Bouw's Geocentrism, or God says Galileo's a ninny

I found a rather interesting book the other day while browsing through the Theological Studies section of my favorite bookstore titled "The Geocentricity Primer/ The Geocentric Bible". I picked it up in in utter disbelief, hoping that it was some sort of prank pulled by some heliocentric rapscallions seeking an ironic laugh or two. No such luck on my part. The book, from cover to cover, is dead serious, and contains things that would get it laughed out of most pre-school classrooms. Now, I had personally presumed the concept of Geocentrism had gone the way of dead science back when they were still burning witches for heresy. But apparently, however, in some dark alleyways of Fundamentalist misguidance, the theory of an Earth-centered universe is still alive and quite well.
The illustrious author of the first part of the book (actually, two books in one) goes by the unfortunate name of Gerardus Bouw, and is proclaimed to be one of the leading scholars for "Biblical Astronomy" (Which frankly sounds as logical as Jewish Nazism to me).
First off, let me go ahead and clear the air by saying that this man is an utterly misguided buffoon. That being said, I think I might be able to muster something close to a review.
The book starts off with a vast and exhaustively "researched" section describing why the Sun must orbit the Earth because the Bible says so, and brings up such profound insights as the "Sign of Hezekiah", and Joshua's "Long Day", as well as a medley of verses that don't in the slightest make a geocentric claim of any kind (which are used as if they do) as proof. The scientific reasoning and theological inference our fabulous Dr. Bouw uses in this section is egregiously misguided, making even the most utterly imbecilic Creationist like Ken Hamm look Nobel-worthy. Some noteworthy verse passages cited include:

"Thy faithfulness is unto all generations: thou hast established the earth, and it abideth" (Psalm 119:90)"

and

"Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of the Lord of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger" (Isaiah 13:13, used to imply the Earth has one set, non-moving place that it will be knocked from at the "End Times")

I had hoped that this would be the worst of it, but no. What comes next nearly defies every ability of mine to scorn and deride. Glorious Dr. Bouw next inserts an entire section into this travesty about how the entire arrival or even concept of Christ is pointless and ruined if the Earth isn't in the center of the universe, and declares Geocentrism biblically required for Christ to be the Messiah.
And still, it gets worse.
He then proceeds, through the most literal Biblical reading I've ever heard, physically ties together morality, ethics, judgement, and God's throne, all literally existing in physical tangible reality, to a geocentric worldview, stating that the movement of the Earth would actually physically warp morality and human ethics. He then goes on to make the most mind-boggling statement I can think of. He states that if the Earth is moving, it's, and I quote "only a small step to the conclusion that all morality is relative and that there are no moral absolutes. In other words, the modern existential concept of moral relativism is an inference drawn from the belief in the Earth's motion." (emphasis mine)
I honestly don't even know how to begin to have the capability to form words after a statement like that, much less fire off something crowd-pleasingly snide.
The next sections are perhaps just a bit more readable, though only just. The first takes potshots at proposed "Heliocentric" verses in the Bible, and the second proposes scientific Geocentric models. I won't bore you with either one. They aren't even worth the effort for me to type. Suffice it to say that the Geocentric model he proposes is similar to Brahe's, and uses some very contrived, albeit occasionally clever, explanations to address various phenomena such as the seasons.
The last section of this lovely piece of literature, however, could in fact be the most painful, and the most exasperating. Our sensational Dr. Bouw wraps up his magnum opus with a quaint little section on the "Moral effects of Heliocentrism". In this section, he accuses Heliocentrism of being the primary catalyst for the public acceptance of beliefs and sciences that turned men into "mechanistic, soulless, amoral machines" (or something like that). These beliefs and ideas include Evolution, Marxism, and the roots of the French Revolution. Bouw even then takes things just that one little step more by then saying it opened the door for Einstein's Relativity, which he cites as being a scientific "support" of a Godless, soulless moral relativism (thus making it Eeeeviiilll). Oh, and just for the sake, he also somehow infers in that section somewhere that one of the predictions of the Second Law of Thermodynamics is that truth is less likely to be believed than fiction. No, I'm not kidding.

Of course, there is a whole entire other book in this two-volume disasterpiece, which has done me the immense favor of having its entirety posted on the web for your viewing agony. The site url is www.geocentricbible.com. Go on. Look. Have a laugh. Enjoy yourself. It's well worth the trip, especially if you're looking for a sudden desire to take a bat to someone's head.

