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

What kind of editing I did ... and what kind of copy-pasting

Usually one or other message gave room for ramifications in answer, like "angryatheist" (fictitious example) saying:

The Bible is proven wrong by science, like astronomy, biology/evolution and language history.

I would tend to answer:

The Bible is proven wrong by science, like astronomy ... If you mean heliocentrism, I do not consider it science. ... biology/evolution ... I do not think biology validates evolution except on a small scale of change, so called micro-evolution. ... and language history. I suppose you refer to languages usually changing in other ways than the new-language shock wave at tower of Babel. For my part I do not exclude miracles. And the miracle described does not say there were no further language changes after that.

Then the other guy would answer:

If you mean heliocentrism, I do not consider it science. Hey, if you are geocentric, consider a shrink. I do not think biology validates evolution except on a small scale of change, so called micro-evolution. Right, huh! And what about dinosaurs that lived 60 million years before the Universe was created according to your Bible? I suppose you refer to languages usually changing in other ways than the new-language shock wave at tower of Babel. For my part I do not exclude miracles. And the miracle described does not say there were no further language changes after that. Qué?

After which I would get back like:

If you mean heliocentrism, I do not consider it science. Hey, if you are geocentric, consider a shrink. No thanks, but maybe you should, Shakespear said "he who is giddy thinks the world turns around". ... I do not think biology validates evolution except on a small scale of change, so called micro-evolution. Right, huh! And what about dinosaurs that lived 60 million years before the Universe was created according to your Bible? Who says these 60 million years are the true age of T. Rex et al.? ... I suppose you refer to languages usually changing in other ways than the new-language shock wave at tower of Babel. For my part I do not exclude miracles. And the miracle described does not say there were no further language changes after that. Qué? The argument (already made twice or three times by dhux) usually goes: the tower of Babel is a myth explaining the difference of languages, but now we have another explanation as the one true namely slow language change, a k a linguistic evolution. My answer is that one miraculous language change, engendering heaps of new languages, does not stop these languages from further change later on, which is what linguists have observed later on.

I have then copy-pasted (Ctrl + C, Ctrl + V):

• a) my opponents' arguments, also giving them credit for them as in fictitious example "angryatheist" here (if there is a real user name "angryatheist" out there who argues more intelligently, I apologise)
  
• b) my own answers to them, where the idea may or may not be my own in the sense of original discovery (usually not) but where the format is about the debate, not where I got my arguments from. Anytime I have been questioned on it, I have referred to my authorities, just as faithfully as for instance dhux has referred to Ayn Rand or Albert Einstein or ... - and I have not used anothers actual words without saying as much,
  
• c) entire posts, from message boards to Antimodernism (where I did the kind of reediting for economy as examplified below) and from there to this blog.

I have NOT copy-pasted articles someone else wrote and called them my own.

The way this would eventually look here is:

angryatheist The Bible is proven wrong by science, like astronomy ... If you mean heliocentrism, I do not consider it science. angryatheist Hey, if you are geocentric, consider a shrink. No thanks, but maybe you should, Shakespear said "he who is giddy thinks the world turns around". angryatheist ... biology/evolution ... I do not think biology validates evolution except on a small scale of change, so called micro-evolution. angryatheist Right, huh! And what about dinosaurs that lived 60 million years before the Universe was created according to your Bible? Who says these 60 million years are the true age of T. Rex et al.? angryatheist ... and language history. I suppose you refer to languages usually changing in other ways than the new-language shock wave at tower of Babel. For my part I do not exclude miracles. And the miracle described does not say there were no further language changes after that. angryatheist Qué? The argument (already made twice or three times by dhux) usually goes: the tower of Babel is a myth explaining the difference of languages, but now we have another explanation as the one true namely slow language change, a k a linguistic evolution. My answer is that one miraculous language change, engendering heaps of new languages, does not stop these languages from further change later on, which is what linguists have observed later on.

Now, get back to the real examples, where I have argued against real opponents on message boards, that means the other messages on this blog./HGL

Last week twenty visitors from Iran!

On this blog, as in twenty times there was an article or a whole page viewed by someone over there. Interesting.

...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_

Update

Roman Law is in fact a very Christian thing. Codex Iuris Civilis is by Emperor Justinian, and was unknown to Nero and Domitian up to Diocletian and Maximianus Daja.

It was written on a codex, that is a book as the books we have. Nero only had scrolls. The codex books on vellum, eventually with Uncial and lower case letters are a Christian invention, and predate the famous Roman Law.

...on Manichaeans

dhux quoted:

"Manichaean heresy: a crypto-Christian sect decent enough to practice birth control (and thus not as irresponsible as faithful Catholics) was exterminated in huge campaigns all over the Roman empire between 372 C.E. and 444 C.E. Numerous thousands of victims."

it should have read:

Manichaean heresy: a PSEUDO-Christian sect INDECENT enough to practice birth control (and thus not as RESPONSIBLE TO MAINTAINING THE POPULATION as faithful Catholics) was exterminated in huge campaigns all over the Roman empire between 372 C.E. and 444 C.E. Numerous thousands of victims. BUT HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS SAVED FROM THEIR BIRTH-CONTROL!

Hans Georg Lundahl

Cathars - review of O'Shea's book
by: hglundahl (34/M/Malmö) 05/20/03 11:16 am
Msg: 25281 of 25288

I'll take your word for what the Cathars were, quoting your review of O' Shea's book. As far as logical consistency allows.

The Perfect Heresy: The Revolutionary Life and Death of the Medieval Cathars chronicles the Roman Catholic Church's crusade against--and ultimate annihilation of--the Albigenses, or Cathars, a group of heretical Christians who thrived in what is now the Languedoc region of Southern France.

Heretical, revolutionary: certainly.

The Cathars held revolutionary beliefs that threatened the authority of the church.

Not to mention ordinary decency...

The world, they maintained, was not created by a benevolent God. Rather, it was the creation of a force of darkness, immanent in all things.

In all material things, not in souls or spirits, mind you...

They considered worldly authority a fraud,

...reminds me a bit of Unabomber...

... and authority based on some divine sanction, such as claimed by the church, outright hypocrisy.

Why did they have a hierarchy of their own then?

The long and short of it: they regarded ALL worldly authority, ALL authority that was well established in this material world as evil, just as this material world itself. Instead of wasting your time sympathising with them for being exterminated, why not try imagining for a few moments even what a thoroughly Albigensian/Cathar sociaety would look like?

