I Recall Very Well How I Thought Heliocentrism Was Proven in High School

Chat Comments in a Feed to a Video by Sungenis · I Recall Very Well How I Thought Heliocentrism Was Proven in High School

Ninth grade or tenth grade, I think ninth grade.

My physics replacement teacher was an Evangelical, unlike the main teacher of sciences who was an is an Atheist.

I was confident in asking that he would not introduce Methodological Atheism.

I'm not quite sure about the question, but I think it involved the possibility of angelic movers. And I am very certain the Evangelical did not in principle deny that possibility.

So, we had been discussing the Newtonian view of how orbits work. I was very clear that of that was all there was, and I hadn't yet heard the Sungenis theory to the opposite effect, Earth would have to orbit the Sun.

My answer didn't involve the Sungenis theory, namely that the Earth is held in place by the dynamo effect of a rotating universe, my question in response involved angelic movers. If I hadn't yet read how St. Thomas held this to be true, I had read a St. Thomas huge aficionado, in his world building in a chapter of the Silmarillion, giving this kind of explanation to the Sun and the Moon.

And the answer this Evangelical gave was,

"the orbits we can calculate from the masses and this mechanism fit the orbits we observe."

For the moment I was satisfied. If the syntax and semantics fit the paradigms and the rules of the case uses, that means the paradigms and the rules that apply actually are correct. "None the less" is a translation from "nihilo minus" and while "minus" has no case, being an adverb, it is also a comparative with according to the rules an option of referent of comparison in either "quam" plus same case or in ablative and an option of measure of comparison (like "ego quam matrem capite maior eram" = "I was taller than my mother by one head" — she died since, and may have been shorter since we checked), which is (if it exists at all) in the ablative. "nihilo" and "capite" are ablatives, so, it fits. Why not do sciences like one does grammar?

Now, there is just one little problem with this answer, as I discovered much later in the process (very short, within c. 24 h.) of becoming Heliocentric (it could have been within the following week too).

How do we know the masses? They are deduced from the orbits. And they are deduced from the orbits on the condition of us knowing that the orbits result, via gravitation and inertia, from the masses (and also initial speeds).

So, let's take three celestial bodies or supposed such (I would now not consider Earth as celestial). Earth. Jupiter. Ganymede.

		Earth		Jupiter		Ganymede
Mean radius		6371.0 km		69 911 km		2634.1 km
Surface area		510 072 000 km2		6.1469×1010 km2		8.72×107 km2
Volume		1.08321×1012 km3		1.4313×1015 km3		7.66×1010 km3
Mass		5.972168×1024 kg		1.8982×1027 kg		1.4819×1023 kg
Mean density		5.513 g/cm3		1.326 g/cm3		1.936 g/cm3

Polar, Equatorial radius are observable, Mean radius, Surface area, Volume, calculable from these observations. No problem.

Mass and Mean density are observable for small objects. Mass, put it on scales. Mean density, get it to displace an equal volume of water to measure its volume, and you have the volume, then divide the mass by that. Voilà, you have got the mean density.

Picture what kind of entity could actually do that to objects that are part of or at least (with Earth) surrounded by the Solar System. God? Sure. Angels? If God permitted. Men? No way, if Hell freezes over.

You can't put Earth and Ganymede on scales.

You also don't derive the mass from a simple volume to density calculation, since there is no mean density common to all planets or all planets of a certain type. That Jupiter would have a lower density than Earth, as being gaseous, was foreseeable. But that Ganymede would have a mean density only slightly higher than that of Jupiter, and way lower than that of Earth, well, that's not foreseeable. The Moon is also much denser than Ganymede, by 3.344 g/cm³. So, no. The densities don't follow from surface materials which are the observable parts of the materials, and then the masses from volume times density. Nope. The densities follow from mass divided by volume, and mass follows from orbital characteristics, and this happens on the assumption that orbital characteristics are purely mechanical results of inertia and graviation, and both of these follow from mass.

The argument of my teacher isn't circular simply as it stands, but also not uncircular, but incomplete. It becomes circular when completed by the question how we are able to know the masses.

Geocentrism is inerrant Scripture, as per Joshua 10. But Geocentrism isn't a mystical fact revealed only by Scripture being inerrant, Geocentrism is an observation we daily make. And which Heliocentrics daily reinterpret. Sun going around us each day, it's as inerrant, but also as natural a knowledge, as lions roaring.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Victoria
23.XII.2024

Romae sanctae Victoriae, Virginis et Martyris, quae, in persecutione Decii Imperatoris, cum esset desponsata Eugenio pagano et nec nubere vellet neque sacrificare, ideo, post multa facta miracula, quibus plurimas Deo Virgines aggregaverat, a carnifice percussa est gladio in corde, rogatu sui sponsi.

