Monday, March 18, 2024

More Mitterer


Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Proto-IE or Sprachbund? Dialogue with Josef G. Mitterer · Φιλολoγικά/Philologica: Indo-European Branches for I and II p. Plural, Pronouns · back to Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: An Anti-Christian Bumped in On My Dialogue with Mitterer, Starting with a Red Flag · Continuing with Mitterer · More Mitterer

Each comment is divided with the quiz in the middle, and before the middle, the pre-quiz parts of each comment, and after the middle, the post-quiz parts of each comment. The quiz is a list of 10 gotcha questions against Christianity.

Pre-Quiz Parts

Sat. 16.III.2024

Josef G. Mitterer
I actually specialise in having a global vision differing from Evolutionist mainstream and also in ignoring no "neighbouring fields" — or as few as possible.


Okay, but I still find it hardly possible to be more expert in five, six different fields than, say, university profs, even studying day and night. As far as I have seen, many people in the “anti-mainstream” community are pretty selective in what they accept and what not, in the sense that “mainstream” science is “good” if it’s helpful (and it very often is) or if it supports the pre-existing convictions, but it’s “bad” (or wrong or manipulated, or manipulating etc.) if it contrasts them or leads to inconvenient consequences. (Just saying, I’m not referring these words to you — it’s generally more complicated, for not all sciences use the same methods etc.)

The panorama and the details of day 6.


What do you mean with that? Besides, there’s something else I’ve always wondered: how could Eve and Adam know that it was evil not to obey God before eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?

"they were limited to their time’s horizon of knowledge."

We are often enough even more limited to our time's ...


I wouldn’t say so. We do know the Ancient works and, partially, the Ancient thoughts. The Ancient authors couldn’t have had any idea about our knowledge and thoughts. The explanations of natural phenomena or etymologies were mostly wrong (even if great for the time; our modern knowledge is not just “ours”, of course, but the harvest of centuries, and the first ones who tried to answer those questions didn’t have anything previous to harvest).

Are the Semantic shifts from a common heritage, or due to miscommunication in a loose or early stage of a Sprachbund?


From a common heritage. They are the same as we find in the attested language history. Besides, sound laws are very sensitive to relative chronology. I gave one example in the second part of my (initial) answer. If all the IE relationship were just a Sprachbund phenomenon, you wouldn’t expect such a high level of coherence in the related words.

Fine, but in discussions either on language or history, between an atheist and a Christian, perhaps the material proofs are more of a common ground than your own version of "rationality"? […] But thank you for being candid about basing things on overall world view rather than specific material evidence!


Well, let’s see. I grew up in a very Catholic environment and had enough time to think about both God and the Catholic church (if I’m not mistaken, you’re a Catholic too).

Sun. 17.III.2024
St. Patrick's Day and I Passion Sunday

Hans-Georg Lundahl
"I still find it hardly possible to be more expert in five, six different fields than, say, university profs"

I don't need all of linguistics. I need an alternative to Yamnaya speaking PIE 500 years before presumed descendants of that emerged.
And obviously, the impossibility of turning ape into human, as far as communications are concerned.
I don't need all of geology or palaeontology. I need to check Flood geology works and the fossils can reasonably be from the Flood.
I don't need all of chemistry, I need to check the buildup of carbon 14 can reasonably account for reducing the time scale to Biblical.
I don't need all of archaeology, I need things like no clear sign of language diversity prior to Babel, and signs of language diversity (different scripts) after Babel, and carbon dates that match.
I also need the Fall of Troy to show less discrepancy between carbon date and historic date than Babel. Perhaps even less than the Fall of Jericho (historically 1470 BC, Kenyon's date 1550 BC).
I don't need all of Egyptology, I need to be able to show that Egyptian records are so fragmentary that establishing a beginning of Pharaonic Egypt in 3000 BC is as doomed from documents as it is (for above mentioned reason) by carbon dates.

"but it’s “bad” (or wrong or manipulated, or manipulating etc.) if it contrasts them or leads to inconvenient consequences."

My way of avoiding that is to engage in debates. I don't need all of linguistics, but if you had a part in what I miss which could definitely preclude Sprachbund (so far not seen any), I'd need to know. How do you reconstruct the PIE forms of I and II plural, btw, and using normal sound laws get Slavic / Latin, Baltic, German, Celtic forms?

I think I mentioned there was a paper in the 1980's which I read in the 1990's and which seemed very roundabout to me ...

"What do you mean with that?"

Chapter 1 gives the panorama. Chapter 2 account, beginning a bit into chapter 2, gives details for day VI.

"before eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?"

So far, their definition of good was "obeying God"

"We do know the Ancient works and, partially, the Ancient thoughts. The Ancient authors couldn’t have had any idea about our knowledge and thoughts."

That's forgetting that a certain approach to their thoughts is pretty obligate in modern Academia. It's patronising. It's a bit like asking a Patriotic US General to be able to use his info on Amerindian thought when taking a look at reality around him. He's usually too patronising.

Apart from being too patronising, the things I mentioned are also so out of the public view, that they are inaccessible in practise to most. There is a hegemony for natural scientists who ignore both St. Thomas Aquinas and Plutarch and the epistemology of history.

"The explanations of natural phenomena or etymologies were mostly wrong"

For natural phenomena, I think you rely too heavily on materialism. Plus, you are showing in action the kind of Natural Sciences hegemony I just complained about.

"They are the same as we find in the attested language history."

Theos and dizzy? Blogas and blagu- ? I don't think so.

I think even the give, have, take and "siegen" semantics would be lacking examples for attested language history. I find that one as incredible as you find loans in such central vocabulary.

Josef G. Mitterer
I don't need all of […]


That’s a legitimate approach, but I doubt that it’s a very good one, because you risk gaps. You can’t be an expert of historical syntax if you aren’t very good in historical phonology and morphology, too. You can’t be an expert of, say, English language history if you aren’t familiar with the history of other languages. I’d even say you can’t be an expert of Latin if you don’t have at least some notion of the Romance languages. — I’m pretty sure this also goes for other sciences. Everywhere there are synergetic effects and a lot of different factors to consider.

My way of avoiding that is to engage in debates.


That’s a legitimate approach indeed.

How do you reconstruct the PIE forms of I and II plural, btw, and using normal sound laws get Slavic / Latin, Baltic, German, Celtic forms?


First of all, sound laws are not always enough to describe the evolution of a conjugation. There are always (obvious) processes of analogy (EDIT: or complete restructuring; for instance, the rioplatense form ustedes cantan is not derived from Latin VŌS CANTĀTIS, but still built with Latin material), too, also in the well-attested language history. So as for your question (and referring to the imperfective system), the endings were *-(o)me/*-mos for the 1st (primary/secondary) and *-(e)tes for the 2nd person.

  1. Latin is no problem: *leg̑emos > legimus (with regular vowel development in internal and final syllables); *leg̑etes > legitis.
  2. Slavic (Old Church Slavonic): *bʰeremos > беремъ beremŭ; *bʰeretes > берете berete. For the loss of final *-s, see also три alongside Latin trēs, Greek τρεῖς, Lithuanian trỹs and many other examples.
  3. Baltic (Latvian) forms are very similar: beram, berat, yet final vowels were dropped, too (like, partially, in modern Slavic languages).
  4. (Old High) German: nemumēs ‘we take’ and nëmet ‘you take’. The ending -mēs is most probably related to the Proto-Indo-European pronoun *u̯ei̯-s ‘we’. The agglutination of a postponed pronoun is a pretty common phenomenon.
  5. Celtic (Old Irish): -beram < *beroμah < Proto-Celtic *beromosi; -beirid < *bereθih < Proto-Celtic *beretesi.


As for your Genesis explanations, I must say I find them pretty arbitrary.

For natural phenomena, I think you rely too heavily on materialism. Plus, you are showing in action the kind of Natural Sciences hegemony I just complained about.


I really don’t think so. Take the example of wind. Many intelligent people of different epochs tried to explain it. Their explanations can by no means compete with our modern one. Natural Sciences work. Otherwise many things based on them wouldn’t work, neither.

Theos and dizzy? Blogas and blagu- ? I don't think so. I think even the give, have, take and "siegen" semantics would be lacking examples for attested language history.


Who actually said θεός and dizzy are related? While as for blogas and благо-, note the Russian word блаженный (< *blagʲ-enn-yj) which means both ‘saint’ and ‘God’s fool, holy fool’, so there’s the bridge between the two semantics. Also in well-attested language history, there are many weird semantic shifts, such as morbido meaning ‘soft, tender’ in Italian.

It suggests that you use non-existence of God as a premiss in treating historic facts of documentation and apparent such and what you allow to be documented.


It’s rational to believe something doesn’t exist unless there are immediate proofs or very good arguments. — And I don’t think rational considerations are less powerful than historical ones, unless you can immediately proof “God’s acting” in history. If God is contradicting, he can’t be plausible in another field. That’s why I think God should have to “survive the quiz”:

Mon. 18.III.2024

Hans-Georg Lundahl
"You can’t be an expert of historical syntax if you aren’t very good in historical phonology and morphology, too."

For Gregory of Tours, I'm relying on what I have been taught, while reading him.

"You can’t be an expert of, say, English language history if you aren’t familiar with the history of other languages."

I'm roughly familiar with Germanic language histories since childhood.