• Do marriages propagate?
  Yes.
  What is propagation of the species according to Albigensian tenets?
  Trapping souls into a devil-made world.
  Is marriage good on Albigensian tenets?
  Obviously no.



• Is the Church material, does it preach God became flesh?
  Yes.
  What is matter, what is flesh according to Albigensian tenets?
  Devil-made, evil.
  Does Albigensianism hate the Church for that reason?
  Obviously yes.



• Does Church and State authority have effects in the material world?
  Yes.
  What can have effect in the material world on Albigensian tenets?
  Devil-made things.
  How does the Albigensian regard Church and State authority?
  As devil-made.
  Does one respect an authority which one regards as devil-made?
  No.
  Did the Albigensians inherently respect CHurch and State authority?
  Obviously no.
  What do we call men who respect no authority?
  Anarchists. Nihilists.
  What should Albigensians be regarded as?
  Anarchists, nihilists.

*** Innocent III, resolved to eradicate the Cathar threat to church authority, recruited the military powers of France, eager to expand their territory to the south. Together, they systematically exterminated the Cathars and their supporters in a series of crusades between 1209 and 1229. The Dominican-led Inquisition that ensued built upon this momentum of intolerance and tormented Europe for centuries to come.***

"Tormented Europe" - only if you identify Europe with nihilist worse than madmen Albigensians and the like!

Albigensians were vegetarians - think out the threat of a Europe where a butcher is treated as a criminal. That's one of the thing the Inquisition which "tormented Europe" saved Europe from!

You descend from Scots Calvinists, firhillfan, if I've got you right. Do you realise that even Calvin's Geneva would have been an extremely hot place for an Albigensian, had there been any still alive? Michel Servet was burned on Calvin's personal order. For denying Holy Trinity. (But you still think Knox' adherents did the right thing in killing Cardinal Beaton for burning a heretic, don't you?) He would hardly have been lenient on anyone saying the Devil made the Earth. Though his own "theology" of making God the "author of Judas' treason no less than Peter's repentance" makes the Creator responsible for people incurring the guilt of damnation, so Albigensianism or Calvinism are somehow akin.

Hans Georg Lundahl

Posted as a reply to: Msg 25263 by firhillfan

Re: Cathars - first hit
by: hglundahl (34/M/Malmö) 05/20/03 11:27 am
Msg: 25282 of 25288

" Cathars.

Cathars or Albigensians was the name given this particular heretical sect which flourished in the 12th and 13th centuries, mainly in Italy and regions of southern France. As with many of the heretical groups under study, the predominant source of information about them comes from the writings of their detractors, orthodox Christians. Cathars were dualists: they believed in both 'good' and 'evil' realms, associating the spiritual, intangible, and metaphysical with the 'good'; and, similarly, they equated material possesions and tangible belongings with 'evil'. As a result they led ascetic lifestyles; they acknowledged no sacraments, ate no meat, eggs, or cheese, and rejected the materiality of Jesus' birth, crucifixion, and death. The church's movement towards lavishness and grandeur in architecture and ceremony was repellent to Cathars; they preferred a simple, spiritual church. In the early thirteenth century some of them formed a conventional church under the leadership of Bishop Niketas.

Prior to the 12th century, the Catholic Church had no specific policy pertaining to heretics; it had always been up to each diocese. However, with the rise and growth of Catharism, the church assumed a formal and unilateral position against Cathars and other heretical groups. Beginning in the late 12th century, numerous military assaults were waged against known Cathars. Eventually, Pope Innocent III proclaimed a crusade against the Albigensians in 1209, and the resulting war, which brought most of southern France under the control of the French crown for the first time, effectively dismantled much of the regional Cathar infrastructure. The Inquisition, established thereafter, rooted out surviving practicing Cathars, so that at the turn of the 14th century, only fourteen prefects (the Cathar term for faithful and devout follower) remained."

I guess I forgot about these 14 survivors. ;-0

You have also forgotten about the many converts from Albigensian heresy.

Inquisition protocols state of penitent ex-heretic after penitent ex-heretic "iit in matrimonium" "he married".

Raymand of Toulouse was regarded as a very severe judge of heretics even for his own time. He tried some 900 cases. Some 45 (when I had the exact numbers I got it to about a twentieth, cannot remember if it was 1/19 or 1/21) he handed out to the secular arm, who were thereupon burned. He released more from the Inquisition's prisons than that.

Hans Georg Lundahl

Posted as a reply to: Msg 25258 by firhillfan

Cathars (correction of my reply)
by: hglundahl (34/M/Malmö) 05/20/03 12:26 pm
Msg: 25288 of 25288

When I said Raymond of Toulouse, I meant Bernard Gui, an Inquisitor of Toulouse known for certain harshness.

Between 1308 and 1323, in 18 sermones generales, he pronounced 930 sentences.

• 132 impositions de la croix (required to wear penitential cross),


• 9 pélérinages (pilgrimages),


• 143 services en Terre Sainte (...in Holy Land),


• 307 emprisonnements,


• 17 emprisonnements prononcés platoniquement contre des défunts (dead people sentenced to prison),


• 42 REMISES AU BRAS SECULIERS (remitted to secular arm, burned),


• 3 rémises theoriques des défunts (theoretically remitted after death),


• 69 exhumations,


• 40 sentences de contumaces (to be carried out if caught),


• 2 expositions à pilori,


• 2 dégradations (from priestly office),


• 1 exil,


• 22 destructions des maisons (...of houses),


• 1 Talmud brulé (burning of one Talmud).



• Enfin 139 sentences ordonnaient l'élargissements des prisonniers (prisoners set at large).

Source:

M^gr. DOUAIS
Documents pour servir à l'histoire de l'Inquisition dans Languedoc.
2 vol. in octavo, Paris 1900.

Via
Dictionnaire Apologétique de la Foi Catholique
"Inquisition"

Posted as a reply to: Msg 25258 by firhillfan

...on Malthusianism and disasters

Re: The Flood
by: hglundahl (34/M/Malmö) 09/17/03 07:07 pm
Msg: 33507 of 33519

In Atrahasis, the Flood is sent by the gods to reduce overpopulation.
an early malthusian misrepresentation of the flood - which proves how babylonian Bertrand Russel's malthusianism is!

it would seem rather, that the flood and the reduction of longevity were punishments for malthusian perversions of filthy rich (like the fire in Sodom)

Posted as a reply to: Msg 33506 by dhux99

Re: The cheerleaders for homocide
by: hglundahl (34/M/Malmö) 09/17/03 02:35 pm
Msg: 33483 of 33515

"The end justifies the means informs the illogical of abortion activist murderers. Here also Catholics need to totally renouce the violence or terror used at abortion clincs."

