On "orbit of earth" and planetary orbits

"The Orbit Of Earth......" as not seen

"To argue that the Earth orbits "around" the Sun is absolutely correct, both in scientific terms and in common sense....

To argue that the Sun in ANY way orbits "around" the Earth is absolutely incorrect any way you look at it....

And THESE are the FACTS!...."

from earth we have seen heaven move around it each night and day, moon, venus, mercury, sun, mars, jove and saturn orbit the heavens at greater intervals - a month for the moon, a year for the sun and other intervals of other planets. these are facts taken from sight, we have no proof of the opposite.

Hans Georg Lundahl

Your answer presupposes

A) that the planets have regular (circular/elliptical) orbits
B) that the orbits are determined by the masses

In the old cosmology, which a Catholic and Christian is at least free to espouse wi´thout contradicting his basic principles, the planetary movements are accepted as irregular and as determined by voluntary causes, i e angelic spirits who direct the planets in an intricate pattern - like a dance.
===
in answer to

hglundahl << from earth we have seen heaven move around it …
C)
parkman << WHOA boy!..... What about these "other intervals of other planets"?...... How about describing these intervals for us in a way that satifies a geocentric model?!....

The planets are the killers of geocentrism... The very name "planet" is rooted in their apparently inexplicable behavior......

Furthermore... You must ignore questions about the mass of the Sun and the Earth andthe other planets in order to maintain your silly position...

Any belief system which requires ignoring questions is a worthless one, in my opinion...

===
PS - as seen from my answer the belief system does NOT require ignoring questions.

Lundahl's my name

and H G initials
===

However.... Just for laughs.... If these angels are dacing around irregularly and screwing around wih the planetary orbits in the process... How is it that scientists can predict their motions almost perfectly?.....

Huh?...

===
if you had been watching a slow dance with regular steps long enough, you might be able to predict the next step almost perfectly - am not thinking of gitterbug or slow fox as danced by amateurs trying to get a lay, rather like complex folk dances from Scandinavia or Eastern Europe.

H G Lundahl

On learning, ancient and modern

De Gustibus Non Est Disputandum

actually dhux was right now saying something of Christians shutting down ancient learning - and now one of her supporters is making a grammatical mistake that would have made pagan grammarians, not to speak of rhetoricians (yes, the latter had higher status in pagan antiquity than philosophers, not to mention natural scientists as such), simply blush:

de - about, requires ablative
gustibus - ablative of gustûs, tastes
de gustibus - about tastes
non - not, negation of following word
est - is, third person singular sometimes implying an it as subject and demanding a nominal predicate
disputandum - to be disputed, or to be quarrelled, gerund, in NOMINATIVE, since nominal predicates agree with subject as being in nominative, NEUTER, becuse the subject is the implied unstated it.

de gustibus non est disputandum
on tastes [it] is not to-be-quarrelled

disputando is the ablative:
on tastes [on] something-to-be-quarreled [how does that come in here?]it is not...[is not what?]

or the dative, neutre or masculine
on tastes it is not... [is not what?] for-someone/something-to-be-quarreled [how does that come in here?]

Hans Georg Lundahl
(4 terms of Latin studies)

What are you babbling about?....

"De gustibus non est disputandum" means "there is no acounting for taste"......

This is how I used it!...

What on Earth are you mumbling about now?!....

Your English version is a very free, not to say incidental and occasional rendering of the sense, but thank you for at least giving the Latin expression a correct form: disputan-DUM, I corrected your using the form disputan-DO which is in this context a solecism against Latin grammar.

Hans Georg Lundahl

"Hgundethals" << but thank you for at least …
parkman << Yep!... I did screw up the Latin in my first post... Thanks for the correction....

too bad you can only get corrected on one item at a time, while forgetting the previous: my name is still Lundahl and H G my initials.

he did it again:

hgunderthals << too bad you can only get corrected …

parkman << Too hard to remember!...... Plus only a neanderthal could belive in this day and age that the Sun orbits the Earth!......

no

you are wrong, not only about astronomy - where you have not answered my latest post - but about who can believe what

some circumstances - notably lacking from heliocentrism - can protect the believer of it being mistaken, but being a man in itself is no protection against any one particular error: even a man like you can succour to the error of heliocentrism, can you not?

"Hgunderthals Has To Ignore Questions...

Like "What is the mass of the Sun".... "What is the mass of the Earth"..... Etc....

