... on Bergoglio, Catholic and not so Catholic aspects

ChristianVoice08 : Pope Francis Shows His True Colors
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owK8PsaoItk

Some corrections against the man speaking, and one at least aganst the man he is speaking about, whom I do not consider to be a true pope of the Catholic Church or even of the see of Rome.

I

6:11 I may not be sure that Bergoglio is truly Pope, I may even doubt it. I may consider him a very bad fraud (count BERGOGLIO in ASCII CODE, A=65 - Z=90, a=97 - z=122).

However, your saying "there is no mention Peter ever went to Rome" I suppose you mean - in the Bible.

Two things. There is no mention he died in Rome, but there is no mention he died anywhere else either. Shall we on your logic conclude he hasn't died yet?

Or that it was immaterial to the Church where he died? Even St Lazarus the four days dead (the brother of St Mary and St Martha of Bethany) we have two rival claims on where he died, namely Marseille in what is now France, Larnaka on the island which was already then Cyprus. We have an Italian city - Bergamo, I think - claiming its bishops descend from St Barnabas, codisciple with St Paul when they were still disciples of Gamaliel. We have Ephesus claiming St John died as its bishop (if dying is the right word for what happened!). We have St Irenaeus of Lyons claiming to be direct disciple of St Polycarp of Smyrna who was direct disciple of St John. And where St Peter died is supposed to have been immaterial? No, rather I believe St Peter and St Paul died outside Rome the same day, one outside the city wall where we have San Paolo fuori le mura, one on Vatican hill where we have Saint Peter's Basilic.

But the other thing is that we do have Biblical evidence St Peter wrote to those who had received St Paul's Epistle to the Romans - and knew them. He knew some of them twisted parts into anomianism, like later Luther.

[I meant antinomianism, and I am not saying Luther stayed exactly in that position, but he had provoked it in others he distanced himself from.]

II

7:54 protecting creation and simply not destroying it are two things.

"Who destroyeth the earth, him shall God destroy" says we must not destroy for instance environment or peace or liberty of families or lives of innocent. Pretty few persons are in a position to take such fatal decisions.

But positively protecting creation is God's business.

III

8:42 all good are for the good of all mankind, but that does not mean one can take from one man unless another man starves because of him.

See Leo XIII Rerum Novarum.

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/leo_xiii/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_15051891_rerum-novarum_en.html

It clearly says that people working on land not their own are not suffering an injustice as long as it does not stop them from living of the land they work.

IV

Before getting on to how he means us to protect you said he did not define who Herods are ... well, if he mentioned St Joseph I think he may have been comparing them to Herod the Great - the Great killer of Infants. Does that strike any bell? Noone around killing infants in our days? Unborn such too, who have not had a chance to get baptised?

Jesus does not need to be protected - any longer. But He needed it in the Flight to Egypt. Obviously one may charitably assume the man meant doing it to Jesus again in the persons who receive what we will have been doing to Himself according to the parable of the sheep and the goats. What bothers me is his taking a stance as if the Bishop of Rome was everyone's protector. But he might just have meant that as protecting through speech, though Pius XII acted as protector of Jews rather than by speaking by hiding them.

Sure, He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and yet we are in a position to do good to him. "Whatever ye have done for one of the least of my brethren" ...

V

11:47 "he called up, in prayer, dead saints".

If they are saints they are alive. "Whoever believeth in me, he shall live even if he die" Our Lord told St Mary Magdalene (or some would insist that St Mary of Bethany was not St Mary Magdalene, I think they are wrong, as Pope St Gregory the I:st said in his Dialogues).

So, for one thing they are not dead. They are not in Sheol but in Heaven. And for another thing, he did not summon them to appear and tell him things he wanted to ask them in person, he asked for their intercession. Which is not illicit in Exodus. Or Deuteronomy.

[Deuteronomy 18:11]*

"We are to pray to God and to God alone" - Not Scriptural. We are to adore God alone, and we do not adore St Joseph, Sts Peter and Paul (both of whom died as martyrs in Rome), or Sts Francis and Dominic of Guzmán or even the Blessed Virgin Mary. Praising them and asking for their intercession does not equal adoring them.

"... as if they were divine and could hear prayers"

They are not the ones granting prayers by [doing things with any own] divine power. Interceding and granting a prayer are two different things. However, the Blessed Virgin Mary prayed for the first Miracle of Christ and for the conversion of the Thief and from then on at least for everyone who is saved. But she is not a Divine person and we do not think she is. There are three of them, Father and Son and Holy Ghost.

"That someone who purports to be a Christian leader could pray to the dead" ....

What were the Pentecostals who gave him a blessing doing? Were they thinking he was not at all confessing Catholicism in any sense, because he was being ecumenical and calling them Christians? I would rather consider them as God Fearing Pagans and say he was wrong to ask for their blessing.

But a blessing is also an intercession.

VI

Cooperating with Muslims for the common good of humanity ... now making an occasion [of such a thing] on a local level may be very right. But making it a program on a global level seems to imply one take no measures for the common good without consulting them who are wrong - which is wrong.

14:25 it is true that denying the Father and the Son, they have neither, they do not have God. Excepting individual exceptions.

The Muslim community as a whole has sufficient past occasions to realise Mohammed was a false prophet and has not taken them. Individual Muslims may however before God have their excuses for not realising this, their excuses for believing the Quran holy. Obviously Karol Wojtyla for one thing had no similar excuse himself, and for another thing had no business at all providing any individual Muslims with more excuses to not become Christian. Kissing the Quran was a sin. It was perhaps even the exterior sign of an apostasy. I am no mor really into the "perhaps" part.

VII

It is part of an idea we must all together protect all together. Collective, solidarity based responsibility. I believe this is wrong. One person may on one occasion need the protection of one other person. Not everyone by everyone. Or even the responsibility of one other person - but not everyone all the time that of everyone else. That is where I find his first speach at fault.

Before Kain asked "am I my brother's keeper" after killing whom he did not keep, I personally guess at the very least that he had previously been Abel's keeper in a wrong way and been told off by Adam or Eve that his brother was grown and did not need a nanny.

If you look at how the Pharisees (darlings of Begoglio, according to pictorial evidence) did with Jesus, they had decided to "destroy" Him before deciding to "kill" him. I think the "destroy" part was a kind of very "responsable" overdoing of the protection to someone who had just taken his first step into the world by a second miracle which involved healing on the Sabbath. They very probably wanted to correct Him "for his own good", as they would say.

[Not watching the rest of the video after about 15:00 - 15:30 minutes. At least for now.]

* Ver. 11. Charmer of serpents, Psalm lvii. 6. One who makes a compact with the devil. --- Spirits. Python was the name of the serpent, which Apollo slew. It might be derived from the Hebrew patah, "to seduce," because a serpent seduced Eve, and dealers with the devil generally deceive those who consult them. Septuagint, "a belly talker," as these impostors muttered some sounds, intimating that a spirit gave answers from their belly, See Isaias xxix. 4. --- Tellers. Hebrew, "wise men." (Haydock) --- Those who promise great knowledge from the secrets of the caballa, or magic. --- Dead. Necromancy was already very common. Thus the witch of Endor made the ghost of Samuel appear to Saul, 1 Kings xxviii. 7.** The Rabbins say that the person took a bone, or the skull of the dead, when he intended to enquire into futurity. (Drusius)

From Haydock comment on Deuteronomy 18
http://haydock1859.tripod.com/id511.html

** The Witch of Endor had no power over the real ghost of Samuel. However, God granted an exceptional real appearance of the latter, which frightened the witch wh was more accustomed to demons./HGL

... on Abiogenesis and Evolutionist Ideology

1) Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : ... on Abiogenesis and Evolutionist Ideology, 2) Creation vs. Evolution : The Abiogenesis Problem, 3) Provisional Caveat to Previous

Video commented on:

AronRa : The Evolution of Morality (1-5)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQUxmJR9a5Y

Hans-Georg Lundahl

8:14 positive claims require positive evidence.

Our eyes and inner ears (forgot what you call those curved tubes in three dimensions of curving) give us positive evidence, as far as not proven wrong, that earth is still and sun, moon, stars go around us each day, east to west, and that sun lags behind the stars a little each day, adding up to full circle west to east once a year, moon gets full circle west to east compared to stars once a month (lunar month and solar year, obviously).

Lucretius, who was an atheist did not deny this. But he was very inattentive as to mechanism behind these phenomena. When Ptolemy inquired further into the regularities, it was very obvious to everyone that although Aristotle was wrong on particulars, his proof there was a God pushing the univere around us east to west (or commanding stars to go east to west in a very perfect formation, if you go by Abraham's observation as given in Josephus) was right and Lucretius wrong.

Have you since then any positive evidence for positive claims like:

• Heliocentrism
• Big Bang
• getting from just after BB to formation of galaxies and solar system and planets around stars, especially around Sun
• abiogenesis
• microbes to man (or to dog or to cat) evolution?

Niels Steigenga

Heliocentrism, (meaning the earth goes around the sun), of course.

Big bang, yes.

getting galaxies, stars and planets, Yes.

abiogenesis, it has been proven to be possible.

microbes to man evolution, Yes.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Since you are called Niels, I suppose you are Scandinavian or of Scandinavian origin. In Scandinavia these days, Evolutionist ideology is taught in all schools and very exclusively so where I was.

I was not asking whether Evolutionists believe that this has been proven, but what their proof is if they care to share it. I would be delighted to tear it to pieces.

You stated one thing to the point, you claimed abiogenesis had been proven possible.

What has been proven in laboratories is not a full possibility of abiogenesis, but a possibility of an initial part - which in itself is insufficient. It has also been proven the result of this does not last for billions of years while nature experiments on how to continue to the next step, on the contrary the substances produced dissolve very quickly.



Niels Steigenga

+Hans-Georg Lundahl I'm from the Netherlands (I don't take offense to that) and evolution is not an ideology. It's a study of the biodiversity of life. Cosmology and abiogenesis are separate from evolution, though evolution and abiogenesis are loosely linked by the fact that they tackle the issue of life. About abiogenesis BTW...

ABIOTIC SYNTHESIS OF ORGANIC COMPOUNDS

The Miller-Urey-tye experiments demonstrate that the abiotic synthesis of organic molecules (like amino acids) is possible under various assumptions about the composition of the early atmosphere. There are also various other ways to get the basic organic compounds with different atmospheres , which also has been demonstrated in laboratory conditions mimicking those atmospheres. In addition to that, simulated volcanic eruptions experiments also show results of abiotic synthesis of simple organic molecules, even more molecules were produced in the volcanic than the simulated atmosphere experiments.

