On Victims of Abuse by Clergy Not Quite Catholic

Young Catholics' Perspective on The Catholic Church Scandal. Ft. The Crunch
New Catholic Generation | 29.XI.2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vvpYOUsDi4

As to "il piccolo italiano" I responded to nothing he said, because it was perfect and needed no response.

I

6:34 Doing maths at "over the last 50, 60 or so years"

2018
0060
1958

Would I be right in nearly all being post 1958 and all post 1950?

Those happen to be significant dates. 1958, death of Pius XII and you get what nearly all Sedevacantists consider as Antipopes publically shown as Popes.

1950, the year in which he issed Humani Generis, making a "Honorius" move about the heresy of Adam bodily descending from other living organisms. (You know, like Honorius refused to condemn Monotheletism).

II

16:29 St Giovanni Bosco and Domenico Savio were close.

I am not saying in a sexual way, one of them is canonised by Pope Pius XI (even if it was on April 1) but like "the dynamic duo" of Catholic pastoral back then in Turin area (I think they were in Torino).

Supposing everyone back then had been on the outlook for "special focus" and "some kind of disordered relation" ... could their friendship have existed? I presume that canonisation is valid.

Are you sure the kind of measures that the classes are promoting are not part of what the devil has planned through this destructive work?

Also, when everyone is on the outlook for something, sometimes innocent people are accused of that something. In France or Belgium, two priests (or Vatican II clergy, their ordinations are presumably not valid) have committed suicide over being, presumably falsely accused.

Btw, considering how many Anticatholic people who are presumably reading me, I expect some will try to pour smut on Domenico Savio - but I still think it needs to be written. Shrinks are NOT our experts in moral theology and also NOT our experts even on how to protect the innocent against this, that or sundry person who would be the real guilty one.

As you mentioned it being a "no no" for an adult and a child (unrelated as parent or uncle, I presume you mean) to spend time together alone, while I was abused by school mates in another way - harrassment, but really severe - a man whom I later came to distrust on other issues actually did comfort me while he was driving me in a car. He can have contributed to saving me from getting too depressed. He did cheer me up. If I hadn't back then been responsive to adults cheering me up (even if it was a childish trait and arguably has harmed me socially later), school with those other guys would perhaps have killed me, and "perhaps" is perhaps not the right word.

Patrick Neve

Are you suggesting if we see a man spending inordinate amounts of alone time with a young boy.....we should assume he's the next St. John Bosco?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

No.

But St. John Bosco arguably was spending lots of time with him.

And arguably it couldn't have happened in the climate of hysteria this crisis is promoting.

One hint about abuse NOT being the case would at least be "do they have a legitimate common interest" (in St John Bosco's and Domenico Savio's case : saving souls and sanctifying themselves).

And "inordinate amounts of time" cannot simply be determined from the amount of time. Could a common interest require it?

III

18:46 "so that victimization of children doesn't happen again"

You are aware school and harrassment is a more numerous victimization in numbers of victims than sexual predators, aren't you?

Are you standing up against school compulsion?

Some of its victims include suicides who killed others first.

And that means Cassie Bernall along with Klebold.

Tatiana Federoff

Uh yes. All violence is against the fifth commandment and is an evil to be fought against. I'm homeschooled, Hans, so of course I don't like school compulsion. But this video is for the specific abuses of the Catholic Church and how we can be sure that children and vulnerable adults aren't abused in the Church, not about school safety.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

after liking previous comm.

I am glad at least one of you steps up for homeschooling.

Some don't.

I was specifically thinking of one recently "canonised" man who in "Gaudium et Spes" considered teachers as representatives of mankind / humanity to their pupils ....

Tatiana Federoff

@Hans-Georg Lundahl I mean, they should be. Schools are great... when they are good.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Teachers should be the complements of parents on the parent's terms.

Not elevated to "representatives of humanity".

School safety 101 : don't make it compulsory.

IV

19:20 "someone more professional than me needs to step in"

Horror of horrors.

An already abused person confided to the potential abuse of "mental health professionals"!

Is that what they teach you?

20:25 "that counsellor can work through with them until they are ready to ... report it to authorities"

Can stories be deformed during such a process of counselling?

In the Kavanaugh hearing, someone said she had papers from after some time of counselling stating she had already back then, way before Kavanaugh was nominated for Supreme Court, stated he had made a bad move.

Well, guess what his lawyers asked her to do? Provide the papers from earlier on in the counselling.

Stories and memories get deformed during such processes.

Other case, someone who had spent time in mental hospital for murder with cannibalism made a confession with details and was ... acquitted. Why? Because the details weren't accurate. What had happened? Well, during the counselling process ... he had confessed to things that didn't happen.

One theory (the official one) : he was attention seeking and the counsellors didn't get that. Confessing to a gory murder with cannibalism gave him a sense of power.

Other theory (my own unprofessional suspicion) : counselling actually warped his memories.

So, in the recipe you forward, you could be promoting injustice.

Patrick Neve

All I'm saying is I'm not qualified to help someone cope with having been abused.

This comment

was before two of mine already above:

Hans-Georg Lundahl

20:25 "that counsellor can work ..." etc....

Hans-Georg Lundahl

So, in the recipe you forward, you could be promoting injustice.

Patrick Neve

@Hans-Georg Lundahl im not quite sure what you are trying to say

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Check your actual words.

Click the time signature 19:20 or for context 19:10 ...

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"im not quite sure what you are trying to say"

In case police are to be involved, it should best not be after counselling has had time to deform memories.

I was actually continuing my previous comment and not responding to yours which is only one minute older than mine and I didn't see you had answered first.

"All I'm saying is" This is where I ask you to check your words at 19:15 or 19:20

Save James

Video

Father might lose son if he doesn't raise him as a girl
Barbara4u2c | 28.XI.2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWuhZkP2WVk

Link

SJ : Save James
http://savejames.com/

Own comment

I am reminded of Joseph Haydn.

He went to the Viennese Choir boys. He was such a sweet boy soprano.

One man offered to preserve his good voice forever. He went home and told his daddy, who obviously wanted nothing of it.

Thanks Mathias Haydn, we appreciate it!

Well, seems that back in Holy Roman Empire such things were not just theoretically illegal, but could in practise be sued if daddy didn't agree!

Kent Hovind's Errors on Anti-Catholicism and Heliocentrism

HGL's F.B. writings : A Shorty from a Long Debate : on Innocent III as a pretended "mass murderer of Christians" · Albigensians and Innocent III - Which was the Christian Side? · "Sola Scriptura inevitably results in countless contradicting theologies." · Someone admired Kent Hovind without my reservations · Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : Kent Hovind's Errors on Anti-Catholicism and Heliocentrism

11/26/18 - Dr. Kent Hovind: Questions and Answers - Which Church?
Kent Hovind OFFICIAL | 27.XI.2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lu-KzqbG-Pc

I

4:13 "300 years later the Catholic Church started with Constantine"

Except, it claims it started 300 years earlier, when Christ chose His disciples ....

4:20 "He took all the soldiers down to the river ..."

What exact occasion?

In fact, mass baptism did happen when Franks (Salian Franks) under Clovis and Kievan Rus' (under Volodymyr) were converted.

As to Franks, they arguably calmed down compared to previous saccaging, and they also defended Catholic Romans against persecutions by Arian Visigoths further south.

