On Monday, July 2, 2018 at 3:33:12 AM UTC+1, RichA wrote:
On Sunday, 1 July 2018 16:16:49 UTC-4, Chris L Peterson wrote:
On Sun, 1 Jul 2018 13:00:33 -0700 (PDT), Gerald Kelleher
wrote:

There is no 'belief' requirement for a Sun centered solar system...

Tell that to His Assholliness Urban VIII.

Getting angry at a 500 year old historical figure. Global warmists really aren't in-charge of their emotions.

Only rarely do people dare venture into the historical and technical details which so changed the landscape from geocentricity to the Sun centered system with a moving Earth and a central Sun as the centerpiece of the new approach.

Even Owen Barfield's excellent commentary didn't nail down the actual blockage at the bottom of the perceptual quagmire which distinguishes geocentricity from a moving Earth or predictive astronomy from perceptual astronomy -

"When the ordinary man hears that the Church told Galileo that he might teach Copernicanism as a hypothesis which saved all the celestial phenomena satisfactorily, but "not as being the truth," he laughs. But this was really how Ptolemaic astronomy had been taught! In its actual place in history it was not a casuistical quibble; it was the refusal (unjustified it may be) to allow the introduction of a new and momentous doctrine. It was not simply a new theory of the nature of the celestial movements that was feared, but a new theory of the nature of theory; namely, that, if a hypothesis saves all the appearances. It is identical with truth." Barfield 1957


Only intellectual rednecks lean on the crude view that Church doctrine required an Earth centered system when history shows it is a prevalent view in all eras, at least where the vast majority are unable to deal with the actual arguments -

"...just as Cleanthes thought it right that the Greeks collectively should impeach Aristagoras the Stoic, of impiety, for overthrowing the altar of earth, because the fellow attempted to account for visible phenomena by supposing that the sky remains fixed, and that the earth rolls round down an oblique circle, turning at the same time upon its own axis." Plutarch

The argument of Urban VIII brings to the surface many issues including what defines a planet from the Sun as the central issue was direct/retrograde motions (planets) vs direct motion(Sun) thereby exposing the flaw of RA/Dec which is based on a North/South motion of the Sun.

"Moreover, we see the other five planets also retrograde at times, and
stationary at either end [of the regression]. And whereas the sun
always advances along its own direct path, they wander in various
ways, straying sometimes to the south and sometimes to the north; that
is why they are called "planets" [wanderers]. Copernicus

In the absence of any new empirical icons, these topics should be discussed with vigor and vibrancy. Statements that are meant to project authority don't cut it any more and not soon enough that that deplorable situation doesn't really exist presently. People shouldn't be afraid or disinterested, it takes effort to experience the real satisfaction of this type of astronomy just as it did at the time of the Pope and Galileo.