One cannot take seriously any theory which requires one to ignore questions... "

I have answered that previously, thank you, and you have not yet seriously challenged my answer:

• 1) the mass of earth and sun have never been directly measured, only calculated according to their behaviour, as supposed by heliocentrics, and its causes as supposed by Newtonians. Such calculations cannot prove the theories that necessarily are part of THEIR proofs.



• 2) they are only relevant for positions of planets if you beg the question vis-à-vis the old cosmology, by presupposing that planetary movements are determined by masses, rather than divine will and angelic wills executing it: again you are guilty of circular proof: what you presuppose in proving heliocentrism is part of what you are trying to prove.

Nor does it make any difference that you mask the propositions as questions: by saying I have to ignore the questions, you rhetorically imply the answers refute me, which they do not, since they and their relevance are unproven.

Hans Georg Lundahl

I cannot explain tides very clearly

as parkman said: "You can't explain tides.... you can't explain seasons.... the space program.... etc..."

Nor could Galileo for that matter: the explanation he gave contradicted the real tides as observed by one of his Inquisitors - a Portuguese living on the Atlantic.

I can however explain seasons and at least part of the space program.

Now, as for seasons, the orbit of the sun around the zodiak involves going south in winter and north in summer - (winter and summer as on northern hemisphere that is) and also it is somewhat excentric, so that when it goes south it actually goes a little away from earth and when going north actually approaches earth.

As for space program it doesn't matter whether the earth makes a diurnal circle from which the rocket goes off at a tangent OR the heavens make a diurnal circular movement in the opposite direction, catching the rocket into the movement.

As for satellites in orbit around earth, they are an argument AGAINST the Newtonian supposition that the momentum and the gravity could perpetually keep balancing each other in such a way as to make an orbit last for centuries, millennia not to speak of millions of years. Some satellites have lost momentum and fallen down after some years or decades - none have lasted for even a century. And that is a Newtonian supposition which has NOT been verified in any lab. Rotating a stone on a string differs from the Newtonian proposition in TWO significant ways:

• 1) the string is not a dynamic force like gravitation, but a limit of a fixed length, with a static strength resisting being torn apart by centrifugal force.



• 2) when you stop rotating the stone, it will stop rotating.

Now, as for the second, I am well aware of the Newtonian explanation or subterfuge that this is due to a third force - gravitation of earth - interfering. This explanation does in nowise disprove the Aristotelic proposition that movement depends on a present mover, though somehow violent movement can be impressed on a thing and remain with it for more than the actual moment of impression (an arrow does not cease to fly immediately after the violent motion imposed by bowstring ceases to be immediately imosed by it).

Hans Georg Lundahl

on Galileo

"Another said that the Sun orbits the Earth, and let Galileo languish as a gagged prisoner in his own home under a life sentence!.."

excuse me, but first of all we can all see with our eyes that the heavens orbit earth

second of all, a gagged prisoner in his own home does not very accurately discribe Galileo's condition: unless gagged is seen to be strictly metaphorical - he was under orders NOT to discuss certain things - it is obviously nonsense. what was then dramatically called prison only meant he was not allowed to go into town or communicate too freely with neighbours. some people who have served their sentences are at least as badly off today.

appeal to most people

"You believe that the heavens orbit the Earth. Most people do not."

Most people or merely most people who have got a modern education (aka thought control, cf Pink Floyd, The Wall)?

There is a difference you know.

An appeal to what humans believe can never be absolute mathematical proof, but it is well to rehearse when it is at least probable proof:

• an appeal to ALL the wise


• an appeal to ALL the majority (commoners, plebeians)
  or, best of all


• an appeal to ALL, both wise and common.

You cannot appeal to ALL the wise, since Aristotle is on my side.

You cannot appeal to ALL the commons, since any commoner would have applauded the Inquisition and perhaps rather thought it was too lenient to Galileo (the one man who did feel sorry for him was Milton: far from a commoner, nor convinced, just sympathetic for another "martyr to the Inquisition").

You most eminently cannot appeal to ALL simply. Unless arbitrarily you disregard generations past and the third world at the same time. Such an appeal to ALL the MODERN CAPITALIST WELLFARE WORLD, RIDDEN BY COMPULSORY EDUCATION - is absolutely invalid as even a probable argument.

Re: on Galileo

"The difference is; Galileo didn't commit any crime but his jailers did.
Galileo's voice of reason was stifled and the world was denied the truth, by the liars of the Inquisition.