As to Kievan Rus', for a while there were no more death penalties (I think it remained so in the life of St Volodymyr, or even beyond).

B U T .... Constantine? When? Is there a quote for it in Eusebius?

4:39 OK ... Catholics and Original Christians, for 1200 years, both claim to be Christians up to Martin Luther.

Which ones of the non-Catholic groups are you identifying with Original Christians?

I don't think any of them lasted all that era, I also don't think different groups were the same.

And I think I am a bit better than you at Church History.

4:58 Neither the 95 theses nailed by Luther, nor the condensed list of 41 Luther-theses condemned by Pope Leo was a simple list of things Luther thought the Catholic Church was "doing wrong".

Some were his interpretations of Catholic doctrine, abandoned later, when he founded Lutheran Protestantism properly speaking, like "if a soul wishes to escape purgatory it sins mortally against the justice of God" or "souls in purgatory are masochists by submission to God's justice".

As if there was no obedience in accepting God's clemency.

5:13 As you claim the Protestants are NOT the original group, where was it in 1517?

Btw, Protestants splitting in 30 flavours is pretty spot on. Your religion is actually one of them.

5:56 Oh, Anabaptists ... like the proto-Communist Munzer?

Or like Menno - except Menno was a decades later peaceful reconversion of Munzer's Anabaptists ....

6:06 Now you are speaking of Baptists.

Started out as two sects, even later than Menno.

"Historians trace the earliest "Baptist" church to 1609 in Amsterdam, Dutch Republic with English Separatist John Smyth as its pastor.[2] In accordance with his reading of the New Testament, he rejected baptism of infants and instituted baptism only of believing adults.[3] Baptist practice spread to England, where the General Baptists considered Christ's atonement to extend to all people, while the Particular Baptists believed that it extended only to the elect."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baptists

1906 Asuza Street has same numerals in different order as 1609, Amsterdam, John Smyth ...

II

As by 7:00 sth you are into personal memories, I'll go into mine.

Ma was into Salvation Army.

William Booth separated from Methodists
Methodists separated from Anglicans
Luther, Zwingli, and even more relevant Bucer and Cranmer and Tyndale separated from the Catholic Church.

Dad (I was told) was into 7DA.

Ellen White came from the Millerites
etc .... library closing.

[resuming next day]

Miller was a Baptist - which leads back to two sects starting out in 17th C. which leads back to Presbyterians which leads back to Catholics.

7:55 Figuring it out a bit better for you.

The Methodist marks a difference between Bible reading and preaching, as the Catholic priests did before him and still do.

NB, with other means.

First the Catholic priest sings or reads the Gospel (or has a Deacon sing it for him, but no one under Deacon is allowed to do so). This he does in full vestment, including the chasuble. He does it in Latin. Why? Because the Gospel reading is strictly a part of the Mass, a part of liturgy.

Then he takes off the chasuble, appearing so to speak more as the individual he is, and speaks his sermon in vernacular. This is how it has been since maybe even 813 AD, council of Tours (and earlier in parts where vernacular was a Germanic language and not a dialect of Latin).

Now, the Methodist never has a chasuble in the first place, so he has two different pulpits instead.

III

8:50 "Baptism is nothing but water"

You are contradicting John 3. Verse 5.

9:01 A priest saying a blessing over the water is not what makes it do a holy thing, a sacrament, in Baptism.

Using specially blessed baptismal water is customary, not necessary - a wetnurse who has to baptise a baby who could risk dying before baptism uses ordinary water. What makes the water perform a holy thing in Baptism is form (given in Matthew 28:19 as to the main words) and intention (of the person baptising and, at least absence of counterintention in the person being baptised).

Funny you can't discuss Catholicism without misrepresenting it ....

By the way, one reason for infant baptism is, with adult baptism, a man could risk making his baptism invalid by posing a counterintention.

It could happen if he has lived a chaotic life, if thoughts flash through his head he needs to take time getting back on track and so on.

Children of eight days old getting baptised are getting their salvation solely based on what Christ did.

Yeah, brain fade was the word .... [i e, what if someone getting baptised as adult has one and thinks "no, I don't want to get baptised!" for the central moment?]

IV

10:14 As you brought up Bereans of Acts 17, they were competent to search the OT Scriptures. For one. They were Pharisees (up to converting to Christianity) and had been taught OT under rabbis for all their lives, since the age of school children.

Also, note, they were not looking for explicit literal confirmation of a Christian doctrine, since OT was only prophecying Christ, not stating His life in the way the Gospels are. In order to confirm Christianity from OT only (with Rabbinic tradition, mind you, of the better sort) they needed to be able to take a hint.

Abusing Acts 17 to expose Catholic laymen with little instruction (closer to Galilaean fishermen than to Berean Pharisees) to the exercise of having to defend this that and sundry Catholic doctrine by a literal and explicit statement AND on top of it telling them to discard the literal and explicit statements there are (like for Real Presence in Eucharist) by "of course you understand" types of arguments, that is very highly abusive.

Some Protestants on the internet have tried that with me, and ... well, I am a fairly well instructed Catholic after having been a Bible geek type of Protestant ... so, they cannot count on the same kind of success as with a Mexican from the country trying to make sense of the city where he is trying to better his external conditions and where sometimes an Apostasy to Protestantism (especially Evangelical) could be helping his affairs. The timely ones, not the eternal ones.

The OTHER proof text for "every Christian needs to read the Bible himself" is also not a proof for that. John 5 includes Christ's words, not to Galilaean fishermen, but to Pharisees.

V

12:15 Another one, if they really went up in a rocket, they would have looked in all directions and seen a round horizon - and they would have seen an edge equidistant from them in every direction they looked and it would have been round.

So, they saw the curvature. Why didn't you challenge them on that one?

And more, if they knew geography, the horizon they saw would also not have included all the cuntries they knew, not all of US etc.

If you see a horizon whereever you look, you see a round horizon.

If this round horizon does not include every place you know of, it stands to reason that there is a curvature of a ball like type where things are hidden behind a horizon.

12:34 "and spinning"

Actually does contradict Joshua 10:12.

Joshua and the words he spooke were God's means of producing a miracle, like Moses' staff or like Elijah's mantle.

They are not simple narrative, they are what God used to make a miracle.

Now Joshua didn't say "Earth, stop spinning". He told Sun and Moon to stand still.

There is also no scientific reason for a spinning earth which cannot be turned around to an aether spinning around earth and displacing vectors with it. And there is no reason against a luminiferous and vectorially-inertial-framing aether in the Michelson Morley experiment, unless you presume Earth is orbitting the Sun.

Also, with a spinning and orbitting earth, you have stellar distances.

Now, you are very right that Earth-Earth-alpha-Centauri is a very skinny triangle.

But the angle of alpha-Centauri-alpha-Centauri from Earth is not directly measured. It is measured in relation to the background of stars presumed further away and adhering in movement closer to just "aberration" which is a movement more than twenty times greater in angle than this.

If I say "aberration and parallax are both misnomers, the movement is not a compound apparent movement from two phenomena of optics related to our movement, it is a simple proper movement by an angel moving the star", then I have no problem having stars (i e fix stars, not planets) at a distance of one or two light days over Earth, and then I also have no problem whatsoever with the "Distant Starlight Paradox". Light from alpha Centauri or Sirius or any other star left the star on day four and arrived on day five so newly created birds and beetles could start orienting themselves.