ABIOTIC SYNTHESIS OF MACROMOLECULES

The presence of small organic molecules, such as amino acids and nitrogenous bases, is not sufficient for the emergence of life as we know it (,to be fair). Every cell has a vast assortment of macromolecules, including enzymes and other proteins and the nucleic acids that are essential for self-replication. Could such macromolecules have formed on early Earth? A 2009 study demonstrated that on key step, the abiotic synthesis of RNA monomers, can occur spontaneously (I hate to use that word and quote mining alert!) from simple precursor molecules. In addition, by dripping solution of amino acids or RNA nucleotides onto hot sand, clay, or rock, researchers have produced polymers of these molecules. The polymers formed spontaneously (damn, that word again), without the help of enzymes or ribosomes. Unlike proteins, the amino acid polymers are a complex mix of linked and cross-linked amino acids. Nevertheless, it is possible that such polymers may have acted as weak catalysts for a variety of chemical reaction on early Earth.

PROTOCELLS

All organisms must be able to carry out reproduction and energy processing (metabolism). Life cannot persist without both of these functions (again, to be fair). DNA molecules carry genetic information, including the instructions needed to replicate themselves accurately during reproduction. But the replication of DNA requires elaborate enzymatic machinery, along with a copious supply of nucleotide building blocks that are provided by the cell's metabolism. This suggest (if abiogenesis is possible) that self replicating molecules and metabolism-like source of the building blocks may have appeared together in early protocells. How did that happen? (You may ask why I'm giving my self such strong demands about this subject).

The necessary conditions may have been met in vesicles, fluid-filled compartments bounded by a membrane-like structure. Recent experiments show that abiotically produced vesicles can exhibit certain properties of life, including simple reproduction and metabolism, as well as the maintenance of an internal chemical environment different from that of their surroundings. For example, vesicles can form spontaneously when simple lipids or other organic molecules are added to water. When this occurs, the hydrophobic molecules in the mixture organize into a bilayer similar to the lipid bilayer of a plasma membrane. Adding substances such as montmorillonite, a soft mineral clay produced by the weathering of volcanic ash, greatly increases the rate of vesicle self-assembly. This clay, which is thought to have been common on early, provides surfaces on which organic molecules become concentrated, increasing the likelihood that the molecules will react withe each other and form vesicles. Abiotically produced vesicles can "reproduce" on their own, and they can increase in size ("grow") without dilution of their contents. Vesicles also can absorb montmorillonite particles, including those on which RNA and other organic molecules have become attached. Finally, experiments have shown that some vesicles have a selectively permeable bilayer and can perform metabolic reactions using an external source of reagents (another important prerequisite for life).

SELF REPLICATING RNA AND THE DAWN OF NATURAL SELECTION

The first genetic material was most likely RNA, not DNA. Thomas Cech, of the University of Colorado, and Sidney, of Yale University, found that RNA, which plays a central role in protein synthesis, can also carry out a number of enzyme-like catalytic functions. Cech called these RNA catalysts ribozymes. Some ribozymes can make complementary copies of short pieces of RNA, provided that they are supplied with nucleotide building blocks.

Natural selection on the molecular level (not yet evolution) has produced ribozymes capable of self-replication in the laboratory. How does this occur? Unlike double-stranded DNA, which takes the form of a uniform helix, single-stranded RNA molecules assume a variety of specific three-dimensional shapes mandated by their nucleotide sequences. In a particular environment, RNA molecules with certain base sequences are more stable and replicate faster and with fewer errors than other sequences. The RNA molecule whose sequence is best suited to the surrounding environment and has the greatest ability to replicate itself will leave the most descendant molecules (this is the dawn of evolution). Occasionally, a copying error (mutation) will result in a molecule that folds into a shape that is even more stable or more adept at self replication than the ancestral sequence (a type of evolution has occurred). Similar selection events may have occurred on early Earth. Thus, the molecular biology of today may have been preceded by an "RNA world," (some viruses still carry RNA instead of DNA as genetic information) in which small RNA molecules that carried genetic information were able to replicate and to store information about the vesicles that carried them.

A vesicle with self-replicating, catalytic RNA would differ from its many neighbors that did not carry RNA or that carried RNA without such capabilities.If that vesicle could grow, split, and pass its RNA molecules to its daughters, the daughters would be protocells that had some of the properties of their parent. Although the first such protocells must have carried only limited amounts of genetic information, specifying only a few properties, their inherited characteristics could have been acted on by natural selection. (from this point on evolution by natural selection took over). The most successful of the early protocells would have increased in number because they could exploit their resources effectively and pass their abilities on to subsequent generations.

Once RNA sequences that carried genetic information appeared in protocells, many further changes would have been possible. For example, RNA could have provided the template on which DNA nucleotides were assembled. Double-stranded DNA is a more stable repository for genetic information than the more fragile single-stranded RNA. DNA also can be replicated more accurately. Accurate replication was advantageous as genomes grew larger through gene duplication and other processes and as more properties of the protocells became coded in genetic information. After DNA appeared, perhaps RNA molecules began to take on their present-day roles as regulators and intermediates in the translation of genes. The stage was now set for a blossoming of diverse life-forms as we see today.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
source: (global edition) Campell Biology ninth edition.

Autors: (All pesky evolutionist? No, serious scientists.)
Jane B. Reece (of Berkeley, California)
Lisa A Urry (Mills College, Oakland, California)
Michael L. Cain (Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine)
Steven A. Wasserman (University of California, San Diego)
Peter V. Minorsky (Mercy College, Dobbs Ferry, New York)
Robert B. Jackson (Duke University, Durham, North Carolina)

(Argument from authority or appeal to authority is not a fallacy if the authorities are reliable. Yes, Authorities are not enough and that's is why they present evidence along with their claims.)

Have I delighted you?

Of course, you don't have to except abiogenesis, evolution or anything that I believe to be true.

"You are entitled to your own opinion, not your own facts"

Unlike you, I'm fine with the fact that we have a disagreement on what we believe and probably will continue to have through our lives.

[Since you are called Niels, I suppose you are Scandinavian or of Scandinavian origin. In Scandinavia these days, Evolutionist ideology is taught in all schools and very exclusively so where I was. I was not asking whether evolutionists believe that this has been proven, but what their proof is if they care to share it. I would be delighted to tear it to pieces. You stated one thing to the point, you claimed abiogenesis had been proven possible. What has been proven in laboratories is not a full possibility of abiogenesis, but a possibility of an initial part - which in itself is insufficient. It has also been proven the result of this does not last for billions of years while nature experiments on how to continue to the next step, on the contrary the substances produced dissolve very quickly.]

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"Cosmology and abiogenesis are separate from evolution."

All parts of evolutionist ideology.

"The Miller-Urey-tye experiments demonstrate that the abiotic synthesis of organic molecules (like amino acids) is possible under various assumptions about the composition of the early atmosphere."

Sure. Amino acids in a very basic form. Not with any selfreplication. Not with any cell wall building. Not with any proteine building. And so on.

What you forget to mention is that the conditions under which they form are such that they very soon disintegrate if the conditions continue.

Not any time to develop anything like the things that differentiate real biochemistry from abiotically formed amino acids.

"The presence of small organic molecules, such as amino acids and nitrogenous bases, is not sufficient for the emergence of life as we know it (,to be fair)."

Thanks for that fairness.

"For example, vesicles can form spontaneously when simple lipids or other organic molecules are added to water."

In other words when fats are added to water. Or proteines.

Now, fats and proteines, as we know them are produced biologically. In other words these organic molecules would not have existed.

Besides, seeking origin of life, to be fair, in fat vesicles, I am sorry, but I really do not think so.

[Wrong step of me, the vesicles that are our cell walls are of fat.]

"Some ribozymes can make complementary copies of short pieces of RNA, provided that they are supplied with nucleotide building blocks. Natural selection on the molecular level (not yet evolution) has produced ribozymes capable of self-replication in the laboratory."

But in the lab you have glass around them, and in the correspondence you would, as I just explained, not have vesicles to protect them.



Niels Steigenga

+Hans-Georg Lundahl Cosmology and abiogenesis are separate from evolution."

All parts of evolutionist ideology.

No, Cosmology is a study of the universe, abiogenesis is about the origin of life, evolution is about the diversity of life. These are all different aspects of science. And you still haven't justified the assertion that evolution is an ideology.

"The Miller-Urey-tye experiments demonstrate that the abiotic synthesis of organic molecules (like amino acids) is possible under various assumptions about the composition of the early atmosphere."

"Sure. Amino acids in a very basic form. Not with any selfreplication. Not with any cell wall building. Not with any proteine building. And so on."

I Stated that later in my argument.

"What you forget to mention is that the conditions under which they form are such that they very soon disintegrate if the conditions continue."

You asked for possibility, so you now you say "if the conditions continue, it's not possible" which implies that if the conditions does not continue, it is possible. Besides, the experiments of one atmosphere simulation goes like this: In the atmosphere there are ammonia, methane and numerous other gasses, apply electricity to simulate lightning, you get amino acids. Lightning is one of the conditions for the formation of amino acids. Does lightning last forever or not? If not, than the conditions does not continue and the amino acids do not disintegrate.

Not any time to develop anything like the things that differentiate real biochemistry from abiotically formed amino acids.

Again, I stated that later in my respond. Damn, do you even read the whole argument before you respond?

"The presence of small organic molecules, such as amino acids and nitrogenous bases, is not sufficient for the emergence of life as we know it (,to be fair)."

"Thanks for that fairness."

Thanks, but no thanks.

This piece of my argument includes your previous comments about "not any time to develop real biochemistry, so why didn't you remove those?

"For example, vesicles can form spontaneously when simple lipids or other organic molecules are added to water."

"In other words when fats are added to water. Or proteines."

"Now, fats and proteines, as we know them are produced biologically. In other words these organic molecules would not have existed.

Besides, seeking origin of life, to be fair, in fat vesicles, I am sorry, but I really do not think so."

fats and proteines, as we know them are produced biologically, sounds like the argument from ignorance fallacy. "As far as we know, these compounds don't form without life, therefor it's impossible for them to form without life.