Free Galileo; free our minds.!!!!!!!!!!!"

A free mind without dogma is free to excuse any crime.

The minds who have been "set free" by their anger over Galileo's captivity have been set free to crimes like enormous persecutions against Christians - in France, Russia, Mexico...

You claim to be free to believe reason rather than Bible. You claim to be free to accept the accepted conclusions of science. If you do that - are you free to believe - actually believe! - your own eyes when you watch the skies roll around the earth in the morning or evening, switching from night to day? No, your heliocentric position, which is that of Galileo's pretended "reason", forces you to believe rather that that is an optical illusion and that the solidity you feel below your feet is another illusion from being accustomed to a lifelong rotation you no longer notice. Well, you seem to be acustomed to something that has been going on in your life: heliocentric indoctrination. None the less you are giddy:

"The man who's giddy thinks the world turns round"

last act of The Taming of a Shrew

Re: on Galileo

" A free mind without dogma is free to excuse any crime."

Absolute rubbish. It was the release of restricted scientific proofs and the liberalisation of philosophical disocurse and thought after the Reformation, that brought us democracy and the death of feudalism.

You are beginning to sound like a religious Luddite.

I am a Luddite. And a Jacobite too. You call the death of feudalism and democracy a good thing. I call them what they are: bloodbaths. The noyades in Marseilles and their counterparts in the Volga river. The massacre on the Cristeros - who had defended their right to speak as Christians and educate their children as Christians - contrary to the promise given to Pope Pius XI.

You speak about the death of feudalism as a good thing. Feudalism must have been real bad in Scotland for you to feel that way. I am quite ready to admit that, I said it was rather the lairds than the people who brought about the Reformation, didn't I?

In Scotland feudalism is not dead. Land is still held under feudal law in Scotland. I recently learned the fact from a Scottish lawyer or law student. On another board.

Hans Georg Lundahl

The war of the Popes against "science"

"The Galileo matter was part of a long war against science in Christianity."

That depends on whether heliocentrism, darwinism, freudianism, marxism are sciences - or sectarianisms posing as science. Since clearly the latter is the case, three cheers for the Popes!

Re: The war of the Popes against …

no, there wasn't[any lack of clarity]:
I enumerated
heliocentrism
as the first of some pseudosciences, of which also:
darwinism, marxism, freudianism
all of them being based on false propositions.

Re: Physics Lesson For Wired...comment

"For the record..... The Earth and the Sun both orbit a point located at the center of their mass.....

The mass of the Sun is 2e30 kg....."

It has not been weighed, but rather calculated according to heliocentrist assumptions - so it cannot be proof of heliocentrism.

"The mass of the Earth is 6e24 kg...."

Ditto.

"The distance from the center of the Earth to the center of the Sun is 1.5e8 km....

The radius of the Sun is 7e5 km......"

That could possibly be observed from optical observations - or does the calculation involve anything like different sightings on opposite equinoxes? That would make even THAT calculation dependent on heliocentrist assumptions, hence no proof for them.

BTW - how do you pronounce 7e5? I am not familiar with that abbreviation.

Hans Georg Lundahl

my bad...

"BTW - how do you pronounce 7e5? I am not familiar with that abbreviation."

7 times ten to the power of 5, as you said in your maths lesson. Thank you parkman. Always nice to learn something new - even from an opponent.

Speaking of ancient learning ...

It was not senex, but senior that was anything over 40. Of course, not even "anything over" since it was not the last age of a man.

Fr Ambrose is right to believe his patron Saint, St Ambrose, but might want to get the philological matters right in reading him.

I too was wrong and apologised for it, Centurio correcting me on Emperors' dates and so.

PS: I think the limit between senior and senex was not 60 after all but 65. That giving a fair space of time before the last of ages before death.

Refuting a philosophical defense of Heliocentrism

http://www.webcitation.org/5fDmhGTEX - what I refute (and quote in parts) is here. Dr. Michael Sudduth is refuting someone arguing geocentrism.

First, with reference to your initial post, presumably all proof requires presuppositions of some sort, and these presuppositions are often philosophical.

There is such a thing as presupposing only what is either selfevident or proven by facts and self-evident presuppositions.

Secondly, geocentricism itself rests obviously on a range of philosophical assumptions derived from ancient Greek philosophy. So I don't think we can get very far with the dichotomy between proof vs. philosophical presupposition.