"I’d even say you can’t be an expert of Latin if you don’t have at least some notion of the Romance languages."

Alcuin was in England, before he came to confront a Latin he considered Lingua Romana Rustica rather than the real deal ...

"First of all, sound laws are not always enough to describe the evolution of a conjugation."

I was not speaking of the verb endings, I was speaking of the pronouns.

Indo-European Branches for I and II p. Plural, Pronouns
https://filolohika.blogspot.com/2024/02/indo-european-branches-for-i-and-ii-p.html


we—ons, ye—you :
mes, jus :
nos, vos / my—nas : vy—vas

"Their explanations can by no means compete with our modern one."

You have given no concrete examples of them being wrong.

"Who actually said θεός and dizzy are related?"

C. S. Lewis, Studies in words. “giddy” is a parallel, starting from Germanic “god” instead of from a word etymologically identic to θεός.

"While as for blogas and благо-, note the Russian word блаженный (< *blagʲ-enn-yj) which means both ‘saint’ and ‘God’s fool, holy fool’, so there’s the bridge between the two semantics."

You can't get from "holy fool" to "bad" ... if you really wanted a parallel, how about “sacré” or “verdammt” …? But both have etymological roots in words for dedications to higher or lower entities, I think a real example of such would be unattested behind “блаж-” and blogas.

"Also in well-attested language history, there are many weird semantic shifts, such as morbido meaning ‘soft, tender’ in Italian."

A muscle area with more lipid cells than muscle tissue? A beaten and sore shoulder is sickly in a living man, but ideal in beef.

"It’s rational to believe something doesn’t exist unless there are immediate proofs or very good arguments."

It's not rational to keep this up, when the prima facie version of lots of things (astronomy, history, human mind) is such a good argument that in order to keep up atheism you discard the prima facie version, like things considered historic by a people actually being that.

"And I don’t think rational considerations are less powerful than historical ones, unless you can immediately proof “God’s acting” in history."

Prima facie interpretation of Flood account, Exodus account, Resurrection account.

"If God is contradicting, he can’t be plausible in another field."

You seem to have extremely high requirements for accepting coherence or low ones for suspecting contradiction.

To the quiz.

Josef G. Mitterer
"You can’t be an expert […]


I didn’t actually mean it in that specific way. What I meant was that you often have to understand the whole field in order to be able to evaluate one part of it correctly.

I was not speaking of the verb endings, I was speaking of the pronouns.


Well, actually you were speaking about “the PIE forms of I and II plural” so I couldn’t really know what exactly you were referring to. — So, as for the pronominal system, firstly, here goes the same what I had said yesterday: sound laws alone can’t explain everything. Spanish (Am.) ustedes ‘you’ and Italian ci ‘us’ can’t be derived from Latin VŌS and NŌS, yet they developed inside Spanish and Italian, with inherited material only (< VOSTRA MERCĒDE, *HĪC-CE). So even within the Romance languages you have a divergence like ustedes nos dan = voi ci date. So why wouldn’t one expect some divergence also within IE languages? If we didn’t know anything about the history of the Romance languages, we could easily think that ustedes or ci came from outside. But well, let’s re-start:

  1. PIE: Nom.: *u̯ei̯s, *i̯uhs, Acc.: *nōs, *u̯ōs (clitic), *n̥sme, *usme (orthotonic).
  2. Latin: nōs, vōs go directly back to *nōs, *u̯ōs. The use of originally oblique pronouns in subject function is a very common phenomenon also in attested language history (cf. moi in French, lui in Italian [in Dante, e.g., lui was only object pronoun, while egli/elli was the subject], me/us in English etc.).
  3. Slavic (Russian): мы my, вы vy; нас nas, вас vas. The m- in my (< *u̯éi̯s) is most probably due to analogy with the verbal ending (мы читаем, cf. also Baltic as well as the Bavarian mia sein mia = wir sind wir or Spanish dialectal mos for nos), while the -y is an analogy based on vy. The initial v- of vy was obviously remodelled according to the oblique cases. Nas and vas are developments of *nōs, *u̯ōs.
  4. German: wir < *u̯îz < *u̯éi̯s. Ihr < *i̯is < *i̯úhs. As for the vowel, in Gothic we still find jūs; in German language history, however, the vowel was remodelled after the 1st person. Uns has a direct equivalent in Hittite (anzaš). It goes back to *n̥smé; for *n̥- > *un- cf. the negative prefix un[pleasant] < *n̥- (= Latin in-, Greek a- etc.).
  5. Lithuanian: mẽs < *u̯ei̯s with the same analogical m- as in Slavic. Jũs = *i̯uhs. The accusative mùs is most probably a contamination (generalisation) of the nominative m- with the oblique -us.


I might add Celtic later, but I’m not very familiar with Celtic language history.

You have given no concrete examples of them being wrong.


Aristotle thought it would be absurd to believe that wind is moving air.

As for etymology, if in English to cleave can mean both ‘to split apart’ and ‘to adhere firmly’, or if to sanction can mean both ‘to approve’ and ‘to impose a penalty or sanction against’, why shouldn’t *gʰebʰ- mean both ‘to give’ and ‘to take’. Maybe both are developments from a more basic meaning ‘to move (towards)’ or ‘to take in order to …’.

It's not rational to keep this up, when the prima facie version of lots of things (astronomy, history, human mind) is such a good argument […]


I don’t think these are good arguments, the less so if you consider that Science and world perception started in a very religious, later on in a very Christian context. So it was a hard way for modern sciences. Initially, the default explanation was always God, and if that explanation would work out, how can one explain the success of modern sciences? You need very good evidence in order to reject religious explanations in a religious world. If today many people don’t believe in God or in God’s actions, it’s not because they mysteriously lost their faith or because modern sciences violently took the power, but because modern science is convincing, even if you still can find “gaps” here or there. But that doesn’t already discredit science. Quite the contrary, the “gaps” are getting smaller and smaller.

Prima facie interpretation of Flood account, Exodus account, Resurrection account.


You still have to believe all that is true.

To the quiz:

Hans-Georg Lundahl
"What I meant was that you often have to understand the whole field in order to be able to evaluate one part of it correctly."

That sounds a little bit like "if you don't evaluate the facts according to OUR ideology, you do it wrong" ... any ideology will automatically be a peg on which all of the field is hung up, so, being familiar with all of the field will be what prompts to accept it. Anyone who is not inside is freer to reinterpret, anyone who is, will automatically be worried about what else to revise if this is really so.

"So why wouldn’t one expect some divergence also within IE languages?"

That does not settle whether divergence from an Ursprache or convergence in a Sprachbund best accounts for what we see?

"Nom.: *u̯ei̯s, *i̯uhs, Acc.: *nōs, *u̯ōs (clitic), *n̥sme, *usme (orthotonic)."

So, you are proposing an original system in which u̯- is I p Pl in the Nominative, and II p Pl in the Accusative?

To me such a system sounds highly unlikely. I don't recall all the detail of the article I read back in the early 90's, I think it differed in detail, but it was also highly roundabout, probably just a bit worse in phonetic shape than this.

Lat / Slav / German / Lithuanian ... given your reconstruction of PIE, none of this is unlikely after that, but if you don't proceed from it, it may be likelier that they were from different languages.

I p. Pl from three different languages, beginning in m-, n- and u̯-
II p. Pl. from at least two different ones, beginning in u̯- and i̯-

Note, on this view, the Germanic forms would be supplementary in the I p. Pl, u̯- for the nominative, and n- after a kind of prefix, or a laryngeal, for the accusative and other cases. From two different languages.

The Slavic also, but m- from one language and n- from another.

Lithuanian shares the through-out m- with Finnish, which also has a conjugation of the verb in -mme.

"Aristotle thought it would be absurd to believe that wind is moving air."

Have all followed him on that one? Did he not voice the idea in response to people who precisely thought wind is moving air?

"why shouldn’t *gʰebʰ- mean both ‘to give’ and ‘to take’."

But "habeo" doesn't mean "to take" it means "to have" ... anyway, there are more divergences of meaning than just this etymology in my enumeration.

"if that explanation would work out, how can one explain the success of modern sciences?"

In fact, the "pre-scientific" explanation was NOT by default "God" in all contexts, there was a difference on whether the direct explanation was God Himself or sth created.

"You need very good evidence in order to reject religious explanations in a religious world."

But not in an anti-religious élite. And both Germany had Rosicrucians, and England / Scotland freemasons in the aftermath of deep religious conflicts in the Thirty Years War or the Cromwell Era and its prequel the English Civil war. And note, it was first of all an élite that accepted to remove God even more than would previously have been done. One which did not always communicate with the masses in the most straightforward way.

Take a look at how Euler was promoting Heliocentrism to a Prussian Princess (in German), here:

Euler als "Astronom"
https://aufdeutschaufantimodernism.blogspot.com/2017/12/euler-als-astronom.html


"it’s not because they mysteriously lost their faith or because modern sciences violently took the power,"

Loss of faith was not mysterious in the world described by Grimmelshausen (with parallels in England), and involved people who had violently taken power. They then promoted a certain ideology in science.

"but because modern science is convincing,"

Especially as long as dissenting voices are either silenced, or, as has so far happened to me, marginalised.