You do relise that proteins are made of amino acids and amino acids do polymerize under heat and on montmorillonite. Also lab experiments have shown that lipids and fatty acids form on mineral rock surfaces as catalyzer.

One of your points "Besides, seeking origin of life, to be fair, in fat vesicles, I am sorry, but I really do not think so." Is like saying "I don't like the answer, therefor it's not true. When you want to respond again, don't give me such childish fallacies, use better arguments than that.

[Was actually wrong on this one.]

"Some ribozymes can make complementary copies of short pieces of RNA, provided that they are supplied with nucleotide building blocks. Natural selection on the molecular level (not yet evolution) has produced ribozymes capable of self-replication in the laboratory."

"But in the lab you have glass around them, and in the correspondence you would, as I just explained, not have vesicles to protect them."

Fatty acids do form a vesicle abiotically, I know you don't like fat vesicles, but the membranes of our cells are in fact made of fat and acts as a vesicle. In the lab when we put RNA, Ribozymes, Proteins (it has been demonstrated that these polymers can form abiologically) next to one of these disliked fat vesicles, they can automatically enter the vesicle and are protected by the vesicle.

I also edited a new section in my previous reply after you replied before I could read this.

please, don't use " I don't like the answer, therefor it's not true"

C'mon. If you want to respond, give me something better.

and read the whole response before you respond. It's quite annoying.

[As admitted, I was wrong on fat vesicles as far as when it comes to denying these are involved in our biology.]

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I might be out of my depth, but I do not have confidence in your answer, for reasons stated.

[Except of course the part about "fat vesicles, don't think so"]

For right now, I am not looking it up, in greater detail, but it seems to me you want very many conditions to form in very short time.

Are the conditions in which amino acids polymerise such as can be expected just after amino acids forming by the conditions mentioned?

"You asked for possibility, so you now you say "if the conditions continue, it's not possible" which implies that if the conditions does not continue, it is possible. Besides, the experiments of one atmosphere simulation goes like this: In the atmosphere there are ammonia, methane and numerous other gasses, apply electricity to simulate lightning, you get amino acids. Lightning is one of the conditions for the formation of amino acids. Does lightning last forever or not? If not, than the conditions does not continue and the amino acids do not disintegrate."

They disintegrate at next lightning, if it is anything near as often as would be required to have a lot of amino acids forming in the first place. If lightnings were as rare as now, amino acids must have formed rarely and so much space between them that they would hardly add up to a cumulative condition for abiogenesis. Besides, lightning is not the only disintegrating factor, ammoniak is another one, and so are a few more of the substances you mentioned as building blocks.

Are these the conditions in which amino acids polymerise also? I should think not.

In other words, for amino acids to survive conditions, they would need vesicles, for vesicles to form from proteine, they would need to have polymerised. And therefore to have survived.

What exactly did you say about lipids and rocks? Any link?

[He gave no link about that, I have not been able to check whether one of the resources he gave earlier contains information thereon.]

Stieg

- Cosmology and abiogenesis are separate from evolution.

Me, HGL

- All parts of evolutionist ideology.

Stieg

- No, Cosmology is a study of the universe, abiogenesis is about the origin of life, evolution is about the diversity of life. These are all different aspects of science. And you still haven't justified the assertion that evolution is an ideology.

Me, HGL

- I am in the process of doing so when it comes to abiogenesis. I cannot prove it on every level at once and in one breath.

Now, this idea is not just three separate ideas, but three moments in a whole set of them, involving other ideas about what kinds of explanations are acceptable and perhaps more importantly inacceptable.

This is in contrast with Christian ideas about origin of universe, of biological life as such, of diversity between its observed forms.

Niels Steigenga

+Hans-Georg Lundahl
(Now, this idea is not just three separate ideas, but three moments in a whole set of them, involving other ideas about what kinds of explanaions are acceptable and perhaps more importantly inacceptable.)

Yes, they are three moments in a whole set, but these moments are being investigated by studies independent from each other. Just as Quantum mechanics and Cosmology. They are more or less about the same subject, which is the nature of the universe, but they are studied separate from each other. Just like:

Cosmology: Universe and the origin of it.

Two aspects of biology:
Abiogenesis: The origin of life
Evolution: The process of all the biodiversity we have today.

(This is in contrast with Christian ideas about origin of universe, of biological life as such, of diversity between its observed forms.)

The questions are origin related and christianity has some ideas about them, but that doesn't mean that they are one and the same in science.

I also want to ask a question, if I may: (a clear this or that question)

Can you be convinced of something, that goes against the word of God or the bible, to be true by the evidence?

Or, do you believe that evidence for something, that goes against the word of God or the bible, is by default not evidence and cannot be evidence?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I have in decades of apologetics never been confronted with any case where the evidence after investigation has gone straight against either what the Catechism or what the Bible or what Thomistic Philosophy teaches me about God. Ever. And I have been doing it since my teens, my Catholic conversion is a byproduct after learning from atheist adversaries that it is illogical to distrust Catholicism while trusting the Bible. At the very least, the consensus of Catholics, Orthodox, Copts and Nestorians against Protestantism in matters like number of Sacraments or value of Monasticism must be as important as the one Protestants accept, i e the Bible as God's word. And the canon Protestants reject (an Old Testament with more canonical books than Masoretic Tenakh) is as much covered by that consensus as the canon they accept (no difference about number of New Testament books).

Can you be convinced by any evidence for God?

Niels, once again, protein vesicles can be ruled out as initial component of abiogenesis, since presupposing life to produce the proteins. Now as to lipid vesicles, which in the following list of lipids (wiki) could have been around before the primitive amino acids synthesised from methane, ammoniak etc, with lightnings? And which of them would have kept for long in an environment full of ammoniak? Here is the list:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipids

Niels Steigenga

+Hans-Georg Lundahl

Can you be convinced by any evidence FOR God?

By the evidence, yes!

But I haven't got a clear yes or no answer from you.

Can you be convinced of something to be true that goes against the word of God or the bible, by evidence?

Yes or No?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

It is as far as I can see a question without content.

Could I be convinced about a point by the presence of pink unicorns all through reality?

There is no point to the question, because reality is not strewn with pink unicorns all over the place, neither with evidence against God or the Bible.

As I am not now in a position to access the book you gave as reference, can you give any link about rocks acting as catalysts so that lipids form?

Niels Steigenga

+Hans-Georg Lundahl
Please, It is important for me that you give an Honest answer, not "Oh, I know already there is no evidence for God, therefore God exist" Which is an argument from ignorance.

Are you able to be convinced of something to be true, that goes against what you believe to be the word of the God or the word of the bible, by evidence?

I really want to get a Yes or No answer from you, (like I have given you with your "Can you be convinced that God exist by the evidence" question) Before we move on.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I have already stated the question is superfluous.

I might add an admission (already there in the blogged republishing of our debate) that I was wrong on fats. They are cell walls.

Besides you have misstated my case. It is not and has never been "Oh, I know already there is no evidence for God, therefore God exist". But rather the following:

I have ten thousand items of evidence (often identical repeated many times over) since I started apologetics in my teens (I am fortyfive), and not one against. Very few against the Bible and none held water. It was the Bible that did it.

You can get on if you like or you can withdraw, you have a reason for it since you have a sequence problem in your scenario.

Simple amino acids formed in an atmosphere of ammoniak, sulphuric acid, carbon dioxide and all that, during lightnings. Before next lightning (or simply the unfriendly environment) could dissolve these unprotected simple amino acids they escaped into vesicles ... of what?

Fats are synthesised by living creatures, and in the hypothesis we are talking of a time before these were around and able to synthesise fats. So, where did the fat come from? You mentioned rocks acting as catalysts and fats forming on them (or something), have you a link to a credible ONLINE source for that? Would that have been in the same atmosphere as described as origin of the first simple amino acids or an earlier one? Would the fats have survived the exposure to the new atmosphere with sulphuric acid and all that?

Or do you propose another sequence of events, that I forgot to reckon with?

The immense catch 22 problem with abiogenesis means life is clearly not reducible to being a product of matter and it is one pretty good (though perhaps not unequivocal as against animism) reason to believe there is a God who created life. Note: one among many others.

You said you could be convinced by evidence for God, can you be convinced by this one?

Niels Steigenga

+Hans-Georg Lundahl
You asked me also a superfluous question "can you be convinced of God" to which I said yes.

Can you please, give me an yes or no to my question.

I'm not asking you what the evidence, you have already seen, points too.

I'm asking if you are able to be convinced, through evidence, of something to be true, that goes against what you believe to be the word of God or the Bible?

It's either yes or no.

If your not going to answer it honestly, I'm not going to answer any more questions from you.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

It would have been a superfluous question if you could honestly have said you have found ten thousand items of evidence against God or of God not existing. I do not think you have.

The short answer is no, I cannot.

The somewhat longer answer is, no, I cannot, because in fact there is no such evidence.

Oh, if you reformulate it as "that goes against what you believe to be the word of God or the Bible?" - then the answer is yes.

I have been conviced for and against and again possibly for Papacy being Biblical. By precisely argument. Evidence.

Niels Steigenga

+Hans-Georg Lundahl
I would like to admit that there are still unresolved questions about abiogenesis in science.

I woud also like to state that even if abiogenesis is absolutely wrong, that doesn't mean God wins by default.

This is a website were you can find more information about abiogenesis and the claims by creationists about it.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/ 

Hans-Georg Lundahl

+Niels Steigenga , het is met plezier dat ik dit hoor!

You admit there are still unresolved question!

Good. I will take a look at talkorigins, but I am not holding my breath either for them to have solved my specific one or even to be totally fair to the creationists. They did take that trouble to find out the claims, that is something.

In return I will give you another one from talkorigins, a specific post:

http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/jan99.html

[You may after clicking have to remove a few extra-letters that appeared through a bug.]

To some valid points by Alexander Arguelles on Polyglottery or Succesful Language Acquisition, Responses not Retorts

ProfASAr : The Price of Polyglottery: The Case for Establishing a Polyglot Institute
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsUm1Q-GLDw

I

I am:

• naturally bilingual or if you prefer monolingual but bidialectal: Swedish and German both being Germanic langs;
• since then bilingual polyglot in Germanic and Latin in a polydialectic way, including obviously the hybrid dialect I am writing now;
• ex-language teacher. Videlicet German teacher in a Swedish school.

