Part II, part B - CMI on Deeper Waters

Creation vs. Evolution : Responding to Dystopian Science · Part II of Dystopian Science, my answer part A · Part II, part B - CMI on Deeper Waters · HGL's F.B. writings : Carter's Tactics · Back to Creation vs. Evolution : Part III : On Bradley and Bessel · New blog on the kid : Do Lorentz Transformations Prove a Universal Inconditional Speed Limit? · Back to Creation vs. Evolution : John Hartnett Pleads Operational Science · Correspondence of Hans Georg Lundahl : With Steven Taylor on Lorentz Transformations, Speed of Light, Distant Starlight Problem, Creation Week, Miracles

As said, there are paragraphs that go deeper than actually just scientific and social prestige questions in the present, plus facts about cosmos.

But how do we know what the Word of God is? To answer that, we are going to have to apply our God-given abilities to think and study. But that also means using our God-given ability to consider information from previous generations who have also thought and studied about the Bible. Christians throughout Church history have studied the various candidates and accepted the 66 books of our Bible as inspired Scripture. We accept their authority, because we can’t go back and re-do every bit of studying that those thousands of people have already done for us.

Do we believe the thousands as thousand of different individuals? Or do we believe thousands as visibly acting together as a church, a few church leaders and a probable presumption that they are typically followed by their flocks?

Because in the first case, the individuals who reduced the Bible to 66 books are conspicuously few.

The Protestant canon is an illogical one, straddling uneasily between traditional Christian canon (varied, but ranging from Catholic 73 upward to I think Ethiopian over 80) one the one hand and on the other hand a Jewish canon which rejects the New Testament.

If they wanted any early authority for OT with only the Jewish Tanakh material, they would need to go to Laodicaea, 363-364. It would also give them an NT canon of 26 books, with Apocalypse lacking. It may be a hint that the relevant canon of that local council actually deals with what can locally be read from, and Laodicean Church may have had a motive for omitting a book basically in some verses damning it to Hell, where it is, and at best to "moving of the candlestick".

If you on the other hand want to trust the thousands on authority of a Church "representing them" (or including them as representatives of it) as a whole, the proponents of 66 book canon are curiously individual.

Luther is one of them, and he was attacking Maccabees II with an ulterior motive of doing away with masses for the dead.

He was arguably also attacking Tobit because it was in conflict with "sola fide" which he pretended to find in Romans 3.

One way to test an authority is to look for contradictions. You can also judge an authority, or claimed authority, based on an authority you’ve already deemed to be trustworthy. If a claimed authority is refuted by mathematics, it is wrong, according to the laws of basic logic. If a claimed authority contradicts what we know to be true in Scripture, it is wrong. If a claimed authority comes up with a new doctrine that no other Christian ever saw in the Bible, it is probably wrong. Likewise, if an authority challenges us to reject something that Christians have always taught and believed, we need to be extremely skeptical.

This paragraph in itself would nearly have merited a response of its own. The principles are so good, the proposed application (or presumable such) of rejectying more than one of my positions does not follow. And I mean "my positions" as "positions I happen to hold", and the fact I am holding it is no extra weight, it just alerts me to why this paragraph could be misapplied. Here come my own observations and minor reservations on each sentence:

• "One way to test an authority is to look for contradictions."
  
  While you are, obviously, still weighing whether to accept it as an authority or not.
  
  You don't look for contradictions in what you already do accept as an authority.
  
  Sometimes you find them anyway.
  
  For instance, I accepted Swedish state Church (back when I was 15) as at least equally Christian and about as authoritative as any other, including Catholic.
  
  While I already believed Real Presence, Luther at least believed that. While I already in some sense believed papacy, I believed there were occasions when one could licitly part with a pope actually such - about in a way like SSPX teaches, and not surprisingly, I found their position more attractive than sedevacantism of acceptance of alternative popes for fairly long.
  
  
• "You can also judge an authority, or claimed authority, based on an authority you’ve already deemed to be trustworthy."
  
  Definitely. That is why I judged and found wanting the astronomy leading to Distant Starlight problem based on already finding Young Earth Creationism defended by God and defensible on all other sides. Becoming Geocentric was adding a side to an already fairly all round defense of Young Earth Creationism (and I am not omitting to read CMI to make it even more all round, which is why I am not boycotting CMI).
  
  As a bonus, Heaven and Hell are possible as places. Which is going to be needed once Resurrection of the Body occurs.
  
  
• "If a claimed authority is refuted by mathematics, it is wrong, according to the laws of basic logic."
  
  Depends on what mathematics.
  