The nova supposed to be millions of light years away being only one light day away means, it was observed on Earth the day or within days from after it happened out there.

So, no, you were wrong to involve "spinning" in what you defended.

Round, yes, the Biblical four corners are better identifiable on a globe than on a modern flat Earth map. But spinning, no.

Oh, one more, if you don't think that even aberration of starlight is a measurable angle, why do you believe in Earth orbitting sun in the first place?

VI

"yes he supports the round Earth, but believes Earth is the centre of the Solar system"

Of the Universe, not specifically the solar system.

"the Sun goes around the earth, you know [how] fast the Sun would have to go at 93 million miles away to go around once a day?"

Well, why would this be a problem?

IF this happens bc Sun moves through an inertial frame (including empty space as per one Newtonian-Galilaean aberration).

149 598 023 km * 2pi / 24 h = 39 164 671 km / h
92 955 902 mi * 2pi /24 h = 24 335 798 mph

Now, imagine this is vectorial movement within a frame, it is pretty drastic. Imagine instead the only vectorial movement is the one which makes Sun lag behind the stars. That eastward movement which comes full circle in one year.

You would need to divide by 365.2425

39 164 671 km/h / 365.2425 = 107 229 km/h
24 335 798 mph / 365.2425 = 66 629 mph

Obviously, an angel is taking the Sun Eastward. He is overhauled by the aether through which he is moveing it and which God is giving a much faster spin around Earth Westward.

13:51 Your polemic on flat earthers and their view on night and day is not really supporting your Heliocentrism.

13:59 "send me a map of what you believe"

It's probable they won't do it, since inside the round rim, they don't have four corners. On a globe the Old World has roughly speaking four corners (England offshore, Cape of Good Hope, Australia offshore and Sakhalin). They form a "non-Euclidean rectangle". (Bad terminology, but still, that is what they form - a "rectangle" with sum of corners > 360°).

I have pointed it out, others may have repeated it, by now they would know it and be afraid you would point it out too.

VII

14:42 "watch the video Edrick and I did"

Would that be your son Eric and you and automatic subtitles being erratic?

Would you mind linking to it?

VIII

15:18 Look here, if a professor made a public comment on a video of yours, you have no business saying "I'll call him Nicholas".

A fan of yours (admin on a site you approved) wrote this:

"But forbidding people to read some book? Off course we can give some advice about some particular book, and then it's up to the individual to do as he believes is right for him. But do inform him!"

Witch hunt and sect behaviour or The ability to criticize yourself
http://www.wiseoldgoat.com/papers/witchhunt.html

Actually, the Catholic Index did inform people such and such a book existed and Church didn't want you to read it.

Those who wanted to obey the Church bought a copy of latest edition of the Index, and before buying a book not explicitly endorsed by the Church, checked it wasn't in there. Those who didn't want to obey the Church could see Voltaire and Locke were among authors Catholic magisterium didn't want you to read.

You are by contrast NOT informing your viewers on where they can find Nicholas real or pretended debunking of you.

You are treating a refutation (successful or attempted) as the question of a private enquirer whose last name is withheld for his privacy.

This is definitely dishonest and that people like Tyson DeGrasse or DeGrasse Tyson are doing such things is no reason to do it if you pretend to be a Christian. It reminds me of the ways in which "gatekeeping" in synogogues worked over 2000 years, so young Jews could read no Christian literature.

And after what Nicholas seems to be saying, I think his site needs exposure for the idiocy it promotes.

32:29 Wait, "Nicholas" was so cheap he didn't publish his going through of your video, he just sent you the papers?

Too bad one can't get to see all the arguments you were not responding to on the many pages.

Well, that would exonerate you from the charge of over secrecy on this one ...

IX

[after continuing to watch, here is some in response to "Nicholas" and Kent Hovind:]

22:59 I'm afraid you missed what his argument was.

The argument wasn't laminations, it was outcrops.

Some area in Karoo, you find creatures classified as Triassic. In the middle of it, you find creatures classified as Permian. ERGO, there is an outcrop of the Permian layer from below the Triassic one.

For my part, I have dealt with it. Permian and Triassic creatures are both biotope specific parts of the pre-Flood fauna in what is now Karoo.

23:41 I think you are at least partly right on his proving age of layers by fossils and age of fossils by layers they are found in. I would however imagine he has some kind of pretense that for instance the outcrop of Permians creatures in Karoo is accompanied by lithographic layers pointing to Permian being lower - I haven't found that, and I actually didn't even pose the question in contacting Karoo. Yes, I had a short correspondence with them over there.

24:19 I'd submit to Nicholas the discrete events are in fact not very long separated ones during the Flood and the problem is not so much boiling the series down to a few thousand years as reshifting from "event series" to biotopes during Flood, side by side.

26:14 Rapid lamination is quite OK, but it doesn't adress all he was talking of. I do (except perhaps "outcrop" being shown as such by non-fossil means as well) by adressing the fossil layers as biotopes.

Btw, Permian and Triassic creatures are also not bottom to top series, at least as far as land vertebrates and Karoo is concerned, that much I checked. Where they found Triassic near top, they presume they would find Permian lower, but don't bother to look as they have an outcrop of Permian layers near by.

Is Justin Peters Competent to Condemn False Teachers?

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : Is Justin Peters Competent to Condemn False Teachers? · Great Bishop of Geneva! : Adoptionism is Heresy : Therefore, so is Paulician Sect

He claims to be so in this video, which I saw to 12:40. It is 28:22 long in full.

FALSE TEACHERS EXPOSED: Word of Faith/Prosperity Gospel | Justin Peters/SO4J-TV
SO4J-TV | 28.X.2015
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptN2KQ7-euQ

Joel Osteen's word on Hindoos is perhaps uncautious, and the question of how many are in a preliminary justification without yet knowing Christ or if such a one can last to death without them coming to know Christ is above me.

On that one, I'll neither back Osteen nor Peters to the full. But here are two cases where I can take issue, Peters' condemnations on Victoria Osteen and Jesse Duplantis.

Victoria Osteen

see, Jesus was a man until God touched him and put the Spirit of the Living God on the inside of him - and that's encouraging today.

Justin Peters

No, that's heretical today.

Jesse Duplantis

God asked for my opinion .... the Bible says he who wins souls is wise.

Justin Peters

Yes, and he who thinks he can counsel God is a fool.

God's speaking:

Bible

[DRBO: Who is this that wrappeth up sentences in unskillful words?
Job 38:2]

[Biblegateway KJV: Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?
Job 38:2]

[Cited on video:]

Who is this that darkens My counsel by words without knowledge?
Job 38:2

Search

Found it on a blog by Tim Archer on Hope for Life Blog

“Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge?” (Job 38:2)
http://hopeforlife.org/2017/03/who-is-this-that-darkens-my-counsel-with-words-without-knowledge-job-382/

Not sure which version Tim Archer is using.

Comment

Job 38:2 doesn't say that God speaking in the conscience of someone never takes the approach of "what do you think?" God actually did in the Gospel on occasions.

It most amply doesn't say that God never listen's to someone's appeal for some salvation, spiritual or material, since God was ready to spare Sodom if five righteous were there, on Abraham's request.