I think there are very many counterproductive attitudes to language learning about. One result for myself was losing my job pretty quickly. Being a "grammar Nazi" is something other than being a Nazi, even if one is it about "de Cherman lanquich", and asking pupils to learn paradigms by heart is not even the same thing as being a grammar Nazi.

But since the disestablishment of Latin in schools, since 1970's new experiments in paedagogy (at least as received in the popular mindset), since confusion of two meanings of the word "discipline" (as (a) attentive attitude making you likely to pick up and let other pupils pick up what the teacher is saying, (b) military discipline making you obey orders without thinking first), language learning has suffered greatly on the least subtle and most obvious tricks of the trade, like presenting paradigms. I even shortened the paradigm geometrically to show overlapping forms (masculine and neuter in one grid, feminine and plural in one, obviously without separate accusative, but with a nom-acc, unlike the other one, every form coinciding written as between the two) and I was treated as if I was basically a Nazi carrying out the experiment shown in The Wave ... or a sadistic Latin teacher (that social stereotype has a vogue in Swedish thanks to one film, I think by Bergman and I do not mean Ingrid) ... THAT makes dupes inept by setting jambes crochées for themselves and non-dupes impopular.

The other price is of course not recalling what a thing is called in the language you are using. "Jambe crochée", "krokben", in Scanian "fälleben", what was that in English once again? It is not as if I had not learned it, I read the word or phrase in The Last Battle by CSL. As I mentioned that guy, he was my initial motive or a great part of it, for becoming adept in English and in Latin. Plus my try at Greek.

II

Actually wanted to know if you had taken a look at the language which has a phrase like "Nu NINDA-an ezzateni vadarma ekuteni" or something. That was why I looked you up again.

III

Yes, I have it, there was one more cost and a more constant one.

Learning a language means a childish, if you excuse the word, preoccupation with minute details of expression. "How does one say that please?" is a phrase which certain people wanting to be taken as grownups do not want to ask.

And saying in English "jambe crochée" or in French "putting the cart before the horse" (I learnt at a "great price", socially speaking, it is "mettre la charrue devant les boeufs") is likely to get you stamped as odd.

Getting stamped as childish or odd is not a price many want to pay.

To bear it, one has to have a lack of empathy for that particular reaction, which nowadays when diagnoses like Asperger and Autism are around may cost a lot socially as well.

To return to the language teaching situation, refusing paradigms of cases is like someone wanting to learn the guitar refusing to learn chords and frets because they don't do that on the piano.

IV

08:44 I know what you mean. When I was a successful polyglot, my composition was often on level of rearranging phrases in extant folk music or baroque music. Like shuffling La Folia turns around turns from Six Ribbons theme (a k a Against the Winds). And my 20:th C. history was very neglected (except for Spanish Civil War, where I took the right side, pun so right on both levels). And I was not yet writing on the internet either.

Writing a novel on top of your to do list?

Mine is not ready yet, took a few hints from "How to Write and Sell a Novel" by forgot his name again, particularly the hint about skin and bones prose and fleshing out, which I am not using, and the hint about adding in between what you have already written. If all chapters in beginning are from late 2011 and all in the very middle or maybe near end from 2014, the novel will show discrepancies of style. But if you begin 2011 with four chapters including first and nearly second and then the last and all up to 2014 you consistently add chapters in between, for one thing ideas will come up in function of what your characters want to achieve afterwards, in later chapters and for another thing discrepancies of style will not give clear breaks but be evenly uneven.

Shall we see who of us gets ready first?

Chronicle of Susan Pevensie 1949-56
http://petitlien.com/su49-56pev

(fan fiction on CSL, JRRT, Enid Blyton, GKC, Conan Doyle, Hannah and Barbera, by now 70 something short chapters).

V

You will find me weird, I am ten times more of a linguaphile than a polyglot.

[For those not having seen the video : a linguaphile collects encyclopedic knowledge about languages, like how many cases they have, who spoke them, if extinct, and so on, a polyglot collects functioning mastering of language competence in the languages he collects.]

VI

Ha, autodidactic study habits, got me there ... getting into Dutch, Danish, Braid Scots, Galego ... ok, but when it came to Latin and Greek, I needed a classroom to get the work done, exactly as with instrument playing I have not got the work done yet.

VII

LOL, at the volunteering polyglot mentioning French!

- Qu'est-ce que tu appelles qqn qui parle deux langues?
- Un bilingue.
- Quelqu'un qui parle trois langues?
- Trilingue.
- Quelqu'un qui parle quatre/cinq/six/plusieurs langues (whenever you get short of composites in numeral plus -lingue or whenever he realises you won't and goes directly for "many")?
- Un polyglotte.
- Et alors, quelqu'un qui ne parle qu'une langue?
- Un monoglotte?
- Non, un français!

Meaning French society has some of these machist attitudes I mentioned and it does work out against language learning.

VIII

All respect to shadowing, but I have not used it and still gone some way, the things that helped me were:

• getting the accent right (although my English standard varies between British, US and Oz, and my attempts at Irish accent may sound more Scottish than Irish), by repeating after, by paying attention to the sound (exactly as when singing "Muß i' denn" after hearing Elvis' version, though singing along is obviously closer to your shadowing, I am more like interiorly humming along and afterwards ...), does help to feel like a native speaker even if I am not, this is one area where Swedish language study techniques may even have improved and have not deteriorated between ma's and my own experience of them;
• using paradigms, as said. If Romans and Thracians used the paradigm of typto when learning Greek and Greeks and Gauls the paradigm of amo when learning Latin, there might just be some kind of utility with it, since the technique lasted for centuries and Greek in West and Latin in Byzantium did not deteriorate until it was positively neglected.
• Playing around with possibilities does help, I think.
  
  I suppose back in Rome a teacher might have said:
  
  

  "Si dico loco 'scripsi' ita 'scripsam', capisne?"
  "Vis alludere Graecis eorumque 'egrapsa', puto."
  "Recte. Si nunc dico 'scripsans, scripsantis'?"
  "Possumus Graece talem formam facere?"
  "Possumus. Et quidem 'grapsas, grapsâsa, grapsan; grapsantos, grapsáses, grapsantos' ..."

  
  
  Or in another, possibly earlier lesson:
  
  

  "Typtomenos est participium passivum praesentis ..."
  "Ita, nonne, ut 'verberatus'?"
  "Magis ita ut 'vapulans'."

  
  
  I recall the irritation of one Björn when I called him Beorn, but I do not suppose he made it to my level of language skills. Or the irritation of one Granhäll when I called him Granelli ... I do not think he made it to my level of language skills either. A bit grammar Nazis (for real) when it came to their names, and of course they had a right to be. But I thoroughly enjoyed playing around with "how would this sound transposed to that dialect" kind of questions.
  
  
• Having prestigious texts around does help (I remember how I looked forward to reading from the Aeneid) when it comes to initial acquisition. When it comes to upkeep, I recommend having an interest in texts that can not be found in translation. Like St Thomas Aquinas' commentary on Romans (I was in for 1:20 and took Rufinus' translation of Origen as well).
• Making the translations shadow original language rather than be correct Swedish. Or whatever language is used in class if it is one's native one. (Making a translation idiomatic is a great lesson in the language one is translating too. One point that stuck was that Latin must not be a calque of Swedish original text, but must not avoid the expression types it has in common with Swedish either, neither avoiding nor exaggerating the unswedishness of it, and same with Greek).
• Nearly forgot: using phonetics to see like "uge" as a variation on "Woche", "vecka" or "rex" as a variation on "regs" or ... you see what I mean.
  
  I might have exaggerated my confidence (and so may a lot of other language students) in PIE theory and sound laws just because they are so useful for learning in this respect.
  
  "athair"? Piece of cake. "pateer" > *"ateer" > *"atiir" > *"athiir" > "athir" >"ahir" (with h still spelled as th)
  
  Why "athair" rather than **"aithir"? Probably because of forms in "patr- ..." (where no ee > ii intervenes between t and r)
  
  See what I mean? That does not automatically mean all langs with any reconstructed PIE forms reflected in sufficient quantity to be considered IE langs actually descend from a real PIE lang with the word "pateer" in it. But assuming that gives you this memnotechnic and transpositional bit for free, and that might be why it is often assumed.
  
  
• As you mentioned yourself: being an inquisitive linguaphile about languages you are not yet actually learning.

... or Preliminary Answers on AronRa's Phylogeny Challenge (with a correction on the "Permian Otter" or "Teckel")

Video with challenge (not recommended for the innocent):

AronRa : Phylogeny Challenge
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_r0zpk0lPFU

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Whether ducks and geese are one or two kinds (I think two), they are not same kind as galliforms.

And I am not sure if Kiwi is a kind of Ostrich, I think not, but Nandu and Emu are.

Velociraptor:

Velociraptor on Palaeocritti site
http://www.palaeocritti.com/by-group/dinosauria/deinynochosauria/velociraptor

Holotype (AMNH 6515): skull and partial forelimb
Paratype (AMNH 6518): Partial skull, forelimb and hindlimb bones
Referred specimens: IGM 94.07.28; IGM 100/24; IGM 100/25; IGM 100/54; IGM 100/200; IGM 100/976; IGM 100/981?; IGM 100/982; IGM 100/985; IGM 100/986; IGM 100/2000 (juvenile skull and partial skeleton); PIN 3143/8; ZPAL MgD-I/97

I'd like details about how partial that partial skeleton is.

["IGM 100/2000" of course]

It is conceivable that panthers are one or two kinds but hardly same kind as cat or lynx.

Possibly as Aelurosaurus.

[Cat, not panther, of course]

Permian, from Beaufort, exactly one partial skull:

Aelurosaurus on Palaeocritti site
http://www.palaeocritti.com/by-group/gorgonopsia/aelurosaurus

And if you say "can't be same kind as cat, they weren't evolved in Permian times yet", that is precisely the point. Kind of a "Carboniferous rabbit" if you like.

Except of course, Carboniferous and Permian and the rest seem, as far as fossils go, to be distributed in space. Twodimensionally. You are NOT finding Permians under Cretaceous which are under Miocene, anywhere.

And same with my suspicion that procynosuchus was an early teckel, even if it lost a few phalangs the sample on board the ark:

Procynosuchus delaharpeae on Palaeocritti site
http://www.palaeocritti.com/by-group/cynodontia/procynosuchus

More on my very clear suspicion the "time labels" are really just biotopoes from the time of the Flood, see here:

Creation vs. Evolution : Three Meanings of Chronological Labels
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2013/12/three-meanings-of-chronological-labels.html

And this series with associated tables:

Creation vs. Evolution : How do Fossils Superpose?
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2013/11/how-do-fossils-superpose.html

VampiricDarkDragon

+Hans-Georg Lundahl You're a special kind of idiot, aren't you?

