Infant Death and Sacred Parenting: An Interview
Originally published at Catholic Sistas
I have a friend I’d like you to meet because she understands humanity at a depth many of us will never come to know in our lifetimes, and she has a message.
Tammy Ruiz is a perinatal loss nurse, a medical professional who assists parents as they do the unimaginable – perform a lifetime of “sacred parenting” in a brief moment, and then say good-bye to a dearly loved newborn baby.
Everyday Tammy works with parents who have suffered the deaths of their baby in the course of pregnancy or soon after birth, some of them live brief, treasured lives. She and a few hundred colleagues across the world tend to the hundreds of thousands of bereaved parents who need this type of care each year. She cares not only for the child, but for the parents and the whole family. In addition, she instructs other medical professionals, and promotes the development of perinatal loss programs around the world. I had the opportunity to ask her some questions.
What is a Typical Day Like?
She begins her day like many of us, checking messages and returning inquiries, but the nature of her inquiries is something special. She oversees several programs, a support group for grieving parents, the burial process of infants, and referrals to other bereavement resources. It’s not uncommon, however, for her to get urgent messages from sobbing parents, “I’m calling from far away, and I just found out my baby will die. You took care of my sister’s baby and I don’t know who else to call. Please help me.” When she gets these calls, she goes from working her way through inquiries to pouring her whole self into another person’s suffering. You see, this part of her duty.
On any day, it is the norm to have at least one family with an “expected death at upcoming birth” situation. Tammy helps parents as they grieve these deaths, both emotionally and logistically. She goes to Labor and Delivery to help prepare for the birth, and facilitates every detail from time management during the brief life, to selecting the tiny clothing, to arranging for the burial. Sometimes, the baby has already died and she helps the parents prepare for stillbirth.
She is usually the one to take the baby from the room after he or she dies, and later in preparation for burials, she is the one who checks consent forms, retrieves the babies from the histology lab, and lovingly dresses them for burial. The babies are bundled individually, she says, often with mementos given to them by their families.
What Advice Do You Give Parents of Young Children?
It’s more than just the adults who suffer grief, there are often small children in the families too. Tammy says that parents are unprepared to guide their small children through the grieving process, and can feel as if they have failed to protect them from from pain and suffering. “Protecting children from pain is impossible,” she reminds us, and “the task needs to be seen as accompanying them through the experience.”
She believes it is best to tell children the simple truth, even if the answer is “I don’t know.” Parents should let children see genuine grief responses, let them be physically present to witness the dynamic transition from life to death, and let them hold their deceased sibling if it can be done in a visually gentle manner. Let them take pictures, let them name their sibling, let them mourn the loss of the big-brother or big-sister role they anticipated, especially for the youngest surviving sibling. In addition, she warns against using the word “lost” to describe what happened to the baby as this can frighten, even more than death, a small child. She says to tell them, again, the truth – the baby died.
What is Sacred Parenting?
In the video at the end, which has been seen around the world as both Catholic and non-Catholic hospitals in other countries are establishing perinatal hospice programs, Tammy uses the term “sacred parenting” to describe the moments a couple spends with a dying newborn child. I asked her about the origin of this term.
There is, it seems, a ethereal quality to those special moments when time is suspended, and a lifetime of love transpires. The first couple she ever used this term with was a lovely faith-filled couple who had a daughter diagnosed with Thanatophoric (death-bringing) Dysplasia. She told them that she understood something she hadn’t grasped before, that when she got married, she considered the Sacrament of Marriage to be something the priest did to the man and woman. Much later, she realized that the priest is the Church’s witness to the Sacrament that the man and woman do to and with each other, in creating a marriage.
Similarly, when people come to the hospital, they request that things be done to them, in the hopes of recovery. Even when a baby is very sick, parents expect and hope for a recovery. However, when a baby has a condition that is unalterably life-ending, Tammy says she understands the process like she now understands weddings. Her job is to create a safe place for parents to be parents to their child, and to honor the ability of parents to perform parenting the way God intends it. “You are the sacred do-ers of this process, it is yours,” she affirms.
She remembers immediately after this couple’s daughter was born, the father baptized her and then gave the instructions for the child to be taken to her mother, against the standard neonatal care procedures. Tammy was able to honor the father’s wishes, and forty minutes later, when the baby died in his arms, he remarked, “She just left, I felt her spirit leave her.” His bond was that deep and sacred. A little girl’s Daddy connected with her soul, and cradled her into eternity. This kind of care and respect for parenting is missing in so many hospitals today.
How Can We Help?
So, the next time any of us get up in the morning thinking we have such a full and demanding day ahead, please take a minute as you sit down to log-on to your email accounts to say a prayer of gratitude for people like Tammy, and a prayer for fruitfulness in her efforts. Most of us won’t ever face a day like this as parents, but for those that do, professionals with such keen respect for humanity are a beacon in the world.
Each of us can show love by seeking out our friends whose children have died, and resist building the walls that too often get built out of our own fears. Send a card to arrive on a due date, or anniversary date to tell a friend you are thinking of her and her baby, acknowledge her on Mother’s Day, or donate bereavement books to your local hospital.
Please help to spread the word about these programs by sharing Tammy’s video, which she made herself with the help of friends (she’s the nurse in it). If you know someone who can help develop a program in your local hospital, Tammy is available for guidance through the contact information at the end. God bless you Tammy, you are an angel and a hero.
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- Pro-life blog buzz 9-4-12 | September 4, 2012
Another powerful piece. Thanks for highlighting this extraordinary ministry. And I want to let you know I have nominated you for two blog awards at http://godversations.wordpress.com/2012/08/24/wow-you-shouldnt-have/ . Follow the instructions there should you choose to accept
Many Blessing to you Stacy!!
Karen,
Thank you so much Karen! You are so sweet.
Geocentrism versus Heliocentrism
A letter from a reader
I am astonished, horrified, and utterly shocked that valuable column space on the pages of the Remnant has been sqandered on debating questions which have so long been uttely settled that asking them again (let alone pronouncing nonsense in sheer perverse defiance of the varifiable facts) is gravely irrational, to say the best, and positively scandalous (as in the sin of scandal) at the worst.
It is certainly a good and reparational thing that some couple of more sensible voices have also been allowed to weigh in on this (Mario Derksen, Adam Kolasinski), But the initial publishing of Hertz’s original article which started this (and that, without at least some editorial distance!) was uncalled for and unnecessary, to say nothing of being gravely embarrasing to the whole traditionalist cause.
(I can’t believe I am even having to debate this, but…) I have worked for over 16 years on the computer systems (radar, telemetry) which are used in tracking the missiles we fire out of Vandenberg Air Force Base here in California. Allow me to introduce you to a number which has significant relevance on many of the calculations that run on the missiles, and on those tracking computers, and therefore is used in the software running on them: 7.292115147X10-5
What is this number? It is the rotation rate of the earth in radians per second. (For the ease of those who don’t know, multiply that by 180 and divide by 3.1416… to get it in degrees per second, which is about 4.178074X10-3, and which in turn amounts to 360.9856 degrees per day (multiply the 4.178074X10-3 by 86400 seconds in a day).
For one thing, notice that the rate is non-zero If we use zero instead of that number and attempt to compute the course of the rocket, the range might be obligated to destroy a missile which is perfectly on course, or even worse, might fail to detect that a missile which is off course and on its way to landing on someone, so as to destroy it when necessary. Even a very small error could threaten people’s lives.
