Sigh. There Are People Who Consider Me a Conspiracy Theorist Already

New blog on the kid: Heliocentrism aggravates the wound of ignorance? · Creation vs. Evolution: Sigh. There Are People Who Consider Me a Conspiracy Theorist Already · CMI Seems to Have a Will to Hammer Away Geocentrism

Less* than one hour ago, a certain person going under the handle Morgan Oviatt (not positive it is his real name) called me a conspiracy theorist and in reverse psychology "encouraged" me to paranoia because I had rejected the idea I'm a Eugenicist, or because I had affirmed the idea Eugenics had roots in Marxism. It's the first of the two dialogues, today's date of 7.VIII.2024:

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Tolkienophobe Identified?
https://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/2024/08/tolkienophobe-identified.html

If the idea was that it's conspiratorial of me to feel maligned when painted a Eugenicist, what can I say? I think I should know my own ideology better than he does.

But if the idea is it's conspiratorial of me to consider Eugenics a Marxist thing and to consider Catholicism as Anti-Eugenics, I just gave him these links:

Eugenics and Racial Biology in Sweden and the USSR: Contacts across the Baltic Sea
PER ANDERS RUDLING (Department of History, Lund University.)
CBMH/BCHM / Volume 31:1 2014 / p. 41-75
https://www.utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/cbmh.31.1.41

Eugenics and Other Evils
http://www.gkc.org.uk/gkc/books/Eugenics.html

So, I just defended myself against the idea of me being a paranoid conspiracy theorist. Now I am, for some, going to ruin that defense. By my answer to CMI's article for tomorrow (it already is tomorrow in Australia).

Why CMI rejects ‘conspiracy’ theorizing
by Robert Carter and Jonathan Sarfati
First published: 13 April 2017
Re-featured on homepage: 8 August 2024
https://creation.com/cmi-rejects-conspiracy-theory

One good thing.

At the same time, not all conspiracy theories have the same weight, and not all of them are necessarily wrong. We also do not deliberately lump all conspiracy theories together in order to dismiss them in one fell swoop.

Good. Unfortunately, they lumped a bit too many of them together. Which ones?

Before we get into this, however, let us be perfectly clear that government-based conspiracy (e.g. JFK assassination, 9-11 terrorist attack) are not part of our mission, while some science-based ones like flat earth or geocentrism are, hence the focus on these two below. The moon landings are also fair game for us, but only because they are part of (and clearly refute) the flat earth and geocentrism debates and also touch on the ‘how do we know what we know’ aspect of teaching biblical creation, basic science, and important ideas in the Bible.

What is their take on the Moon landings?

Several alternate theories unfairly and inaccurately pick on government bodies like NASA or the UN. But NASA is not a person. It is a government institution that employs thousands of people. It would be impossible to create a conspiracy of this scale and nature, and it would be impossible to maintain it in the face of so many contrary witnesses.

It so happens, for the moon landings to be fake, most employees of NASA had no need to be in the know. I've said it before, I'm saying it again, the people in the conspiracy could well exclude 99.9 % of the Employees of NASA. Only a few need to be in the know, those few could be people of a mindset like secret agents, well trained on how to keep secrets secrets, and most would not have been witnessing the rocket at take off.

I am not saying the Moon landings are fake. I am still less saying they are not fake. I am saying the fake would be clearly possible.

Now, why does CMI bother about the NASA vs Moontruthers? I'll highlight a quote again:

but only because they are part of (and clearly refute) the flat earth and geocentrism debates

If the Moon landings are genuine, they do refute flat earth, the roundness of our globe was seen from the Moon. But it has no bearing on Geocentrism. And in fact, the article never spells out the bearing Moonlandings would have on Geocentrism. My mother was at a certain point, when I discovered Geocentrism, under the care or rather miscare of Swedish psychiatry. They used her to give me backfire "we have observed the earth rotate, from the moon" and I replied then, as I reply now: if a chopper circled around (the tower of) Stockholm City Hall, one could observe from it that that tower was rotating around itself. Which obviously it isn't. Hence, the observations from the Moon, even if perfectly genuine, do not refute Geocentrism, since in Geocentrism the Moon would parallel the chopper.

Some people feel obliged to believe in the parallactic optic illusion being key to the 0.76 arcseconds "parallax" of α Centauri, or the rotation of the Universe around Earth each day, but equally obliged to ignore that this same optic illusion would explain the observations of "rotating earth" without either Geocentrism or Moonlandings being wrong. To me, this shows a very ingrained cultural bias.

But they actually will say why they disbelieve Geocentrism in the article:

Another case in point: we can explain the way the universe works using simple Newtonian physics and a dose of Einsteinian relativity. This model of the universe includes a spherical earth and a geokinetic system, and it has incredible explanatory power. On the other hand, if the earth were flat or if the earth were the center about which the rest of the universe rotates, one could not use laboratory physics to explain it. Instead, one must resort to unknown processes or scientifically impossible situations. The universe could not, then, follow the simple rules of logic, and would fail to be explained by simple observational evidence. What kind of God creates an ongoing illusion?