The functioning of any geocentric model may presuppose Greek Philosophy, the proof not so. Causality and implication are opposite directions in reasoning.

Third, you use the phrase "prove conclusively." (cf. Mr. Y’s use of "know conclusively"). One frequently finds criticisms ofscientific theories amongst creationists to the effect that such and such a scientific theory has not been proven "conclusively."

The difference between conclusive and inconclusive proof, is that inconclusive proof, or rather evidence, does not conclude against any possible doubt. If all steps are strictly logical - like leaving out no possibilities in the enumeration before eliminating, and all input is strictly true, i e either observed or self-evident, then the conclusion is conclusively true. Otherwise the conclusion is not strictly concluded, and the argument is not strictly conclusive for it.

His evidence for heliocentrism starts with three points, that are only evidence - conclusive such - against minor points of Ptolemaic geocentrism. The third also goes into argument about geocentrism:

This observation also undercuts a widely held argument against the earth orbiting the sun, namely that the moon would not beable to keep up with the earth in its revolution. Galileo showed that Jupiter's moons had no problem with this. Hence, it should not be a problem for the earth.

The major evidence (though not conclusive) for geocentrism is the direct one of the senses, which stands without such refutable and refuted Ptolemaic argument.

4) Geocentric cosmology requires the earth to be stationary. But we know now, in a way neither Copernicus nor any of the early modern scientists could have, that it rotates on its axis. ...

We see and - by sense of balance - feel earth is stationary. A stationary earth is not a problem for geocentrism, unless it be disproven. Let's dig into Michael's proof:

a) ... In addition to the 1851 Foucault pendulum experiment, there is ...

Which could be explained without abandoning the stationary earth as, forgery, magic or due to attraction of cosmos rotating around it in opposite direction, from east to west.

b) ... the repeated evidence drawn from the orbits of artificial satellites. Suppose you launch a satellite from Cape Kennedy. It goes 100 miles above the earth moving Southeast, at an angle of 30 degrees to the equator. Once the satellite is launched, the plane of its orbit stays relatively fixed. There is no significant force exerted on the satellite to alter this aspect of its orbit. Now, if the earth is not rotating, the satellite should pass over Cape Kennedy once in every orbit. But it does not. It passes over Alabama after the first orbit, Louisiana at the end of its third, and so on further west at the completion of each successive orbit. This can only happen if the earth is rotating. Hence, geocentricism cannot be true or it must modify its claim about the stationary nature of the earth, which would run contrary to both Ptolemaic and Tychonic geocentricism.

Influence by the cosmic movement westward around earth?

(5) Johannes Kepler's laws of planetary motion (later fine-tuned in Newtonian mechanics) provide a simple explanation for why the planets are in the positions they are at each day of the year on a heliocentric model. Ockam's razor or the principle of economy says that we should not multiple entities or laws beyond necessity. Kepler's "elliptical orbit" did everything and more than Ptolemy's intricate system of cycles and epicycles. It ought to be preferred solely on this basis. And the mathematics is simpler than Tychonic geocentricism. But of course Kepler's position has a distinct advantage elsewhere, namely that it explains *why* the planets move as they do. Brahe's system, even if physically possible, leaves rather inexplicable why it is that the planets have such orbits. What physical laws would explain such motions? None. This brings us to the next point.

Argument of a tired mind. The greater simplicity - or supposed such - in causality of movements is payd by greater complexion in causation of our knowledge, a k a epistemology. Kepler's laws are not of causality. Newton's mechanics is, but is the simplicity is attained by including only non-voluntary causes. And even so Newton admitted he could not explain why there is an unshaken equilibrium between gravitation and momentum, keeping planets in orbit since creation of orbital system. He supposed, if a planet came too close to flying out on a tangent or falling into the sun, God would replace it into orbit. Making that system billions of years older does not diminish the difficulty. Laplace considered it had taken the place of a system of rotating gas, which does neither explain its stability, nor is very explainable in itself, since spirals (of liquids or of gas) are usually rotating because they are set in straights and because they are drawn somewhere faster than the straights would otherwise allow.

(6) Newtonian physics implies that a smaller mass object (earth) cannot be the center of orbit for a larger mass object (sun), much less the sun plus the rest of the planets. Objects will orbit around a common center of mass. Where one object has significantly more mass than another, the center of mass lies to the center of the object with greater mass. Hence, it certainly looks as if geocentricism is inconsistent with Newtonian physics.