For another thing, notice the remaining “.9856″ degrees. It is just slightly less than one degree in excess of a complete circle. That excess represents the motion of the earth around the sun in a single day, such that the earth must turn that amount more than a circle in order to reach the same exact time of day. Divide the 360 degrees of a circle by the 365.2425 days in a true solar year (calendar years handle the “.2425″ by inserting a “February 29″ every fourth year, except three out of four century years), and that gets our “.9856″ degrees. Voila!
Another one (not form my work): Take a picture of night sky, not straight up, but as close to a 90 degree angle as possible (from space works the best) and then take a picture of the same part of the night sky six months later. What one gets from doing that is a beautiful stereoscopic picure of that portion of the sky in which the closest stars are noticably different in their locations relative to the more distant stars, just as a finger held before your face as you stare at a landscape will seem to be double. Not even all the most complicated Ptmolemian “epicycles” could explain let alone have anticipated that seeming “movement” of the near, but supposedly fixed stars.
Still another: Dr. Christian mentioned Foucault’s Pendulum and even discussed putting one on the South Pole, but this is unnecessary since if the earth were stationary, it wouldn’t matter where it is placed; it would just swing on one axis without ever changing so long as it swings undisturbed at all. That its motions would seem to be more complicated than one might expect ignores the basic fact that only the rotation of the earth on which it is mounted is what feeds all of its motions of any kind other than to swing on one axis indefinitely.
“Dr.” Benitz may have thought he could pull a fast on on us by hastily including “rotating systems” within his comments on Einstein’s relativity, as if there were no such thing as an objective standard of “rotation,” just as there really is no such thing as an objective standard of “linear motion,” but I am not going to let him get away with that one. The objectivity of rotational motion can be readily demonstrated by holding two pails of water (or hand dumbells). Stand still (whether on the ground or inside a vehicle steadily moving down a long straight highway at 70 mph, with the pails (or weights) in your hands, one in each, and let your arms flop where they will. Where are they? Hanging straight down. Now turn around as fast as you can (either way, makes no diffference), still holding the pails or weights, and still letting your arms flop as they will. When everything stabilizes, where are they? Sticking out to the sides! True zero state of rotation is therefore easy to define: true and objective rotation is zero when the centrifugal force is zero.
Still another: The diameter of the earth at the equator is larger than the diameter from Pole to Pole. This oblate, rather than spherical, shape of the earth reflects the centrifugal force on an earth-sized liquid body (most of the earth’s internal substance is liquid, magma) rotating at the rate of that number I use in my work.
I could go on and on, but it is interesting to see just how many ways the heliocentric model has continued to match many new findings which those who originally advocated it were thoroughly unaware of in their day (such as the oblate shape of the earth), whereas the geocentric model predicts contrary things unless it is further “tweaked” by adding additional epicycles etc. as the new facts come in. That should be enough, but I am barely getting started:
I accuse the geocentrists (both ancient and modern) of what I call (for lack of a better expression) “Scriptural flippancy.” My reference for this expression is C. S. Lewis’ “The Screwtape Letters,” in which (in Letter XI, last paragraph) he defines flippancy as being, from the tempter’s standpoint anyway, (in discussing all the sources of laughter) “the best of all. In the first place it is very economical. Only a clever human can make a real Joke about virtue, or indeed about anything else; any of them can be trained to talk as if virtue were funny. Among flippant people, the Joke is always assumed to have been made; no one actually makes it.”
In the pages of the Remnant, since this topic has come up, I have seen at least half a dozen times where some writer has claimed that “Scripture supports the geocentric scenario,” or words to that effect, however not one Scriptural verse or passage as ever been cited in support of such an extraordinary claim, nor can one be. (Doubt me? Go back and look!) Everyone just seems to have been taking it as proven that “Scripture supports geocentrism,” “Scripture supports geocentrism,” “Scripture supports geocentrism,” as if one were reciting a mantra, but no one anywhere has ever actually shown it.
The “literalist” six-24-hour-day creationist at least has a passage in the Bible (Genesis 1:1-2:4) which, on a cursory, hasty, and superficial reading anyway, might seem to support their claim (although closer and more careful reading of it shows that interpretation wrong, as St. Augustine pointed out), but the geocentrists (like the flat-earthers) have not a single verse which even seems to support them, not one! Such an attempt as to ascribe such geocentrical nonsense to Sacred Scripture is scholastically dishonest and gravely blasphemous, to say the least. I am horrified to see Pope Paul V stooping to such, literally on par with Paul VI imposing a synthetic new “Mass” and then having the gall to claim that it “restores” some ancient unknown practice.
Thankfully, every detail of the physical science of orbital mechanics, like that of all physical sciences, is by defintion intrinsically outside the scope of “Faith and Morals” where alone infalliblity is claimed, as defined by Vatican I. Therefore it does not matter what that pope said in a moment of silliness and foolishness. Interestingly, it was the Protestants of the day who were by far the most sympathetic to such words of the pope, not any Catholic. Perhaps that was an early example of ecumenism?
And what of what pathetically few “arguments” (non-Scriptural of course) as have been put forth to claim geocentrism? This is like shooting sitting ducks:
1) The incarnation. If the incarnation was supposed to be “evidence” of the earth being the physical center of the universe, then by that standard, Jesus was born in the palace of Jerusalem, in its days of greatest glory, son of a glorious King of Israel even grander than Solomon ever was, and certainly not some miles away in a boondockey non-place in a smelly stable or cave, to a fleeing, poverty-stricken couple who had to sacrifice turtledoves because they were so poor, and who soon had to flee again to Egypt for their lives. Or even worse, if being at the exact physical center is so be-all end-all important, then perhaps Jesus was born in the very center of the earth, amongst all the thousands-of-degrees-hot magma.
Need I state the obvious truth here? Jesus was born in some nowhere nothing place (call it the stable; call it bethlehem; call it the earth) and even that did not stop Him from doing only the things that God can do. It is a mental subterfuge of the lowest kind to claim that divine glory requires something concocted solely to feed our own arrogant pride. The people who actually put forth this argument as if the glory of God depended on the earth being the center of the universe merely wanted to place themselves (who were also on the earth) in the center of the universe.
Heliocentrism is therefore not only the real nature of the solar system, it is a powerful and compelling Divine lesson in humility. The universe does not revolve around the earth, nor around any of us personally. The sooner we truly understand and appreciate our truly humble and unimportant status and circumstance, the deeper we can truly appreciate the love and sacrifice of God that He has nevertheless seen fit to visit us.
2) “The sun stood still.” While this claim pretends to base itself on one specific passage of Scripture, the Scripture itself has nothing to say about celestial mechanics, as is obvious from the text and the clear meaning of both what Joshua prayed, and what the chronicler wrote of the events. Joshua is fighting a war, and because he needs more time to win it he pleads that “the sun would stop,” and (according to the chronicler) it does. They didn’t have modern clocks in his day; the hour was discerned by one’s observation of where the sun is in the sky, and if they wanted to be really precise, there were sundials. The prayer for the sun to stop would have been worded, in more contemporary times, as being for the hands of the clock to stop.