I have seen the last point used about my view that angels perform the "parallax" of α Centauri, "if so, this fools scientists to believe Earth rotates" and why would God be an author of deception. My answer to that other angle is, well, God also made it so that when I was born the setting Sun was in Virgo, making the opposite sign Pisces my ascendant. I also have the Moon in Pisces and Jupiter in Virgo. Should I say we need to believe what Café Astrology has to say about these four astrological items and a few more, because otherwise God would act deceptively towards astrologers and by extension mankind as a whole? Of course not.

The CMI had another take, which also involves the Drama Queen "clincher" it would make God the author of deception. Let's take a look at it.

if the earth were the center about which the rest of the universe rotates, one could not use laboratory physics to explain it.

One could not use laboratory physics to explain very important aspects of it, agreed.

Instead, one must resort to unknown processes or scientifically impossible situations.

God turning the universe around Earth each day by omnipotence is scientifically impossible? Sounds like naturalism to me. Or unknown? Well between this scenario and the universe acting as Paley's clockwork, with God as Paley's watchmaker, I think it is known in the Bible even:

But Jesus answered them: My Father worketh until now; and I work.
[John 5:17]

On the first Sabbath, God the Father and God the Son rested from creating new things, but not from running what they had created.

Or it is scientifically impossible for God to allow angels to move celestial bodies within the overall moving space fabric (my identification for raqia, by the way)? Sounds like naturalism. It is also not unknown.

When the morning stars praised me together, and all the sons of God made a joyful melody
[Job 38:7]

Praising God and making a joyful melody sounds more like what "sons of God" (angelic beings) can do, than what rocks, gas lumps and burning gas lumps can achieve, yet "the morning stars" are enumerated among the "sons of God" — a term which the very same book uses about angels, angelic beings:

Now on a certain day when the sons of God came to stand before the Lord, Satan also was present among them
[Job 1:6]

Laboratory physics may be unable to explain why over time planets other than Sun and Moon run in a kind of spirograph patterns (which they do in Geocentrism with accurate observations). But laboratory physics are unable to explain why a child would love to play with a spirograph (as I did). In movers endowed with will and mind, movements not explained by laboratory physics are possible.

It's not a conspiracy theory that God's continuous action by divine fiat runs the universe around us. It's not a conspiracy theory that angels make celestial bodies move. These are metaphysical theories, over and above laboratory physics, but well within the scope of Christian theology to affirm. There is no conspiracy necessarily involved in NASA being against it, any more than there is a conspiracy necessarily involved in NASA being for abiogenesis. It's at first glance at least a cultural question. Not a criminal one.

What are some things that become better theologically if we accept this?

• Earth wasn't moving around the Sun before it was created on day four, and STILL doesn't move, so Earth did not change position that day.
• The Epicurean attempt to explain Geocentrism as a kind of whirlpool effect within space was clumsy, and Geocentrism can only be explained by God, hence Romans 1, which by the way needs to be talking of sth seen since Adam, which the flagellum of the bacterium or the four dimensional DNA, wonderful testimonies to the Creator as they are, weren't.
• When Joshua had prayed, he didn't adress Earth to stop rotating, or God to halt the Sun and Moon, he adressed Sun and Moon on God's behalf. With Geocentrism, he adressed the right entities for the miracle, not the wrong, but apparent and culturally accepted explanation. Precisely as his namesake Jesus, when driving out demons, was not adressing a factually wrong explanation of epilepsy or schizophrenia.

And didn't I hear the "God author of deception" strawman in another context? Yeah, right, distant starlight problem for a universe created thousands, not billions, of years ago. That's when I became a Geocentric. If the 0.76 arc seconds back and forth each year of α Centauri are parallax, we have a distance involved, that of Earth to Earth, we have also two angles. If they are performed by an angel, Earth being still, we have no distance and one angle. That's a very different case in Trigonometry. If Geocentrism is true, "4 light years away" is calculated on the wrong assumptions and stellar distances are moot. Distant starlight problem is a laughable idea, like trying to disprove Young Earth Creationism by astrology.

Well, nearly moot. You see, while I think Moonlandings could have been faked, I don't wallow in generalised mistrust of NASA. It's not just computer scientists at Goddard Space Flight Center who would be more honest than Armstrong (he would have needed to be one of the conspirators, if any), I'd also pretty well consider Voyager 1 and 2 are about as far away as reported, hence the fix stars would be at least one light day away (the two way travel time of radio signals being less than 48 hours, but more than 36 in each case). Though, there too, a pretty small number of conspirators (far from including computer scientists or people fabricating materials) would suffice to conspire. But any possible conspiracy there is pretty irrelevant to Geocentrism, precisely as with the Moon landing.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Cajetan of Thiena
7.VIII.2024

Neapoli, in Campania, sancti Cajetani Thienaei Confessoris, Clericorum Regularium Fundatoris, qui, singulari in Deum fiducia, pristinam Apostolicam vivendi formam suis colendam tradidit, et, miraculis clarus, a Clemente Papa Decimo inter Sanctos relatus est.

PS. A flat earth is not in and of itself a conspiracy theory, but given the non-abstract, non-theoretic, very direct sensory evidence for different parts of Earth adding up to a globe, by now it would need one. Also, the four corners of Apocalypse 7:1, if taken as outer corners of the continents against the Pacific, are more easy to observe as a rectangular figure on a globe than on the most popular modern flat earth map./HGL

* As I started writing.