Here you can study one man eager to marginalise me (also in German), the PreußenHeute:

So was nennt mann Saupreißn
https://antw-n-sorte.blogspot.com/2024/03/so-was-nennt-mann-sauprein.html


"You still have to believe all that is true."

If a people considers a specific story their past, the less strong claim is to believe it happened, as I believe George Washington was involved in founding the USA, and the stronger claim would be to disbelieve it happened.

The prima facie is belief, not disbelief, when we deal with purported history, purportedly or impliedly simply transmitted since the events.

The quiz now ...

Quiz

1)

Josef G. Mitterer
Can you solve the theodicy "problem"? (I put the word "problem" in quotation marks because I personally don't think it's a problem insofar as it could be solved immediately by dropping the unproven premise of the existence of a [good] God.)

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Moral evils only came about by turning away from God, and physical evils (not just discomforts, but real evils) only came about by God punishing moral ones, or as results of moral ones. No moral evil was pre-ordained by God, Who gave angels and ourselves free will.

Josef G. Mitterer
Firstly, animals suffer, too. And not only because of our actions. Secondly —and more importantly—, what is “free will”? Where is it located? Can you choose what you want to do? As I see it, all our actions are kind of the result of a formula, nothing else. There are two elements: that what we were born with (and we couldn’t choose, that’s the formula itself) and the input from outside (we can’t choose, neither; we can only choose it secondarily, based on the result of the two elements from before; the input are the “variables” in the formula). Where can a “free will” exist or be formed in our body or mind?

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Animals began to suffer after Adam sinned. I have also made this point against accepters of "Wojtyla, Ratzinger, Bergoglio" upholding evolution and long eras prior to (just possible) Adam in CCC. Free will involves the freedom to chose what one considers.

Josef G. Mitterer
So animals suffer without sin? That’s pretty unfair. I’d say it’s already unfair enough that all humans are punished for Adam and Eve eating the fruit. — As for free will, yes, that’s what it would imply, but we effectively can’t choose. There is no such thing as a free will. Our actions are the result of what we are and of what we perceive. There’s no space for a free will. We can only do what we consider the best option for us in a given moment.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
It's not unfair if animals were created for man, and if their suffering is a useful signal for us. The other part is also not unfair if we owe them our existence. The pretense "we can't chose" is in contradiction with simple introspective observation. It's the conclusion of a priori Atheism and one of the conclusions of it that makes it suspect.

2)

Josef G. Mitterer
Can you explain how omnipotence and omniscience can coexist (or don’t they)?

Hans-Georg Lundahl
God knows an infinity of things He can do, and He is perfectly free and perfectly self-aware about which ones of these He choses to do accord created reality to.

Josef G. Mitterer
If God knows everything, he knows also concretely what he’s going to do in a concrete moment. So he isn’t only not omnipotent, but completely lacks power. Otherwise, i.e. if he does something he had not know, he is not omniscient. If he only does what he knows, he is not omnipotent.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
The conundrum erroneously presupposes God's actions are, to Himself, in time. His eternity being a totum simul (as eternal life will not be for us), there cannot be a contradiction between His omniscience and His omnipotence.

Josef G. Mitterer
That’s another arbitrary affirmation in order to avoid contradiction. God who acts, necessarily acts in time.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
God's acts are in time as seen from their results, but not as seen from Himself as acting.

3)

Josef G. Mitterer
If God is “love” (1 John 4,7 etc.) and our “father” (Matthew 6,9 etc.), why is there a (concrete!) hell? Can his love not match the love of “average”, mortal, sinful parents?
a) Why do we have to pray that he won’t lead us into temptation? (Which seems to be so unacceptable that the Church even corrected “Jesus’ own words” and rewrote this verse in the IT/FR/SP Bible translation!)

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Parents sometimes have to exclude very bad behaved children from their home. They can then usually hope, the child will come over it. Now, God can also know when this is incurable.
(a.) It's "Et ne nos inducas in tentationem," in the Vulgate.

Josef G. Mitterer
“Incurable [yet finite] badness” deserves infinite torture?
a) That’s also what the Greek text says. However, in the modern translations God is only seen as a passive viewer.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
What else is there to do? The torture is "infinite" only in duration, the alternatives would be

i. to get the guy good (impossible with post-death fixing of priorities)
ij. allow the guy illusionary bliss while bad (more undesirable)
iij. annihilate him (less loving from God's side, also not desired by those in Hell).


a. I don't support modern translations.

Josef G. Mitterer
No, the alternative would be to let the guy just die, disappear forever after death. Or to torture him for some time and then let him die (or pardon him after that time).

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Disappear forever after death = annihilation = even more unfair than eternal punishment.

4)

Josef G. Mitterer
Can you explain where God came from and who gave him the power to create? (I don't claim to know how matter came into being, but introducing God not only explains nothing, but also adds an additional problem: obscurum per obscurius.)

Hans-Georg Lundahl
If primary reality were matter, energy and space-time, i e impersonal, persons and awareness would not exist. If primary reality is personal, there is less of a problem explaining how that personal reality could create matter.

Josef G. Mitterer
That’s actually just claims. And it still doesn’t explain how God was created. You’d need an infinite number of “meta Gods” to create a personal God. (But of course, as I said, also from a materialist point of view you’d need an infinite number of causes, which, too, leads to a regressus ad infinitum).

Hans-Georg Lundahl
"also from a materialist point of view you’d need an infinite number of causes," — no. And not from a theistic one either. Hence no creation of God is possible or needed. The question is just which of them is likelier as ultimate reality.

Josef G. Mitterer
To say that God is “uncreated” doesn’t explain anything. And if you presuppose his existence, you run into a lot of contradictions.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
You run into less contradictions by presuming His existence as the primary than by presuming space-time plus matter and energy as the primary.

5)

Josef G. Mitterer
If God hears prayers of petition (and as far as I know this is believed in Catholicism), why doesn't God hear prayers of petition?

Hans-Georg Lundahl
God hears some and does not hear others, as He sees fit.

Josef G. Mitterer
If God heard, it would be possible to proof that statistically. I’d rather say the idea that Good hears petitions is based on selective perception.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
You cannot statistically prove God hears a particular kind of petition, because those most likely to be heard are least likely to be visible to statistics.

Josef G. Mitterer
That’s another completely arbitrary affirmation. It’s like: “I can fly (but only if nobody is watching).”

Hans-Georg Lundahl
No statistically visible difference does not equal no visible result. The question is how you value statistics vs anecdotal evidence.

6)

Josef G. Mitterer
If God is the creator of everything (and there wasn’t even an evolution — but even with evolution, God should somehow “guide” it), why did he commit mistakes? For instance, extrauterine pregnancies are actually caused by “bad design”. So I’d say either God didn’t “design” female anatomy or he has built in a perfidious mistake. Is there a third option?

Hans-Georg Lundahl
If Eve had not sinned, there would be no extra-uterine pregnancies.

Josef G. Mitterer
Okay, so all women are punished with the pain of childbirth, but some even with extra-uterine pregnancies, too.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Yes, just as lots of men are punished with hard work, some with poverty, some with poverty despite hard work.

Josef G. Mitterer
Okay, but that’s by no means fair.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
What Adam did was not fair to God, not fair to himself (he was not deceived) and not the most fair thing to do for Eve either.

7)

Josef G. Mitterer
Generally, why isn’t God interested at all in the individual destiny of his creatures? That’s perfectly consistent if we talk of inanimate nature which is neither “good” nor “evil”, but just as it is. But it’s not consistent with the idea of a good, personal God.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Where do you get this "God is not interested at all" idea from?

Josef G. Mitterer
It’s obvious. Some children are born ill and die after a few years of suffering. Some women develop extra-uterine pregnancies etc. So if there were a personal God, he obviously would only be interested in preserving life (he obviously doesn’t care if so and so many women die in childbirth as long as enough women give birth to healthy children — that’s only one of many examples).

Hans-Georg Lundahl
God's interest in our afterlives?

Josef G. Mitterer
Maybe, but maybe not. If God was love, it would be highly implausible to treat us this unfairly in our “terrestrial existence”. It’s a bit like playing with us, but not in the good way.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
There is such a thing as submission in a certain type of relations. If Adam and Eve were insufficiently submitted to God, perhaps God wants things that in human terms would be excessive, as reparation?

8)

Josef G. Mitterer
Why are most people in Saudi-Arabia Muslims? Why are most people in Italy Christians? Why are most people in India Hindu?

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Why are women better off and slavery less prevalent in Italy than in Saudi-Arabia or India?

Josef G. Mitterer
Mainly, because of humanism and social movements (and even if you attribute it partly to Christian influence, it concerns only the Christian “philosophy of life”, not the question of veracity). Yet what I actually wanted to say is that the believe one has almost always depends on the region and culture he was born. There’s no rational decision, but only taking on the believe of the family or the environment (even if, of course, there are exceptions, too).

Hans-Georg Lundahl
My point is that the goodness of God is manifest insofar as the guys who have a bad philosophy of life also being more likely to miss out on the true veracity of religion.

Josef G. Mitterer
So if you’re born in Saudi Arabia you just have bad luck because your parents tell you a bad life philosophy? I really see it the other way round. The place you were born determines your religion. If the Christian belief would be significantly more plausible than other believes (or atheism), much more people should convert to Christianism.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Much more people did convert to Christianity, before Churches were hijacked by the élite that became anti-religious after the Thirty Years war.