Which clock? This one? That one? All of them? Clearly the desire was not that this or that or every timepiece should malfunction, but for there to be more of sheer time itself. God, who created time, saw fit to provide the needed extra time. How did He do this? One most likely scenario would be by accelerating the subjective time of the combatants. It is said that a priest said Mass on behalf of a deceased but saintly friend of his, who appeared to him after the Mass to thank him for saying it and thus delivering him out of Purgatory. The friend went on to mention what a long year it had been in Purgatory until the priest had said this Mass, at which the priest replied to the apparition of his friend, “don’t you know? I started that Mass only fifteen minutes after your death.” If God can make fifteen minutes in Purgatory take one year for the soul in it, He certainly can make fifteen minutes seem like several hours on the battlefield. Again, atheletes often speak of being “in the zone” which refers to an altered state of mind in which the whole world seems to move far more slowly than usual and of course the athelete significantly outshines the other athletes who are not “in the zone.” With an act of His will, God could have quite reasonably just placed all of His combatants “in the zone” so they could win. There is therefore no real claim in the Bible that either the sun or the earth or the moon or any other celestial body did anything unusual that day, only the armies themselves.
Even worse for the geocentric nonsense, if one were to take such an account as some sort of claim of extraordinary celestial movements, then the geocentric picture of things is only all the more bizarre than the heliocentric could ever be. Stopping the earth on its axis would be a powerful act, but stopping an entire rotating universe from rotating would be only all the more extraordinary and ludicrous. Or did only the sun stop while everything else kept on moving? In either case the other planets crashed into the sun, the stars all exploded and the firmament was irreparably broken.
3) Fatima sundance. This was obviouly a localized phenomena, as no one in any other parts of the earth saw any of that happen. Rather, people had to gather at a certain spot to see it. It was caused by unusually turbulant air which caused the sun to seem to move about and “dance” as those at Fatima saw. This theory of atmospheric turbulance is further supported by the presence of the driving rain, so closely followed by such harsh dry winds as to dry everyone off so quickly afterwords. It was still Divine evidence from our Lady as how could anyone have predicted precisely when such a thing would occur, to the day, and where people should gather to see it? But with a telescope at night, one can see the same sort of thing. Use it to look at a star, with the strongest power available, and the star will seem to “dance” about due to the turbulance of the air. This (but on a much larger and more dramatic scale) is what the 10,000 people at Fatima saw in 1917. Again, no cause for claiming extraodinary celestial mechanics or motions.
What, besides stupid arrogant pride of wanting to think ourselves the center of the universe, are the real reasons for geocentrism, and especially in our day? I have seen this before. The world hates us for our traditional Catholic stance. To them we represent everything bad, not only dogmatic rules that would inconvenience their “free and easy living,” but everything negative, or which could be construed as negative, with crusades, wars, inquisitions, and why stop there? Why not also accuse us, however obviously falsely and absurdly, of Nazism, Fascism, and for that matter flat-earthism? I guess some of us, being persecuted by the whole world for supposed evils (when we are really being good), sooner or later decide to be “hung for a wolf as a lamb. So they call us Nazis? Let us be Nazis for real. So they call us obscurantistist flat-earthers? Let us be obscurantist flat-earthers! And that is what modern geocentrism really is all about.
One final word about laughter. There is a world of difference between the nervous laughter of one who is reproved by the genuinely holy and saintly example of the saints, and the contemptuous laughter reserved for those who insist on behaving in silly, self-destructive manners. The Catholic mother with ten children (and an eleventh on the way) is a sharp reproof to the worldly woman who has had three abortions, but the fool who goes through life wearing a popsicle around his neck is only a legitimate target of ridicule and disgust. Without a doubt, the geocentrists fall squarly and neatly into the latter category. As a piece of editorial advice, GET RID OF THAT POPSICLE!
Regretfully yours,
Griff Ruby
Dear Griff:
Congratulations on your telemetry work, all of which works exactly the same under the geocentric model.
You might have missed it, but there was a little development in physics around the beginning of the last century, called the theory of relativity.
You have apparently not grasped the meaning of this theory, but let me supply it to you, with respect to your argument above:
“The struggle, so violent in the early days of science, between the views of Ptolemy and Copernicus would then be quite meaningless. Either CS [coordinate system] could be used with equal justification. The two sentences, ‘the sun is at rest and the earth moves’, or ‘the sun moves and the earth is at rest’, would simply mean two different conventions concerning two different CS [coordinate systems].”—”The Evolution of Physics: From Early Concepts to Relativity and Quanta, Albert Einstein and Leopold Infeld, New York, Simon and Schuster 1938, 1966 p.212
GR: “What is this number? It is the rotation rate of the earth in radians per second.”
>>It is, alternatively, the rotation rate of the firmament in radians per second. All observations are exactly the same in either frame. Under relativity, there exists no way to determine which frame is the “correct” one, since no experiment has ever been able to directly measure the rotation of the Earth on its axis, or its orbit around the Sun.
By the way, it was this puzzling failure of all experiments to measure the motion of the Earth which necessitated the shrinking rods and dilating time of Relativity in the first place.
GR: “For another thing, notice the remaining “.9856″ degrees. It is just slightly less than one degree in excess of a complete circle. That excess represents the motion of the earth around the sun in a single day”
>>Is is, alternatively, the proper motion of the Sun, within the rotating firmament, also known as the solar day, as opposed to the sidereal day. It is this slight motion of the Sun wrt the firmament which creates, in the Earth=centered frame of geocentrism, the progress of the sun through the signs of the zodiac.
Under relativity, there exists no way to determine which frame is the “correct” one, since no experiment has ever been able to directly measure the rotation of the Earth on its axis, or its orbit around the Sun.
By the way, it was this puzzling failure of all experiments to measure the motion of the Earth which necessitated the shrinking rods and dilating time of Relativity in the first place.
GR: “Not even all the most complicated Ptmolemian “epicycles” could explain let alone have anticipated that seeming “movement” of the near, but supposedly fixed stars.”
>>It is the Tychonian, not the Ptolemaic, geocentric system which accounts for stellar parallax (the phenomenon you describe).
Yet again, relativity *requires* that the frames be exactly interchangeable, and in fact they are.
In the heliocentric model, the Sun and stars are taken as fixed, and the parallax is ascribed to the Earth’s orbital motion.
In the geocentric model, the Earth is taken as fixed, and the parallax is ascribed to the annual cycle of daily rotations of the Sun and stars around Earth.
Exactly the same observed effect results from either frame of reference.
GR: “Dr. Christian mentioned Foucault’s Pendulum and even discussed putting one on the South Pole, but this is unnecessary since if the earth were stationary, it wouldn’t matter where it is placed; it would just swing on one axis without ever changing so long as it swings undisturbed at all.”
>> Again, this is simply wrong. A centrifugal force arises whether the Earth is taken as rotating on its axis, or whether the firmament is taken as rotating around the Earth.
The Foucault pendulum is dragged around in either case.
Einstein again:
“If one rotates the shell *relative to the fixed stars* about an axis going through its center, a Coriolis force arises in the interior of the shell, *that is, the plane of a Foucault pendulum is dragged around*”–Albert Einstein, cited in “Gravitation”, Misner Thorne and Wheeler pp. 544-545.
The centrifugal force which drags a pendulum around arises in a geocentric model, and Einstein just told you so. If you have a problem, submit an experiment which disproves this and I will be the first one to congratuate you upon your nomination for the Nobel Prize in physics.
Until then, you are answered on this point as well.
GR: “The diameter of the earth at the equator is larger than the diameter from Pole to Pole. This oblate, rather than spherical, shape of the earth reflects the centrifugal force on an earth-sized liquid body (most of the earth’s internal substance is liquid, magma) rotating at the rate of that number I use in my work.”