I totally renounce the malthusian terrorist/genocidal acts committed by abortionists at abortion clinics!

Re: The cheerleaders for homocide
by: hglundahl (34/M/Malmö) 09/17/03 02:50 pm
Msg: 33488 of 33515

"I totally renounce the malthusian terrorist/genocidal acts committed by abortionists at abortion clinics!"

So you support a married woman's right to effective birthcontrol? That would reduce population pressure on limited resources right there.

I said I renounced the malthusian terrorist acts, which you refer to as "effective birthcontrol". Are you unable to read?

Posted as a reply to: Msg 33486 by llew32

Re: The cheerleaders for homocide
by: hglundahl (34/M/Malmö) 09/17/03 07:14 pm
Msg: 33508 of 33515

wrote llew:

How would you like to see the population grow in your country? Do you lean more toward letting God & Nature make those decisions or should people get consciously involved?

People should get consciously involved against malthusianism in order to make the decision to let God and Nature make the decision of HOW MANY babies, once sex starts.

Posted as a reply to: Msg 33493 by llew32

Re: The Flood
by: hglundahl (34/M/Malmö) 09/17/03 11:24 pm
Msg: 33561 of 33561

India provides an example of many of the problems of over-population.

Actually it doesn't. India is not over populated. New Delhi might be, but India is not.

Or one should perhaps say: the favela of New Delhi might be.

But actually it is not either. The problem is not so much the many people as the fact they are allotted no more space. And the problem is also more keenly felt by a western or filthy rich Indian visitor, complaining basically that the crowd hurts his precious nose and sense of smell, than by the people living there. One should always be very suspicious of "problems" which are more keenly felt by people looking at them than by people supposedly having them.

dhux is also trying to throw smudge on Israel of Old Testament times - because it produced the Old Testament. She is less suspicious of Jews in New Testament times who have produced the Talmud.

The Old Testament states for instance that:

• 1 what falls to the ground at harvest must NOT be picked up by owner, but belongs to the poor passing by.
• 2 after the beginning of a sabbatical year (every seventh), no debts incurred before it may be collected - a law which Hillel nullified by his newfangled tradition!
• 3 after the beginning of a jubilee (every fiftieth, after seven sabbatical years) every real estate sold returns to previous owner, unless sold to a levite.
• 4 it was expressly forbidden to take interest of one's brother, i e fellow Israelite.
• 5 if a poor man gave his mantle as surety for the loan, it was expressly forbidden to keep it from him at night.

These laws were very much lauded by the Christian theologians. Including those least friendly to the Jews.

Can you show me any Babylonian law that equally forbids the extorsion of the poor by the rich?

Hans Georg Lundahl

Posted as a reply to: Msg 33528 by dhux99

Re: The Flood & other disasters
by: hglundahl (34/M/Malmö) 09/17/03 11:48 pm
Msg: 33563 of 33563

Utah, where i live now, provides some illustrations too. Every time we double the population we double the demand for clean water, fertile soil and fish from the sea (or trout around here :)

The trouble is, we have less clean water, less fertile soil and less trout and even if we could (miraculously or technologically) double the amount of clean water, fertile soil and trout (which we're not doing anyway) the benefits would be wiped out when the population doubles again.

Utah is a desert, a country where Mormon robbers have raided caravans. Even so, it provides an illustration of my point: as yet it has not doubled its population far enough to cause a starvation or thirst disaster. Before it did so, the population growth would probably slow down, or people would change their lifestyle in a way which lessens the demand for fresh water: drinking beer, wine, coffee, tea - drinks where water is either kept fresh longer by alcohol or refreshened by boiling (unless people are stupid enough to remain Mormons*) AND wasting less water on washing oneself.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Posted as a reply to: Msg 33532 by llew32

*Mormons I've met are definitely included in the note below:
*Mystery of kindness

Re: The Flood & other disasters
by: hglundahl (34/M/Malmö) 09/18/03 01:16 am
Msg: 33566 of 33566

overfishing comes from industrial fishing as well as its waste of good fish by handling involving a lot of transport, throwing away, et c

there are however more fish in the sea than ever came out of it - the cod may have gone somewhere else, or it may in the future increase in numbers again - by geometrical population growth

we do not know

there is such a thing as trusting God, and if we are not to be afraid even when hearing of war, why should we be afraid of a rumour of overfishing?

have you ever considered that the advice of fear may be counterproductive and the trust in Providence may give very many unexpected boons?

St Patrick was so blind he hung his gaunts up on a ray of light - and God kept them there as if it had been a hook. He was in a rush begetting spiritual children by prayer and preaching, and making them acceptable to God by chastity and fasting, as well as prayer and alms. Some should at least be in a hurry to beget corporeal children, unless they can be chaste!

Ever heard of a poor Irish family with many children having to give up fish 'n' chips permanently? There may have been, but hardly for the reasons you suggest.

Posted as a reply to: Msg 33565 by llew32

Re: Hill, Kopp, Rudolph=pro-life martry
by: hglundahl (34/M/Malmö) 09/17/03 07:36 pm
Msg: 33515 of 33515

Likewise it seems odd to support the rights of the fetus but not a child's (1) rights to education (2), healthcare (3) and freedom (4)with even more passion. Surely being human is as important as the potential to become human; whether or not you believe that a single cell should be termed "human" it's pretty obvious that 6th graders, for instance, are humans and need our help.

• 1) once a girl can get pregnant/a young man can make a girl pregnant, they are no longer children.
• 2) educating someone to think abortion right and completing one's education more important than completing one's motherhood is educating that someone very badly - and stopping her from abortion is to give her a good lesson worth ten thousand schoolyears.
• 3) abortion is no healthcare.
• 4) is freedom from motherhood - motherhood is after all an end of one's existance as a woman - more important than freedom from school - school is after all just a means to such ends, or it was once supposed to be! - oh, no, it is not.
  
  

It's possible to eliminate an abortion by taking the girl into your home and supporting her and her child while she gets some education.