So, I don't know the full story behind Duplantis' case (the man he appealed for the conversion of), but what he did does not seem like something forbidden by God, not in Job 38:2, nor elsewhere. Eliu was not trying to counsel God, he was trying to counsel Job - and it seems God was not satisfied with him.

Now, speaking to God like this may seem exotic to some, including Jstin Peters, who may have learned to relate to God on a daily basis on some other mode of words and tokens of respect or familiarity than Duplantis is showing, and either way, as long as it's not a canonised saint, there is a possibility that some of the interactions with God are from his flesh rather than from God.

I wouldn't say such a thing about St Therese of Lisieux bombarding God with sacrifices to achieve the conversion before execution of a man who, after rejecting the priest, finally did kiss the cross before being beheaded. She is a canonised saint. I am confident the criminal is if not in Heaven at least Purgatory.

However, Victoria Osteen is a totally different matter (and if Duplantis agrees with those words, he is a heretic), that is the kind of Ultra-Nestorian Christology which lurks behind some Protestant or Evangelical rejection of Eucharist, Mary being still Mother of God, Glorified Bodies needing a place which is beyond the stars, all of which are sound Catholic teaching.

Tim Archer: "In dealing with Job, God shows him the expanse of God’s work throughout creation, reminding Job that Job is a man and God is god. When we pretend to know better than God, we’re showing just how truly ignorant we are."

I am sorry, but it is very far from clear that Job 38:2 is saying sth about Job's action. The Catholic Haydock comment has a whole little discussion on Job 38:2.

Here it is:

Ver. 2. Words. Many explain this as a condemnation (C.) of the last speaker, (D.) who would otherwise pass without any reproach, (H.) though he had spoken with less reserve than the rest. C. --- Pineda allows that this opinion is very plausible; but he thinks that Job himself is reprehended, not for any grievous offence, but for indiscreet expressions. C. xli. The context also seem to require this, as Job take it to himself. C. xxxix. 33. C. --- The change of persons might rather imply the contrary: Who is this? Eliu. 3. Gird up thy loins. Job. H. --- Can we admit that the devil got the victory; or, that God falsely declared that Job had spoken right? C. xlii. Houbigant. --- Did not the latter maintain the truth with greatest zeal, while his friends certainly mixed unskilful words or inferences with sentences of the greatest consequence? His face I will accept, that your folly be not imputed to you; for you have not spoken right things before me, as my servant Job hath. C. xlii. 8. Heb. "Who is this that darkeneth counsel, by words without knowledge?" Prot. "Who is the who concealeth counsel from me, keeping words in his heart, and thinketh to hide from me?" Sept. Eliu pretended to explain the counsels of God, and perhaps did not utter all that he had in his mind; but God condemns the very harbouring of thoughts, which are contrary to truth and justice. H. --- Job's friends laboured under great prejudices, and condemned him without cause, (C.) thinking that they were doing a service to God, like those who put the apostles to death, and persecuted Catholics on account of their religion. But this plea will not excuse them. Here one line suffices to refute the long harangue (H.) of Eliu; (S. Greg. Ven. Bede. T. &c.) though we have observed, (H.) some understand the words to be addressed to Job, as a rebuke for his too warm expressions. S. Chrys. S. Aug. &c. C. --- The remainder of the discourse is designed for Job's instruction. H. --- Hoc (Eliu) despecto ad erudiendum Job verba vertuntur. S. Greg.

The last speaker, if one looks back on what came before, seems to be Eliu. Not Job. And it seems Saint Gregory (probably in Moralia in Hiob) took that course too.

So, through Haydock, God is telling me (see reserves since I am not yet departed and therefore not a canonised saint, no one is obliged to take God's words to me as God's wors, except I, if they are His, OK? - but on the other hand, Haydock comment is an authority, as I am not, OK?) I was right in thinking Justin Peters wrong on Job.

But this is not all.

I actually did a search for the very words used by Justin Peters.

"he who thinks he can counsel God is a fool"

Or rather, the words "counsel God".

I did not find a single verse saying "he who thinks he can counsel God is a fool" so far ....

Hit number 57 is actually half and half a victory for Justin:

Tobit 3: [12] And it came to pass on the third day, when she was making an end of her prayer, blessing the Lord, [13] She said: Blessed is thy name, O God of our fathers: who when thou hast been angry, wilt shew mercy, and in the time of tribulation forgivest the sins of them that call upon thee. [14] To thee, O Lord, I turn my face, to thee I direct my eyes. [15] I beg, O Lord, that thou loose me from the bond of this reproach, or else take me away from the earth. [16] Thou knowest, O Lord, that I never coveted a husband, and have kept my soul clean from all lust. [17] Never have I joined myself with them that play: neither have I made myself partaker with them that walk in lightness. [18] But a husband I consented to take, with thy fear, not with my lust. [19] And either I was unworthy of them, or they perhaps were not worthy of me: because perhaps thou hast kept me for another man. [20] For thy counsel is not in man's power.

Sara the daughter of Raguel did say that God's counsel is not in man's power.

On the other hand, some Protestants might imagine that she was - in the sense Justin Peters gave the words - counselling God when she said I beg, O Lord, that thou loose me from the bond of this reproach, or else take me away from the earth.

In fact, she did get what she prayed for, Asmodaeus was defeated.

But, first hit was perhaps not quite what Justin Peters was looking for:

For who among men is he that can know the counsel of God? or who can think what the will of God is?

[Wisdom 9:13]

First of all, he might reject Wisdom as apocryphical, too bad for him. Second, it only says we cannot know God's counsel (probably meaning beforehand, before events reveal it), not that we cannot express our desires or opinions to God.

So, I totally agree against Victoria Osteen, but (apart from Duplantis being a Protestant and therefore at least technically a heretic, though he need not be that on the issue, any more than Kent Hovind is so on Creationism), I can't see how Justin Peters (arguably also a Protestant) can call him a false teacher for that. Reasonably, that is.

And in fact - it is not just normal events revealing the will of God in our lives, but also one who came down to Heaven, and the apostles He sent, who do not as far as I know include either Duplantis or Peters in their succession, who can know God's counsel once it is revealed, see hit number 3:

For I have not spared to declare unto you all the counsel of God.

[Acts Of Apostles 20:27]

And, just before that, hit number 2:

But the Pharisees and the lawyers despised the counsel of God against themselves, being not baptized by him.

[Luke 7:30]

So, no, these are the three verses that contain "counsel of God" and no verse seems to include the exact sequence I searched "counsel God", so, Justin Peters is not taking his observation from the Bible, here.

Justin Peters

The fact, that God has not struck these people dead, is a testimony to how merciful our God is. These people are not Christians. Dear friends, a Christian, a born-again Christian, someone who is indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God cannot utter such blasphemies, can't happen, such a statement cannot be said from someone who knows God, Jesse Duplantis does not know the God of the Bible.

Trent, Session VI

CHAPTER IX.

Against the vain confidence of Heretics.