You do realize the name Aelurosaurus felinus is in reference to the shape of some its teeth, right? Just like carcharadontosaurus is named after some of its teeth resembling those of a shark, not because it is one. If you went by your logic, then the blue whale must be a species of mice because musculus means "little mouse".

As for the procynosuchus being an "early teckel", there is an obvious reason for why it's only your suspicion and no one else's. It's wrong. There are a lot more differences (such as the skull alone) that show that they are unrelated, especially since the dachshund is a breed of dog that came about only in the early 1600's in Germany.

And it's easy to see how you get so confused on epochs and fossil layers and geological layers, especially when you use creationist websites and not peer-reviewed, accredited sources that have been proven to be right time and time again.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Here is aelurosaurus for you:


http://www.palaeocritti.com/by-group/gorgonopsia/aelurosaurus

You said what resembled a cat? A few teeth?

OK, but what exactly do we have except a few teeth that does NOT resemble a cat?

"Remains Holotype: partial skull "

In the case of a blue whale and a mouse, I would ask you what DOES resmble a mouse, plus the remains we have of blue whales are far MORE then just a partial skull.

Do you get the picture?

The particular breed of teckel may have really originated in 1600's in Germany, or it may have been first recorded there. Its immediate ancestor was hardly a wolf or a great dane. Meaning we do not know when we first get dogs looking like that.

Procynosuchus delaharpeae on my Palaeocritti back up blog or salvage blog
http://palaeocritti.blogspot.com/2013/11/procynosuchus-delaharpeae.html

Procynosuchus delaharpeae on Palaeocritti site
http://www.palaeocritti.com/by-group/cynodontia/procynosuchus

Now, skull worked over by artist looks like a teckel skull to me.

VampiricDarkDragon

+Hans-Georg Lundahl
We have parts of the jaw and skull. Tell me, what kind of cat has eyes on the side of its head instead of facing forward, or that long of a jaw compared to skull size?

You do realize that teckel and dachshund are the same thing, right? And that it is well known when the breed arose, right? And that there are no records of dogs like them andy significant time beforehand, right? And that it's not that hard to breed a trait into a dog for a specific task, right?

You've never seen an actual teckel skull, have you? If you had, you would have realized that the dimensions are different, that the skull of the procynosuchus has much thicker upper and lower jaw bones, which are also longer overall compared to that head, and there is no main distinction between the upper jaw and the skull, unlike that of a teckel. You'd also notice that the skeleton (we have complete skeletons of procynosuchus) has legs splayed out at the sides like a lizard, and not underneath like a dog, has a rib cage that extends all the way back to hind legs, unlike a dog which has more robust ribs that end halfway, as well and the overall general shape of the bones is rather different.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Eyes on side of skull ... you may have a point. OK. Either other kind or skull very distorted (or both, if instead the cat like features result from distortion).

Teckel or dachshund per se are from Germany (I speak German and knew the word Dachshund before I knew the word teckel), but their immediate ancestors before that were very much not German shepherds.

However, in the palaeocritti site they were compared to otters, and when I had a fresh look at otters (I am not a zoologist, the palaeontological side of this makes it a new but obvious side kick for me) they were a bit more similar to Procynosuchus delaharpeae.

But otters or teckels ... either way it could very well be a disproof of Dawkins' point about carboniferous rabbits.

VampiricDarkDragon

+Hans-Georg Lundahl Or simply show a case of convergent evolution where two completely different species lived in a similar environment and thus evolved similar traits that benefit them the most in said environment.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"Or simply show a case of convergent evolution"

Ah, that exists?

Well, if so how do you know "similar traits argue similar ancestors"? Thank you for ruining, not your explanation, but rather, while defending it, your main proof.

VampiricDarkDragon

+Hans-Georg Lundahl Because convergent evolution doesn't explain the presence of the same bone structures and the like, only "similarities", such as the case between the teeth of carcharadontosaurus and sharks (there are differences, such as the presence of roots in the former), or overall body morphology, such a long, slender, flexible form common to some terrestrial species that enter the water, like otters.

There is also the fact that we have other fossils that show diversification and states of progression with ancient lineages.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

In order for them to "show" any states of progression, one would need to know they were from different ages.

As said on the other thread, we do not.

Procynosuchus has a bone structure very close to the otter. I have in fact asked one European country where otters are extinct but where there have been such how different their otter skeletons are from Procynosuchus. Still waiting for an answer. Digits are at least five on both of them (on forefeet at least). Head might be as close as we come to a clear divergence, except one of them has a slenderer rib cage.

That is what I notice without being any kind of expert. As you rightly said I wasn't.

VampiricDarkDragon

+Hans-Georg Lundahl You already stated that you have no expertise in the fields of paleontology or geology, yet you assert that there is no way to judge the age of the rock. Your making the false assumption that only fossils are used to age the surrounding rock, when they are not.

Also, you just asserted a moment ago that the Procynosuchus skeleton looked almost exactly like a dachshund, now your saying it looks almost exactly like an otter? Do otters and dachshunds have the same-exact skeletal structures? You also haven't taken into account the fact that the fossil has legs on the sides, like a lizard, instead of underneath it, like a mammal.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"You're making the false assumption that only fossils are used to age the surrounding rock, when they are not."

I am nowhere making this assumption. What I am rather saying is that beyond [range of] C14 it is the most BASIC method - along with a supposed order between the fossil deposits, plus counting each where it is as its thickest and where it is lacking it is counted as eroded since TIMES the slower deposition rates of sediments.

"Do otters and dachshunds have the same-exact skeletal structures?"

Dachshund was mostly referring to the form of its head, slenderness and short legs. Otters are a bit closer to them than I thought, my memory of "water animals" being more built on beavers. I checked out otters after making the statement.

"You also haven't taken into account the fact that the fossil has legs on the sides, like a lizard, instead of underneath it, like a mammal. "

Will check.

Did check, you are right that Procynosuchus delaharpeae has legs on side if TSK (whatever institution that is) has mounted the skeleton correctly.

(Skeletal reconstruction of Procynosuchus delaharpeae, based on specimen TSK 34. From Kemp, 1980.)

Institution Abbreviations on Palaeocritti site
http://www.palaeocritti.com/institution-abbreviations

TSK seems to miss ... other specimens were not complete.

ah, I seem to have been wrong even about specimen sigla starting with the abbreviation for the institution ...?

... AronRa claims Human Morality is Evolution's Making

First video of five:

AronRa : The Evolution of Morality (1-5)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQUxmJR9a5Y

I, 6:40 or little before

[Q from video:] "then why are these images real?"

Heard of Adam eating the forbidden fruit?

II, 8:14

positive claims require positive evidence.

Our eyes and inner ears (forgot what you call those curved tubes in three dimensions of curving) give us positive evidence, as far as not proven wrong, that earth is still and sun, moon, stars go around us each day, east to west, and that sun lags behind the stars a little each day, adding up to full circle west to east once a year, moon gets full circle west to east compared to stars once a month (lunar month and solar year, obviously).

Lucretius, who was an atheist did not deny this. But he was very inattentive as to mechanism behind these phenomena. When Ptolemy inquired further into the regularities, it was very obvious to everyone that although Aristotle was wrong on particulars, his proof there was a God pushing the universe around us east to west (or commanding stars to go east to west in a very perfect formation, if you go by Abraham's observation as given in Josephus) was right and Lucretius wrong.

Have you since then any positive evidence for positive claims like:

• Heliocentrism
• Big Bang
• getting from just after BB to formation of galaxies and solar system and planets around stars, especially around Sun
• abiogenesis
• microbes to man (or to dog or to cat) evolution?

III

[on chart defining magic in various ways]

mag·ic \maj-ik\ noun 1 a : the use and means (as charms or spells) believed to have supernatural power over natural forces b : magic rites or incantations [speaking into being] [Abra cadabera = "I create as I speak"] 2 a: an extraordinary power or influence seemingly from a supernatural source b : something that seems to cast a spell : enchantment [enchantment = blessing] mir·a·cle \mir-i-k@l\ noun 1. an effect or extraordinary event in the physical world that surpasses all known human or natural powers and is ascribed to a supernatural cause.

1a and 1b are definitions of magic in forbidden sense and not synonymous with miracle.

The formula "abra kadabra" is, if translation is correct, something never said by God, but by some mage trying to usurp the power of God.

As to sense 2a, calling that magic is like calling a grocer charging a higher price than you expected "robber" (or worse, since God by making miracles is not charging us a higher price but giving things for free). If you call the grocer "robber" that does not mean he can be put in prison for charging 8 cents more than last year (example taken from Euro-cents, on a pack of four yoghurts, from 0:49 to 0:57) and if you call God a magician, that does not mean he could get stoned during Old Testament law or burned at at stake in Salem.

Second video of five:

AronRa : The Evolution of Morality (2-5)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUUMsR6P8PQ

I, 00:51

Two observations:

• Are you claiming divine guidance for your interpretation of - say fossils, genomes, phenomes ...?
• A Catholic does claim divine guidance (whether Kenneth Miller knows so or not, I have contacted him to verify if he is a Traditional Catholic as you said or a Modernist one) for one specific collective: the Church Fathers.

They are all of them Young Earth Creationist, though some few are not Six Day Creationists (St Augustine notably came to conclude that the six days referred to a single moment, or atemporal creation, "in the beginning" before there was any succession in time).

[Added today:] Btw, I contacted Ken Miller, he is a nice guy socially, but he is a nightmare theologically and very certainly not a traditional Catholic but a very untraditional one, judging by his response to my question. In all fairness, he was friendly and all that, but that does not make him more Catholic than the Father Murphy whose theology in the end he admits disagreeing with.

II, 02:51

is my direct answer thread to your phylogeny challenge still up, or did you withdraw from discussion like that Muslim?

"if he can adequately support ... I will concede that he is wrong, even if I do not want to ..."

Oh, you will concede that HE is wrong, how generous!

And a bit later "I will concede it, even if I do not want to ..."

Trouble pronouncing the words "I will concede that I am wrong" in a string?

[Added today:] I checked, the comments are there, did not see them last time I had checked. Sorry!