  For instance, one can consider any proposed proof as a kind of impersonal authority, and there is a proof of God which involves the impossibility of infinite regress in causation.
  
  However, there is a mathematics school which would challenge that based on 1 not being a real beginning, but an arbitrary point between -1 and 3.
  
  
• "If a claimed authority contradicts what we know to be true in Scripture, it is wrong."
  
  But not always if it contradicts what we think we know to be true in Scripture.
  
  For instance, many think they know that stars are not persons, think they know a tower necessarily is architecture (rather than rocketry), think they know pagan myth is wrong as history and not just as theology, even when it touches of royal or other history of concerned peoples rather than ultimate and to men not directly obervable origins, think they know that Heaven and Hell are other dimensions, not so concerned with space.
  
  None of this is accurate.
  
  
• "If a claimed authority comes up with a new doctrine that no other Christian ever saw in the Bible, it is probably wrong."
  
  Correct - but proving no other Christian saw it is proving a universal negative, which is difficult.
  
  Also, what exactly does "doctrine" mean in the context?
  
  Would considering Mahabharata as partly detailed information about Genesis 4 and 6, with garbling of the theology as a minus be a "new doctrine"? Is it a "doctrine" at all, or is it a position one can use in defense of more important stuff?
  
  Similar with Tower of Babel as a rocket. IF one could consider this as a "doctrine" rather than as "information" of simple historic type and importance, if in defense of more important things, like Tower of Babel actually situated in Shinar (on my view = all of Mesopotamia, from Turkey to Shatt el Arab) between Flood (on my view carbon dated like 40 000 - 35 000 BP, Flood being démise of Neanderthals and Denisovans, except what was saved as inlaws of Noah) and Abraham (Chalcolithic of En-Gedi says he was around 80 at carbon date c. 3500 BC).
  
  Confer things like models like water canopy or like mountains rising to previously unequalled heights after the Flood, or baraminology.
  
  These are things which are taken as signs that Young Earth Creationism is venturing to new doctrines.
  
  I prefer to think of new solutions to new objections. Similarily with my own work.
  
  Obviously, Geocentrism and Angelic movers are nowhere near such a tentative status, Geocentrism was standard in all Church Fathers, and Angelic movers was at least one of two or three long standing views on celestial bodies.
  
  But these facts can of course be successfully hidden to people who are ill read in letters.
  
  
• "Likewise, if an authority challenges us to reject something that Christians have always taught and believed, we need to be extremely skeptical."
  
  No, we actually need to reject it. The purported authority, not what Christians have always taught or believed.
  
  That is my precise rationale for rejecting the Reformation.
  
  This is also the rationale why I made sure there were at least some Christians before me not considering Tower of Babel as one very high building. Some where considering it as a skyline rather than as a skyscraper, see Postilla in Libros Geneseos, probably best attributed to St Thomas Aquinas as a youth work, before he came to Paris.
  
  Quaesiui an contra patres loquutus sim, dicendo de Turri Babel quod sit intenta ut navis spatialis?

This does not mean that authorities always win. In fact, there are multiple times in Church history where an authority was tried and found wanting. Examples include the early debates on the Trinity, of which there were several important people holding to something most Christians today consider heresy. Another example is the challenge Martin Luther issued to the Catholic church that sparked what we call the Protestant Reformation. But there were other Christians making similar challenges in all the centuries leading up to Luther. This tells us that we should challenge authorities, but for the right reasons only.

• "This does not mean that authorities always win. In fact, there are multiple times in Church history where an authority was tried and found wanting."
  
  Possible, but the two examples given would not seem to back that up.
  
  
• "Examples include the early debates on the Trinity, of which there were several important people holding to something most Christians today consider heresy."
  
  Sabellianism is heretic. Look what happened:
  
  "Sabellius' opposition to the emerging idea of the Trinity led to his excommunication as a heretic by Pope Callixtus I (Callistus) in AD 220."
  
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabellius
  
  (And I don't give a cherry for the position of Wace and Bunsen, given in wiki after these quoted words, I was going to use a much ruder expression, but this should be readable for pre-teen children, not reserved.)
  
  Arianism is heretic.
  
  Pope Liberius was not for it, he had just signed an equivocal formula, and been presented (by lies) as having signed a clearly Arian one. He counted in Rome as a non-pope until he had cleared himself.
  
  In both cases, papacy is vindicated.
  
  
• "Another example is the challenge Martin Luther issued to the Catholic church that sparked what we call the Protestant Reformation."
  
  Well - Luther was the heretic.
  
  
• "But there were other Christians making similar challenges in all the centuries leading up to Luther."
  