That is usually the task of her husband (or parents, if the father of the child refuses to marry the mother), and it is usually the task of a man who has made someone pregnant to become her husband.

And if he is old enough to make a child, he is naturally considered old enough to work for its support. If he can get no work, he has a duty to beg - and not primarily from such social welfare authorities which might use the occasion to stop him from supporting his family.

Anyone stopping him from begging to support his child and wife and further children is a goddam murderer.

Anyone "legislating" to stop him from working to support his wife and child is also a goddam murderer.

Anyone who "legislates" to allow his girl an abortion in order to allow him to escape those duties is VERY obviously a goddam murderer.

Anyone who "legislates" to make him dependent on social welfare, just because he is young, is at least a goddam slave hunter (I've defended slavery for SOME reasons, but not for others, and a man disliking another man's freedom and preferring his dependence on himself is, unless he is already legitimately master of him one of the OTHER reasons, the WRONG ones), and if he knows they are going to put pressure on him or her or both to either have an abortion or have birth control after that child he is a goddam murderer or malthusian pervert.

solemnly
Hans Georg Lundahl
Posted as a reply to: Msg 33489 by llew32

Answers to llewby: hglundahl (34/M/Malmö) 09/21/03 03:05 pm
Msg: 33736 of 33736

Hey Hans,
where is Malmo, if i may ask and what church you belong to? I see you are facing a different set of legislation than we are, what's going on?

Malmö is in S Sweden, we have a heavily proabortionist "legislation", I do not attend Church, because there is the New Mass - or Greek Orthodox* - or most of the time nothing.

I appreciate your perspective here, i have a friend who's trying to get me to help with some orphaneges in Africa especially for kids whose parents have died from AIDS, so i'm really open to hear how someone other than an American or European sees the situation in their country.

As said, I am European.

Are there a lot of young fathers there begging in order to support your kids?

None that I know of - except begging from social welfare. And that is the problem.

When do most young people start having children there?

In the capital, Stockholm, women are generally past thirty - which is the problem.

If they aren't begging what sort of work are they likely to be doing?

Youngsters are likely to be in school and have an abortion - which is the problem.

Why is it a woman's duty to have children right away?

So she can have more children: so each child (or grandchild is less burdened with taking care of her. Our welfare system and old age care is breaking down. The next generation or the one after that will realise that the family must take care of the old. It is already a blatant fact, but feminist/malthusian ideology is very blinding.

Also, if a girl cannot keep her chastity till 21 (most of them cannot under modern conditions, you know), she ought to marry.

Couldn't she help her children more if she got a few years of education, say until she was 21 or so, before she began having children?

That should be the father's concern. If the mother goes working, she cannot have as many children as she should, for the people's, the family's, her own and their own sakes.

You know, so she and her husband could get some income producing skills before they had kids.

Why should a man have to study till 21 to get a decent work to support his wife on? Do you need secondary highschool to be a good sailor, truck driver, hairdresser, cook, et c? Obviously not.

And finally, how would you like to see things change for the better? Any ideas on what to do to make that change happen? And what would you like to see America or Europe do, if anything, to help out?

Follow the good example of Kentucky and Tennessee as they were back in 1995 and possibly still are: a 12 yr old girl should be able to marry, a married wife should be able to quit school, however young she were. Have you noticed that the school gun killings, like in Columbine high school were NOT in those states, though they have many guns there?

just wondering, thanks for your patience

Thanks for YOUR patience, waiting for my answer so long!

*now I am Roumanian Orthodox myself

10 Questions to Christians - by a Muslim - answered

http://www.youtube.com/all_comments?v=sw3DkzcSXTo

@MuslimView (argument/question not quoted) When God becomes Man, He prays as Man. But remaining God, He also shares the Majesty of the Father.

I have assumed your questions are honest, I have given straight answers, starting to comment from n 10 so n 9 came above it. If you click "show all comments" they will show in the right order and you can easily read them and ask follow up questions that will show between my answers.

1) Why does the Catholic Bible contain 73 books while the Protestant Bible has only 66?
- The Jews were the people of God, but were not yet united which books belonged to His word, if some of the older or the newest belonged to it or not. Christ came. Christians accepted the fuller version, in Greek, the Septuagint. That is why Catholics have 73 books, Orthodox 75. Jews rejected the Septuagint after rejecting Christ (at Jamnia, CE80). Protestants followed their version because it was in Hebrew. The Protestant major confessions - Lutherans, Calvinists, Anglicans - started 1500 years after Christianity, by men who were rejecting the Latin Translation of the Greek New Testament. Then they rejected the Latin translation of the Hebrew Old Testament too, but also the Greek Translation called the Septuagint. Also, these men rebelled against the Catholic Church on accounts where the books they rejected - notably Maccabees II, last book of Catholic Bible, supported Catholic practise.

2) Why do Christians say that God is three-in-one and one in three when Jesus says in Mark 12:29: "The Lord our God is one Lord"?
- Because the Three Persons are not three lords, but only One Lord. As already said by St Athanasius and by the First Council of Toledo, before your prophet was even around.

3) Why does the Bible say that Jesus wanted to die on the cross, when the one on the cross was shouting "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" according to Matthew 27:45 and Mark 15:33 ?
- Eloi is not the sacred language Hebrew, only Aramaic. He turned to his Father in human language. Lema Sabachtani is even a spoonerism (for Lema Tabachsani): He implied psalm 22 was written by a man who was wrong to assume for a moment he was forsaken. Even so, the psalm continues with that insight. Or rather, the spoonerism does not comment as if King David had been actually wrong, actually believing he was forsaken, but it rather means it was a hasty word. Just as a spoonerism is careless pronunciation. Wrong about spoonerism, look here: http://o-x.fr/xdo5

4) To whom did God lose Jesus if he owns the whole universe?
- God did not lose Jesus.

5) Why did Jesus should have been punished for sins that he didnt commit?
- If a foolish man incurs a debt, can no one else pay it for him?

6) Why we should be punished for the first sin that was commited by Adam?
- When a man doing evil is punished by forfeiting property, are not his children poorer too? If he forfeits liberty, are not his children born in bondage?

7) If all the Christians are saved through Jesus and are going to Heaven no matter what they do, then whats the point of the teachings of Jesus? and where does the importance of good and evil consists in?
- Not all Christians are saved. Those who hear Christ's words but do not do them as works are not saved.