>>Obviously, this one is answered exactly as above, since centrifugal force is responsible for both the Foucault phenomena and for the oblation of the Earth.
The centrifugal force, again, arises in *either* a frame where the Earth is taken as rotating on its axis, *or* a frame where the Earth is taken as fixed in a rotating cosmos.
GR: “I could go on and on, but it is interesting to see just how many ways the heliocentric model has continued to match many new findings which those who originally advocated it were thoroughly unaware of in their day (such as the oblate shape of the earth), whereas the geocentric model predicts contrary things unless it is further “tweaked” by adding additional epicycles etc. as the new facts come in. That should be enough, but I am barely getting started”
>>Actually, every point you have raised has been refuted. It is your heliocentric model that is in trouble with respect to predictions on the cosmological scale. The “Axis of Evil” discovered in the CMB is aligned with the plane of the ecliptic, which is predicted to be local in the heliocentric model, but cosmological in the geocentric model.
It is now established as a matter of scientific observation that the plane of the ecliptic *is* cosmological, as predicted by geocentrism, and in contradiction to the predictions of heliocentrism.
GR: ““The sun stood still.” While this claim pretends to base itself on one specific passage of Scripture, the Scripture itself has nothing to say about celestial mechanics, as is obvious from the text and the clear meaning of both what Joshua prayed, and what the chronicler wrote of the events.”
>>I am afraid your scriptural argument fares even worse than your scientific arguments have done.
Joshua did not only say “Sun stand still”, he also said “moon depart not out of your place”.
Therefore the idea that the Earth was stopped from rotating is falsified, since even heliocentrists admit that the Moon is orbiting the Earth.
Therefore, if God had simply stopped the rotation of the Earth on its axis, the moon would have continued in its orbit, and it didn’t. So that is strike….what? eight? Nine?
Have a nice day.
R. Sungenis: Griff, I’m surprised. I thought you would have more imagination than just posting your past grips from a seven year old “letter to the Remnant.” Nevertheless, I’m glad Mr. Delano educated you to the “relativity” of modern science so that you will stop insisting that you can provide the world with an example of absolute motion. As for your tortured “exegesis” of Joshua 10, when you can find me a Bible that says in verse 13: “And the sun stopped by accelerating the subjective time of the combatants” instead of “And the sun stopped in the middle of the sky, and did not hasten to go down for a whole day,” please let me know the version and who published it. I think I remember seeing something like your rendition in the Revised Pataphysics Bible, (or was it the New Revised Cosmotology Bible)? I think that’s the one that also says Jesus wasn’t in the desert for 40 days or spent three hours on the cross. The RPB says it was actually 25.7 seconds for the former, and 2.7 seconds for the latter, since the Gospel writers had their super-duper time dilation hats on and were using “purgatory” time. Actually, it only took me 0.3 second to write this diatribe to you, (but I can’t understand how I missed my 3:00 o’clock appointment with the dentist). I guess I was “out of the zone.” Good thing my dentist gave me an indulgence. Oh well, at least I know one thing for sure even though I have trouble telling time: when my God says “Is anything to difficult for the Lord,” I can feel safe that He can stop a universe just as well as stop the Earth. Pheeeeww, you almost had me on that one, Griff!
Have a nice day.
I was wondering what the Remnant was???
The Remnant is a Traditional Catholic newspaper:
http://www.remnantnewspaper.com
At present, no experiment has been performed and no observation has been made to verify or falsify the claim that any place in the universe is a preferred center. Currently, most cosmologists do not think that our universe has a center.
Support of geocentrism is probably not to the political advantage of the Remnant, but support of traditionalist Catholicism is not to its political advantage, either. Some statements made by Robert Sungenis are very politically disadvantageous, a few bordering on anti-Semitism. In my opinion, the major concern for traditionalist Catholics who are interested in political relevance shouldn’t be geocentrism. There are bigger problems.
On the other hand, I seriously doubt that the average traditionalist Catholic cares much for political advantage.
Griff Ruby,
There are three questions of curiosity I have about your detailed letter.
(1) What did you hope that the letter would accomplish? For those already convinced of geocentrism, an argument the length of a page will probably not be very persuasive. For those who are not convinced of geocentrism, argument would not be necessary.
(2) Why does Tom post your letter?
(3) Why a geocentrism comment to an article on Infant Death? I would not have found this, except that Stacy linked it from a different article.
Strange.
Hi Ace!
“At present, no experiment has been performed and no observation has been made to verify or falsify the claim that any place in the universe is a preferred center.”
>> Actually, observations show the Earth to be in the center of the universe. We must have resort to unverifiable assumptions to escape this observational evidence. One of the foundational of these is the Copernican (or cosmological) Principle, which insists as a metaphysical assumption that the Earth is in no special place, and that there exist no special places (isotropic and homogeneous).
We now know this to be false, as a matter of established scientific observation; the plane of the ecliptic, always assumed to be strictly a local phenomenon in all cosmologies except the geocentric, has been shown to be aligned with universe-spanning phenomena including the CMB Axis, a preferred galaxy-spin axis, and an axis of polarization of quasar photons.
In other words, the universe is *not* Copernican, is not isotropic and homogeneous.
Since the only possible refutation of all observational evidence that puts Earth in the center consists in the Copernican Principle, which has now been observationally falsified as a matter of science……..
Regardless of the opinions or consensus of cosmologists, the observational evidence suggests that Earth is in fact at or very near the center of the entire observable universe.
Ace: “I seriously doubt that the average traditionalist Catholic cares much for political advantage.”
>> Well, it is certainly the case that the tiny subset of geocentrists of the tiny subset of Traditional Catholics certainly do not
But then again, one mystery of our Faith is that neither did Our Lord, the apostles, or the Fathers.
“Some statements made by Robert Sungenis are very politically disadvantageous, a few bordering on anti-Semitism”
>> This puzzles me, since I know Bob very well, and I am the father of two sons by a Jewish mother (both of whom, thank God, are Catholic by personal conviction).
The implicit connection between political advantage and anti-Semitic intrigues me- are you suggesting that Bob’s statements (which ones?) could be politically attacked by those who employ “anti-semitic” in much the same way Joe Biden employs the race card?
Or do you mean to suggest that Bob has written statements that actually involve a race=hatred of the Semite *qua* Semite?
“Actually, observations show the Earth to be in the center of the universe.”
What observations?
All observations, Ace, beginning with going outside, looking up, and noticing that the heavens revolve above us, in a regular and repeating pattern.
This is consistent with us being motionless at the center of a revolving cosmos (firmament).
It is also consistent with an Earth which revolves once per day on its own axis.
It is the second proposition which involves the Copernican Principle.
If the Copernican Principle is true, then we should expect nothing at all unusual or special about our local system’s ecliptic.
If geocentrism is true, we should expect the whole Universe to be related in its largest scale structure to this system’s ecliptic- indeed, it would *have to be*, were geocentrism true.
It is now established that the plane of the ecliptic is cosmological, as stated above:
1. The dipole, quadrupole, octupole, and higher poles of the CMB are aligned with the ecliptic, forming a cosmological so-called “Axis of Evil”- see Copi, Huterer et al 2010:
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1004.5602v2.pdf
Relevant excerpt:
“The study of alignments in the low-l CMB has found a number of peculiarities. We have shown that the alignment of the quadrupole and octopole planes is inconsistent with Gaussian, statistically isotropic skies at least at the 99% confidence level. Further a number of (possibly related) alignments occur at 95% confidence levels or greater. Put together these provide a strong indication that the full sky CMB WMAP maps are inconsistent with the standard cosmological model at large angles. Even more peculiar is the alignment of the quadrupole and octopole with solar system features (the ecliptic plane and the dipole).”