  This is a very vast claim about Church history, and it is not backed up by facts.
  
  Montanus and Donatus were each making very different challenges to the one by Luther. Waldensians cannot be traced back all that many centuries prior to Luther.
  
  If it is true they came into the area of Piemonte in the time of Claudius of Turin, they (or a less anti-Catholic version of them) were probably founded by him, who was in his turn subservient to Iconoclastic persecutors of Orthodox Christians.
  
  
• "This tells us that we should challenge authorities, but for the right reasons only."
  
  Obviously no one should challenge or do anything for the wrong reasons.
  
  By stating this, someone is implying he or she can tell us exactly what the right reasons are.
  
  I challenge that for the very good reason they recommend Luther and speak dark insinuations about things like Arian crisis.

We should all strive for consistency in the way we think. This unlocks another key in our quest to rebuild science. Does a certain theory require you to think inconsistently? Do the facts in front of you reflect the conclusions the person is drawing from them? Is the person drawing conclusions that contradict what is obviously true, or are they perhaps drawing conclusions beyond what is warranted by the facts? These are all warning signs that perhaps what is being discussed is actually false. But this does not mean we know everything.

Back to more innocent stuff, I will present how this would apply to Geocentrism.

• "We should all strive for consistency in the way we think."
  
  Sure.
  
  And since one should try to make sure, one should also test one's consistency in debate.
  
  I do that all the time.
  
  Certain on CMI have avoided this when it comes to debating Geocentrics.
  
  
• "This unlocks another key in our quest to rebuild science. Does a certain theory require you to think inconsistently?"
  
  I am inviting anyone to help me test this by debate. Obviously in public over internet, unless I should lack time.
  
  In which case you might want to look into why I lack time.
  
  
• "Do the facts in front of you reflect the conclusions the person is drawing from them?"
  
  Precisely my point against not only Galileo, but Bruno, but Copernicus, but Kepler. And Newton (who was also wrong about 1260 days in prophecy).
  
  There are no facts in front of us that reflect the conclusion celestial bodies are moved by mechanistic causalities only, such as agency of mass via gravity and inertia.
  
  
• "Is the person drawing conclusions that contradict what is obviously true, or are they perhaps drawing conclusions beyond what is warranted by the facts?"
  
  Which can be abused, if you confuse what someone is concluding from with what he was just answering you on, perhaps on another but related topic.
  
  A thorough debate is often better than mute scepticism.
  
  
• "These are all warning signs that perhaps what is being discussed is actually false."
  
  Not always.
  
  
• "But this does not mean we know everything."
  
  Obvious.

The paragraph as a whole is not bad, but is apt to be misleading due to lots of ingrained habits of thinking with a certain set of scientists. Will check if more needs to be said in a part C or not. Meanwhile, I just love the last paragraph:

In Part 3 (coming soon), we will attempt to outline how we can rebuild the foundations of modern science using very simple tools and very simple record keeping. We will be able to test the ‘authorities’ and we will be able to build on what we know. Our goal is to show you why the evidence is consistent with the earth being round, that the earth goes around the sun, and that controlled scientific experiments are better than opinion. But we will also attempt to show why evolution fails to explain origins.

Hoorrah! That's what I was looking forward to already in part 2.

But, in order to remain as sober as Puddleglum, instead of thinking of next thunderstorm or last unexpected death, perhaps I should add one quibble, about the title of part 2:

Conspiracy theories require a magical world

What's wrong with that?

Note, I am not speaking of a world in which sorcery is allowed, I firmly reject Harry Potter, which I mainly know from hearsay or from Pottermore, I have not read the works, I recommend reading The Magician's Nephew or The Satanic Mill to get morals straight (apart from HP involving at least some things not even demons could work for a sorcerer), I am also not speaking of a world in which things are inconsistent. They are not too inconsistent in Harry Potter (but partly simply wrong), and they are not inconsistent in St Thomas Aquinas. I am speaking of the fairly fuddled sentiment that such and such a cosmology or cosmological statement involves "magic" without defining what that means, and which in the last analysis simply may mean they conflict with methodological naturalism (even if on some items Carter and Cosner reject it, as well as to principle, they could still be victims of such thinking on other items).

Hans Georg Lundahl
ut supra in priori parte.

Update next day:

Today, a random person with a blog can get their message out there as easily as NASA can, and sometimes they can even seem more persuasive than the biggest authorities. Yes, people will cheat, because they are sinful, but cheaters eventually get caught, especially when what they are saying flies in the face of real facts.

This sometimes happens because of bloggers. I recall an example from last year, sorry for forgetting the details./HGL