence not mainly his caricature of opponents in the Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, under the nickname Simplicius?
  • tomjaw
    Posts: 2,770
    The Creation of matter out of nothing is miraculous, life is miraculous, the creation of Adam (out of nothing) in God's likeness is also a miracle.

    I do not see the point of hiding God's infinite power in a million year evolutionary series of changes that in no way accounts for the Soul, and of course Original Sin. God taking two apes is just silly, if one also accepts that God created all matter, Protons, neutrons and electrons and all the rules that these 3 particles follow to make up the c.90 naturally occurring elements (atoms), in the few moments prior to the big bang.

    I may be biased as a chemist but I think the creation of the periodic table as the greatest thing that God has done. N.B. Life etc. would be impossible without Elements (different types of atom). I would think it fair that a mathematician may think that the mathematical equations underling and controlling creation (the Universe) to be a greater achievement!
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  • whew, a thread of this length really works against the idea of reading before posting

    but this question was asked early on >> Are sickness and death consequences of sin or part of God's plan from the beginning?

    Maybe that's a yes. The two are not mutually exclusive.
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,080
    Well, if this board is anecdotally indicative, the answer to the original question is: It may tend that way....
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  • I understood, from my Thomistic training, such as it was, that human physical immortality prior to the Fall was a preternatural gift. Death in the animal kingdom, as such, then, does not seem to contradict this special exemption.
  • The three preternatural gifts were (if memory serves) immortality, impassibility, and infused knowledge. Immortality was freedom from death; impassibility was freedom from suffering; infused knowledge was the knowledge God granted Adam regarding the natural order.

    The way impassibility was described to us was that "if Adam stubbed his toe, he would have felt no pain."

    We were taught that Adam and Eve would not have experienced sickness, and once the test was done, would have been taken alive into heaven without experiencing death... but that the first two preternatural gifts were taken away and the third was subject to the human condition (memory loss) when they were exiled from the Garden of Eden.
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  • dad29
    Posts: 2,229
    The three preternatural gifts were (if memory serves) immortality, impassibility, and infused knowledge. Immortality was freedom from death; impassibility was freedom from suffering; infused knowledge was the knowledge God granted Adam regarding the natural order.


    So long as we are THIS far from the original question, here's another question: was Mary, the Mother of God, endowed with these preternatural gifts, too? Certainly immortality....why not impassibility and infused knowledge?
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  • Pope Pius XII, in Munificentissimus Deus, his November 1, 1950, declaration of the dogma of the Assumption of Mary :-
    this feast shows, not only that the dead body of the Blessed Virgin Mary remained incorrupt, but that she gained a triumph out of death, her heavenly glorification after the example of her only begotten Son, Jesus Christ . . .
  • SalieriSalieri
    Posts: 3,177
    Interesting, Stimson, that you mention some people whom you believe to be Feeneyites in connexion with these questions; the only people I know who are ardent supporters of YEC (I don't know about Geocentism) are also Feeneyites.
  • I am learning so much from this strange thread. The Church is much less coherent and consistent than I always imagined. Certainly incapable of the 'zombie-like obedience' that was the general view of the protestant-secular atmosphere I spent most of my life around. Disobedience is perhaps a predominant characteristic. (This thought spinning of of Feeneyism, which I had to look up on wikipedia).
  • Elmar
    Posts: 505
    Wow, so many interesting lines of discussion in this thread sice I passed by for the last time ... I'll just refrain from weighing in on my favorite 'bias topic' (physics) ad grab this one [tomjaw]:
    the creation of Adam (out of nothing) in God's likeness is also a miracle
    To me, that is IS the miracle!
    Rather than any apparently fine-tuned aspects of nature, like elements, elemetary particles, the structure of the universe, or 'unexplainable' healings etc. etc.
    Miraculous as they may appear, there is always the possibility that one day we can explain some phenomenon that appeared unexplainable, therefore 'miraculous', to earlier generations. Physics and astronomy are ahead, chemistry a bit behind, biology more so and medecine even farther, but it is the same story over and over again.

    Anyone surprised that 'life sciences' tend to see human life (as life in general), however complex and fascinating, as ultimatively meaningless - rather than "God's likeness"? How could science get grasp of meaning anyway?
    It is Revelation - not science - that tells us that life of man matters to God.
    This will not change even when/if evolution of species (including man) and the start of the universe with a big bang out of 'nothing' (in the physical, not philosophical sense) become undisputed theories of how the material world works.
    Thanked by 2MarkB tomjaw
  • francis
    Posts: 10,799
    Well, after 135 posts, no one has gone on record to say whether

    the earth is “remarkably placed” in the universe or, is the “axis of evil” just a universal coincidence? As I understand it, there are two 'lines' that criss cross the universe and where they intersect is earth. Is that a correct way to say it?
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  • the earth is “remarkably placed” in the universe or, is the “axis of evil” just a universal coincidence? As I understand it, there are two 'lines' that criss cross the universe and where they intersect is earth. Is that a correct way to say it?


    If that indeed is what the data shows us then of course, we must deal with it! I have no issue understanding the earth to be utterly unique, and for there to be signs of it somewhere in creation. Indeed this is where the creator of the vast universe established man in his own image and entered creation in the womb of the perfect Virgin. That being said, not every unsolved question is a sign, and if we find a naturalistic explanation for this, I am perfectly open to that as well. They are not mutually exclusive.

    The thing is, I do not accept that the universe is less than 5 or 10k years old. That appears to be part and parcel of geocentrism among some, though clearly not all.