2. The “Axis of Evil” has been independently shown to be aligned with a preferred axis of galaxy spin-rotation directionality (“handedness”) (Longo, 2007 et sequelae):
http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0703325
Relevant excerpt:
“In this article I study the distribution of spiral galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) to investigate whether the universe has an overall handedness. A preference for spiral galaxies in one sector of the sky to be left-handed or right-handed spirals would indicate a preferred handedness. The SDSS data show a strong signal for such an asymmetry with a probability of occurring by chance ~3.0 x 10-4. The asymmetry axis is at (RA,Dec) ~(202d,25d) with an uncertainty ~15d. The axis appears to be correlated with that of the quadrupole and octopole moments in the WMAP microwave sky survey, an unlikely alignment that has been dubbed “the axis of evil”. Our Galaxy is aligned with its spin axis within 8.4d of this spiral axis.”
3. Longo has since expanded his survey to include 15,158 clearly rotating spiral galaxies, the farthest 1.2 billion light years away (New Scientist, Oct 2011):
http://www.andyross.net/spin.htm
Relevant excerpts:
“The universe might be spinning. Michael Longo at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor thinks so. At the heart of the story is conservation of parity: the universe does not tell left from right…….
“Longo looked at the southern sky, which is not covered by the SDSS. Stretching off as far as the telescope could see, along the same axis in the southern sky, he saw an excess of right-handed spirals. It was the opposite view of the same effect.
Longo says that if the asymmetry is real, the universe has a net angular momentum and was born in a spin.”
3. Edward Hubble reported a periodic, concentric distribution of galaxy redshifts with Earth at the center (“Observational Approach to Cosmology”, 1937).
Relevant excerpt:
“Thus the density of the nebulae distribution increases outwards, symmetrically in all directions, leaving the observer in a unique position. Such a favoured position, of course, is intolerable; moreover, it represents a discrepancy with the theory, because the theory postulates homogeneity. Therefore, in order to restore homogeneity, and to escape the horror of a unique position, the departures from uniformity, which are introduced by the recession factors, must be compensated by the second term representing effects of spatial curvature.”
4. The “spatial curvature” mentioned above is, exactly, the Copernican universe, the Friedman “expanding balloon” universe of the modern cosmological consensus. No such preferred directionality can exist in an FLRW universe, which is “expanding at every point”.
5. Therefore the universe is not Copernican, or FLRW.
6. This concentric, periodic (non-random) distribution of galaxy redshifts with Earth at the center has been shown to be cosmological. This observationally falsifies the space-time curvature prediction (requirement) of homogeneity in the FLRW “consensus” cosmology- see Hirano Phys Rev D Nov 2010, abstract at:
http://prd.aps.org/abstract/PRD/v82/i10/e103513
Relevant excerpt from full paper:
“A widespread idea in cosmology is that the universe is homogeneous and isotropic above a certain scale. This hypothesis, usually called the cosmological principle (e.g., [1]), is thought to be a generalization of the Copernican principle that “the Earth is not in a central, specially favored position”. The assumption is that any observer at any place at the same epoch would see essentially the same picture of the large scale distribution of galaxies in the universe.
“However, according to a Fourier analysis by Hartnett & Hirano [2], the galaxy number count N from redshift z data (N–z relation) indicates that galaxies have preferred periodic redshift spacings………A natural interpretation is that concentric spherical shells of higher galaxy number densities surround us, with their individual centers situated at our location.”
7. There is additional evidence of a polarization of quasar photons along the same “Axis of Evil”:
http://orbi.ulg.ac.be/bitstream/2268/81301/1/london_mar07.pdf
Relevant excerpt:
“• Evidence for large-scale angular correlations of quasar polarization vectors (in regions of ~ 1 Gpc size at z ~ 1)
• The mean polarization angle changes with redshift
• The effect is statistically significant (> 99.9%) in a sample of 355
quasars
• Instrumental and interstellar polarization cannot produce a redshift dependent effect
• The effect seems stronger along an axis close to the CMB dipole and the “axis of evil”
This is some of the observational evidence that Earth is at or near the center of the observable universe.
I have put a slightly edited version of the above up at my blog, with active links to the citations:
http://magisterialfundies.blogspot.com/2012/09/newest-observational-evidence-shows.html
All observations, Ace, beginning with going outside, looking up, and noticing that the heavens revolve above us, in a regular and repeating pattern.
Including this observation?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VWM0XswwGg
If this observation does not establish a moving earth, our observations do not establish a non-moving earth.
The dipole, quadrupole, octupole, and higher poles of the CMB are aligned with the ecliptic, forming a cosmological so-called “Axis of Evil”
More recent paper by Huterer suggests that the alignment is slightly off of the ecliptic. Also, the alignment may be the result of an error (either an error in Huterer’s analysis or a systematic error). But let’s assume that it is no error, and that the alignment is exact, within the level of uncertainty of WMAP. WMAP has a resolution of 0.3 degrees.
According to some estimates (Wickramasinghe, Wallis, Wallis, Schild, Gibson. Astrophysics and Space Science, 2012), there are about 1000 planets per star in our galaxy (most of them are rogue, I think). That means that there are about 10^14 planets in our galaxy. If each of these planets is oriented randomly, then an estimated 10^11 planets have the exact same alignment in space that we do, and therefore the exact same alignment to the large scale anisotropy. And that’s only in our own galaxy.
Are all of these planets in the center of the universe? If one or several of these planets harbors intelligent life, maybe they think that they are at the center of the universe? Who would be right?
What does this anisotropy have to do with our being the center of the universe? I do not see the connection.
A:If this observation does not establish a moving earth, our observations do not establish a non-moving earth.”
>> No. Bare observation of the relative motion of Earth and cosmos is not our only form of observation. I already stated this:
“This is consistent with us being motionless at the center of a revolving cosmos (firmament).
It is also consistent with an Earth which revolves once per day on its own axis.”
A: “More recent paper by Huterer suggests that the alignment is slightly off of the ecliptic.”
>> There is no more recent paper on the Axis by Huterer. The 2010 paper is the last one, and I was told by the discoverer of the Axis that no more serious work would be done on the Axis until Planck reports next year.
If this is incorrect, please provide a citation for any paper on the Axis by Huterer published since 2010.
I’d love to read it
A: “Also, the alignment may be the result of an error (either an error in Huterer’s analysis or a systematic error).”
>> Ten years have been spent, by the very smartest and most incredibly methodical guys in the world, trying to discover just such an error.
Not one of the proposed errors has stood up, and you would know this if you read Corpi Huterer 2010, since they exhaustively examine each and every one of the proposed errors. The refutation is conclusive.
If you would like to argue one of the claimed sources of error, I will simply let Huterer answer you.
It’s all in the 2010 paper, the state-of-the-art analysis of the Axis.
A: But let’s assume that it is no error, and that the alignment is exact, within the level of uncertainty of WMAP. WMAP has a resolution of 0.3 degrees.
>> Great, That would be a safe assumption.
A: “According to some estimates (Wickramasinghe, Wallis, Wallis, Schild, Gibson. Astrophysics and Space Science, 2012), there are about 1000 planets per star in our galaxy (most of them are rogue, I think). That means that there are about 10^14 planets in our galaxy. If each of these planets is oriented randomly, then an estimated 10^11 planets have the exact same alignment in space that we do, and therefore the exact same alignment to the large scale anisotropy. And that’s only in our own galaxy.”