III, 04:32

in a Christian perspective, God is not just involved in Genesis chapter 1 as Creator, but also as revealer of truth, behind the text.

A God who existed but not [had] done it that way, would not be the God who revealed Genesis, or, if He were, would be a liar in doing so (like the Nine Muses who told Hesiod another story, or the Jibreel who revealed to Mohammed a story about Jesus quite incompatible with the Gospel, see Sourate V). And either way He would not have been the God Christians believe in. I am a Christian, I say He is, and challenge you to prove me wrong, IF YOU CAN ... (wrong about this, mind you, not about my personal behaviour, which it may be easier to do sth about, like relying on calumny or concentrating on me stumbling).

[Added today:] 04:08 Would not be involved in "natural processes culminating in our species" ... indeed, death before Adam and death and lust as prime "editors" of the "blind monkey" typing our genome are not compatible with the Christian view of God's goodness and wisdom. What atheists like Democritus, Lucrece and ... what's his name ... first and foremost ... Epicurus apply to all existance we are involved in, we do apply to the existance before Adam sinned. If God had allowed evil before Adam sinned because he would not have wanted to prevent it, or because he would have needed it to make Adam, he would not be God.

[first wrote "editors or the blind monkey" but meant either "for" or "of" the same]

From here

added today.

IIII, 5:27

AronRa's words: "There are profound conflicts within the religious documents, even those dedicated to the same Gods." [As far as it goes: true.]

[Corrected quote:] "There are profound conflicts within religious documents, even those books dedicated to the same Gods." [As far as it goes excepting "books" : true.]

This does not mean one's black is consistently another's white in every area. At least, if it did, that would argue they were both wrong, since both and all else besides them need some connexion with truth, but in such a hypothetic case neither of them has so complete a grasp of truth that the other cannot totally contradict it.

What we see is rather a partial very large area of agreement - and some few areas of disagreement. Or rather every area is an area of disagreement on some point, but there is either for what is right one common vast majority position or for what is right one middle position between two large minority positions that are both wrong. There is one religion which holds all these right positions in ethics, it is the Catholic one. Not meaning Ken Miller's modernist brand of it. There is one exception to this rule or was till recently, it is Christianity took a more antislavery stand than any tradition outside it until Liberalism and Communism arose and were not totally Christian. And in this sense Christianity might be argued to have taken an extreme minority position - until certain ideologies took an extremer one.

05:51 "even if you look back in time, and look at the things that were once said to be endorsed by God himself in the old books and which are now considered repugnant by many, even most if not all established citizens of modern society"

Well, certain things considered non-repugnant by élites of modern society - like making the life of beggars more difficult - was considered repugnant to the authors - and untimately the Divine Author - of the old books, if you refer to those of Old and New Testament of Holy Scripture of Christianity.

05:58 "we don't have a rigid definition of what good or evil really means"

In that case why bother of what is "considered repugnant" by someone lacking such definitions?

06:03 "so it does not seem there is any one moral guide we can all agree on ..."

Well, there is one moral guide all just can all agree on. Some may seem just without having yet agreed to it, but they might not have had the opportunity, others might seem just without agreeing to it, but we do not know them all that well. And so on.

06:08 "and what is usually promoted as such" [supposing he means Holy Writ] "comes from many different authors with often violently opposed opinions."

Opposed? No. Different as to what shall be tolerated in what might be called "acceptable levels of bad behaviour" but not differring on what is just.

V, 06:21

"But Without an authority which is both singular and absolute - they say - we should be animals and we should be apelike animals"

Sorry, but you confuse the position of natural law, known within each uncorrupted heart, with Holy Bible, which is a corrective to corruptions.

Natural law is indeed singular as far as it is God-given and absolute in the same way, but it is also fragile and hence something which we can corrupt (but different people corrupt it in different ways, that is how we know it is one, because of the agreements where they are not corrupting it).

Holy Bible is not as a text identical to the Natural Law, it has the same author, but has not been given the same position. It is a corrective for corruptions. It is therefore explicitly dealing with things it explicitly considers as corrupt (such as child sacrifice to certain idols) and also to some very local and timebound cures for very extreme evils, like what Israelites on behalf of God meted out to such child sacrificing idolaters. It therefore must include what most people relying on Natural Law only (and pretty correctly) should be innocent of.

The part about "apelike animals" may very well come from some old earth compromisers. I have come across some theologians who considered Cro Magnon men to be pre-Adamite apelike animals, despite anatomical identity with modern man. I cannot even consider this as apt description of Neanderthals. They buried dead and kept toothless old aged people alive before doing so. That is very human behaviour. I care nothing zilch and nada for the dates arrived at for that find, except as an illustration of how modern palaeontologists and archaeologists test ages by an ideology which lands them in false dates - and as an illustration that the dating reason for calling Cro-Magnon men "apelike animals" is faked. These men who were not real apes but real men, pretty certainly lived before the Bible was written. We cannot tell how much of original revealed truth (what God had spoken to Adam and Noah previous to their lives) they kept faithfully and how much they corrupted, but we can tell at least some of them were not totally corrupt. Keeping the weak alive and burying the dead is not the work of an apelike animal.

06:24 "we should run around killing and raping each other"

Without the Natural Law or at least some remains of it, yes. And once it is no longer intact, we cannot know that precisely the parts which make killing and rapes repugnant will be left in their integrity.

I suppose you oppose abortion, as the killing of innocents that it is?

06:39 "animals typically don't act like that, usually only people do"

Oh, you have seen nothing about anything approaching rape among dogs? You have seen nothing approaching killing of even close kin among sharks and crocs? Not forgetting spiders?

But the point is, without the Natural Law we are not animals but worse than them. They are less easy to get off their natural laws, the laws God wrote for the behaviour of each species, though we think it changed for the worse by Adam's fall.

VI, 07:02

"some of the worst offenders" and "claim that fear of their God's inevitable vengeance is the only reason they are not committing random acts of evil right now"

Two different issues. The one about living up to what you believe (and about which offenses are worst, some which don't land you in prison may be worse), which involves a big corps of persons. Atheists are a minority.

The other issue is that a Calvinist is a heretic - I am collecting the chapters where Haydock comment mentions Calvin, Beza, Luther, Cranmer, Tindal, Zuinglius ... sure enough, Calvin is - if I can trust he is always or nearly so mentioned with disapproval in this Catholic Bible comment - the worst offender. He is mentioned in the comment to the most Bible chapters of all of these. Tindal is the least one and Beza comes just under Calvin. Now, a Calvinist may indeed believe he is personally capable of all evil, not just very select ones, different from person to person and adding up to "all" only between all persons. He may also believe there can be no grace preserving anyone from what evil he or she is capable of, except by being enlightened about what Hellfire is. A Catholic must needs disagree, Hitler could never have run a concentration camp, from day to day and personally attending to it and Eichmann could hardly have decided politically on them even in a bout of anger, they were capable of pretty different evils, and so neither of all such. And some Pagans are well preserved even before becoming Christians, as was the case with St Eustache.

Note that most Calvinists willing to use that argument are being unfair to themselves - exactly as you are to yourself when claiming evolution made your human morality. Most ... but Oliver Cromwell did not fear Hell enough for his own good (or for that of Irish Catholics he killed for being better than he and for being right where he was wrong).

VIII, 07:28

"those of us whose morality is neither influenced nor enforced by any threat of damnation"

Well St Eustace was not influenced or afraid of any threat of damnation even before he became a Christian. But Calvinists of course do not honour St Eustace. He might have on the occasion when he was being martyred have considered damnation as his due if he would have sacrificed to the idols, he might also very well have stood firm simply because of military honour such as he practised before becoming a Christian and of course, added to that, the promise of glory to those refusing idolatry and dying for it.

It is however curious that Marcus Aurelius, on the whole a pretty decent Emperor, if he hadn't persecuted Christians, like Hitler would have been decent if he hadn't persecuted Christians, Jews and Gipsies, was nevertheless annoyed enough by Christians to persecute them because he regarded them as asocial. Right the other day I dated my signature with the name of a saint killed by the persecution of Marcus Aurelius. Not forgetting to add day-month numbers to clarify, of course. He was not as bad as Decius and Diocletian ... and even Diocletian was deent up to a point, but then Christians annoyed him too much ... I have heard a similar case for even Nero and Domitian, though there we have horror stories of aristocrats murdered on imperial order by simple jealousy. By the way, the only contemporary historians of Roman Empire alive and writing about the times of mid-Tiberius to Domitian that are preserved to our times are those of the 8 NT writers who wrote history. Christianity seems to have preserved their writings as Roman Pride could not preserve the three lost histories of Nero's contemporaries - a bit like Shi Huang Ti did not manage to destroy Confucius. Or Lao Tseu.

Now, if Nero had feared damnation ... or even Marcus Aurelius ... !

VIIII, 07:39

"where did morality come from"

Wow! At Last! 17 minutes of exordium!

X, 08:13

"usually it is the most flexible species that win the day"

Well, that is supposing a great many species have already died out, isn't it, but ok, let us stick to the point and see where this leads about morality ...

9:19 or a bit before ... spreading your genes throughout the community. Odin and Mohammed did that by founding false religions, one of which adored the one of them as a Marduk style creator god and the other of which honours the other of them as an Apostle who finally got it right where the Twelve of Jesus didn't manage to preserve his true message. Joseph Smith has a certain similarity to their tactic ... shall we fear you plan something like that for the atheist community of the future?

Last items, I think I see where you might be heading ... scorpions have been favoured by evolution, by parents being eaten by their children, man has not been favoured in that precise circumstance, so it is not for man to do so ... now, this is of course a pretty good argument for someone who holds that men and scorpions are totally distinct ... evolutionists however hold they have a common ancestor.

Or you might be arguing the common ancestor is too far off for the example of scorpions to apply to us ... but then why stick with the common ancestor of all men rather than with that of some tribe? Now, before Hitler became actively involved in certain evils, he did make that conclusion. Wait, post hoc, non propter hoc ... ok, what would make precisely evolution a source and authority for condemning those evils?

[Hoping for an attempted answer in following videos ...]

Third video out of five:

AronRa : The Evolution of Morality (3-5)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHkY-Epbue4

I, 03:41

... I started wondering whether the first minutes about avian supposed evolution from supposedly non-avians were like another footage altogether substituted ... ah, warmblooded, hence not born independent.