But, although it is necessary to believe that sins neither are remitted, nor ever were remitted save gratuitously by the mercy of God for Christ's sake; yet is it not to be said, that sins are forgiven, or have been forgiven, to any one who boasts of his confidence and certainty of the remission of his sins, and rests on that alone; seeing that it may exist, yea does in our day exist, amongst heretics and schismatics; and with great vehemence is this vain confidence, and one alien from all godliness, preached up in opposition to the Catholic Church. But neither is this to be asserted,-that they who are truly justified must needs, without any doubting whatever, settle within themselves that they are justified, and that no one is absolved from sins and justified, but he that believes for certain that he is absolved and justified; and that absolution and justification are effected by this faith alone: as though whoso has not this belief, doubts of the promises of God, and of the efficacy of the death and resurrection of Christ. For even as no pious person ought to doubt of the mercy of God, of the merit of Christ, and of the virtue and efficacy of the sacraments, even so each one, when he regards himself, and his own weakness and indisposition, may have fear and apprehension touching his own grace; seeing that no one can know with a certainty of faith, which cannot be subject to error, that he has obtained the grace of God.

...

CHAPTER XII.

That a rash presumptuousness in the matter of Predestination is to be avoided.

No one, moreover, so long as he is in this mortal life, ought so far to presume as regards the secret mystery of divine predestination, as to determine for certain that he is assuredly in the number of the predestinate; as if it were true, that he that is justified, either cannot sin any more, or, if he do sin, that he ought to promise himself an assured repentance; for except by special revelation, it cannot be known whom God hath chosen unto Himself.

...

CANON XII.-If any one saith, that justifying faith is nothing else but confidence in the divine mercy which remits sins for Christ's sake; or, that this confidence alone is that whereby we are justified; let him be anathema.

CANON XIII.-If any one saith, that it is necessary for every one, for the obtaining the remission of sins, that he believe for certain, and without any wavering arising from his own infirmity and disposition, that his sins are forgiven him; let him be anathema.

CANON XIV.-If any one saith, that man is truly absolved from his sins and justified, because that he assuredly believed himself absolved and justified; or, that no one is truly justified but he who believes himself justified; and that, by this faith alone, absolution and justification are effected; let him be anathema.

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

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

Adding a personal note

While my experience is far less than the council of Trent in assessing the attitude of Justin Peters, I can only say that people telling each other and sometimes me (who was a child) that "someone who has the Holy Spirit cannot do this" or "cannot say that" was one reason why I opted out of the ideology known to some as "born again Christians" and to me as "frikyrkor" - I went first Lutheran, and then Catholic.

First Quarter of an Hour of Four Horsemen - My Comments

The Four Horseman - Hitchens, Dawkins, Dennet, Harris [2007]
CaNANDian | 23.VII.2012
https://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=n7IHU28aR2E

I

5:35 Physicists are not offended .... have you seen Matthew Hunt?

HGL's F.B. writings : Matthew Hunt Demands Answers he Doesn't Like to Give
http://hglsfbwritings.blogspot.com/2018/04/matthew-hunt-demands-answers-he-doesnt.html

Four more with him:

HGL's F.B. writings : Matthew Hunt thought Attacking Kent Hovind was a Way to Vindicate Hawking
http://hglsfbwritings.blogspot.com/2018/03/matthew-hunt-thought-attacking-kent.html

HGL's F.B. writings : Matthew Hunt Defending Carbon and Radiometric, Me Defending Carbon in Relative But Not Absolute Dates when Old
http://hglsfbwritings.blogspot.com/2018/03/matthew-hunt-defending-carbon-and.html

HGL's F.B. writings : Matthew Hunt Tries to Ban my Previous Post and Starts Explaining Michelson Morly
http://hglsfbwritings.blogspot.com/2018/03/matthew-hunt-tries-to-ban-my-previous.html

HGL's F.B. writings : Scientific methods, layers of fossils, and Matthew Hunt showing he has no Classic culture
http://hglsfbwritings.blogspot.com/2018/11/scientific-methods-layers-of-fossils.html

14:15 As Sam Harris speaks on humility of scientists, see how Matthew Hunt behaves to Creationists. He is a scientist (that is one reason giving his name is important, bc that way I am giving his qualifications too). Since he does not consider Creationists as people of another speciality, he is not very humble to us at all. At least that is my impression, check out the dialogues, what is yours?

II

6:18 "have you ever considered the possibility you have wasted your life"

Why would that be a possibility from an atheist p o v?

From a Christian p o v, someone who isn't at all Christian or even following Christian ethics before he dies, has indeed wasted his life since he goes to Hell - when he could have gone to Heaven instead.

If there is no Heaven and Hell, what does "waste your life" even mean? If a Christian has spent life as he wants to, why would an atheist say it has been wasted?

Sovietic shrinks would for instance at times take a Christian into "custody" and "treat him" so as to try to save him from "wasting his life". The ones who are actively destroying the chances of happiness that Christian wanted wasn't he but they. So, who was wasting his life, then?

Oh, I get it. An atheist has to consider whether he is wasting his life. Hence, a Christian has to consider that too. Hence (?) an atheist has to bring it to the Christian ....

No, that is gratuitous offense, unless it is done in a lighthearted way that the Christian finds acceptable.

Christians also have to ask ourselves if we have wasted our lives, as in not securing our salvation or - a somewhat less important point - if we aren't as happy with going to Heaven as we should be. Do NOT push Christians into a position to ask ourselves "wait a minute, was I wrong to not punch that atheist's face? are we wasting our lives turning the other cheek umpteen times more than Christ demands"

Let's take my two maternal grandparents. Gramp was Agnostic. He would arguably not have too much considered I was wasting my life. Granny was at least on and off Atheist. She was telling me that ma was wasting her life and risked wasting mine. She wasted much of the time we spent with her and perhaps (by speaking to doctors and others - including home parents at a boarding school perhaps with me) much of the time we so far survived her (at least I have so far survived, a few days ago I heard my ma was dying). And she also wasted her life of her own on being bitter on our being "religious."

Use warm socks - and forget about God. Study - and don't believe all you read in the Bible / don't take the Bible literally. Help me with the cooking - and ... actually, when I did, she sometimes left the antireligious nagging off, she didn't want to spoil the occasion to get a meal done. But her antireligious nagging doubled a widow's normal dose of nagging on a grandchild and made the nagging which just might have been useful otherwise (not sure, she had a fairly overprudential outlook on some things) more resented than it would have been.

Btw, "forget about God" was not one of her phrases, that I recall, it's a paraphrase. "Religion is escapism from reality" was, though.

So? If true, so? Whether Atheism or Christianity or Buddhism or whatever other be ultimate reality well represented, MOST people on earth are escaping from considering it. As to everyday realities, NOT doing some degree of escapism and still being well is a fairly rare achievement. So, if she had been right, no use to nag on ma or on me about it.

It was rather a religious reaction, like that of a religious person concerned a child or grandchild was risking Hell.

III

7:35 Comparison with big pharma and oil is something else.

You consider Catholicism - not just Vatican II perversion, but Catholicism - a scam comparable to petrol companies increasing the number of people who have to spend two hours in car to get to and from job, so they can sell petrol.

Bring up the case.

It doesn't tell me I have wasted my life, it is part of what I spend my life on debunking.

7:49 Oil companies are making a product and selling it at a price, which varies with the market.

If you attack tax exemptions for people giving - to put it in secular terms while talking to you - a religious service, in a state where their confession is fully legal (not sure whether Lutheran pastors of Alsatia had tax exemption between Louis XIV and Louis XVI, but in that case their religious service was perhaps more like tolerated, depenalised, than fully legal), you can't have tax exemptions for libraries or for charities either. All these cases are about providing service you don't pay for when using it at any set price.