>> Yes, well according to Drake’s equation we all discovered irrefutable proof of advanced civilizations twenty five years ago.
According to the Copernican/cosmological principle the universe has no preferred directionality.
Both of these assertions have been observationally falsified.
Also- 1000 planets per star? Really?
So our poor old Sol is a real piker in this department, having only 8?
Something doesn’t seem right here.
May I have your citation for this assertion, please?
In any event, there exists precisely zero scientific evidence for 10^11 planets aligned with the ecliptic.
There exists, as a matter of science, evidence for exactly seven to be aligned with the ecliptic, in the geocentric model, and eight to be aligned with the ecliptic, in the heliocentric model.
All else is pure speculation.
You asked for evidence.
I think you should be bound by the same constraints you impose.
A: “Are all of these planets in the center of the universe? If one or several of these planets harbors intelligent life, maybe they think that they are at the center of the universe? Who would be right?”
>> The Axis does not provide evidence of centrality, only of the existence of a universe-spanning preferred directionality.
The Axis falsifies the cosmological/Copernican Principle.
It also establishes that, if the Universe has a center, it must lie somewhere along this Axis.
The evidence of centrality is contained in the concentric, preferred periodic shells of galaxies extending out at least a billion light years, which are individually centered on our location.
Your 10^11 planets aligned with the Axis would *not* see this concentric shell formation, which would appear only from within the preferred redshift period’s distance from Earth- in other words, approximately 97% of the Universe would *not* see this concentric distribution.
Therefore Earth must be within that small sphere at the center of the distribution.
Earth also lies along the Axis.
There is zero scientific evidence of any other inhabited body which satisfies these two necessary criteria for centrality.
The newest observational evidence clearly shows that Earth is at or very near the center of the Universe, and the Copernican Principle is false.
Ace: Sorry, I see you provided the citation re: 10^14 planets in the Milky Way.
There is no observational evidence reported in the study- it is purely theoretical, and based upon the most fruitful subject of speculation in cosmology today- how to account for the fact that the Universe is missing 99% of the energy required to make our gravitational equations work.
I just googled up a Science Daily report on this paper, and was gratified to see the author made this point:
“Since 1995, when the first extrasolar planet was reported, interest in searching for planets has reached a feverish pitch. The 750 or so detections of exoplanets are all of planets orbiting stars, and very few, if any, have been deemed potential candidates for life.”
In other words, all of the observational evidence is against the speculation that billions upon billions of planets are drifting around- exactly enough to account for the missing mass in our observations.
All of the citations I have provided, by way of contrast, involve *observational evidence*.
Which is, after all, what you originally requested.
As regards Sungenis and some of his statements bordering antisemitism, this is what I mean.
It is a fact that some people in the world are anti-Semites. They hate the Jewish people. Many in this group desire Jews to have different rights from non-Jews, and some have advocated police action, or violence.
The majority of anti-Semites deny that the holocaust involved the deaths of approximately six million Jews.
Most people are not anti-Semites. The majority of people accept that the holocaust involved the deaths of approximately six million Jews.
It is likely the case that some anti-Semites accept that the holocaust involved the deaths of approximately six million Jews. It is also likely the case that some people, not anti-Semites, dispute this number, or the historicity of the event itself.
Given the strong correlation between antisemitism and skepticism regarding the holocaust, people who publicly express such skepticism are making statements that border on antisemitism. They are expressing views outside the mainstream, and the majority of people who would agree with these views are anti-Semites.
Given this connection, it would be, in my opinion, politically disadvantageous to express skepticism about the holocaust. Robert Sungenis seems to have expressed skepticism about the number of Jews killed in the holocaust. If I am wrong, please correct me.
If Sungenis has expressed these sorts of views, given that other traditionalist Catholics have expressed these sorts of views (such as Bishop Richard Williamson), then this seems to me to be much more politically disadvantageous than geocentrism.
If I were a traditionalist Catholic, I would try to prevent any holocaust skeptics or other people whose opinions border on antisemitism from publishing in my journals and newsletters.
But traditionalist Catholics, in my experience, don’t seem to care much for political advantage.
Oh well.
Let me be sure I understand this completely.
Are you saying that an historical researcher who developed legitimate historical evidence suggesting that it was closer to 5,000,000, or 2,000,000- if some hypothetical researcher developed such evidence, it would be your position that he should not be allowed to publish in journals?
If I have understood you correctly, may I ask on what possible grounds such frankly absurd censorship might be justified?
There is no more recent paper on the Axis by Huterer.
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1201.2459v1.pdf . I am not a cosmologist, so I am not sure if there is any original work in this article concerning the CMB anisotropy alignment with the ecliptic. But throughout this paper, at least, the authors refer to it as a “near-alignment”. They seemed to have more confidence in earlier papers. Maybe this impression is wrong.
May I have your citation for this assertion, please?
You do. It is contained in the message above. For a link, go to http://www.springerlink.com/content/d547071rk4v2587m/ The article may not be free for you, unfortunately.
You can play with the numbers as you like. Even if there were only three planets per million stars in the Milky Way (no current estimates are nearly this low), there would still be over a thousand planets aligned as our planet is aligned.
It is very likely that there are more than a million planets in our galaxy alone, that are aligned as we are with respect to this CMB anisotropy. Are they all at the center of the universe?
The Axis does not provide evidence of centrality, only of the existence of a universe-spanning preferred directionality.
Which direction does it suggest as the preferred direction?
What this interesting discovery does suggest, to me, is that the CMB is not the same in all directions, and that there are large-scale features that align strangely with each other and (seemingly) with us. There may be a deep physical reason for this. There is probably a deep physical reason for the alignment of the different multipole moments, if this alignment is not the result of a mistake.
In terms of evidence that we are in a preferred position in the universe, I am unconvinced. The observations you give would not be what I consider evidence that we are in a preferred position.
But maybe I misunderstand you, or maybe I have made an error? I am happy to be corrected.
A: “I am not a cosmologist, so I am not sure if there is any original work in this article concerning the CMB anisotropy alignment with the ecliptic.”
>> There isn’t.
“But throughout this paper, at least, the authors refer to it as a “near-alignment”. They seemed to have more confidence in earlier papers. Maybe this impression is wrong.”
>> The authors report precisely the same observational Axis as in 2010, which in turn is almost the same as 2004. Nothing has changed at all.
As far as confidence goes, it is a subjective thing.
Indeed, this is the first paper in which they have ever lead off an abstract with the solar-system alignment problem:
“We discuss selected large-scale anomalies in the maps of temperature anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background. Specfically, these include alignments of the largest modes of CMB anisotropy with one another and with the geometry and direction of motion of the Solar System.”
My impression is they are simply staking out the two biggest problems for consensus cosmology, and they say the first is the ecliptic and equinoctial (dipole) alignment.
I agree with them.
A: “You can play with the numbers as you like.”
>> I suggest we stick to observations. Numbers are malleable, observations are observations. No need to go inventing planets by the 10^14 per galaxy in the absence of even the slightest hint of observational evidence. Too much of that going on all over science these days- invented entities proposed exactly to plug some gap between theory and observation.
That’s how a flawed theory perpetuates itself.
The solution is always to look for the observational evidence that contradicts what we are sure- are utterly certain- that we think we know.
The Red Dots.