8) How can Christians take deeds as irrelevant after becoming one when Jesus says in Matthew 12:36; "But I say unto you that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the Day of Judgment. For by the words thou shalt be justified, and by the words thou shalt be condemned"?
- Deeds are not irrelevant. We need to pray, fast, give alms, abstain from sin as far as we can, get sins forgiven. You understood this right, some Protestants understood this wrong.


9) How did Jesus create his mother and she who gave birth to him.?
- Not in His Manhood, which He got from Her, but in His Divinity which from all Eternity He got from the Father. And the Son was not alone, but the Father and the Holy Ghost also created - both the world, and Heaven above, and the angels, and Mary, who was to be the Queen of all Angels.

10) why did God become human?
- To make us partakers of God's own life. Also, that God alone being perfect, He should perfectly repair for the Sins against the Perfect.

...on Physics from Netscape Boards

H G Lundahl wrote:
Quote from Rita, Liberal education thread:

"It would upset me because they would be taking up valuable time in a science class to discuss something that isn't science related (you forget that I am a physicist and know what is science and what is pseudo-science).

Also, if your kid is coming home telling you that he evolved from a monkey, then there is a problem with the ability of the teacher or your kid misunderstood.

I will not get into that 'know the truth' bullshit."

So knowing the truth is bullshit, but knowing what is science and what is pseudoscience is somehow not bullshit? Tell me, Rita, tell this "pre-enlightenment" scholastic (in point of literal fact: post-enlightenment, but VoP was thinking about type rather than actual dates): granted that only truth can be known and that science means knowledge, how does one distinguish science from pseudoscience if knowing the truth is bullshit?

How can we know that astrology, augury, heliocentrism and darwinism are pseudosciences, unless we know that the stars or angels who guide their voyage are no rulers of our fate, nor are the demons, to whom the Roman and Etruscan priests sacrificed the animals cut open for augury, nor does a neat calculation or ingenious explanation dispense us from believing our senses, nor indeed can 28-chromosomed animals evolve into 56-chromosomed (though it could have occurred in plants)?

And, since energy is Greek and potency is Latin for what can be but is not yet, how can potential energy be a special form of energy, and how can what can be but is not yet have at all a determined quantity?

If you consider what IS in a stone lifted from ground, the further from ground, the less gravity, as that force decreases with square of distance acc to Newton, while wight remains same.

If you consider what can be but is not, the more you lift it, the greater potential energy do you say it has.

So, energy is not something that is, but only what can be.

valencequark wrote:

no, energy is. period. in fact, thanks to hamilton and others, energy is central in much of physics. you seem to forget that there are many kinds of energy, not jsut gravitational potential energy. there's kinetic energy (the stuff of motion), other types of potential enrgy (electrostatic, for instance) and even mass has energy (the famous e=mc^2 a la special relativity). but, what the hell is the point of this drivel besides illustrating your misunderstanding of what energy is?

-vq

H G Lundahl wrote:

God is. period.You attribute one of God's attributes to energy and forget, not just that its shiftyness excludes the truth of your statement, but that even one of its so-called shifts, potential energy, is potential, meaning possible rather than actual.Hans Georg Lundahl
My answers, so far interspersed with vq's answering post:

valencequark wrote:

how do you know that "god is"?

Apart from historical revelation, there are the five proofs of God's existence that are parodically repeated and answered by modern physics. How so? Well, you seem determined on two points:

a) that there is something that simply IS, neither created nor destroyed

b) that it is energy, kinetic, potential, chemic, electromagnetic and so on all through "its" shifting and manyfold shapes.Your first point simply agrees with the third proof of God's existence, your second point is as blasphemous as erroneous: blasphemous by giving the attributes of God to something else, erroneous by violating the ontological characteristics of absolute existence.

Hans Georg Lundahl

and you still misunderstand potential energy. i agree that the terminology can be confusing, but make no doubt--potential energy exists. it is not the potential to "have energy", it is the potential to have kinetic energy. kinetic energy is no more real than potential energy, it is just more intuitive.-vq

The potential to have kinetic energy is clearly a potential to have potential to physic work.The potential to have kinetic energy is clearly a potential, a can-be, not an act, not an is.

No, if you say that energy IS, it is you who are misunderstanding potential energy, not I. Are you a physicist? If so, you are welcome to the debate. If not - well, the first message was a challenge directly to Rita, who is one and claims to know science.

But rather than defend her claim against my challenge, she choses to call me a raving lunatic and have me on IA. [=Ignore Author, she told AbbyLeever so on other message on same thread]

Hans Georg Lundahl

My answers after each one of his paragraphs.
valencequark wrote:

there are NO proofs of god's existence. unless you know of some empirical test and are holding out on the rest of the world.

There are five ways of proving God's existence, of which the first three are:

1 things are moved, whatever is moved is moved (kept in movement or change) by something, which is actually (not just potentially) moving it (keeping it in movement or change), and if that something is moved (kept in movement or change) by something else and that in turn by something else, one must sooner or later come to something which moves everything else and is moved by nothing, which everyone (except modern physicists) calls God.

2 things are caused, kept in movement or rest, change or invariance, and whatever is thus kept in movement or rest or any kind of causation, must have some cause, ultimately one which isn't caused, which everyone (except modern physicists) calls God.

3 things exist contingently (without their existence being in and of itself necessary), but whatever exists contingently must be kept in existence by something else, which must have actual existence, ultimately by something, the actual existence of which is in and of itself necessary, which can therefore neither be created nor destroyed, which everyone (except modern physicists) calls God.

secondly: the existence of energy in no way has anything to say about the existence of a deity.

If you are thinking of deities like Thor and Odin or Lugh Lamh Fáda or Ra - you are perfectly right. But we are kind of talking about the God whose name is He Who Is, The Being. In other words: existence itself. And you are giving the attribute of neither being created nor destroyed to something else, absurdly enough to something which is admittedly POTENTIAL. But the fact that you give that attribute to anything at all means clearly that (unlike Kant)you admit that there must be something which can neither be created nor destroyed: and so far you are in agreement with the third proof of God's existence.

i would like to see which of your "proofs" agrees with modern physics, seeing as how physics has NOTHING at all to say about religion. please understand that i know a lot about modern physics, and i have not seen any reference to deities. perhaps you would let me in on your little secret.