Btw, if you attack Churches charging Church tax, how can you sponsor libraries or charities with tax money?

Or schools?

8:05 Dawkins is very right historical process led to immunity of religion from tax, but not to a post factum immunisation.

The very earliest tax payers were paying tax TO kings AND TO temples. Temples were not paying tax and kings were not paying tax.

With Christianity, kings were paying tax to the Church. This is the reason we have tax payers paying for libraries, hospitals, schools, namely services provided by the Church all over the Middle Ages.

Btw, these services were not other than marginally provided by temples in ancient paganism. Sure, a temple of Asklepios would be kind of a hospital. Sure, the Mousaion (temple of nine Muses) did provide a library. A temple of Zeus provided neither, but it might provide a tribunal for a political candidate or a voting hall. A temple of Bacchus might provide wine if you were willing to get it during their Bacchanal on the terms of their Bacchanal.

We don't find any earlier written traces of tax paying than the ones where it already was like this, in Sumer, Akkad, Egypt, and as for Mohenjo Daro and Harappa, we haven't yet figured out the writing, so we can't tell what was tax records and what wasn't and especially who was paying tax and whom it was paid to.

IV

10:01 "a neurology that is particularly labile"

Not by Dawkins here, but Dawkins has said so on occasions, and THAT is really and truly offensive.

I am giving an argument. Someone is trying to poke about my "experiences" and in a language suggesting - in his guess - they might be pathological and therefore liable to psychiatric forced treatment, like Soviets liked to do to Christians.

What is the level where such a suggestion is NOT offensive?

I mean, Christ on one occasion called Pharisees in a collective and non-personal plural "ye fools". But when it comes to walking up to someone and telling him "thou fool" to the face, He said if you do that, you risk Hell. References, Luke 11:40 and Matthew 5:22.

Now, what this ideology is doing here is suggesting that someone who has a "strong faith" or a "deep faith" maybe has had the kind of experience for which it is reasonable to get him in situations where the walls, beds and clothes, as well as the medications are telling him "thou fool".

So, how is that NOT offensive and NOT strident?

By the way.

BOTH of these, which some have constructed as a contradiction in NT have precedent in OT.

For the "ye fools" of Luke 11:40 - "Understand, ye senseless among the people: and, you fools, be wise at last." - Psalms 93:8

For the prohibition to go up to an individual man and tell him "thou fool" (Matthew 5:22):

"Speak not in the ears of fools: because they will despise the instruction of thy speech." - Proverbs 23:9
"Advise not with fools, for they cannot love but such things as please them." - Ecclesiasticus 8:20

If someone really is a fool, no use talking to him. If he isn't - well, no use using over the top language.

A search on "fools" in OT will reveal how "thou fool" is about as offensive as "you need a whipping". Precisely so, "labile mind / neurology" is as offensive as "you need a syringe of Cis Sordinol / Haldol / ..." - or "you need an electroshock".

V

Before 11:23 Hitchens gave a good remark.

He wanted to distinguish "numinous" from "supernatural".

Nice. This trashes AronRa's somewhat amateur remark that all religions are "supernatural". Some atheist religions strictly speaking aren't. In Theravada Buddhism you can find things that are numinous. You can find things which a non-Buddhist whether Christian (believing the supernatural) or atheist (not believing it) would consider "supernatural if true". But you can't find a single thing which a Theravada Buddhist would himself consider supernatural, if you explained to him what that word meant.

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : AronRa Trying to Grasp "Evolutionism is a Religion"
http://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/2018/11/aronra-trying-to-grasp-evolutionism-is.html

He then went on to give a bad one.

He wanted priesthoods not to annex pieces of us that are "not particularly useful in evolution" - as if :

• a secularism promoting (I think this goes for all four) family planning was at all useful in evolution;
• as if religion were not useful in what these guys were calling "social evolution".

It was temples that gave us "doctors" and hygiene, writing and libraries, stories that inculcate charity to those stricken by misfortune (most religions, perhaps not all) and a few more like that.

In Egypt, temples helped keeping boundaries between farmland redistributed after each flooding and in Medieval Europe Monks were the best agronomers, horticulturalists and whatever, whenever Christianity spread outside what had been Roman Empire (and in a sense still was) and some occasions inside it too. It is the horticultural tradition of monks which gave us Mendel's laws, because Mendel was discovering genetics (of which Darwin was ignorant, like Mendel was innocent of "common descent" theory) in this precise context.

I'd argue wine is better than ancient wines due to religious requirement of pure wine in the eucharist, and I think yellow cheese was first produced by Christians making fresh cheese during Lent but not eating it during Lent - by the time Easter night came and they could eat after midnight mass, some of the early Lent fresh cheese was already yellow cheese. Think of this next time you bite a delicious cheddar!

13:30 It's terrific - Hitchens said - to be humble about "the universe is all about me".

In Christianity, in a sense it is (God created earth to be inhabited and Christ opened pearly gates, and I am one of the candidates for either and both). In a sense it is not unless you add "as for every other image of God".

Atheism does not make any such staggering claim for men, but neither does it check any individual's arrogance against other men.

And a requirement of being humble before the universe, while as good an exercise in humility while not having Christian humility as it is to fast in Ramadan if you don't fast in Lent, really cannot stand on the presumed factual raw data of our existence. That presumed by atheists, that is.

Like many other decensies in decent atheists, it's a hangover from decencies in religious close forebears. Precisely as grandma's annoying part of atheism was an annoyance hanging over from a Pentecostal sometimes annoying to keep her close ones out of Hell. Ask Lemon Lee and she'll be able to deduce from this how annoying my atheist granny was. Not that that is all of her. Now, likewise, atheists may endorse humility, but atheism per se does not. Attenborough may endorse humility, but Evolution can as well or as ill for all it cares endorse pride and arrogance. After all, sometimes it's a mating behaviour with some chances of success, for instance.

13:45 Daniel Dennett suffers from a humility committee - and he also participates in one.

Noted. yawn

Lizzy Reezay on Vlogging

what no one tells you... [channel trailer}
LizziesAnswers | 13.X.2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMCToaisPDw

Comments applying to my parallel experience of writing:

I

1:59 Never watch TV?

Sounds like one of the assets.

"Sleep deprived" in college?

So was I often even in senior high school, say five to seven nights a month, to 3 am, even more regularly to midnight or 1 am, most of the time reading and rereading, one specific night deciding both to change the course I was taking from IB to Classics and also to convert, some few nights over speaking with school comrades.

Btw, I would use sleep deprived when something other than an interesting thing you do is keeping you awake - like toothache or people making noise where you try to sleep. What you describe is more like sleep sacrifice.

II

5:21 I am a blogger, not a vlogger.

When I change views, I do simply make an update (unless it's an old blog that was disconnected for me but not taken down, but those include no views I changed).

Made one single exception, where my calculation of a kind of musical scale not based on major or minor but with thirds between major third and minor third and not based on a Pythagorean fifth sequence after I posted it revealed I had made a few mistakes which would have made it terribly dissonant.

III

8:22 When you publish a thing, you consent to anyone being able to find that thing out.

When you publish many things in a row, you consent to anyone chosing how much or little to find out about you.

It cannot literally be everything, like a conversation you forgot and never published or what you ate for breakfast today unless you publish that.