PS, for a reference of how Tolkien described things in his legendarium, i e in fiction, the thing I was familiar with back when I posed the question:

Solar System, Dark and Light in Middle-earth
December 4, 2024 | elffriendyt
https://elffriendyt.com/index.php/2024/12/04/solar-system-dark-and-light-in-middle-earth/

PPS, on the debate between Robert Sungenis and Fuz Rana, there is a chat comment that says:

alex ojideagu

Andromeda is our closest Galaxy. It takes light over 2 Million years to Reach Earth

That distance is a conclusion from several different types of distance measure, one of which is annual parallax of star light, which is in turn a conclusion from Heliocentrism, which cannot be upheld as anywhere close to certain by a Geocentric who's consistent. I made a fun story about it in an essay more than two years ago: Have you heard the expression "von Neumann chain"? While not every argument I have about Geocentrism comes from the Distant Starlight problem, on 23.VIII.2001 when I went to the computer (library or cyber), I was a Young Earth Creationist as yet Heliocentric, but 24.VIII.2001, I had resolved the "distant starlight problem" by becoming Geocentric./HGL

PPPS, hearing the video, I come across this:

their “imagination was thus not properly a flat-earth cosmology; and it was geocentric only as regards the Sun, Moon, and certain stars.” (NoME, “Dark and Light”)

Well, not even the great Tolkien .... what we see each day is Sun, Moon and ALL stars and planets visible either to the naked eye or in telescopes turn around us. There is no reason why other stars should not turn around us, unless they are way beyond the visible universe and perhaps even in some separate creation. I think I am happy for Christopher Tolkien publishing The Silmarillion in 1973 (pardon, 1977) and Hostetter giving The Nature of Middle-earth only in 2021, way after my mind was already made up./HGL

PPPPS, feed of the Sungenis debate again:

alex ojideagu

Even in Islam they say Day has no time. The Earth is accepted to be 4 Billion years old by most Muslims

1) I am a Christian, I do not ask Muslims for advice on how to live or believe my Christianity.
2) In Islam, the "holy" book is the Quran, which very emphatically is not a history book, and I don't mean because it contains false history, I mean because history isn't even in focus, especially not consecutive history. A Sura about the Birth of Jesus will come later in the Quran than one featuring Jesus, or what's supposed to be Jesus, simply because it is shorter, contains fewer ayas or fewer words. In the Bible, Genesis comes before Exodus to Deuteronomy, that part before Joshua, that part before Judges, then a side step to Ruth, then the direct sequel of Judges in four books of Kings (or in some versions two of Samuel, two of Kings), and so on.
3) No chronological statements are made about either Creation or about the amount of time from Adam to Abraham. There are chronological statements in the Bible.
4) The Muslims who are Young Earth Creationists, specifically Young Earth, usually hold this stance as a loan from the Bible.

"alex" was basically reasoning "Muslims are more fanatical than Christians, but Muslims aren't fanatical about Quran chronology, so, what an absurdity of a Christian to be fanatical of Bible chronology" ... the difference is, there actually is a Bible chronology and there isn't a Quran chronology. It's not a question about being more or being less fanatical about basically the same thing, it's a question of having different things to be fanatic about. Or otherwise observant. Being observant isn't actually fanaticism, but people like "alex" like to make that connection./HGL

PPPPPS, listening to another video by Sungenis, it is very clear that, following Einstein, he imagines that the enormous size of the universe outside the Solar System is proven, that Einstein has the solution. It is also obvious that when he answers Trent Horn, that Trent Horn is more answering my theory of aether rotating around earth, dragging both Sun and stars and Coriolis forces along with it, and either reading it without understanding it, or getting it from people who anyway don't read very well when confronted with world views other than their own. People who instantaneously go "something something" when they are confronted with a term that they do not understand instead of trying to figure out what the author meant by the term from how he is using it. I have defined aether as a) the locus of vectors as well as the medium of electromagnetism, b) the medium of space, i e material objects are placed in it, c) differring from normal matter by absence of mass and of particles in its own composition.

This is not the theory of Einstein, and it allows for c to apply as a speed limit for travel THROUGH the aether. Not through empty space coordinates./HGL