-vq

See above.

Hans Georg Lundahl

AbbyLeever budges in on physics

Read Abby's short comment before my answer, pls:
AbbyLeever wrote:

... and calling something you don't understand god proves that god exists?

The universe is not limited by our inability to imagine it.

• A) What do you mean something I don't understand? That God is ineffable? True. Or that I do not understand the proof in question? Bullshit. I do and so does anyone. Even if Kant pretended not to.
• B) The universe is limited by the fact that it consists of limited things. It is obvious that I am not the first mover of Heaven, nor are you the first cause, Abby, nor is vq the necessary and eternal existence. And the same can be said of any part of the universe. And of their parts - Hiroshima disproves the indestructibility and indivisibility of "atoms" all right. To anyone who didn't realise it before.
  
  

But some idiots who call themselves physicists really want very badly to place the principle of movement and change, of cause, permanence and existence, within the limits of the physical, the manyfold, the continuous (though they tend to deny the reality of continuum by atomism), the moved, the changing, the caused, the things that would obviously for any sane man be seen as also kept in existence and whatever permanence it has by something else. Something outside it. Therefore they pretend that something they call energy is this first mover, cause, necessary existence. But that contention is disproven by the potentiality of energy, especially apparent in potential energy - while the first mover, cause and necessary existance must be actual to move, cause, (put and) keep in existence anything else.

Hans Georg Lundahl

AbbyLeever wrote:

"our" is inclusive of the entire human race.
"our inability to imagine" how the universe operates is no limitation on it to keep on doing what it is doing, has done, and will do.

Mr Abby:
your stance is that of Kant. If Kant denies the knowability of these things, how can he/you agree with physics claiming energy to be that indestructible and uncreated which he has/you have admitted to believing unproven (admitted to be unproven as far as you are concerned) except deceptively by our lack of imagination?

Hans Georg Lundahl

PS - thanks for not adding from eternity and to eternity, but even claiming that the universe is active is bad enough, considering how potential and therefore passive all its observeed parts are.

AbbyLeever wrote:

Not my stance - read it again ...

Not below this one, since it has been erased: so your stance is NOT that "the universe isn't limited by our lack of imagination", i e denying knowability of God's existence, or it is NOT accepting modern physics, i e accepting the indestructibility of energy, or it is NEITHER? I don't think I misread those.

HGL

Voice of Principle budges in on me, so does MicoMan and valence quark, AbbyLeever makes points about history of physics

VoiceOfPrinciple wrote:

<7> Abby: You've done a good job of trying to persuade Hans of the value of modern science, but I'm afraid your effort will not be crowned with success. Hans does not accept the scientific method as you and I understand it. Hans' world view begins with two fundamental and unquestioned postulates:

1) God exists; and

2) All things must trace back to God.

If any line of inquiry leads to either of these first principles, or any of their corollaries, being called into question, Hans will reject it, as occurred in my discussion with him concerning the rotation of the earth.

I have disproven this contention about my arguments previously, but Voice Of Principle dishonestly repeats an insulting and disproven charge. Although he has previously admitted to having misunderstood my argument. Rather, it is you who reject any line of inquiry which proves the existence of God or anything seen to be obvious corollaries of it. And then here and previously shift the responsibility of doing that on me.

HGL

Debating Hans, however, is not a waste of time. The effort involved forces you to improve your own arguments and to increase your knowledge base, and those are good things in and of themselves. <7>

If improving your arguments is what you want to do, why don't you get started? Like answering my vindication of Classical Mathematics and its ability to understand logarithms, without changing the definition of number.

HGL

MicoMan2U wrote:

Good points. We can also be assured that if Hans really had a valid argument then it would have hit the front page of the paper. Currently there is no evidence to support deity and if there were it would certainly be the biggest news story ever.

Not in the Jewish/Masonic dominated press you read. In the history of learning it is old news. Only the textbooks claim that the proofs were later refuted - which is not the case. Because the refutations are sophistical rather than logic.

HGL

But I agree with VP that each new confrontation only serves to strengthen our ability to enlighten others to the reality of a secular existence, free from the chains of religious suppression.

Religious suppression! My foot! As for strengthening your ability, are you dreaming?

AbbyLeever wrote:

sorry about the html overrun.. fixed

AbbyLeever wrote:

VOP - I agree, it also serves to show other creationists that their position is not a homogeneous one - there is disagreement in the ranks. I accept Hans for what he is, and enjoy those discussions where I am not put through the brick wall.

Mico - also good points on the development argument.

Quark - it is easy to lose your temper with Hans - he is a "pre-enlightenment scholastic" and lives surrounded by (imho) brick walls that to him are reasonable limits on rational versus fantasy thoughts. The bit on numbers is 'enlightening', and the thoughts shared on the inquisition, to me, are disturbing but understandable. Read down through this [Classic Math] thread if you didn't read it before.

Thank you for beginning the thread with that nasty insult which is a total sideline to the issue like you keep cluttering up my threads with: like Inquisition and Galileo or modern medicine and surgery on a thread having to do with mathematics!

Doing a search on "pre-enlightenment scholastic" may help you understand. (a couple below, and I am sure Hans would provide more if asked): 1^st link 2^d link

Hans - my position is that there are things that we do not know, that what the reality is behind those things is outside our current ability to imagine, but that our inability to imagine it doesn't prevent it from being true or understandable at a future date.

The proper name for preferring that hogwash to the rational explanation that already does exist is obscurantism.HGL

Before the earth was found to be round it was logical to think it flat and unimaginable for some to even consider it being round - this did not prevent the roundness from occurring.

When was "before the earth was found to be round"? Certainly NOT in the Middle Ages, as they are called. The Church Fathers, Dante, St Thomas Aquinas and the rest of Medieval authority knew the earth was round. Bringing in the subject of Galileo being tried on account of believing it to move or Bruno being burnt for believing in pantheism has nothing whatever to do with the subject. And as for pre-classic antiquity, we have not read any logic defense of Babylonian flat earth cosmology - except by a Nestorian who misunderstood the Holy Scriptures, as heretics do.

Having a 'freethinkers' mind open enough to consider options on the universe allows me to consider the fascinating developments in evolution, archaeology, sub-atomic particles and universe inflation with the anticipation of finding new understandings of life, the universe and everything.