9)

Josef G. Mitterer
Why would God, the almighty Creator of heaven and earth, choose the small nation of Israelites of all people? And funnily enough, it was the Israelites who wrote about it.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Actually, He didn't. He chose one man, Abraham, and then created the small nation from that one man. One possibility is that he was the last man who along with his household was sufficiently aware of proto-history like what he knew of the Genesis 3 event or the Genesis 6 conditions leading up to God's decision to send a Flood, or the genealogies in Genesis 4, 5 and 11, or he actually recalled the Babel débacle, which people were trying to forget. Babylonians kept no record of a project ending with that kind of punishment against those governing, or of the workers getting a day off from that centralised boss, because he couldn't speak to them.

Josef G. Mitterer
Okay, that’s your approach to history.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
The conundrum for a "chosen people" should not be compounded with a strawman about what the religion believes about why it is chosen.

Josef G. Mitterer
Okay.

[EOL]

10)
(later 9)

Josef G. Mitterer
How can faith be a virtue? (I think Galen did not speak without any reason about the Christians of his time.)

Hans-Georg Lundahl
CSL explained it very well. Every man is confronted with some kind of apparent arguments against his convictions, and it would just be plain stupid to be wayward and change your mind every time that happens. In the military, there is a consignment that when you are over tired, you stick to the plan, you don't change plans for the new bright idea you come up with. In the case of the things of God, we need to add that they involve lots of info we can only get through revelation.

Josef G. Mitterer
Okay, but, again, you have to believe in the revelation.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Given the prima facie evidence for the Resurrection and for the God Resurrecting having founded an identifiable Church, it's not a chore to rely on revelation. You did not adress the part about anyone having to have some kind of "faith" in a more general sense in order to keep his convictions, at least provisorically, rather than lose them at the first little whiff of a contrary argument.

Josef G. Mitterer
Okay, but if there are enough reasons to doubt and enough counter-arguments, it can be better to abandon the faith in something, instead of trying to stabilize it with completely insufficient arguments or satisfying fallacies (generally speaking).

Hans-Georg Lundahl
(Previously 10) Who says there are enough reasons to doubt or enough counter-arguments? When it comes to Christianity that is? I have not come across them.

Post-Quiz Parts

Sat. 16.III.2024

Josef G. Mitterer
That was just a short selection. However, it gets even worse if we’re talking about the Catholic church. Not only because it’s based on the barbarism right after the Constantinian shift, but also because of its internal contradictions. For instance, what about the syllabus errorum? The oath against modernism? Are these errores actually errores or was Pius IX wrong? How do these developments match Woytyla’s and Ratzinger’s battle against relativism? Why is Mary so important in the Catholic church?

I would say, in spite of your words of contempt, questions like these (1) are relevant and (2) precede material proofs, the more so as I couldn’t think of immediate material proofs of the (non-)existence of God.

Sun. 17.III.2024
St. Patrick's Day and I Passion Sunday

Hans-Georg Lundahl
For your little list of questions, I don't think any of them is a reasonable defense of atheism, and each is lots less germain to the issues we could discuss on linguistics and archaeology.

It suggests that you use non-existence of God as a premiss in treating historic facts of documentation and apparent such and what you allow to be documented.

Again, my best clue to whether God exists and what God, despite the proofs of St. Thomas being different, is history, so I'd love to discuss history. As far as Constantine is concerned, I think you rely too much on Adrian Ziegler. As far as the Blessed Virgin is concerned, I gladly refer to Heinz-Lothar Barth "Ipsa conteret : Maria die Schlangenzertreterin" ...

I obviously hold with Pope Pius IX and Syllabus Errorum against Ratzinger and Wojtyla, whom I consider as Antipopes.

Josef G. Mitterer
As far as Constantine is concerned, I think you rely too much on Adrian Ziegler.


Not too much. I’m also referring to Catherine Nixey, KH Deschner and others. The history of the last two millennia was written by Christians. They wrote what they liked and they remained silent of what they wanted to consign to oblivion (even though, in “early times” they were often enough also proud in what they were doing).

Maria die Schlangenzertreterin


Is this referring to Revelation 12? In my opinion, the woman described there is pretty much Leto.

(EDIT: Besides, I find your view on Wojtyla and Ratzinger interesting, for I think they are “heroes” of “mainstream traditionalism” among Catholics; but in any case you seem to be coherent.)

Mon. 18.III.2024

Hans-Georg Lundahl
"I’m also referring to Catherine Nixey, KH Deschner and others."

I heard of Karlheinz Deschner even before I knew of Ziegler. He was arguably less of a historian than I am of a linguist. Ziegler gives lots of accurate information about the late Roman Empire, the period of transition. I haven't extensively read Deschner, unlike Ziegler who apart from his anti-Christian bias also has lots of facts about Rome in 400 or Constantinople in 800 that I tend to like. Deschner makes Catholicism the villain, but paganism is mainly victims. Ziegler at least has heros, even if I disagree about their worth. He loves that a Caesar forbade entry into monasteries prior to a certain age (too late for a positive vocation, but acceptable for women who didn't manage to get a husband). I would say, the problem was the Pagans, who were not willing to have children. The ones who DID give children to Rome were the same ones that occasionally gave daughters to nunneries, Catholics.

"The history of the last two millennia was written by Christians."

The histories of Oedipus, Orestes and Croesus, and their relation to Delphic Apollo were written by Pagans.

"Is this referring to Revelation 12? In my opinion, the woman described there is pretty much Leto."

Interesting. But the son is definitely not Apollo of Delphi. Even if both are considerd sauroktonoi in some sense. St. John echoes Homer in calling Apollo Apollyon.

No, it is not. It's about Genesis 3:15.

Inimicitias ponam inter te et mulierem, et semen tuum et semen illius : ipsa conteret caput tuum, et tu insidiaberis calcaneo ejus.
I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.

The Hebrew is considered, if I recall Heinz Lothar Barth correctly, ambiguous. The LXX has the Greek equivalent of "ipsum" or "it" = the seed will crush thy head. Heinz-Lothar defends that Satan's head is actually crushed even just by Mary.

Josef G. Mitterer
I heard of Karlheinz Deschner even before […]


Catherine Nixey, in any case, is a reliable historian. While as for “anti-Christian bias”, note that centuries of historiography had a “pro-Christian bias” (and the church could even put books onto the “index” if they weren’t pro-Christian enough). Christian history-telling only is not hegemonic any more, and not because of hatred or something, but because of good reasons.

Deschner makes Catholicism the villain, but paganism is mainly victims.


Isn’t it accurate? Of course, the persecution of Christians must not be concealed, but it is portrayed in an incredibly disproportionate way, and it is also forgotten to add that many Christians actively sought martyrdom. “Pagans” in any case, were victims.

The histories of Oedipus, Orestes and Croesus, and their relation to Delphic Apollo were written by Pagans.


I’m not sure if I understand what you want to say with this. I was referring to Medieval and post-Medieval historiography (and hagiography).

No, it is not. It's about Genesis 3:15.


Interesting, but is this verse actually relevant in the history of Catholicism? I tend to see the relevancy of Mary in Catholicism rather as a consequence of the total lack of “spiritual” femininity in the Bible. With fantasy, you might find a female Σοφία, but God, Jesus and the Spirit are usually seen as plainly male. So we have a well-working difference scheme in the pagan cults and a problematic hierarchic scheme in the monotheism, which leads to a secondary veneration of a female figure.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
"Catherine Nixey, in any case, is a reliable historian."

// The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World is a 2017 book by Catherine Nixey. In the book, Nixey argues that early Christians deliberately destroyed classical Greek and Roman cultures and contributed to the loss of classical knowledge. //


From what I know as a Classicist, like R. R. Bolgar's The Classical Heritage and its Beneficiaries, this is not the case. It's basically the thesis of the film Agora, and Tim O'Neill, an Atheist and a Historian, disagrees with that.

"“Pagans” in any case, were victims."

They were divided into:

  • victims
  • syncretists
  • heroic resistance
  • subreptitious resistance (on a large and heroic scale by Maiorianus, celebrated by Adrian von Ziegler)
  • and in a high degree sincere converts.


"I was referring to Medieval and post-Medieval historiography (and hagiography)."

I thought you were partly referring to how Christianity views Paganism? Well, part of it is, Paganism spoke for itself, and Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides did not get eradicated. Nor did the song VI of the Aeneid. Paganism was not the modern cult of science, except when the science is obscure and the resistance can be labelled as "obscurantists", which is basically their attitude to Apollo's oracles. Paganism was into voodoo-priestesses. A Catholic priest (Novus Ordo) who was my Docent in Latin and taught Latin Poetry, he commented on the Sibyl in Aeneid VI and mentioned "that's what it looks like with a voodoo medium too" ...

"I tend to see the relevancy of Mary in Catholicism rather as a consequence of the total lack of “spiritual” femininity in the Bible."

Reread Genesis 3 and Luke 1. Between them, reread the story of Jael and of Judith.

Throne of David, contrary to both Bro. Peter Dimond and Trent Horn


Trent Horn Is Wrong About The Throne Of David & Sedevacantism
vaticancatholic.com | 3 Dec. 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlVJREADsY0


0:52 Have you considered the previous verses pointing to the idea that the advent of Christ is the terminus a quo this promise begins to take effect?