A) The mass of either earth or sun has never been directly measured. It has been calculated according to size by materials and massiveness, though earth seems to be crustier towards the continental plates than below, it has also been concluded the other way round, presuming Newtonian heliocentrism to be true, and seeing the orbits, what masses does that imply?

B) The implication, once again, holds true only if limited to involuntary causes, and those to the supposed equilibrium between centrifugal and centripetal forces. A football player has a greater mass than a football, yet he sometimes circles around the ball. Voluntarily. The gravitational attraction of the ball is not his motor.

C) Demonstrably, as occurs in many machines, the moving periphery can have a greater mass than the unmoving centre, if only the parts of the periphery are on opposite sides of the centre, or their action does not hurt the centre.

7 ... Stellar parallax is quite important. The 16th century astronomer Tycho Brahe objected to heliocentric cosmology on precisely this basis. He said we should expect the parallax phenomenon if heliocentricism is true, but we don't observe it. Conversely, if geocentricism is true, we should not expect this. He then noted that his detailed observations produced no evidence of stellar parallax.

If he meant that a parallax of uniform magnitude would prove heliocentrism, he was perhaps right. But parallaxes do not come in uniform magnitude. The greatest angle involved in annual parallax is 0.76 seconds of a circle. This is the angle you get with a needle's eye in the centre of the earth, and the threads piercing earth surface appr. 30 meters apart. Stars have a movement that is not parallactic as well. The greatest such is of 10 seconds of a circle - in one direction. Of course, you may reply that the parallaxes circle around and come back to same point, which is inexplainable by involuntary causes that far away from ... whatever the closer planets circle about. But that is admitting the difficulty of explaining circular or elliptic motions by non-voluntary causes.

If the parallax observed is not, as the terminology implies an optical illusion by parallax (as houses seeming to move when the train starts), which it cannot be with a stationary earth, observed parallax must be supposed proper movements of the stars, and if those are caused by voluntary agents there is no saying what distance, only what angle the parallax is. Therefore no triangulation of distance to a star showing or not parallax.

(8) A final bit of evidence in support of heliocentricism relates to the existence and orbits of extra-solar planets. Astronomers continue to build an impressive case for the existence of planets outside our own solar system but that orbit around their own star. The current number is around 63 (including the 11 most recent candidates discovered last month). The number and details of such planets is likely to increase dramatically in the next 10 to 20 years with the advancement and employment of new telescopic technology. These discoveries, pending further verification, support the idea that heliocentric systems exist elsewhere in the cosmos. Such discoveries provide additional weight to the view that our system is heliocentric.

An argument from a parallel. In Aristotle's logic that is inconclusive. Also, if these systems are closer than concluded from parallactic "measures", the bodies involved are smaller than concluded, and the parallel argument is weakened even as such.

The philosophical assumption involved in proving heliocentrism, as far as ontology is concerned, is that the movements of the heavenly bodies must be explained by non-voluntary actions and reactions, and not by voluntary actors.

Hans G. Lundahl

27 Feb/12 March 2009

Marseille

...on historic reliability of Bible

Slaughtering of the Innocents myth
by: dhux99 03/06/03 11:52 pm
Msg: 140025 of 140025

"Finally, (iii). Matthew's claim that Herod the Great ordered the slaughter of the children of Bethlehem is unlikely because the Gospel of Matthew is the only historical source to report this alleged event. In response to questioning by Strobel on this point, McRay offered various reasons why the incident would not have been of interest to other writers. If the story had been included in other New Testament documents I might buy McRay's explanations, but the Slaughter of the Innocents is not even mentioned in the New Testament outside of Matthew. That fact is more likely on the hypothesis that the Slaughter of the Innocents never happened than on the hypothesis that the Slaughter of the Innocents is historical. Even Strobel admits it is "difficult to imagine" that no other writer mentioned this event, on the assumption that the Slaughter of the Innocents really happened (p. 140).
…
"My response is to an earlier posting of a reference to this material today. The slaughtering of the innocents is part of the early Jesus mythology (this is not arguing that Jesus did not exist). It is borrowing from other stories of the slaughtering of the innocents, and makes entertaining fictional drama. It's the stuff of fairy tales as well."

dhux takes a very literalistic mosaic view on deciding every matter by two or three witnesses.

He calls St Matthew one human witness without noticing that he is supported by two or three divine witnesses: the Father and the Son ... and the Holy Ghost.