Being promiscuous and infertile in sex gives you a freedom of sweet imaginations - so does roaming and inconclusive thoughts in philosophic matters. I do not admire freethinkers more than wankers or profligates who use the condom. Sexual organs were made for procreation and imagination and reason for reaching conclusions.

HGL

valencequark wrote:

so now you are a conspiracy theorist too? why don't you pu tall of the energy that you waste whining about logarithms and international sceintific conspiracies into learning something worth learning?

-vq

If you call my observations on who dominates the so called free press conspiracy theories, you seem to be either part or victim of their conspiracy. Victim let's hope.

HGL

AbbyLeever wrote:

I will be happy to let anyone read the whole of that [Classical Math] thread, which was my point in referencing it. Here is the start:

http://boards.netscape.com/netscape/art_threaded.mbl?boardId=472202&artNum=94442&sort=pref&tsort=msgs&

a word of caution though - posts only last 1 month so review it soon.

If you change your Preferences, you can read older posts.

Quite a diatribe Hans. Let the facts fall where they may.Like that the flat earth belief was the dominant belief at one time - did I say medieval? no.

Neither did you present any other period when it was supposed to be dominant. Furthermore knowing that my Theology and Scholasticism are what you would call medieval, and you accusing me of being a flat earther, it would seem to be the most natural meaning of your words.

did you refute that it was at one time so? no.

Neither did you prove it or prove it had any point in relation to me and my creed.

Is this belief now proved wrong? yes, by both your and my acknowledgments.

Wrong? Yes. Once dominant or universal? ?

Does that validate my statement about it? Yes. Thank you.

The other point too, please. Do have the courtesy to go into details.

HGL

physics debate getting to real interesting clarifications and side issues

From a side issue - on dating vs. Bible - the conversation between valencequark and neocatholic VLinvicus took this relevant turn, which I intersperse with my answers:

valencequark wrote:

vl meant that you believe that the sun revolves around the earth.

-vq

Oh - I was afraid that might very well be the case.

Hans Georg Lundahl

VLinvictus wrote:

Tell me:

Are the moon, sun, and plaents suspended in crystaline spheres concentrically arranged around the central point of earth until the sphere of the fixed stars and the primum mobile be reached?

Seems quite likely, as far as I know. If the Church Fathers exposing the Psalms or Work of Six Days or something unanimously say so, then so it is - if not it might be not the case. And before you ask me whether space travel should be explained by holes in the crystalline spheres or by not having occurred, I say: I do not know. I never claimed to know everything, you know.

Certainly space travel has NOT exploded the sphere of the fix stars. Rather it was supposing a certain annual very minute movement to have parallax as cause for its appearance and not occurring in most stars that gave heliocentric astronomers the impression that the fix stars had many different distances from earth.



HGL

Is Satan encased in ice at the core of the earth?

More probably in the fire that is not quenched. Location otherwise correct. Dante took some poetic liberties: Divina Commedia is science fiction of Theology (Eschatology of each soul) rather than Theology (Eschatology of each soul) pure and simple.

Hans Georg Lundahl

valencequark wrote:

i believe that he encounters several problems with his earth centered model of the solar system.

the gravitational attraction between masses is very well known and can be measured. we know that the sun is many orders of magnitude more massive than earth. how does he propose that the earth holds the sun in a stable orbit, given this little problem of the mass difference?

I do not believe that the earth holds the sun in orbit, nor do I believe the sun could hold the earth in orbit as Newton imagined and I learned in school. His (?)parallell of something being rotated on a string equates the supposedly equal centrifugal and centripetal forces of momentum and gravitation in supposed solar system with the obviously greater and static strength of the string keeping the stone (or whatever) in orbit.

the motion of other planets is documented to reverse itself now and then for smll increments of time (retrograde motion). to most people, this is due to the relative motion of earth and other planets as they both revolve about the sun. how does one account for the retrograde motion of the other planetsin an earth centered frame?

To Aristotle who knew this very well, this is due to them being directed directly by angels - or "gods" as the pagans would have called them. Argument mentioned by St Thomas. Though Aristotle was wrong in limiting angels to those directing the stars: he thought that everything below the moon orbit was directed by necessary influence from the stars.

how does one account for the redshift of distant objects as they recede from the milky way in an earth centered frame?

One possibility would be that the red shift is not due to any Doppler effect, but rather to greater redness in light source.

does he believe in ufos? if so where do they come from/

-vq

I believe the empiric facts attested by people claiming to have seen ufos. I do not believe them to come from outer space, more probably from Hell - in order to terrorise and entice people into accepting some sort of New Age or New World Order. Or in order to make physicians and authorities overestimate the occurrence of hallucinations.


HGL

valencequark wrote:

so you believe in a static universe? then you have major problems. it is the angular momentum of the earth about the sun which keeps it from crashing into the sun. in a static solar system there is nothing to keep the earth from being dragged into the sun, unless of course you don't beleive in gravity.

Did you miss that I do not believe in the SOLAR system at all?

then you encounter other problems, such as: how do you explain the result of cavendish's experiment?

Which is what?

what about baron von eotvos?

Which is what?

as for your second point: you find it more plausible that angels keep planets where they are rather than angular momentum? yeah, right.

Angular momentum would require planetary orbits of other shape than actual obserbations.

your last point about redshift doesn't wash. redder balckbody radiation is associated with cooler sources, which is possible to occur. however, cooler sources not only produce redder light but they produce less of it, so you would have detection problems. no, the redshift is due to the motion of far off objects, not to reduced temperature.


-vq

You are assuming that you already know all about the different causes of redshift. That you can rule them out one by one.

Considering your fantastic explanation of where the momentum goes when a body is standing still - turning into "potential energy" - you might be less picky about explanations being too fantastic or out of the way.

HGL

valencequark wrote:

what is your definition of the solar system, hans? by solar system i meant the arrangement of the earth, other planets and the sun. to me, saying that you do not believe in the solar system is like saying that you don't believe that the sun exists. is this what you beleive?

Not believing the earth to be a planet or the sun to be its centre, I do not believe that SOLAR system is a proper name for it. Nor do I belive that its outer limit is very far from the sphere of the fix stars - so I believe its limitation from "other solar systems" and the belief such exist to be bosh. So, you were asking me a question about the Universe, to call it by its proper name and skip the artificial limitation?