15 In those days, and at that time, I will make the bud of justice to spring forth unto David, and he shall do judgment and justice in the earth. 16 In those days shall Juda be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell securely: and this is the name that they shall call him, The Lord our just one.


Not stating Bergoglio is a perpetual successor, more like Pope Michael II is.

2:09 I would argue that the sacrifice of Christ is spoken of in OT terms in Jeremias.

In Malachy 1:11 the word oblation: For from the rising of the sun even to the going down, my name is great among the Gentiles, and in every place there is sacrifice, and there is offered to my name a clean oblation: for my name is great among the Gentiles, saith the Lord of hosts.

This clearly refers to the eucharistic sacrifice, but "sacrifice" and "oblation" are stated in terms reminiscent of the OT, since the Hebrew interlinear actually has Minha, grain offering. I consider the most correct English transliteration would be Minha or Minkha, in English Mincha would suggest another pronunciation, but in German that one is correct.

So, there are other sacrifices than the grain offering that are also OT types of Christ's sacrifice. Jeremias 33:18 is not conditional, it is about Christ.

2:26 For a few decades, we do not need Jeremias 33, we have the 39 years of more than one pope which some have interpreted as no real pope, and hence in the Council of 1869-70, some fathers opined that even forty years would not break the perpetuity. From Pius XII losing papacy on dying, 1958, to election of Michael I, 32 years. If Pius XII lost papacy by Humani Generis (non-condemnation of evolutionary origin of Adam), it would be 40 years.

4:38 2 Chron 13:5 says lə·‘ō·w·lām, which means there will be no end to it, but does not deny temporary interruption.
Jeremias 33:17 has lō-yikkareth, which denies interruption.

So, neither promises "perpetuos successores" during the OT, since Chronicles is about lack of end, and since Jeremias only begins with Christ.

5:11 St. Thomas agrees with me.

He speaks of a restoration, fulfilled in Christ, meaning, Jeremias 33:17 does not start to take place before the NT era.

6:49 Jeremias 33:20—21 fulfilled in Matthew 28:20.

The New Covenant is unbreakable.

Which obviously is a good reason for there being a Pope (even if he have but few faithful) at the Second coming, as Pope Michael I considered probable.

7:27 Noting, neither St. Thomas, nor Jeremias, nor the Psalmist state that the everlasting covenant with King David started prior to Jesus.

The gap in the end of the OC does not fall within the promise in any of the versions, hagiographical or commentarial.

8:23 2 Kings 7:16, Isaias 22:20—22 also do not promise that the uninterrupted rule of King David or of Heliacim, figure of Peter, begins during the OT era.

3 Kings 2:45, same story. God is speaking "verba de futuro" and not specifying when that future begins.

8:46, the quote from Ps 88:

I have made a covenant with my elect: I have sworn to David my servant
Disposui testamentum electis meis; juravi David, servo meo


The promise is certainly already in the past, when God spoke to David.

Thy seed will I settle for ever. And I will build up thy throne unto generation and generation.
usque in aeternum praeparabo semen tuum, et aedificabo in generationem et generationem sedem tuam.


But its execution begins some time in the future, i e with the First Coming of Christ.

10:38 Did St. Robert explicitly state that the perpetuity started during the OT?

11:20 A Babylonian captivity need not involve absence of Davidic King / Pope, we see Manasseh ruling during the beginning of the Babylonian captivity.

Therefore, the Babylonian captivity of the end times would probably have started prior to the sedevacancy.

Now, I'd place the beginning of this horror in the archdiocese of Paris allowing in 1920 a Jesuit to make an encyclopedian entry about the Hexaëmeron, in which he distances himself from:

  • literal six days literally at the beginning of the world
  • literal six days after a gap and
  • six long periods


and promotes instead sth which is closely related to the "framework theory" which a Calvinist is credited with in 1924 ...

In 1947, they were already petitioning Pius XII "pretty please, can we say Adam had evolutionary origins, for sure?" and got a diplomatic no, and Humani Generis was revisiting that affair, unfortunately once again without condemning this position, basically all versions of which land in some kind of heresy.

Thursday, March 14, 2024

Jimmy Akin on Pints with Aquinas, Two Clips


Are Sedevacantists Even Catholic? w/ Jimmy Akin
Pints With Aquinas | 13 March 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1ymXI1dhpE


Hans Georg Lundahl
@hglundahl
"you can you can reinterpret what 1:07 anybody says if you get to make up the 1:11 rules but this is another case of 1:14 reading a text contrary to the intention 1:18 of its author"


Genesis 1 though 11.
CCC § 283. CCC §§ around 390.

You have pretty much summed up what three of your "Popes" (counting since 1992 when that "catechism" came out) did to Moses.

igor lopes
@igorlopes7589
Context?

Hans Georg Lundahl
@igorlopes7589 Jimmy is conscious of author content in the abdication of "Benedict" but not the Bible.

Luke
@luke9747
@hglundahl so are you saying that because the catechism does not take the creation story in Genesis literally and allows for belief in big bang/evolution, they are wrong because the author of Genesis meant it to be taken literally?

Hans Georg Lundahl
@luke9747 Well, even half literal, like Day Age and Gap Theory for Genesis 1, but literal from there on, even that is far more marginal in Church history than Benevacantism is in present matters.

Let alone non-literal, allowing for Adam and Eve to not be two actual persons or not the actually first men or not actually within a few thousand years before Abraham ...

So, yes, I am saying precisely that.

New Man
@newman476
@hglundahl The Catholic Church holds that Catholics must believe Adam and Eve were real, individual people, regardless of their thoughts concerning the literal timeline of the events of Genesis.

Hans Georg Lundahl
@newman476 well, the Church Fathers uniformly held the timeline as literal

Having Adam and Eve as real people while believing in roughgly human skeleta dated 40 000 years ago, that they were really that old doesn't make sense.

1) If Adam and Eve came at the beginning of the timeline, those would be pre-Adamites, which is condemned (condemnation of a work by La Peyrère);
2) If Adam and Eve were 40 000 years ago or longer, first there would be no reliable historic transmission of Genesis 3 to Moses, and then there would have been a very long waiting time for the Messiah.

New Man
@hglundahl Sort of, Augustine may have held to a Young Earth, but he believed that the Seven Days of Creation were entirely figurative and that all Creation occurred instantaneously. Moreover, he chastised Christians for using Scripture to argue with non-Christians about the age of the world because he believed it made Christianity look foolish.

I don’t know about the rest of the Church Fathers, but that’s Augustine for you.

Hans Georg Lundahl
@newman476 I don't think you know St. Augustine as well as I do.

"Moreover, he chastised Christians for using Scripture to argue with non-Christians about the age of the world"

He didn't.

He argued from Genesis 5 and 11 in City of God, against Egyptians holding to a 40 000 year old earth. Re-read books 12 through 16.

"because he believed it made Christianity look foolish."

I think that was a remark about Flat Earthism or one specific view of how the heavens moved. It was certainly NOT about age of the earth, since the only empiric and rational way we can know that is tracking human history back to Adam, and getting revealed that Adam was not created long after the rest of the universe.

"but he believed that the Seven Days of Creation were entirely figurative and that all Creation occurred instantaneously."

Pretty much. Which is perfectly compatible with Young Earth and incompatible with Day-Age or Gap Theories wedging in millions of years before Adam.


Do DINOSAURS Disprove GOD??? w/ Jimmy Akin
Pints With Aquinas | 11 March 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pB5vM10FXGM


1:15 Let's suppose animals have no rights per se.

They were created for man. Fine. This means, man was created so as to show empathy for them, and one of the shocks Adam and Eve had on the evening they had sinned was ... getting clothed in the skin of a pair of animals they had known and loved.

Even on this view, or perhaps especially on this view, animals should not have suffered before Adam sinned.

Qwerty
@Qwerty-jy9mj
How does that follow?

Hans Georg Lundahl
@Qwerty-jy9mj Because suffering, not tangs of pain, but suffering, is an ugly thing.

It's penal, either for the one suffering, or for man, seeing the suffering in an animal.

Qwerty
Why is that the case?

Hans Georg Lundahl
@Qwerty-jy9mj Catechism of St. Pius X:

35 Q. In what state did God place our first parents, Adam and Eve?
A. God placed our first parents, Adam and Eve, in the state of innocence and grace; but they soon fell away by sin.

36 Q. Besides innocence and sanctifying grace did God confer any other gifts on our first parents?
A. Besides innocence and sanctifying grace, God conferred on our first parents other gifts, which, along with sanctifying . grace, they were to transmit to their descendants; these were: (1) Integrity, that is, the perfect subjection of sense . reason; (2) Immortality; (3) Immunity from all pain and sorrow; (4) A knowledge in keeping with their state.

37 Q. What was the nature of Adam's sin?
A. Adam's sin was a sin of pride and of grave disobedience.

38 Q. What chastisement was meted out to the sin of Adam and Eve?
A. Adam and Eve lost the grace of God and the right they had to Heaven; they were driven out of the earthly Paradise, subjected to many miseries of soul and body, and condemned to death.

39 Q. If Adam and Eve had not sinned, would they have bee exempt from death?
A. If Adam and Eve had not sinned and if they had remained faithful to God, they would, after a happy and tranquil sojourn here on earth, and without dying, have been transferred by God into Heaven, to enjoy a life of unending glory.