If this is not supposed to be judaising misappliance of that mosaic law, but some kind of theory of knowledge, it is twisted as well.

If we have two witnesses saying the same thing independently of each other, this is an argument something did happen. If we have only one witness, this is in ordinary and sane theory of knowledge no argument proving it did NOT happen. Even the total absense of witnesses is no argument something did not happen - only an argument for not believing something as if it were a witness account of the thing. As for truth being the stuff of fairy tales that's old news. Do you suppose fairy tales are made up of only fictions? I read a Lithuanian fairy tale today, with a story similar to that of king Midas. It involved eating and it involved getting what one asked for and being sorry for it. Both motifs occur in many fairy tales besides: they are clearly the thing fairytales are made of. Must we conclude that eating and being sorry for getting what one wanted are merely fictions that cannot occur in real life?

Hans Georg Lundahl

...historic reliability of Caesar

Not a question of roughshod dealing with details, Michaelblum. Let me highlight a few details from your quote:

"That the Bellovaci were the most powerful among them in valor, influence, and the number of men; that these could muster 100,000 armed men, [and had] promised 60,000 picked men out of that number, and demanded for themselves the command of the whole war.... [another tribe] had promised 50,000 armed men; and that the Nervii, who are reckoned the most warlike among them, and are situated at a very great distance, [had promised] as many; the Atrebates 15,000; the Ambiani, 10,000; the Morini, 25,000; the Menapii, 9,000; the Caleti, 10,000; the Velocasses and the Veromandui as many; the Aduatuci 19,000; that the Condrusi, the Eburones, the Caeraesi, the Paemani, who are called by the common name of Germans [had promised], , to the number of 40,000."

a lot of could, had promised and they thought here.

This is not a passage telling us how many actually came to battle. Even so:

Can we honestly believe that Caesar's Gallic foes were able to muster and maintain an army of 308000 (by my quick calculations) in preindustrial times?

Well, why not? Military men where a minority, but industrialism has not added much to the yield of crops and the demographic potential.

And that Caesar was able to defeat them all?

How many men did Caesar have? How much better trained were they? How much better were their tactics? Did all the opponents arrive to the same battles?

(And this is just part of the groups he ran roughshod over).

Dito: especially, did all the opponents arrive to the same battles?

Hans Georg Lundahl

Well, why not? Military men where a minority, but industrialism has not added much to the yield of crops and the demographic potential.

Industrialism has not added much to the yield of crops? Jeeze where have you been? How much more food is able to be produced today using modern methods of farming, land clearing, fertilization and so forth. How about modern abilities to transport and store food?

It is possible that modern crops yield one and a half of what they used to do (Hilaire Belloc's estimate). That is not much. Storing and transport are irrelevant for the demographics of rural peoples - unless there's a bad harvest.

How many men did Caesar have? How much better trained were they? How much better were their tactics? Did all the opponents arrive to the same battles?

The size of Caesar's army depended on the campaign. Take, for example, his first campaign against the Helvetii. Caesar entered the war with a single legion, plus whatever troops he could muster from the local provinces.

A full strength legion in the Early Republic was about 6000, ten cohorts (later reduced to 1000), and Caesar typically mustered half strength legions of about 3600.

So with a well trained (legion) army of some 3600 plus some number of local troops (not well trained), Caesar was able to defeat the Helvetii plus allies, which Caesar numbers as a total of 368,000, with 92,000 in arms, and reduce them to a population of 110,000.

In a similar vein, he claims to have defeated a German tribe numbering 430,000 without losing a man.

Are these figures really accurate or believable?

Well, it depends on how well trained and organised the opponents (Helvetii, Germans, et c) were. And again: did all opponents arrive to same battles? Furthermore, I think Caesar had the Haedui as allies against Helvetii and Germans. It was some time since I read de Bello Gallico liber I, but that is what I recall. Whether these allies were reliable or not, I think you may have a point. But allies they were.

BTW - what French Province or See corresponds to the Haedui?

Sincerely

Hans Georg Lundahl

It is possible that modern crops yield one and a half of what they used to do (Hilaire Belloc's estimate). That is not much. Storing and transport are irrelevant for the demographics of rural peoples - unless there's a bad harvest.

Modern crops themselves may only yield one and a half times more than ancient ones, but remember the total amount of arable land available to modern farmers and ability to ensure more regular harvests with fertilizers and so forth.

And storing and transport of food is critical to a people at war and on the move.