HGL

as for the experiments that i mentioned, they were two experiments to measure gravitational attraction. cavendish measured the gravitational attraction bewteen two lead spheres and eotvos measured gravitational mass and inertial mass to see if they are equivalent (somehitng einstein incorporated into general relativity).

All right (for now, though I might have some reservations) - and who has actually and directly measured the mass of the sun? Obviously the supposed mass of the sun is a conclusion of its supposed position in the centre of a system that is supposedly solar. Or do you have better evidence?

HGL

what do you mean by angular momentum would require different orbital shapes?

Different from the ones actually observed with their retrograde motion: more like the ones theoretically constructed but never actually proven by Kepler at al.

again, jsut because you do not understand the concepts of momentum and energy does not mean that nobody else does either.

Just because you do not understand the concepts of substance and relation, of act and potency does not mean nobody does so either. [That was ad hominem, but vq didn't offer any argument in this paragraph to be more rationally argued]

HGL

PS, from vq's previous argument:
vq wrote:

redder balckbody radiation is associated with cooler sources, which is possible to occur. however, cooler sources not only produce redder light but they produce less of it, so you would have detection problems.

Also if the distance to the sphere of fix stars is very small? I mean, a small amount of light may well be detected at closer hand which would be undetectable at the great distances that do not prove since they are supposed to be proven from the parallactic nature of certain annual motions in certain fix stars not to be detected by naked eye, nor even by Galileo's telescope.

HGL
…
If you are tempted to skirt the last issue raised on my message, here is the link to my last post on the other subthread, where it belongs: here

valencequark wrote:

i have not attempted to skirt anything, dear fool. i have, however wasted enough of my time on the likes of you. you refuse to believe experimental verification of the laws of physics, but you believe in the absolute truth of some mythical tale from a group of people who had virtually no understanding of their surroundings.

good day to you, sir!


-vq

As courteous in what he is saying as on a certain previous occasion - though somewhat more courteous in wording. Were you upset at seeing my little mistake in the html? I've corrected it.

A group of people with virtually no understanding of their surroundings you say: do you mean with no heliocentrism and Newtonism or what? I call that an advantage. Refuse to believe experimental verification of physical law? As when I refuse to call a bad verification a good one (Corioli effect for instance) or as when I refuse to agree to your question begging applications of physical laws supposed to be proven by experiments?

Well, at least the Apostles and their contemporaries knew:
a) only God can raise the dead, no natural cause can do so
b) only God or angels or the devil can cause lots of people to see the same thing that physically is not present
c) the devil has no power to heal miraculously, which God has
d) God doesn't support the testimony of madmen or liars by miracles and he puts narrow limits on the devil's power to do so
e) if people lie they do so to achieve an advantage and so they won't cling to a lie they made up or its moral correlates if it means death penalty
f) someone who has been fooled by a false original witness doesn't pretend to be the original witness, himself because he is by hypothesis honest
g) a physician can tell when someone who has fallen out of a window and broken his neck is stone dead - a man who has been buried in heavy swathings with lots of aromatic herbs and no air for three days (like Christ, minus the herbs) or four (like Lazarus) must be dead, at least from suffocation, even if he wasn't so to start with

and somehow or other some of you manage to deny either one or the other of these basics and deny the correlate following from them and historic record: that Christ is indeed risen, that he is indeed God, as he said. You are not the one to talk loud about believing myths and refusing experimental verification.

HGL
...
Is vq sulking because my point wasn't cluttered and because I hadn't misunderstood the terminology of modern physics? I wrote the post below the day before yesterday, and vq has previously lost his temper at least twice in this debate:


valencequark wrote:

your first point is totally cluttered. are you measuring kinetic or potential energy?

I was asking the question whether potential energy had ever been actually directly measured.

HGL
...et c as above

VLinvictus wrote:

Perhaps, like me, he found it impossible to communicate with you, since you appear to live in a completely different universe from either him or me. That can be quite frustrating.

I am constantly referring - also on this thread - to things that can be verified in the Universe we all - including himself and you - live in. Like no instrument directly measuring potential energy which furthermore cannot be identified with either force (because, unlike "potential energy" it does not increase with height above ground) nor momentum (because a non-moving object has none) nor with any other unitary entity or quality and the quantity of which is a postulate for theory of conservation of energy.

HGL

Don't you get frustrated when people refuse to believe that the earth is truly the center of the universe, that the sun revolves around it? When they refuse to believe that time is not a dimension? That John Paul II is not the Pope?

I know some things I am in for. People refusing to believe me is no great inconvenience, since I am not asking them just to take my word for it. I would be stupid if I did. People who shirk argument are more of a bother.

HGL

Actually, I would wager that you don't get upset at all. You can rely on your own superiority in possessing "the truth."

Well, I can do the same.

You have not commented on it, but many who reject Vatican II reject the decree of religious freedom. I support that decree wholeheartedly, and you are free to believe whatever you wish so long as you do not attempt to use the coercive power of the state to make me believe it. Since you are a Swede or a Norwegian or a Dane--I have not figured out which--I feel no political threat from you.

I am of course against the Dignitatis Humanae document in the meaning it obviously seems to have and is supported as having by JPII. The meaning which says it was a crime to burn Giordano Bruno or Valdensians and Albigensians. Nonetheless, you may be correct in feeling no political threat from me. You see, whatever right a Catholic state has to combat error, that gives Protestant and Secularised states (you could describe Scandinavia as both of them de facto, besides being de jure but since four centuries no longer de facto Catholic countries) no right whatsoever to combat each and every dissent including such as is based on truth. If you want to describe me as Swede, Dane or Norwegian, none is totally inaccurate as far as ancestry is concerned, but my citizenship is Swedish.

HGL

So, guess what, Hans? You win! Yes! The earth is the center of the universe! The sun revolves around it! Gravity is a lie! Copernicus and Gallileo roast in hell!

Copernicus gave us a hypothesis superficially useful for computing motions of planets by using a model simpler than reality. Galileo gave intellectual assent to the hypothesis as a reality, but withdrew that support. As far as I know both died as good Catholics - Galileo as a penitent. And why do you concede even more than I have asked you to concede?

Because I am no political threat to you? For no intellectual reason? And what about the thing this thread is about? Have you encountered the idea that threads are supposed to be about some subject and not just to be cluttered up with any subject that happens to come to your mind?

No, this was not so much an apology for vq's silence on the points I have raised as an ironically worded rebuke for raising these points or any at all in any rational manner.

HGL