Perhaps you'd argue from 40 Q ...

40 Q. Were these gifts due to man?
A. These gifts were in no way due to man, but were absolutely gratuitous and supernatural; and hence, when Adam disobeyed the divine command, God could without any injustice deprive both Adam and his posterity of them.


Nevertheless, "subject to many miseries" is "chastisement" in 38 Q.

Qwerty
And how do these relate to non rational animals?

Hans Georg Lundahl
@Qwerty-jy9mj Given the empathy Adam and Eve had for them, it was at least fitting that they should not needlessly suffer prior to Adam's sin.

Take the canary in the coal mine. When the canary dies it means there is gas that can kill men. When the first non-rational animal died, or two, it signalled to Adam and Eve that God was serious about sin, it was a real disaster.

You are familiar with the distinction "de condigno" and "de congruo" right?

Qwerty
@hglundahl
Yeah but it doesn't seem to apply here, if humans merit mercy upon their dignity and that's characterized by their rational nature, we can say that empathy towards non rational animals is desirable without saying it's analogous to mercy given among rational creatures because they are different in kind, not degree.

Hans Georg Lundahl
@Qwerty-jy9mj You missed the part about "de congruo" ...

Qwerty
@hglundahl
No, I did imply that the comparison is invalid because of the category error.

Hans Georg Lundahl
@Qwerty-jy9mj There is no such one.

Men have a kind of merit of mercy "de condigno", because of their nature.

Beasts have a reasonable expectation (by men) to be seen in merciful circumstances, because God is the kind of God He is -- "de congruo" ... "the righteous has mercy even over his livestock" says the Bible, and before Adam, all livestock would have been God's. God being righteous, it follows that beasts would have suffered at least no wasteful and useless suffering before Adam sinned.

Alonso B
@alonsoACR
@hglundahl Animals dying is absolutely compatible in a non-Fallen world. Aquinas made this point I believe.

Basically if a rock fell upon a Fido, Fido may have died.

It's totally fine. Death isn't inherently evil.

Let's not forget that, regardless of your emotional attachments, animals aren't morally significant the way humans are. They don't have the image and likeness of God, and never had, thus technically speaking they're even incapable of love.

Oh my God, I hope I'm not being too harsh here. What you're saying is absolutely possible going off Bible alone. I just, personally, have my reservations, and in fact agree with Aquinas.

Hans Georg Lundahl
@alonsoACR "Aquinas made this point I believe."

I believe he made the point that in an unfallen world, wolves would also have eaten rabbits, but the rabbits that Adam allowed them to eat, on occasions.

In other words, there would on that view (not held by all Church Fathers, perhaps based on misunderstanding one remark by St. Basil!) still have been no wasteful or useless animal death or suffering.

Qwerty
@hglundahl
Our dignity is de congruo because despite original sin all men are made in the image and likeness of God. We are within the genre of rational souls, animal souls by definition lack the intellect which remains after death and as such it's incongruent to believe they can participate in whatever we will participate as an afterlife. Maybe there's some post mortem fate for non rational sensitive souls but that's mere speculation and it certainly can't be said that it would be confused with ours because they would serve different final causes.

Hans Georg Lundahl
@Qwerty-jy9mj Since we are made in the image and likeness of God, we have an expectation "de condigno" prior to sin, not totally abolished by sin.

Beasts have an expectation in our eyes (they don't have expectations themselves) "de congruo" given how fitting that is for God. AND given that animal suffering is traumatising for a rightly constituted man.

"as such it's incongruent to believe they can participate in whatever we will participate as an afterlife."

I am not arguing from the position that beasts have an afterlife, especially one idependently of man. If they have one, it's because God revives animals that men who go to Heaven have loved. As part of their bliss.

Precisely because a dino living (supposedly) 65 million years before Adam does not have an afterlife it is the more fitting that they be not exposed to either long lasting cancers or tooth ache or healing after gruesome infighting wounds before dying. On the other hand, if they suffered all of this because Adam sinned, and became dangerous to men getting close, because Adam sinned, the things really do fit.

Qwerty
@hglundahl
I don't disagree with that, insofar as humans have a duty of humane treatment of non rational sensitive souls, humane as in "proper to humankind". Meaning it's the human who becomes "more human" by treating an animal in relation to the dignity the human has and not the animal's.

Hans Georg Lundahl
@Qwerty-jy9mj And given that God has a greater dignity than man?

Qwerty
@hglundahl
We're made in his image where animals aren't, the comparison isn't analogous.

Alonso B
@hglundahl I struggle to see the problem of animal suffering per se. Or even animal death.

Animals that have no capacity for intellect or love (no image and likeness + breath of life) aren't people. If it has purpose or use, then animal suffering is permissible in my eyes.

In the Old Testament, in fact, animal suffering is implicitly mandated due to sacrificial laws. You NEEDED to kill animals for their meat. Other places practiced veganism, but God's People had to eat meat regularly. Lamb every Easter, etc. The sacrifice itself wasn't painless to the animal.

God has allowed morally gray things, but God never mandated morally dubious things. Ever. Especially not outright evil.

So this is why I struggle. My vision of a non-Fallen world doesn't include vegan humans, especially not vegan and pacifistic animals.

Hans Georg Lundahl
@alonsoACR "In the Old Testament, in fact, animal suffering is implicitly mandated due to sacrificial laws."

Put into place because Adam's sin required sacrifice.

"You NEEDED to kill animals for their meat."

Since after the Flood, when vegetation and especially cereals were a bit too scarce. See Genesis 9:2.

"The sacrifice itself wasn't painless to the animal."

Neither was the humanity it was sacrificed for sinless.

"My vision of a non-Fallen world doesn't include vegan humans, "

Even if in fact righteous men before the Flood were either vegan, or vegan outside sacrifice?

Even if the most vegan culture there is, Hinduism, seems to have a general "pre-Flood nostalgia" complex, as evidenced by Mahabharata, the main events of which (not including pagan gods existing as gods!) happened before the Flood?

Hans Georg Lundahl
@Qwerty-jy9mj Yes, but it's precisely his image that makes us obliged to be kind to animals, meaning He presumably is too — except when there is human sin to allow for them being used for correction.

Hans Georg Lundahl
@alonsoACR "especially not vegan and pacifistic animals."

Vegan, Church Fathers are divided.

But uselessly cruel, impossible.

IF you traced the comments in Sts Augustine and Bede and Aquinas about non-vegan carnivores, you'd find that a good order would have prevailed. Not the chaos and misery of T Rex dealing with cancer, caries, and bites from each other for years before they died.

Qwerty
@hglundahl
You mean when the pit bull mauls a kid to death?

You're running in circles at this point, I already addressed this. The claim that man was created to "show empathy" to non rational souls is insane.

Hans Georg Lundahl
@Qwerty-jy9mj If you shoot that pit bull, you are very correctly priorising a human child over a non-rational animal gone rogue.

You are also doing so after Adam sinned.

The pit bull gone rogue is also acting so after Adam sinned.

By and large we are meant to show empathy for non-rational animals, especially vertebrates and among them mammalians, this is not insane, it is just that it has to step back before other considerations at times.

And the one you mentioned arose after Adam sinned. As did a perfectly innocuous hamster getting cancer to the distress of the girl owning it.

Alonso B
@hglundahl Why the preference for mammalians?
Don't let your emotions taint your reason. The heart is deceitful above all else, says the Lord.

All animals, vertebrates or not, lack the same qualities that give mankind a higher moral significance.

I can understand why so many Church fathers believed that animals mustn't have suffered unnecessarily before the Fall, but what is "unnecessary" only God knows. Going by the design of creatures it doesn't seem like God was intending to make a Cosmos like you describe.

Hans Georg Lundahl
@alonsoACR "Don't let your emotions taint your reason."

That sentiment is Kantian, not Aristotelian or Thomistic. You think you had a proof text for it?

"The heart is deceitful above all else,"

Deceitful ... aqob
Definition: insidious, deceitful, tracked by footprints

LXX
9 βαθεῖα ἡ καρδία παρά πάντα, καὶ ἄνθρωπός ἐστι· καὶ τίς γνώσεται αὐτόν;
9 The heart is deep beyond all things, and it is the man, and who can know him?

Vulg.
9 Pravum est cor omnium, et inscrutabile : quis cognoscet illud?
Pravum translates as skewed, unjust

Douay Rheims
9 The heart is perverse above all things, and unsearchable, who can know it?

I don't think the text says what you think it says.

"All animals, vertebrates or not, lack the same qualities that give mankind a higher moral significance."

If you mean image and likeness of God, correct.

But mammals do not lack certain qualities that God intended men to have and not angels to have. We are not meant to divest us from all of them and be as angels in this life.

"animals mustn't have suffered unnecessarily before the Fall, but what is "unnecessary" only God knows."

Er, no.

For individual cases, yes, but for existence overall, we are in a position to make a theodicy.

This means, we can pin point what's due to the curse of Adam.

"Going by the design of creatures"

How do you know your heart is not misleading you in interpreting it?

Vegan lions exist, not due to vegan zoo keepers, but despite carnivore zoo keepers.

@alonsoACR "I can understand why so many Church fathers believed that animals mustn't have suffered unnecessarily before the Fall,"

Sounds like you were patronising them.