BUT this is also one reason why, as a blogger, I am NOT going into myself or my situation most of the time, I am going into topics.

Sn (theoretically) "I found out you believe in six days"
Me (if so) "yes, I regularly publish on that, it's like saying you found out Kent Hovind believes in a literal global flood"

David Wood Partly Attacking Wrong Things in Islam

... against Maurice Buccaille, Basically · David Wood Shows a Weakness of Islam and of Protestantism · David Wood Partly Attacking Wrong Things in Islam

Islam: The World's Fastest-Growing Religion (David Wood)
Acts17Apologetics | 2.V.2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1i3p6c9mOI

I

Principal reason for Islam's growth - a high natality.

Hmmmm .... how about taking a cue?

I mean, Genesis 1:28 was not just written for Muslims, was it?

For them too, but not just for them.

And who are making Christian natality numbers dwindle?

• 1) certain modernist Protestants who make it one major argument against Catholicism, that Catholics forbid condoms and pills (in some versions they are even against forbidding abortions);
• 2) certain modernist or "realist" or laxist Catholics, who find Catholic morality "over the top" (thinking of the clear non-Saint "Abbé Pierre" who promoted condoms and his successors in Emmaüs still do).

So, Muslim natality might indicate that a great apostasy (modernism) had to come "first" ...

Did you note European values?

Non-Muslims, 1.5 children per woman - that is below the replacement rate!

So, in 2009, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development ot OECD said basically that Muslim countries' women have less opportunities for schooling and employment and marry earlier.

Also, divorces before 16 - but if Christian women married earlier, with a no-divorce policy, the divorces before 16 would be very much fewer - and they are not exactly contributing to natality unlike teen marriages, are they?

And then a report from World Economic Forum, 2014 ...

OK, Woods, are you a Christian? If so, why do you criticise Muslims in some of these cases for behaving like Christians normally (before Modernism) would be behaving?

I mean, Muslims also don't burn widows, and since not burning widows is Christian, I suppose you don't prefer Hindoo Suttee over Islamic attitude to women?

Muslims also (we can hope) don't abort female foeti - and since not aborting female foeti is Christian, I suppose you don't criticise Muslims for that?

But somehow, when Muslims do several things (only a few of which are wrong) to obey Genesis 1:28 - you don't like it?

From age 10 is of course over the top, the Christian criterium has usually been 14 for boys and 12 for girls, minimum.

A Polish girl in XVIIIth C. before the partitions was married off to a Protestant noble at age 11 and something, and Poles got a reminder:

• the very minimum is 11 and a half;
• even then only with Papal permission, unlike 12 which is the canonic age;
• and of course you don't marry off a Catholic girl to an Infidel Protestant! Even less to Popes give permissions to marry at 11 and a half for that!

Forgot reference, sorry!

II

When discussing Islamic apostasy laws (part of the religion itself, not just of a licit application of it in politics, but of the compulsory one) and Muslim immigration, I think you have made a case that ... we Christians might be facing persecution, in our own countries, soon.

Btw, there are Muslims (not Salafists, more like Averroists) who will endorse Communism. Look at the guys who "liberated" Algeria from France!

And unlike US (?), Communism in Europe is a recent threat and in parts of administration a strong residue of dominion or - as in Sweden - contamination.

Can you identify with a European Christian who thinks Communism at least as much of a threat as Islam, and also (bc endorsing fewer children in indigenous populations) a component with the Muslim threat?

I am one such!

To your conclusion, yes, and part of those rejecting Islam for such reasons are basically Commies rejecting Christianity for being historically linked to, not exact same, but in part similar conditions. While you have argued against Islam, you have also argued against the historic result of Matthew 28:18 - 20.

Is that a way to conduct Christian Apologetics?

AronRa Trying to Grasp "Evolutionism is a Religion"

Evolutionism
AronRa | 31.X.2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROYEXefmJJA

I

1:10 Where do you get "a complete trust independent of evidence" as definition for "faith"?

Creation vs. Evolution : Went to "My" Topic, Ignored My Work
https://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2018/10/went-to-my-topic-ignored-my-work.html

I just had that little link on the "pasteboard" or whatever it is you paste from after you have copied or cut something onto it.

1:41 - 1:45 "because faith is all about citing facts that are not facts and pretending to know what no one even can't know"

Like in the Walt Disney version of why witchcraft was prosecuted in the Middle Ages?

1:56 "which no religion can do"

So far, Evolutionism is going along with that side of "religion" as far as I have seen.

Recall that Myers guy, PZ?

Creation vs. Evolution : Letter to Nature on Karyotype Evolution in Mammals
https://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2011/11/letter-to-nature-on-karyotype-evolution.html

So far he hasn't shown that chromosome fission (in a stable and therefore hereditable form, not as an early or accumulated stage of cancer cells) is even possible.

But since Catholicism is often counted as a religion, and indeed uses this word of itself as well as of other religions, here is what evidence we have in a very short nutshell:

somewhere else : Faith and Evidence
http://notontimsblogroundhere.blogspot.com/2018/10/faith-and-evidence.html

II

3:15 You cited Miller as "devout Bible believing Christian"?

I came across this modernist pseudo-Catholic bc of your mentioning him in context of ... wait ... Dover vs Kitzmiller or Kitzmiller vs Dover and we are not talking of the Dover across Calais, but an American one?

OK, I looked him up.

He is "canonically" (if you can speak of canon law with modernist adherents of Vatican II at all) "Catholic", but, he deviates from standard Catholic belief, as does obviously the bishop allowing him access to Sacraments.

Here is about how I looked him up:

Two one sided articles:

New blog on the kid : Responding to Miller, Staying with Father Murphy's God, part 1
http://nov9blogg9.blogspot.com/2014/02/responding-to-miller-staying-with.html

New blog on the kid : Staying with Father Murphy's God, part 2
http://nov9blogg9.blogspot.com/2014/02/staying-with-father-murphys-god-part-2.html

Two correspondence posts of correspondence with him:

Correspondence of Hans Georg Lundahl : Staying with Father Murphy's God, part 3 - Correspondence with Ken Miller
http://correspondentia-ioannis-georgii.blogspot.com/2014/02/staying-with-father-murphys-god-part-3.html

Correspondence of Hans Georg Lundahl : Correspondence with Ken Miller (part 4 of Staying with Father Murphy's God)
http://correspondentia-ioannis-georgii.blogspot.com/2014/02/correspondence-with-ken-miller-part-4.html

The give-away is, he believes the priest - father Murphy - who gave his class catechism back when he was a preteen or sth child or youth was wrong.

I had to look up the two other ones:

Robert T Bakker
"As a Pentecostal,[9] Ecumenical Christian minister, Bakker has said there is no real conflict between religion and science, and that evolution of species and geologic history is compatible with religious belief"

Pentecostalism, while in some ways preferrable to Calvinism or Lutheranism, is not real Christianity and especially it is more than one instance sloppy on theology.

"He has advised non-believers and creationists to read the views put forward by Saint Augustine, who argued against a literal understanding of the Book of Genesis."

Except I actually read De Genesi ad Literam Libri XII over book five and into book VI (these being where he goes into the famous "one moment creation" where he varies - I won't say deviates from of a Church Father - the standard "six day creation").