Modern crops would include more arable land, fertilizers and so on, since there is no way that the crops themselves would have become more productive before genetic or similar modification. As for storing and transport being critical for a people on the move in war time, remember that this is why war only went on in summer campaigns. And mostly not in great distances but close at home.

Well, it depends on how well trained and organised the opponents (Helvetii, Germans, et c) were. And again: did all opponents arrive to same battles? Furthermore, I think Caesar had the Haedui as allies against Helvetii and Germans. It was some time since I read de Bello Gallico liber I, but that is what I recall. Whether these allies were reliable or not, I think you may have a point. But allies they were.

When Caesar writes about assaulting the 430,000 Germans, it was in a single battle.

Belloc would have said: they were really badly trained and armed. One ought not to be confused by Germanic valour AFTER they had become Roman allies and auxiliary troops - received Roman training, that is - and if it were an exaggeration, it were too great to serve an intelligible propagandistic purpose: just as a fisherman claiming to catch a trout greater than the Loch Ness monster isn't bragging, but joking.

And thank you for the information on the Aedui!

Sincerely

Hans Georg Lundahl

And if modern yields were only one and half times what they were 2000 years ago, then populations should not have been able to increase beyond one and half times while seeing improvements in nutrition and caloric intake, which there clearly were, even before recent genetic advances.

Who says populations have in fact increased so much? People who refuse to take ancient population facts from ancient authors.

Remember however, that the Helvetii, for example, were moving through the territory of the Aedui, which is what gave Caesar the excuse to start this whole campaign. They supposedly brought two years worth of grain with them and they destroyed their homeland before they left, to ensure dedication to the march. How much grain would it take to feed some 300000 people for two years, with no real opportunity to grow more? They began their move in March (our month, April in Roman reckoning).

Well, the Helvetii had not been doing so for many generations: they had got their population and their wealth in grain under better and more peaceful chieftains than the revolutionary - was his name Dumnorix? - who got them to do this. Furthermore: a usual years crop would have to last the WHOLE population, including agricultural slaves, through a year. Devastating the country would have included leaving these to starvation and begging and taking what would ordinarily have lasted much more persons with them making it last longer instead.

Belloc would have said: they were really badly trained and armed. One ought not to be confused by Germanic valour AFTER they had become Roman allies and auxiliary troops - received Roman training, that is

I'm sure they were poorly trained, but they had nowhere to go and outnumbered the Romans by vast amounts.

All right, are you saying that the greater number always wins no matter how terrified they may be by superior tactics and how great bunglers they are?

Caesar never struck me as a comic writer anyway.

Me neither - that is why I take a figure seriously if it can only be explained as deliberate farce or truth, if the author is Caesar.

Hans Georg Lundahl

...on religious persecution in Roman Empire

Re: Intelligent Design
by: hglundahl (34/M/Malmö) 10/17/03 08:37 am
Msg: 200481 of 200982

there are no remains of churches found anytime before the 4th century.

there are of catacombs though - were the Church gathered before they could appear publicly in basilicas.

Posted as a reply to: Msg 200459 by Parkers_Dog

objections of Statamn can be inferred from my replies:

Re: Intelligent Design
by: hglundahl (34/M/Malmö) 10/17/03 07:36 pm
Msg: 200536 of 200982

are you illiterate?

or are you unaware that emperor Trajan ordered execution of Christians reported as such and persistently refusing to sacrifice to emperor?

or that marcaurelius, known in other respects as a philosopher was one of the persecutors?

Posted as a reply to: Msg 200517 by Statman_

objections of Statman can be inferred from my replies:

Re: Intelligent Design
by: hglundahl (34/M/Malmö) 10/18/03 11:00 am
Msg: 200592 of 200982

I named two of the emperors generally known to be benign to their non-christian subjects. I named two fairly early ones to illustrate antichristian legislation as "valid" under later ones.

My point, unless you are retarded should be obvious: if Marc Aurelius and Trajan were prepared to throw any Christian reported to the beasts, what would you expect from generally cruel ones like Nero and Domitian or Decius and Maximian Daja, not to mention if a law-abiding emperor so early was prepared to treat Christians like a sort of traitors (according to the hysteric and hateful assessment of Celsus) what do you expect from later law-abiding ones falling back on their laws, like Diocletian?

Another point of making same illustration is that of 260 popes, c 100 reigned between Nero and Constantine, and there were no papal abdications.

Posted as a reply to: Msg 200543 by Statman_