Can you give a Church Father who says animals would have become sick and died in pain, had Adam not sinned? I don't think so.


1:34 Again, not necessarily true if for instance Adam had not sinned.

God is being fair, because we are a sinful kind. If we come out on the plus side, God has given us more than we deserve.

Some things would not have happened at all, if Adam had not sinned.

7:05 And this brings us to the question whether Fluffy had an afterlife in and of herself (or himself), or because the cat was loved and its raising is part of the bliss of ma and the own self (once you die again, if you make it to Heaven).

7:52 Phenomenal conservatism.
Take experiences, as they present themselves, as long as there is no cogent reason for taking them otherwise.

An excellent reason against Heliocentrism, and therefore also the best answer against the Distant Starlight Problem. I e the "most cosmic" reason for Deep Time. You do realise that "13.8 light years to the furthest stars" comes via "4 light years to alpha Centauri" and "4 light years to alpha Centauri" from "it's parallax is an apparent movement due to the actual movement of earth" ... which is not a phenomenon we experience.

8:57 I'm reminded of CSL's remark.

A Heaven for mosquitos is perfectly compatible with a Hell for damned men.

Monday, March 11, 2024

Some Guys Hope to Get me Zionist


Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Some Guys Hope to Get me Zionist · New blog on the kid: As I Mentioned

Douglas Murray Reacts to Greta Thunberg Palestine Support
J-TV: Jewish Ideas. Global Relevance. | 7 March 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-mqPArOOp8


4:34 Just as an aside point, between Amramides, the prophet and God-seer, and Mendelides, the Apostate, there were never someone like Maimonides, the Child killing Crook.

Thanks for reminding me once again why counting on me becoming a Jew is a very bad idea.

6:12 W a i t ... did I miss sth? The Ashkenazi didn't come in huge masses from Europe (often former Russian Empire), partly during the Balfour declaration, partly during Hitler's collaboration with Zionism (up to 1941, I think), partly after they had either gone into hiding or been put in camps, by Hitler, or by his enemies hiding them, or by sometimes his cronies secretly helping them if personal acquaintance (like Goering did for a couple my gramp met)?

The Ashkenazi presence was full blown in 1860?

I think the one's that completely unhistorical is you.

And if you pretend to show statistics, please don't use those where third generation Ashkenazis count as "Mitsrahi" if they are born in Palestine or their gramps were! That's not proving Israel a Mitsrahi project rather than an Ashkenazi one.

Son of Hamas Founder Message To "Free Palestine" Mobs Around The World
J-TV: Jewish Ideas. Global Relevance. | 6 March 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=399gQcui04A


1) By 6 March, I think it's clear that the genocide is more perpetrated by IDF over time since 7 October, than by Hamas on that date.

If some can say "they aren't human" and motivate that by "the children were eating candy after October 7th massacres", that's pretty exactly like if a synagogue or Shtetl was massacred "they aren't human" and the Nazis or locals profiting from their presence motivate that by "they were celebrating Lenin" ... who had killed LOTS more than Hamas did on October 7th.

2) If October 7th was the worst that happened since 1945, how can you say "we need Israel for our security"? The Jews have so far been safer most, perhaps all other places in the world, than Israel.

3) If you want to end Hamas, and keep some kind of Israel (both of which I do), the idea that has some kind of perspective would be to cease treating Palestinians that are close to your bullets or police handcuffs as Hamas suspects. Like, give Palestinians some equal rights.

1:35 For the moment I'm protesting (on internet) for Christian Palestine, primarily.

But insofar as they are collateral damage of an IDF project nominally targetting Hamas Palestine, and de facto targetting Muslims in Gaza whether they are active in it or not, I'll not forget Gaza either.

And yes, Christians have died. Lots fewer than Muslims, but they have still.

2:08 I think it's possible, unless my mother was misinformed, that my greatgrandmother was chased away from that land when she was very young, in 1860. Because she was Jewish. By Turkish officials. Her previous info was about the maiden name Suur meaning "sour" in Swedish, but it could instead have been "Tsur" and transscribed as "Suur" in Swedish.

I think it highly probable, my grandfather, her last son, twenty years younger than an older brother born in 1880, was, with my grandmother, investigating the possibility of Aliyah. Sometime 1950's or perhaps around 1960, Golda Meir was not yet PM but arguably already prominent.

If that is the case, he renounced it. And part of the reason is, he thought what was done to Palestinians back then unfair.

And my mother and I have been persecuted for being Christians, with at least participation from Zionist relatives, Atheist or even Jewish.

I think, I am not your average protester in the street.

2:17 I have a huge problem with Jews not recognising Jesus as the Messiah.

Jesus is the Messiah, He founded the Catholic Church.

Some rabbis, including one who blasphemed Him in Notre Dame, he was the occasion for me learning about it, pretend "Jesus did not fulfil Isaiah 11" according to which the Messiah has some regional political importance. Now the thing is, the Church politics of the Catholic Church started in Palestine. 1st Church, in Jerusalem. 2nd Church, in Samaria. Sounds West Bank, right?

The regional polical importance of the Messiah is, when He founded the Catholic Church, he also founded the Palestinian nation as an ethnic by-product of that Church.

And before you say "there has never been a Palestinian nation" you don't really mean "nation" you mean nation state. Palestinians are a different nation from Romans, from Peninsular Arabs, from Seljuks, from Ottomans, from English and from Ashkenazi majority Israelis. Even if they did not have the state, even if the ones having the state were Rome / Constantinople, the Caliphate, the Seljuks, the Crusaders, the Counter-Crusade, the Ottomans, the English. Just as Denmark carrying the arms in Godthåb, now Nuuk, doesn't make the Inuit ethnic Danes.

Someone on a video beside this one said "Islam needs a reform to accept Israel", for me the more urgent things (I'm not a Muslim) are: 1) Zionism needs a reform to accept Palestinians and 2) Jews need a reform to accept their true Messiah and join His true Church.

2:50 I think since Christianity became a minority of Palestinians and Rome ceased to hold power, the Middle East Style has deteriorated.

October 7 had panache. The IDF response has grandeur. Both impressive things.

But there are some things about both which make me less satisfied with the Middle East Style.

To take a fictitious example. When Tintin was involved in helping Alcazar to power in San Teodoros, both Alcazar and his prisoners were shocked, Tintin didn't like the South American Style of Revolutions.

3:00 I'm not shocked by the idea of killing Hamas leaders.

I actually spent a few hours one night rejoicing that six of them had been killed. In the morning ... right, six Hamas leaders killed, fine, it cost 3000 deaths in Gaza ... when killing any number of civilians is acceptable in order to kill Hamas leaders, that's when one finds it a bit ... like killing Jews to kill the Communist Jews (I mean active Communist, there were some, and Communism had done decades of evil prior to WW-II).

Perhaps you may realise, I don't find the parallel particularly appetising. The loathsome thing is not observing it, it is doing deeds that lead to the observations.

3:36 I believe you. But the acts of IDF have brought the wrath of God as well.

Saturday, March 9, 2024

Catholicism vs Calvinism


Calvinism and Catholicism (w/ Redeemed Zoomer)
The Counsel of Trent | 4 March 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_x4XjJva3G0


on the whole
It was a surprise to me, and a welcome one, that Calvinism after the Council of Trent did not dig into all positions the council fathers had found rejectable in Institutio Christianae Religionis. I noted at 55:12 that Heidelberg and Westminister catechisms actually were written after Trent Session VI, it is also possible that the council fathers condemned not just positions actually promoted by some reformer, but also adjacent ones.

Perhaps "Jesus did not die for all in His prevenient intention" was not a thing found even in Institutio Christianae Religionis. And Trent VI canon XXVII might also be a "strategic adjacent position" as well, or at least the part of "predestined to evil" is not shared by Calvinists using the two most popular catechisms.

That said, I feel no urge at all to become Calvinist ...

First forty minutes without me stopping the video to comment = a fairly high stamp of quality on my part.

41:45 My mother, in Austria, had the option of sending me to Catholic or Calvinist catechesis. Note, in Austria, like in Germany, like formerly in Sweden, prior to Olof Palme, catechesis is a subject that you can't sidestep.

She chose Catholic over Calvinist, perhaps less for Real Presence, than for her abhorrence for Double Predestination.

Council of Frankfurt : Deus neminem predestinat ad malum. (Carolingian times).

44:31 It can be mentioned, the collectivist views of "figure of speech" semi-historicity of Genesis 3 would be a kind of Supralapsarian heresy.

A "Catholic" priest in Paris holds to it.

Why?

Because a collective does not have free will. Therefore the fall would have been imposed either by God's active choice, full Supralapsarian heresy, or by God's neglect, Supralapsarianism with a twist.

46:12 "Christ sustained in body and soul, the whole of God's wrath against the human race" ...

This is one heresy more that distances me from Calvinism.

There are Trinitarian Crucifixion paintings in Austria, obviously in Catholic Churches, and they closely mirror the Trinitarian Iconography for Christ's Baptism.

On Calvary, God was not otherwise disposed to the humanity of Christ than at Jordan. God the Father was still saying "this is my only Son, in Whom I am well pleased" ...

The more I think of Vicarious Atonement, the more I lean to it being the case of mortality, not damnation.

