Jim:

My reference to "being a man" was not in any regard questioning your "manhood", but regarding whether or not you would face your dilemma, or, like most people, simply try to avoid such by trying to manufacture some "third choice", as you appear to be trying to do.

Half baked "conceptual" discussions are irrelevant to the "two-choice dilemma" I have shown you are faced with. Such are unfortunate, but what one can expect when trying to discuss GR with novices (just as the very unfortunate "rubber sheet" is so often used). It is not relevant that such can lead one down unfortunate conceptual paths. Such is often the case when analogies and sub-models are used (rather than the full mathematical model that is General Relativity).

I don't believe it's worth my time to attempt to try and take you "step-by-step, from a geometric principle to a radiation of energy." This would involve the entire derivation of General Relativity, and, then from there the derivation of models of Gravitational Waves, and showing how they lead to the exhibition of "energy"-like characteristics, whether one wishes to ascribe to them, or any aspect of "gravity", any "energy" designation/moniker.

It is because I know that from the field equations of General Relativity one can, via multiple methods, determine such "energy"-like characteristics, I have pointed out that you cannot claim to consider the field equations of General Relativity to be "correct" while disputing the "energy" that is effectively "transmitted" via Gravitational Waves (hence the term Gravitational Radiation). Either you accept the field equations of General Relativity, in which case I can show you how one finds that these "ripples" in spacetime do indeed have "energy"-like characteristics (even bending spacetime).* Or you must admit that you call into question the field equations of General Relativity (the "step-by-step, from a geometric principle to" the field equations of General Relativity). (You are most certainly free to choose the latter case, as I have tried to make clear in previous posts. Just don't continue denying that this is your contention.)

This is simply your "two-choice dilemma", again. So either you face it, and make your choice, or I leave you in your dilemma (as you continue in denial).

So, until you make your choice, fare well.

David

* Be warned, however, that what I will be showing you is highly mathematical, and directly from Misner Thorne and Wheeler's Gravitation. (Their's is the only text I have seen that doesn't stop at the linear approximations and/or analogies. However, this makes it much more difficult for those not fluent in Differential Geometry. Which is almost certainly the reason why most authors stop at the linear approximations and/or analogies.)