The observation that the ecliptic and equinoctial planes of little ol’ insignificant Earth extend across the entire universe, is one of those really, really big Red Dots.
A: “Even if there were only three planets per million stars in the Milky Way (no current estimates are nearly this low), there would still be over a thousand planets aligned as our planet is aligned.”
>> No. This is wrong. It is an act of faith, not of science. Your claim of average distributions and alignments is itself nothing other than a reiteration of the very cosmological principle the Axis has observationally falsified.
We already know that galaxies spin differently along this Axis than they would in a random, CP distribution.
We know that quasars are polarized along this Axis differently than they would be in a random, CP distribution.
So there is no basis at all to speculate upon what a random distribution might mean. We have established observationally that there exists a preferred, non-random Axis across the universe which organizes highly distinct phenomena ranging from galaxy-handedness to CMB alignments to photons.
The Universe is not Copernican, not isotropic and homogeneous, and this is slow to sink in, I guess.
But there it is.
A “It is very likely that there are more than a million planets in our galaxy alone, that are aligned as we are with respect to this CMB anisotropy. Are they all at the center of the universe?”
>> Asked and answered: the Axis does not establish centrality, merely alignment with the ecliptic plane, extended throughout the entire cosmos.
A: “Which direction does it suggest as the preferred direction?”
>> The plane of the ecliptic. Just as Tycho Brahe suggested 400 years ago.
A: “What this interesting discovery does suggest, to me, is that the CMB is not the same in all directions, and that there are large-scale features that align strangely with each other and (seemingly) with us. There may be a deep physical reason for this. There is probably a deep physical reason for the alignment of the different multipole moments, if this alignment is not the result of a mistake.”
>> We agree. The largest structure in the visible universe happens to be aligned with the ecliptic and equinoxes of Earth.
That’s a Big Red Dot.
A: “In terms of evidence that we are in a preferred position in the universe, I am unconvinced. The observations you give would not be what I consider evidence that we are in a preferred position.
But maybe I misunderstand you, or maybe I have made an error? I am happy to be corrected.”
>> You have yet to respond to this:
*************
3. Edward Hubble reported a periodic, concentric distribution of galaxy redshifts with Earth at the center (“Observational Approach to Cosmology”, 1937).
Relevant excerpt:
“Thus the density of the nebulae distribution increases outwards, symmetrically in all directions, leaving the observer in a unique position. Such a favoured position, of course, is intolerable; moreover, it represents a discrepancy with the theory, because the theory postulates homogeneity. Therefore, in order to restore homogeneity, and to escape the horror of a unique position, the departures from uniformity, which are introduced by the recession factors, must be compensated by the second term representing effects of spatial curvature.”
4. The “spatial curvature” mentioned above is, exactly, the Copernican universe, the Friedman “expanding balloon” universe of the modern cosmological consensus. No such preferred directionality can exist in an FLRW universe, which is “expanding at every point”.
5. Therefore the universe is not Copernican, or FLRW.
6. This concentric, periodic (non-random) distribution of galaxy redshifts with Earth at the center has been shown to be cosmological. This observationally falsifies the space-time curvature prediction (requirement) of homogeneity in the FLRW “consensus” cosmology- see Hirano Phys Rev D Nov 2010, abstract at:
http://prd.aps.org/abstract/PRD/v82/i10/e103513
Relevant excerpt from full paper:
“A widespread idea in cosmology is that the universe is homogeneous and isotropic above a certain scale. This hypothesis, usually called the cosmological principle (e.g., [1]), is thought to be a generalization of the Copernican principle that “the Earth is not in a central, specially favored position”. The assumption is that any observer at any place at the same epoch would see essentially the same picture of the large scale distribution of galaxies in the universe.
“However, according to a Fourier analysis by Hartnett & Hirano [2], the galaxy number count N from redshift z data (N–z relation) indicates that galaxies have preferred periodic redshift spacings………A natural interpretation is that concentric spherical shells of higher galaxy number densities surround us, with their individual centers situated at our location.”
There is your answer.
Are you saying that an historical researcher who developed legitimate historical evidence suggesting that it was closer to 5,000,000, or 2,000,000- if some hypothetical researcher developed such evidence, it would be your position that he should not be allowed to publish in journals?
I am saying that it would be politically disadvantageous to allow such a person to publish in a movement’s newsletter.
If I were the editor of a newsletter for “Traditionalist Catholicism Today” or whatever, I would not accept submissions by Robert Sungenis to my newsletter, because of the political impact.
Most traditionalists don’t seem to care about that sort of thing. I don’t know why.
A: “I am saying that it would be politically disadvantageous to allow such a person to publish in a movement’s newsletter.”
>> So what? Evidence is quite often inconvenient to a given political consensus. Are we therefore to ignore evidence, which offends a political position?
God forbid!
A: “If I were the editor of a newsletter for “Traditionalist Catholicism Today” or whatever, I would not accept submissions by Robert Sungenis to my newsletter, because of the political impact.”
>> A frank admission. Let me be equally frank. Your hypothetical journal would be a self-admitted disgrace to the very notion of scientific truthfulness, to the idea of the Academy itself, and I would cordially invite it to be ashamed of itself.
A: “Most traditionalists don’t seem to care about that sort of thing. I don’t know why.”
>> Many more than just Catholic Traditionalists care about the truth rather than political consensus. I don’t know why anyone wouldn’t.
For the Catholic, of course, the question is entirely meaningless.
The Logos is written in the very structure of reality itself; the universe is knowable to us because we are made in the image of the Logos.
How pathetically irrelevant are the mean political calculations of some dying consensus in comparison to that!
Ace, thank you very much indeed for the new Copi, Huterer link!
A quick glance affirms that nothing new is in the paper, it is actually simply a much less thorough reiteration of the 2010 paper, this time focusing on the larger challenges to the LCDM inflationary (consensus) cosmology, rather than the specification of the Axis.
I will read it carefully now and then respond to your points above.
Short version- you are ignoring Hirano.
A frank admission. Let me be equally frank. Your hypothetical journal would be a self-admitted disgrace to the very notion of scientific truthfulness, to the idea of the Academy itself…
Naturally. It would be a traditionalist Catholic journal.
Ace, all due respect, I appreciate the above riposte.
It is a sophist’s little dipsy-do, but a mighty fine one.
Many thanks. It made me laugh (that’s my usual rule for telling jokes). I do mean it tongue-in-cheek.
My time here has given me a deep general respect for Catholic intellectual integrity and especially for the brilliance of Thomistic philosophy.
Not so sure about all of it.
Got some good news and some bad news, Ace.
The good news is, it’sl just a matter of time now
The bad news is, the same.
Always happy to hear about any specific aspect of all of it about which you are not so sure.
I am developing a list, but I want to be careful about how I express my own thoughts and I want to make sure that I understand what the Catholic Church teaches. Then I will definitely take you up on your offer.
Ace: As regards Sungenis and some of his statements bordering antisemitism, this is what I mean. It is a fact that some people in the world are anti-Semites. They hate the Jewish people. Many in this group desire Jews to have different rights from non-Jews, and some have advocated police action, or violence.
RS: So I assume the definition of “anti-semitism” is a hate for the Jewish race. If so, I applaud you on using that definition. Under that definition I’m a philo-semite.