All this being said, what's all very tragic to me about all of this is the fact that the two men writing this material sincerely believe every word of it. But not only that. Their very ability to believe is fundamentally bound to this broken concept. Their entire faith hangs on whether we're in the center of a non-moving universe. It seems very sad to me that some people have to delude themselves so far just to cling on to their faith. They'll never be able to break past their hidebound literalism to realize God is so much bigger than their mental sandbox. I hope and pray for their sakes they do. Delusion is just no breath for the soul.

Some thoughts on doubt and "True Belief"

The longer I've operated around True Believers of any faith basis, the more and more I have found one of the most prevalent, and frankly confusing, lines of reasoning I've encountered, and it goes something like this: A rational theist, like myself, will express heavy doubts or skepticism about such things as a physical or spiritual afterlife, or of a personal Resurrection at the "End Times", and will be immediately be treated at best like we are "back-slidden" and in need of help, or, in more extreme cases, "unfaithful" and even "atheistic", and our doubts will be taken as firm, unyielding evidence that we no longer believe at all.

Well, of course I'm going to be skeptical about many of the central supernatural claims in any religious text. This has to be the case. Holding everything I understand about physics and cosmology to be true, there is not much room of physical possibility for such things as the Resurrection to happen, regardless of my desire for such things to happen or not. I have to grant that if such things were to be able to happen, they would lie outside of the realm of scientific testability, or even more dramatically, fly openly in the face of known physical laws, which, given their historic infallibility, requires a good deal of belief and a willingness to throw logic and reason out the window when it suits the occasion.

Herein lies the nature of what I'm talking about. True Believers hold that science is wrong about fundamental things in the world because these facts don't agree with their faith, and when faced with overwhelming evidence for something that contradicts what they believe, they will either abandon reason and science entirely, or lose faith because there is no reason in believing in something there is no evidence for.

What they fail to understand is that Science deals with the testable, the corporeal, and the repeatable. Miraculous occurrences fall outside all three of these criteria almost 100% of the time. If they don't, then they aren't miracles. They're data. They don't have to agree with Science because they fundamentally duck or subvert the criteria for being able to even be observed by it in almost every case. Scientific inquiry into miracles will always be short-handed, because such inquiries have to obey scientific methods of inquiry, a rule miracles don't play by.

Also, interestingly enough, isn't belief in something for which there is no proof or concrete evidence whatsoever the central definition of faith? Wouldn't such believers be stating by not believing without proof that they have no faith, or at least, a faith that cannot stand on its own?
The "True Believer" should be able to have faith regardless of evidence. Isn't that the point of belief?

Now, here's where I come to my point about doubt. Doubt is simply Faith and Reason working in tandem for a cohesive view of reality. Both are not mutually exclusive. I firmly reject Gould's notion of Non-Overlapping Magisteria in this case, and here's why. Faith is the belief in, or the desiring to be true of, things for which there can be no evidence, only inference. When there is evidence for it, it ceases to be Faith, and becomes Reason. Reason is the acceptance of things that can be examined, can be tested for, and can be supported by proof or evidence.
When I, as a rational theist, profess that I believe in such things as Heaven, I am making a faith statement. I cannot state that Heaven does exist, nor can I provide any evidence whatsoever for it. The reasonable side of me asserts that it probably does not, based on cosmology and dimensionality, and that is where my doubt is sourced. However, to assert that my belief is in any way shaken by this is a very faulty assumption. A Skeptical Believer such as myself can easily hold onto such beliefs, because we recognize them as beliefs, not realities. I have to grant that when I die, and nothing happens, then I was wrong. I have to grant that when a loved one dies, I can believe and hope that I will see them again, but I have to accept the fact that it's very likely that I never will.. If reality comes along in such a way to make such a belief untenable, faith-based or otherwise, then it must be discarded. But that does not mean that faith is misguided, and it does not mean it is wrong. Faith is only misguided when thought of as reason-based reality, and is treated as such in the Believer's interactions with himself and others.

Doubt seems so dangerous to True Believers because to them, their faith views are their reason and reality, and any hint that those beliefs might be faulty threatens their entire existence. Doubt throws into question the fundamental principles on which they run their lives. But for a Skeptical Believer, such as myself, Doubt is the only way for me to believe, because it is what challenges my faith, forces me to grow spiritually, forces me to constantly reevaluate what I believe and why I believe it, and drives me to continue to seek truth, regardless of it's source. True Believers, they've already found their truth. Me, whether I've already found it or not, I'm never going to stop looking.