OK, but no person at all is compassionate in equal measure to each and everyone, indeed, when a person is at all cruel, it is usually out of compassion to someone else to whom the victim of his own incompassion is deemed either to have been previously cruel or to be cruel right now or to risk becoming cruel in the future.

That very obviously involves keeping someone in a faked dependence (a bit like a hostage taking) in the intention of by dependence teaching him compassion, such a step is indeed very cruel and a cruelty which has been on the increase since evolutionists have concluded that compassion is the evolutionary origin of morality.

II, 05:35

ants, bees, termites

Well, applying ant morality, bee morality or termite morality to man is as bad - but less obviously so - as applying croc and shark morality to man.

Any swarm of men having adopted ant morality would be an easy victim of a person with a shark morality, if he could find a way to exploit them and be accepted as "ant queen".

One way would of course be to be the initiator into ant morality in the first place. To people not previously as selfless and therefore not previously allergic to the shark.

So, here is one more way in which evolutionary moral philosophy goes astray. The lazy man was told to look at the ants and be wise, but not to look at the ants and accept them as gurus, by King Solomon!

OK, you have not spelled out that "ants are a model" but that is at least one direction in which evolutionist moral philosophy has been erring. Now, this is of course another question than whether our morality in fact evolved by similar, processes as those assumed for ants.

I have a feeling concentration camps were at first modelled on anthives. Dachau did not start taking Jewish prisoners as such until the war, but it did take asocial prisoners right away from its start and in November 1933 they were authorised to kill anyone refusing to work.

Fourth video out of five:

AronRa : The Evolution of Morality (4-5)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUW5J-6M5Hw

I, 05:55

... the priest was an actor in a priest role in a film, or?

II

The scene with bulls and lions ... now, one question I wonder is whether after that thse bulls have taken a tougher attitude against lions or resumed their usual behaviour in the next meeting.

Another one is of course that, yes, beasts sometimes do set a moral example for men. In the view of a Creationist that happens because due to the fall we sometimes fall below the behaviour of beasts, despite knowing better - which they do not. (A Calvinist might not have agreed with the "despite knowing better" part, but give them Romans 1:20 and "without excuse" ...)

III

Cnemidophorus neomexicanus is very probably ...

• ... triploid (as being all female and parthenogenetic);
• ... and hence evolved from a diploid that is more normal;
• ... plus as all female it is much more hopeful for lesbians than for catamites.

Even if one can suppose no diabolic act was involved in distancing it from a normal, diploid, and hence heterosexually reproducing ancestor and even if this being the Creator's choice a lizard was not chosen as image of lesbians because it is common for women to hate lizards.

[Why did I write not in that word order? I meant "one can wonder if a lizard was not chosen etc." Did AronRa fiddle with editing? Anyway, I edited back(?) or back to what I had in mind:]

Even if one can suppose no diabolic act was involved in distancing it from a normal, diploid, and hence heterosexually reproducing ancestor and even if this being the Creator's choice one can wonder if a lizard was not chosen as image of lesbians because it is common for women to hate lizards.

Now, this is the only way they can reproduce, not any way we can do so at all.

Even if we can reproduce between brother and sister, it does not mean we are free to do so since after Adam's and Eve's children's generation there are more appropriate human mates than siblings and niece and uncle (obviously the close relation rather than the age difference is what makes it wrong).

IIII

Questions of morality should be reserved for questions of abuse or compassion?

Oh, my ... well, for one thing in that case Hitler was very moral. He reduced morality to a question of Germans being abused, of Germans being compassionate to each other and of Germans standing up to those abusing them.

Wait, you said something about Germans being abused by Jews was a lie?

Oh, you mean veracity is involved as well!

Now, there chimps are no models. No models at all.

It is of course a bit of a question whether certain someones have not since reduced morality to Jews being abused (by Germans, by Nazis, by Fascists, by Catholics, by Christians, depending on which Jew you ask), Jews being compassionate to each other and Jews standing up against those abusing them. Sometimes with as little regard for veracity.

But regardless of that, chimps are no models of veracity and human morality did not as far as veracity is concerned evolve from chimps.

Neither are chimps of the two types (supposing you spoke the truth about it) really examples of the only two states mankind can be in. And it might be mentioned that the sexual liberalism among chimps is not limited to the Bonobos, it is there among the other group as well ... did you call them troglodytes? The word by itself means cave dweller and mankind has included cavedwellers, thus troglodytes, very superior to chimps in behaviour.

But the score stands badly for you. By now you are not explaining at all how sexual taboos in mankind evolved, you are only stating as a postulate that it should be excluded from the question. Hardly a scientific approach, more the Humpty Dumpty approach. "When I use a word it means exactly what I want it to mean, neither more nor less".

Fifth video of the five:

AronRa : The Evolution of Morality (5-5)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTJiWgFBrKU

I

That is where our language comes from!

01:35 flabberghasted

A signal meant to evoke a response without prior investigation is very obviously something very different from signals meant to evoke both reflection and investigation - such as one may presume very charitably that even this talk by AronRa had some kind of intention to do.

II, 02:55

"if we built intelligent robots or encountered extraterrestrials, that they would think like we do, or if they didn't have our emotions they wouldn't have any emotions at all"

Now, an intelligent robot (assuming you mean the English meaning of cybernetic implications rather than the Slavonik meaning of robotnik as "worker" or as employed in manufacturing in factories, since those are intelligent enough, but if you mean it as in English) that is quite an oxymoron.

There is no sign computers will ever have intelligence, however much technological advance we put into producing them.

A computer can "deal with" a recurrent formula, if you like. But only by cutting off after a certain number of digits is reached. If you add 0.1 and 0.2 the immediate result will be 0.30000 ... 001 and if in fact you do get 0.3 it is because one has added a rounding off function. At least according to what I heard on computerphile.

And if you take a google translate, it has no method of even guessing what a non-programmed word might mean from the context it only leaves that untranslated so the human user can do so, but even worse, if a word in lang A has two translation in lang B it has no guarantee of hitting the right one. Try to take a text and google translate it from English to Russian, then copypaste, then translate that back from Russian to English.

It has no real way of knowing whether a text is complex or not. I tried out an online programme for evaluating complexity level of a text.

I wrote a text in very simple English and it evaluated the text as "genius" level. Believe me, it was not, the one thing that triggered this was a single word with a few syllables more than the rest. You guess if I pointed this out and the programme was taken off line?

No, do not believe in such materialistic myths as intelligent computers, do your own intelligence some honour!

III, 03:32

St Thomas Aquinas would not have agreed that love was uniquely supernatural or uniquely human. He would have argued the supernatural virtue of charity is uniquely reserved for God, angels and men, but he would very clearly have admitted parallels between charity and non meritorious human loves (whether sinful or merely not supernatural) and between human and animal natural emotions, including love. Cfr Summa Theologiae I-II where he discusses the principle of human behaviour, one of which is "law" (thus morality) and another of which is passions.

Now, another thing, he was no sentimentalist. He would not have agreed that the emotions you find finer than others in general are a guarantee of moral correctitude if cultivated. Cultivating courage and solidarity is very fine, and even necessary for a sound moral development (and trying to add on such cultivation after someone is already an adult is usually pretty lousy), but they are no guarantees for moral rightness. And he would also insist that the popular judgement behind diverse moralities is a significant sign for a moral judgement being right in case of agreement.

And denying that exists is not the same thing as explaining how it arose by evolution.

I would add, there being an advantage to empathy in the struggle for survival to certain species (warmblooded and with very frontal in depth sight) does not imply that a purely material origin of life could ever develop genes for it - since it is not very obvious, for one thing, how an arrangement of atoms can be unempathetic and a slightly different one empathetic, unless the two arrangements are a kind of material support of at least some hint of souul, if not an immaterial and immortal one.

IIII, 05:24

two mistakes, I set about to correct:

• 1) Empathy is not the same thing as morality. Even a great empathy can be deflected from mercy, which is anyway not the only duty, and which has anyway time after time been an inspiration for cruelty also, if misapplied. So, showing an evolutionary origin for empathy, whether rightly or wrongly, does not imply there is one for what St Thomas calls "synderesis" or being aware of what the moral law requires. Nor have you shown that what he referred to as being aware of an objective moral law is a kind of illusion, where there is no explanation of morality (evolutionary or other) involved to be done.
  
  
• 2) Obviously this testing of pre-frontal lobes can be horribly abused for "scientific" or supposedly such precautions.

And, as obviously, being empathetic is no panacea against violent crimes, either unpunished ones or such as will land you in prison.

IIII, 05:24 bis ...

... the hint about each of audience having personal experience of ... bullies, for lack of a better word ... might just possibly mean that pretty many in the atheist community are in fact the kind of former bully victims who do compensate by cultivating (including by mutual admiration clubs and including by giving each other perks in employees ranks, privileges, wages over the category they would identify with former bullies) a kind of collective superiority complex, if you will excuse this little hint of Freudian explanations.

This would explain why they rarely get into prison and much more often into school boards (perhaps not the Texan one or perhaps even that one, in case its members have experience of evolutionist bullying in school, as I have) or Congress. That does not mean the guys who express their superiority complexes or inferiority complexes or whatever be the real name of their baser and more evil desires in ways that land them in prison are necessarily worse people.

In some countries however atheism is very much a cliché (Sweden, Soviet Union), so if non-immigrants land in prison they are often atheist there.

I mean, after the period in which the very fact of being a Christian or expressing Christianity too openly (including by disdain of Communism, Atheism or Evolution) could land you in prison. That is after Gorby (not the meat pie, the man).

V

Oh, prefrontal lobes underdeveloped or damaged by drugs is the reason we must have laws and means to enforce them? No. The reason is Original Sin in a first degree of precision, and Personal Sins following from it in the next degree of precision. In your opinion a man who has great prefrontal lobes and uses them to figure out what password someone has used and then to hack their account and get for instance their personal secrets from the mail or their money from the bank account or ... I could go on ... is not fit for prison, since he has no trouble with the prefrontal lobes! But that is preposterous.

And the Communist Government of Pensacola FL which has outlawed several private initiatives (non violent and non fraudulent) of the homeless when it comes to getting a meal or a kind of bed, or keeping warm when outside, so as to herd them all in shelters outside the city limits - do you think they could have even got elected without having pretty bright pre-frontal lobes? Do you think - not in a joking way, but seriously - they are too stupid to understand what they are doing to the homeless rather than being mean and abusing their intelligent capacity of empathy very much on purpose?

