Monday, December 26, 2011

Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi: The American Catholic's Donald McLarey Shows Us Why The Neo-Catholic Cannot Convert the World

Donald R. McClarey of The American Catholic provides a devastating insight into the logical absurdities which render the neo-Catholic apologetic impotent in the face of the modern atheistic onslaught.

Mr. McClarey has noticed that the Holy Father reinstituted, in His Christmas Eve Mass, the ancient Christmas Eve proclamation from the Roman Martyrology.

This ancient chant presents the Faith of the Church, as it was universally understood, held, and......well, yes... proclaimed right up until the modern conceptions of evolution, of the Big Bang, of "uniformitarianism", rendered it.............inoperative in light of alleged scientific advances, all of which depend for their veracity upon a never-demonstrated, universally assumed, metaphysical presupposition, which underlies the entirety of the recent "climb downs" from the Church's ancient, apostolic, confident and certain proclamation of the revelation from God.

This metaphysical assumption is known as the "Copernican Principle", and it is in very great observational difficulty indeed.

But we already knew that.

In the meantime, back to Mr. McClarey, and the incredible insight his post provides into the twisted, pretzel-like contortions to which he is forced by his neo-Catholic "apologetic".

First, I must congratulate Mr. McClarey for actually posting the ancient chant, traditionally sung at Christmas Eve Mass, in its entirety. His happiness, when hearing it at the Holy Father's Christmas Eve Mass, is proof positive that the sensus fidelium continues to resonate within  Mr. McClarey- he instinctively rejoices to see the Church's ancient and apostolic Faith once again proclaimed, as it was for centuries, to all of his Catholic ancestors:


The twenty-fifth day of December.
In the five thousand one hundred and ninety-ninth year of the creation of the world from the time when God in the beginning created the heavens and the earth;
the two thousand nine hundred and fifty-seventh year after the flood;
the two thousand and fifteenth year from the birth of Abraham;
the one thousand five hundred and tenth year from Moses and the going forth of the people of Israel from Egypt;
the one thousand and thirty-second year from David’s being anointed king;
in the sixty-fifth week according to the prophecy of Daniel;
in the one hundred and ninety-fourth Olympiad;
the seven hundred and fifty-second year from the foundation of the city of Rome;
the forty second year of the reign of Octavian Augustus;
the whole world being at peace,
in the sixth age of the world,
Jesus Christ the eternal God and Son of the eternal Father,
desiring to sanctify the world by his most merciful coming,
being conceived by the Holy Spirit, and nine months having passed since his conception,
was born in Bethlehem of Judea of the Virgin Mary, being made flesh.


Now.

Please stop and think very carefully, honestly, and logically for a moment.

If you actually rejoice at the above, and yet can turn around and deny every single one of its assertions.........then you have contracted the same strange logical affliction which Mr. McClarey demonstrates in his unforgettable post.

How could one rejoice at the recovery of a Church proclamation......if everything it says is false?

If everything it says is false, then ought not one instead rejoice at the modern reformulation (it is not, needless to say, a "new translation. It is a complete re-write)?

But the strange reaction of Mr. McLarey renders the terrible internal contradictions of his worldview as transparent as can be.

He does not post, he says,  this ancient chant in order to rejoice at its truthfulness.

He rejoices at its.....lack of feminist gender politics????

Yup.

There we have it.

Read the comments thread for the rest of the gory details.

One last point:

Mr. McClarey cites Dr. Tom Bridgeman's piece (I provide a link in the comments thread to my response).

Finally, Mr. McClarey has drearily predictable resort to that last miserable refuge of the blogger who cannot answer his interlocutor's legitimate points--- he bans me, and simply Memoryholes my final response:


The Memory Hole is also a very congenial tool for the neo-Catholic, Don.
You shall never be banned from my website, I assure you.
BTW, here is the apology Dr. Tom Bridgeman issued as a direct result of the response I linked above:



The neo-Catholic can never persuade the atheist, if he himself lacks the courage to defend the Church's Tradition.

But then again, the neo-Catholic cannot even persuade himself, if he insists that the Church has been wrong in her ancient Faith and its yearly proclamation during the Christmas Eve Mass, for centuries upon centuries.......

St. Athanasius, pray for us!

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Why Has Science Gone Crazy?

Alan P. Lightman's essay in Harper's is highly recommended reading for the Catholic Science Geek, and everyone else interested in grappling with the actual implications of the failure of cosmology to model our Universe in accordance with its foundational ("Copernican") Principle.

Why has modern science gone crazy?

Modern science has gone crazy because it has adopted a false principle.

Modern science rejected the necessary guidance of metaphysics and theology, precisely because of the astonishing (initial) success of the Copernican Principle.

This initial success was so profound that science came to the conclusion that the guidance of metaphysics and theology would no longer be necessary, or even acceptable, since- after all- it had been proven that the Catholic Church was in error in insisting upon the Truth of Faith that the Earth was motionless and at the center of the cosmos.

This Copernican Principle is so important, that it can fairly be said to mark the precise point of historical demarcation between the Catholic world, and the modern world.

The development of a theory of universal gravitation itself is a direct consequence of the adoption of the Copernican Principle.

If all of the Earth's inhabitants were to be asked which was more certain- the existence of gravity or the existence of God- I suspect that gravity would win in a landslide.

Indeed, it would arguably win in a landslide if the poll were to be conducted at the Vatican.

But- see Lightman's essay- the truth is that our theory of gravity is so drastically at odds with observations on the cosmological scale that we must either

(a) add in 96% of the Universe by hand, in the form of unobserved, metaphysical entities (dark matter, dark energy), or

(b) admit that our theory of universal gravitation has been dramatically falsified by direct observation.

The Copernican Principle insists that (a) must be right.

Welcome to the multiverse.

Welcome to the end of science.

I look forward to Catholic Science Geek's promised engagement upon these questions.

It's the moment of Truth for science.

It is also the moment of Truth for the Catholic Church, which has in important ways adopted the Copernican Principle as if it were more reliable than the unanimous consensus of the Fathers concerning Scripture.

The theory of evolution, the Big Bang, the multiverse......... each and all of these depend absolutely upon the philosophical presupposition that the Copernican Principle is true.

It is, instead, false.

Monday, December 19, 2011

The Catholic Science Geek Gets It Exactly Backwards......

The Catholic Science Geek has a bone to pick with those who would tell God how He has to do things.

I wanted to point out to the CS Geek, that it is God Who has told the CS Geek how He did things.

Apparently the CS Geek has not considered this.

I respond to the CS Geek's foundational argument at the link above, and invite further dialogue on the issue of Mary's Bones- those pesky 80,000,000 year old dinosaur fossils that have soft tissue, collagen fibres, and hemes inside of them.

UPDATE 1/6/12:

Barb, after simply dismissing and refusing to address even a single one of the points raised, has resorted to the Memory Hole, and it is all perfectly fine and peaceful in the clean, certain, calm and serene scientific world of the Catholic Science Geek.