By dying, sinless, Christ earned the right to rise, and to raise everyone else.

For cure against sin and damnation, we are on the level of sacrifice.

51:45 Redeems all galaxies ... apart from the view of astronomy the term implies, is this perhaps an indictment against the hypothesis of Aslan redeeming Narnia on the Stone Table?

And obviously the supposition equally that the lion body is not just an appearance of Christ's human body, but the "incarnation the Son had in that world" ...

I have tried to write a fan fic on the Narniad (and on a few other literary things involving England), and this is where it suddenly gets stuck for me.

I have tried the idea that Susan realises Christ is present under the accidents of a lion body (and a talking one) in Narnia, but that doesn't quite fit with what CSL wrote himself. Notably, the dialogue between Bree and Aslan in HHB. Or that the sacrifice of Calvary is in Narnia present as the death and resurrection of Aslan at the stone table, again, not what CSL wrote.

53:06 I think the T in TULIP is also a very big difference.

Adam's fall didn't make Adam's nature or ours an evil one. It's still a good nature, but a marred one. A beautiful skin — infested with lice.

It's the lice that need to be removed, not the skin that needs to change.

This has ramifications on the nature of justification. Since the Calvinist can claim "oh, the skin wasn't changed" (even if all the lice dropped dead), the Calvinist believing in TULIP T concludes that the justification is a kind of account transfer. Since the Catholic can claim "the lice dropped dead" (even if the skin still had sores, in which new lice might eventually fester), he / we / I can claim that justification was a real miracle, like the healing of a leper.

53:37 The Catholic would say the Fomes Peccati is not a sin proper.

The original sin as such, the one's that remitted in baptism, is a sin.

55:12 I am looking at the years of the confessions.

Heidelberg, 1563, the same year Trent closed.
Westminster, 1646, 101 years after Trent convened.

Trent had as little direct hand in Catholic reactions to these two, as Jesus had in Christian reactions to the moral precepts of the Talmud.

I have not yet checked, but as I hold that the Pharisees were (along with the High Priests) infallible when exercising their infallibility, prior to Calvary, I'd wager that every single thing Jesus was criticising in their legal opinions (korban, washing of hands), is either totally lacking or very much more nuanced in the Talmud. Or attributed to a rabbi after Calvary.

Obviously not saying that Calvinist confessions or the Talmud, both made by sects separated from the Church of Christ, are faultless. I am just suggesting that they may both have learned some things.

55:57 Confer the Catholic view.

Deus nemini facienti quod in se est denegat gratiam.

The view mainly is about actual graces, i e, the things that lead up to justification, or help to preserve it.

56:54 This view has come to influence a view of nature.

A lightning goes off because exactly at that moment, the insufficient tension between cloud and earth becomes a sufficient and necessarily active tension.

Similarily to the Calvinist (before Benjamin Franklin) the grace is either insufficient or guaranteed efficacy.

St. Robert held, grace could be sufficient and yet be rejected.

That sounds like a less mechanistic view of nature too.

57:42 I would say, we become justified by Faith, not by previous works.
We stay justified by Faith, Hope, Charity, Works.

If you take a famous go to in Ephesians 2, this is basically what St Paul says in verses 8, 9 and finally, about staying saved, 10.

I could also go to James Latomus' third refutation of Tyndale.

Latomus was a Belgian Inquisitor who didn't really care about the English Bible Tyndale had made years earlier, he cared about how Tyndale took Romans 3.

Note, unlike later the council of Trent, Latomus agreed with Tyndale it was works of the moral law, not of the ceremonial one, and while this is wrong exegesis for Romans 3, it has its parallel in Ephesians 2. Tyndale held, justification is independent both on previous works and on subsequent ones (signing up for them when getting justified, performing them to stay justified are both irrelevant to justification). Latomus held, no, justification is not preceded by one's works, but it depends for efficacy on one's intention to perform them (or in the case of small children, lack of contrary intention) and for retaining it on one actually performing them. Or at least some of them, in small things we all fail.

57:54 Canons from Trentine decree on justification, in Session VI (which also had a separate issue), these two would imply the necessity of works implied when you sign up for the Christian life or required when you have already made a beginning:

CANON XIX.-If any one saith, that nothing besides faith is commanded in the Gospel; that other things are indifferent, neither commanded nor prohibited, but free; or, that the ten commandments nowise appertain to Christians; let him be anathema.

CANON XX.-If any one saith, that the man who is justified and how perfect soever, is not bound to observe the commandments of God and of the Church, but only to believe; as if indeed the Gospel were a bare and absolute promise of eternal life, without the condition of observing the commandments ; let him be anathema.


59:32 While neither faith nor works can merit the initial gift of salvation, faith is the one thing which is immediately required.

A baptised man will do no penance for sins committed before his baptism.

Also, faith in itself is an unmerited gift.

1:00:37 However, being permanently unable to pray the Rosary, with few exceptions, because one feels bad about "sicut et nos dimittimus" and feeling "do I really have to forgive that?" is perhaps an indication one is risking one's eternity.

Meanwhile, for someone habitually saying the Rosary, it is indeed very useful.

One must do sth of one's moment to moment existence. Solving sudokus is not sinful, but in avoiding sins, solving sudokus are less efficient than doing actual good works, so, at least from time to time one obviously should.

1:02:12 some more from Session VI:

CANON XV.-If any one saith, that a man, who is born again and justified, is bound of faith to believe that he is assuredly in the number of the predestinate; let him be anathema.

CANON XVI.-If any one saith, that he will for certain, of an absolute and infallible certainty, have that great gift of perseverance unto the end,-unless he have learned this by special revelation; let him be anathema.

CANON XVII.-If any one saith, that the grace of Justification is only attained to by those who are predestined unto life; but that all others who are called, are called indeed, but receive not grace, as being, by the divine power, predestined unto evil; let him be anathema.


Note that the Calvinist views here condemned are not necessarily those of later Calvinism, as to the "being, by the divine power, predestined unto evil" ... but the rest of these three canons actually is about Calvinism as it is unto this day.

1:08:50 Lutherans have historically, including Luther himself, held different views on the Eucharist.

  • Impanation
  • Consubstantiation
  • Ubiquity.


They have a certain reluctance to admit Transsubstantiation.

1:10:59 CSL, whom I once upon a time was very much into, once said "faith and works was just a red herring, the real issue was Mass" ... is it or isn't it a sacrifice?

1:20:53 Two items with clearly different outcomes.

  • Alcohol. Is it OK to be under influence, but not really drunk? Some would hold, "if it's drunk driving, it's drunk" ... or some would argue that the inchoative used by St. Paul doesn't mean "get drink" as in "begin to be drunk", but it actually means "begin to get drunk" and the first bases for that is the first drop. Psalms 103:15; Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) 40:20 argue the opposite.
  • alpha state in prayer, through repetitive prayer? Some use a mistranslated version of Matthew 6:7, which in KJV speaks of "vain repetitions" ... a translation tactically chosen because Calvin had a horror of the Rosary and of Gregorian psalmody. Battologein means "speak as someone stuttering" which is a very different thing. If you feel you have to be really careful to express exactly what you are asking for and doublecheck the adresses to the divine, so as not to miss the right one, that's what Jesus is talking about. For repetitive prayers like rosaries or Jesus prayers, the expected verb would be thrallein.
  • alpha state outside prayer. Hypnosis. Here even Catholics have been divided, but the Holy Office seems to have made a decision in 1843 or sth, if you use it for purely natural (and innocent) effects, it's not sinful.


OK, with Hypnosis, it was 3.

1:21:48 "There were true Christians who owned slaves."

If they were not reduced to slavery by your doing, or by a wrongful doing you are asked to fix, for instance if they were born into slavery in your household, this is not wrong.

It is preferrable to abolish slavery, since it affords occasion for slave hunters, which have always been wrong, Exodus 21:16. Pope Gregory XVI specifically mentioned this motive of greed in motivating the hunting down of certain people as slaves to be sold. Hence he banned slave trade.

"or who were pro-choice, before the science of conception* was understood"

Well, no. There were people who considered the abortion during the first 40 days as less sinful, but they still considered it as mortally sinful, if not as sinful as murder, at least the most sinful version of contraception.

There were no true Christians who considered abortion should be licit. And Protestants who were OK with abortions of handicapped babies, well, they were ipso facto not true Christians.

* He said "science of abortion" ... I recalled it as I thought he meant it.

1:30:39 I wonder what the case was with St. Clothilde?

She married Clovis prior to his baptism.

1:33:36 I have no qualms about St. Lewis Maria Grignon de Montfort.

Perhaps about the total devotion, but that's a weakness I equally have when submitting to Jesus.

1:38:21 I have tended to take "6th or 7th C." as a Protestant copout.

The Coptic and Greek versions are a good affirmation of the complete sinlessness of Mary, like in Greek "su mone hagne, su mone eulogemene" ...

Where Catholicism differs from Calvinism, at least as perceived, on the matter of predestination, minimally (he's not a Molinist) at least:

Do Catholics Believe in Predestination? w/ Fr. Gregory Pine
Pints With Aquinas | 6 May 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMLulZhbgfk


Longer discussion of Thomist vs Molinist Predestination views:

Thomist vs Molinist Predestination w/ Fr. Dominic Legge
Pints With Aquinas | 23 March 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poCKX-x340Y