And at that even for having either been too bothered with their empathy when they were younger or having too much empathy with young people who show their empathy with the homeless in more sympathetic and more moral ways?

And speaking of "pathological behaviours" instead of evil is of course the kind of abusive rhetoric which is being used to excuse persecution of, for instance, the homeless.

If one spoke of "evil" one would be obliged to ask what evil this or that or sundry homeless man had done. If one speaks of "pathological behaviour" one can instead lean back and depend on prejudice and statistics "proving" that as homeless are pathological, so also typical behaviours of homeless (like using a blanket or sheet in public) are pathological behaviours and can be dealt with so. Exactly what the Communists in Pensacola Florida want to!

To show what I mean by Communist Government of Pensacola Florida:

New blog on the kid : The Communist Government of Pensacola
http://nov9blogg9.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-communist-government-of-pensacola.html

(probably the GOP-type of Communist, possibly the Rand type).

VI, 06:27

Am I being too sensitive or am I overhearing some kind of plaidoyer for sterilising people who hate Albigensian heresy?

I recommend the reading of The Night's Dark Shade by one Elena Maria Vidal (her own pen name, her grandmother's own real name).

Now, Nazis were sometimes keen on sterilising people and they were sometimes very fascinated with Unorthodox Medieval Mysticism - such as Templars and such as Albigensians perhaps also, I should not wonder. They cared at least very little for Medieval Orthodoxy, as they showed by their contempt for admonitions by Pope Pius XI in an Encyclical and by both him and the next in several diplomatic notes. And, let us not forget, their admiration for Frederick II the Stauffer.

VII, 6:56

Iconoclasm is rationality?

Have you ever read how Leo III Isauros behaved? Sure, he did not "praise gullibility" if that is how you want to put it, it is during his reign that the original manuscripts of the Gospels were lost. They were venerated too much for his taste.

But burning a monk's hands because he paints an icon of the Holy Virgin, is that your taste in rationality?

Seriously, this is a mistake commonly made by ... Calvinists ... among the Protestants, as well as those loosely inspired by them (read Baptists). And you, an Atheist, citing this very typically Protestant prejudice is pretty clear proof I am right that Atheism of the Western type is simply a radical sect of Protestantism. A Therevada Buddhist is technically also atheist, but he would hardly praise iconoclasm!

Correction. Leo III Isauros was indeed one iconoclast emperor of Byzantium, but 23 of February we celebrated the monk:

Constantinopoli sancti Lazari Monachi, qui, cum sacras Imagines pingeret, idcirco, Imperatoris Iconoclastae Theophili jussu, diris suppliciis excruciatur, et ei manus candenti ferro comburitur; sed, Dei virtute sanatus, abrasas Imagines sanctas pingendo restituit, ac demum in pace quievit.

So his Iconoclast imperial bully was not Leo but Theophilus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_III_the_Isaurian

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theophilus_%28emperor%29

VIII, 7:10

"I have tried to get my religious friends to read Chick Tracts, but they just won't do it."

I can add that it seems Creationists felt very misrepresented by Kenneth Miller, the supposed "Traditional" Catholic. He wrote about Fundies without bothering to check what they said. And in the context where they are reasonable.

In the Chick Tract context, I recommend my blog:

Great Bishop of Geneva!
http://greatbishopofgeneva.blogspot.com

My Father might lately be combining Ken Miller's Evolutionism (he was 7 Day when he made me) with a Chick Tract type prejudice about the Middle Ages.

I have to read up on the stuff for my family's sake.

VIIII, 07:35

You said that societies based on prohibition rather than opportunity cannot remain dominant, since they have nothing to offer?

Let us say one society with Sharia (not every such on earth, but one type of it, I am taking an example I think realistic) is really very much based on prohibition in one sense (no alcohol except the small percentage in curdled milk, no women showing their faces in public, no free speech in when it comes to say comparing Mohammed to Odin and Joseph Smith, as I do ... it is of course based very much on opportunity in another sense. It can for instance be pretty opportunistic about when and how to raid negro villages not altogether far off either on the excuse that they are openly kaffir (wonder why the French rather than such Muslims finished off human sacrifice in Benin and Dahomey ... could it be they enjoyed the slave markets there? I have that fact about W Africa from a Swedish Geography textbook from the time when Texas was neither Mexican nor Estadunidense - thus not as back then ancient history but as contemporary exotic society), or that other negro village which was nominally Muslim but in their eyes really kaffir, since too permissive on alcohol, or also give opportunity to negro slaves to become free ... by becoming Muslims. And to women to arouse their men, simply because a female face becomes so much more exciting when never seen in the street.

Every society is in some sense built on prohibition and in some sense on opportunity. At the same time France would be an opportunity for some (like people enjoying a good wine, beer or cider or a pretty face not showing too much beneath, but a bit more than her Muslim sister would) and a prohibitive society for others (like usurers, readers of Talmud, Albigensians who dreamed of saving themselves from rebirth by undergoing endura ...).

Morality is not and cannot be a simple question of "more prohibition than opportunity" or "more opportunity than prohibition", it is a question of what opportunities are worthwhile and what prohibitions are worthwhile.

Again, you are not explaining how morality (even with a rather aberrant variety with Sharia and an even more aberrant variety in Benin and Dahomey not practising Sharia) arose among men from evolutionary causes. You are just presuming compassionate emotions is the ground and on that basing a rally speech about how morality ought to evolve in the future. Now it is less than two minutes you have left on that old occasion to make a case for an evolutionary origin of morality ...

X, 08:23

"emerged from the bottom up"

You are giving a parallel I presume from the pattern of birds not colliding while flying in their bisannual treks (as shown on image).

[Swarming before flying, rather, actually]

Thing is, I happen to know a bit about poetry.

In one sense it is made "from the bottom up" as in deciding that a word that ends with a strong plus a weak syllable should be followed by one beginning in (or consisting of) a strong syllable, while one ending in a strong plus two weak syllables should be followed by one beginning in a weak followed by a strong (or by two words, first consisting of a weak, second consisting of or beginning with a strong) up to when you reach a unit of eight syllables starting with a weak and ending with a strong, and this one followed (unless already preceded) by another such unit rhyming with it. But in another sense it is made from top down, like deciding whether you want to keep that pattern for all of the poem or have another one in part of it, and also deciding on the story or picture that the actual words communicate.

I therefore do not at all believe the bird swarm behaviour is as simple as a bottom to top emergence, I think either God or an angel attributed to the birds is also controlling that exact behaviour from top down at the very same time, and therefore I do not believe your suggestion of morality being a parallel.

But supposing it were, and one in your sense if your explanation of bird behaviour were correct, that would not show us a believable rule applicable to all. Or show a believable reason for everyone to follow that rule.

It would give an excuse for shrinks and educators to try to micromanage human behaviour in Suzuki like bottom to top emergence of behaviour, and of course to gaol or maim even more people, not for doing anything wrong in particular, but for being slightly off the common standard of behaviour.

In some places it is doing this more and more. Already. No "would" about it. Not because this evolutionist view of morality is true, but because it is believed.

No offense meant to Suzuki method when it comes to making skills, or even when parents and priests are trying to raise children in their morals. I am against imposing one planner's Suzuki method of education on families not believing in his values.

XI, 08:29

"... created society, and society determines it laws and norms accordingly"

Uhuh ...?

Now we are talking about, not indeed any better clarity in how morality is supposed to have evolved, but rather a better clarity in how this theory makes "Society" (whichever society it is that takes itself for such in the singular) an omnipotent dictator over conscience.

Salem and Calvin's Geneva cannot really be blamed on your view ... nor can Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. They examplify the view of morality that you preach.

From 8:29 "it is obviously to the benefit of all"

Your evolutionary view leaves precisely in a void what the word "benefit" means.

"to promote yadayadayada and we must trust in them as they must trust in us"

But evolution is spreading mistrust!

Mistrust obviously of fathers as in tradition. And mistrust of children as in calling them immature up to way past physical childhood.

XII, 08:52 - 09:03

"it is inherent in our nature that we value one another and to various degrees we instinctually feel for one another. That is why we" ... Did I hear correctly "can't"? ... "be liars and murderers and thieves and why most people don't even want to be."

OK, such and such a thing is inherent in our nature, but on evolutionary views we share a common ancestor with scorpions and have not ceased to evolve.

The "can't" is really not a question of ability and possibility. Of course we "can" if that means "being able to."

The only "can't" about it is about "not being authorised to". Here it is one's human nature which authorises, so far so good, we Catholics believe God is its author.

Or perhaps not totally, since experience shows how very easy it is without grace to slip from a natural to a clearly subnatural state. On a societal as well as on an individual plane.

Especially this appeal to human nature - which is of its own "backbone" so to speak good but does after the fall very clearly slip towards the worse than natural, in various different ways, each as obviously inacceptable as the other to those who get corrupted any other way. Especially, as said, this appeal to human nature, while correct so far, is suspect in someone involved in breaking and remaking it, as atheism is.

It is part of human nature to adore God - and atheism denies us that. It is - as you said yourself - part of human nature to trust our fathers as well as our children.

Denial of traditional stories being real (such as Flood and Arc of Noah and such as Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ) undermines our trust in the fathers. A certain responsabilism, which considers children as immature for longer and longer (even way past physical childhood) is undermining in this untraditional world the trust in the children.

"This is how morality evolves in higher animals" ...

Well, no. Morality presupposes freewill. Even higher animals have none such.

Denying freewill in a criminal by stamping his behaviour as "pathological" instead of as "unjust" makes hysterical shrinks the newest substitute for a judge who determines for how long someone has proportionally to his crime deserved to be in prison. You have just emptied the metaphysical category of desert by reducing it to the displeasure of surroundings in community. And therefore you have also emptied a criminals reasonable hope to get back in society as normally once he has done his time. Which is in its turn bound to backfire through bitterness reaching high levels of hatred, believe me, I know what I am talking about.

09:16 "and we can't function without it"

[Society which cannot function without morals in its turn, not morality itself, that would have been another thing.]

Well, St Anthony of Alexandria could, as well as St Paul the First Hermit who fled into the Egyptian desert while Decius persecuted Christians.

Christian society has its exceptional level of freedom from not wanting to function without the men who could function without society or with only God for society.

Your conclusion is a recipe for slavery, for each man being a slave of his society.

(not clapping hands)