The reason the definition is the key issue is that some people (and I hope not you) confuse the criticism of Jewish religious beliefs [e.g., Jesus was not the Son of God; the Jews are still the Chosen People; the Old Covenant is still in force for the Jews) or Israeli political beliefs (e.g., Palestine, and the Solomonic borders, from the Euphrates to the Nile belong to Israel (according to the Likud party’s 1993 declaration), Jerusalem is the now capital of Israel (according to the official Democratic election platform just adopted last week)] with “anti-semitism.” The two are as far apart as the 700 exoplanets of the Milky War are from Earth. But what I find among many Jews and their political sympathizers is that to criticize the Jewish religion or Israeli politics is invariably equated with anti-semitism. It is politically advantageous to do so, but it is morally wrong.
As for “advocating violence,” one doesn’t need to look too far into the villages of the Palestinian people since 1947 to find attack after attack against them perpetrated by the Israelis, until as of today, the Palestinians have less than 10% of the land they occupied in 1947, and which they occupied for 1500 years prior. The United Nations resolutions 194 and 242 require Israel to draw back to their 1948 borders, but Israel has resolutely refused to do so. In March 2001, at the Arab League meeting in Beirut, 22 Arab nations signed a resolution from Saudi Prince Abdullah offering Israel normal relations with all the Arab nations if Israel would abide by the UN 194 and 242. Israel refused. Not only did they refuse, but the very next day they attacked Yasir Arafat’s compound in Ramallah. I could go on and on. Since 1947 the Israelis have perpetrated over two-dozen terrorists acts against the Palestinians and other nations due to their belief that they are the true owners of Palestine from the Old Testament. This religion is called Zionism and it is one of the most insidious and malfeasant ideological movements the world has ever seen.The reason is that the Old Covenant is no longer in force. All the land that God promised Israel was fulfilled in the Old Testament (Joshua 21:45-48; 1 Kings 8:56; Nehemiah 9:7-8) and there is no more land promised or divinely defended for Israel.
Ace: The majority of anti-Semites deny that the holocaust involved the deaths of approximately six million Jews.
RS: Even philo-semites question or deny that 6 million Jews died during World War II. The reason they do is because the world population of Jews did not decrease by 6 million at the end of World War II but actually increased a little. It was philo-semites (Jews) who run the Auschwitz memorial who changed the plaque outside the camp from 4 million to 1 million just a few years ago. It was philo-semites (the Red Cross) who kept meticulous records of the deaths and the causes of death in all the German camps, but their numbers don’t even reach a half million, much less 6 million (I possess copies of the actual records). The number 6 million originates from propaganda that was being used by Zionists long before WWII. It was a number used by the Jewish-owned New York Times for political purposes during World War I and prior (ie., the late 1800s through 1920s). (Read Donald Heddesheimer’s book, The First Holocaust; and Norman Finkelstein’s (Jewish) book, The Holocaust Industry).
Ace: Most people are not anti-Semites. The majority of people accept that the holocaust involved the deaths of approximately six million Jews.
RS: Because to think or say otherwise can land one in jail in 13 different European countries. Those who know better and are not afraid to do the actual research, find out that although there were many Jews who died, most of them died by Typhus, and there were not 6 million of them; those who were killed by the Germans were not gassed or cremated; and there were many other nationalities who were killed or died besides Jews, far more. (Read Rudolph Germar’s book, Lectures on the Holocaust; and Thomas Dalton’s book, Debating the Holocaust).
Ace: It is likely the case that some anti-Semites accept that the holocaust involved the deaths of approximately six million Jews. It is also likely the case that some people, not anti-Semites, dispute this number, or the historicity of the event itself. Given the strong correlation between antisemitism and skepticism regarding the holocaust, people who publicly express such skepticism are making statements that border on antisemitism. They are expressing views outside the mainstream, and the majority of people who would agree with these views are anti-Semites.
RS: Any country who would imprison someone for researching and publically questioning whether there were 6 million Jews killed by the Nazis is little more than a Jewish racist state. If there is credible evidence, from Jews themselves, that the 6 million number is highly exaggerated, why would it be anti-semitic to publish these findings? It could only be anti-semitic to those who have such a vested interest to enshrine the 6 million figure as the ultimate identity of the Jewish people that they have absolute fear that if any contrary opinions should find acceptance, then the Jewish identity would be irreparably harmed. This is precisely what Norman Finkelstein (a Jew) has argued in his book, The Holocaust Industry. The holocaust and its 6 million have been the engine for untold Jewish pressures on the rest of society, including billions in reparations and the impetus for allowing the Jews to retake Palestine and move the Palestinians off the reservation.
Ace: Given this connection, it would be, in my opinion, politically disadvantageous to express skepticism about the holocaust. Robert Sungenis seems to have expressed skepticism about the number of Jews killed in the holocaust. If I am wrong, please correct me.
RS: As for Robert Sungenis, yes, would you believe that he lives in a free country that allows him to express political views that are not in the “mainstream”? Would you believe that because of this freedom he expects not to have the “majority” marginalize and ridicule him because he disagrees with them? What has our society come to be when dissenting voices are not permitted to express their dissent; when political opposition is drowned out by labeling one “anti-semitic” because he simply points out the contradictions and atrocities in Israeli ideologies and actions (e.g., their slaughter of the Palestinians and the taking of their land)?
Ace: If Sungenis has expressed these sorts of views, given that other traditionalist Catholics have expressed these sorts of views (such as Bishop Richard Williamson), then this seems to me to be much more politically disadvantageous than geocentrism. If I were a traditionalist Catholic, I would try to prevent any holocaust skeptics or other people whose opinions border on antisemitism from publishing in my journals and newsletters. But traditionalist Catholics, in my experience, don’t seem to care much for political advantage. Oh well.
RS: Because Traditionalist Catholics believe that truth comes first, and they will let the chips fall as they may, for they answer to a Greater Power than political polls. In our world, a world of seeking and teaching the truth, those who live by the “politically advantageous” thing to do will eventually die by the same.
So I assume the definition of “anti-semitism” is a hate for the Jewish race. If so, I applaud you on using that definition. Under that definition I’m a philo-semite.
Indeed, you may well be a lover of the Jewish people! How am I to know? I think charity is the best policy, so I’ll believe it. You love the Jewish people.
You happen to hold on to a particular skepticism about the holocaust that is shared mostly with anti-Semites. Most people who hate Jewish people as people share your doubts about the number of Jews who were killed in the holocaust, and most people who do not hate Jewish people do not share your doubts. More to the point, you talk publicly about that skepticism.
This is what makes your views border antisemitism, and this is what makes association with you a political disadvantage. It is like being openly connected with the guy who talks about how pedophilia should be legalized. He may be a nice enough guy, and may be morally opposed to pedophilia, but his views make open association with him undesirable.
If I used my real name here, for example, I would probably not want to respond to your comments in a public forum at all. Who knows what impact it might have on the future of my career? What would my future employers think?
What would my children think?
Two important logical fallacies in your response here Ace.
First, “post hoc ergo propter hoc”; that is, since some Jew haters question the 6,000,000, therefore anyone who question the 6,000,000 number hates the Jews.
Simply illogical, obviously.
Second, “argumentum ad verecumdam”; that is, “since so many authorities insist upon 6,000,000 therefore it were antisemitic to say 5,000,000″.
There is also the issue of moral cowardice; that is:
“I had better say what the mainstream says, it might be ever so inconvenient for my career to say otherwise”.
If you want to be a scientist better grow a pair, Ace.
A quick note, since this thread went off topic. The woman who the post is about, Tammy, just lost her husband unexpectedly the other day. Please keep her in your prayers.