Apart from that one issue, he is definitely as much of a Fundie as the Creationists Bakker "took on".

Did Bakker even read him in extenso, or did he just use a "well chosen" extract?

Francis Collins
"In his 2006 book The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief, Collins wrote that scientific discoveries were an "opportunity to worship" and that he rejected both Young Earth creationism and intelligent design."

Why?

Well, I'll have to take a look, but as he is a geneticist, I don't see he has any reason for rejecting either.

"They all share the religion as these Christians"

Kent Hovind, Ken Ham - would the third be Pence?

Yes, Pence, Mike.

None of these a Catholic, let alone one rejecting Vatican II. Just my two pence ...

III

3:53 People like yourself would be an Atheist religion related to Protestantism in a way similar to how Theravada Buddhism is one related to Hinduism.

I refer to it as Western Atheism.

It's kind of reverting what Luther did.

He started with some Catholic credenda which he kept after rejecting other Catholic credenda, then came to a rejection of these latter ones.

Western Atheism starts with letting the rejection go one further, rejecting also many of the Catholic credenda that Luther, Calvin, Cranmer and a few more kept.

THEN you start filling in the gaps of an initially very empty religious protest and adding credenda by supposed "scientific discoveries" one of the first you adopted being ... Heliocentrism.

3:57 "who don't believe anything supernatural, because we don't believe anything on faith"

What definition of "supernatural" would fit what Theravada Buddhists believe?

And not believing anything on faith (except for your earlier caricatured definition of it) obviously has to refer to not believing anything "supernatural" on faith.

You seem for instance happy enough to believe Geological Column on faith, not just as to rocks, but as to Palaeontology too ...

Creation vs. Evolution : Archaeology vs Vertabrate Palaeontology in Geology
https://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2016/06/archaeology-vs-vertabrate-palaeontology.html

I refused to take that on faith ...

4:21 You are NOT classifying Theravada Buddhism as a religion?

They specifically endorse scepticism and own investigation, and can hardly be said to divide extant entities into natural (created) and supernatural (God).

Their brand of naturalism may involve entities you don't consider as extant, but gthere is no such division of reality into natural and supernatural as is at the heart of Catholicism.

"survives the death of the physical body"

Oh, you are classifying "mental and therefore not physical" as "supernatural woo woo" ... that would explain the classification.

Lots of things in New Age neither described as "religion" by adherents nor by all opponents do this too.

Or lots, I specifically think of their studies of Near Death Experiences. Or, for that matter, hypnotic regression into earlier lives. Or, for that matter, astral journeys during lucid dreaming.

And, JW do NOT believe anything survives death in you, they believe God will reconstitute your life, a bit like after cryo "whatever it is called" when someone is frozen to incorruptible and then thawed back to life.

Required beliefs in Evolutionism:

• Earth orbits the Sun
• Geological layers correspond to Millions of Years
• All or nearly all organisms alive today (I think all eucaryotes) descend from one common ancestor.

Prohibited beliefs in Atheism:

• Theistic God
• immaterial soul being what really is thinking, even if using brain to obtain imagery from surroundings and memory
• miracles (real, not faked or misunderstood)
• Divine revelation.

Now, there is no clergy who will pronounce an excommunication, but in many cases you will be treated as a kind of apostate for leaving these criteria.

4:55 "atheism is typically associated with free thought"

Not how I found it in Sweden, nor in France now, and not too much what I find on internet either.

Oh, thanks for mentioning the "clergy" that will emulate and reverse Catholic Inquisitorial Censorship.

"You had better not mention it in the papers you submit" ...

Candid.

IV

6:16 Your list from screen (with some comments) : Evolution + atheism + abiogeneis + cosmogeny + paleontology [meaning evolutionist version of it] + plate tectonics [meaning deep time interpretation of modern rate of movement projected back over all times past] + genomics and maybe even geosphericity too.

You missed Heliocentrism.

How is it, people who want to argue against Geocentrism so often mix it was Flat-Earth?

Replace Geosphericity with Heliocentrism involving Geosphericity, I think you have described faiirly well enough the credenda of a modern religion.

6:29 Would you need door to door canvassing as long as modern esp state run schools (aptly recalled Kitzmiller) are doing it for you? When a fact book about science facts I just started reviewing has one fifth heliocentrism, big universe, deep time or evolution and also naturalism in it?

And yet all of it is considered as a neutral non-partisan fact book?

New blog on the kid : Vous avez lu 100 infos insolites sur Les Sciences?
http://nov9blogg9.blogspot.com/2018/10/vous-avez-lu-100-infos-insolites-sur.html

6:45 "violent religious conflicts between different denominations of unbelievers"

As Nazis and Communists in WW-II?

As Cold war between increasingly Darwinist US and state sponsored Darwinist Soviet Union, plus a few of the wars during Cold War, like Vietnam or Korea?

I think your friend missed some obvious examples!

7:35 In Germany and Austria, state funded schools have sectarian, as you would put it, catechism.

This or that "land" and your parents chose whether your catechism is (fullest list, I think):

• Catholic
• Protestant
• Jewish
• Humanistic-Atheistic
• Muslim

And before that, state schools were back in the days of Thirty Years War (before general school compulsion, not before bourgeois and statefunded schools) systematically either exclusively Catholic or exclusively Protestant.

Precisely as in many countries now they are systematically exclusively Evolutionist or exclusively Muslim, depending on country and régime.

Your point starts to look like "it can't be a religion, it's too well integrated, religions are marginal" ... duh ....

V

8:21 Glad you mentioned Epicurus.

It is as distinct from modern Western Atheism as it is from Buddhism.

Along with Buddhism, it would think nothing is totally without consciousness, and therefore even corpses have some kind of remaining sensations.

Hence - vampires.

And that is about a much afterlife as animists accord to spirits of the dead that aren't gods or protective spirits.

VI

8:42 "look at the evidence yourself" and earlier "we don't believe a thing just because a professor says it"

Sounds like some religions have mantras.

Sacred hymns.

Phrases that are not always too well connected to actual behaviour.

Swedish schools produce people who would be capable (some exaggeration) of saying in choir:

"I think for myself, and I don't believe what I do because someone else does"

9:00 Your caricature of what atheist-evolutionist clergy would do sounds a bit like a Protestant (that is a religion, right?) speaking of Catholicism.

And when it comes to "every aspect of morality" - have you heard of Japan, where very many have certain aspects of morality, like weddings, Shinto, and certain others, like afterlife related and burials and dealing with ghosts, Buddhist?

So, a secular morality exists too ... check what Clinton priorised.

Look how shocked he was in 1995 when a girl in SC succeeded in opting out of school at 12 by marrying an old man.

Or what Kennedy priorised, at Cape Canaveral (Disney being on his side) : progress and high enterprises in the name of progress.

Look at what Star Trek promoted and promotes. How much of it is considered as "common sense" when it is in fact wildly polemical against traditional lifestyles, starting with Catholic European, in many ways.

9:05 "wear dresses, silly hats"

You sound like an Evangelical Protestant when describing Catholicism.

Here is a guy who avoids that Catholic behaviour as studiously as you do:

About Pastor Steve Cioccolanti
https://discover.org.au/about/steve

By the way, there really was a schism in Positivism over the issue. Spencer was against (he was a Protestant heredity Englishman) Auguste Comte was for it (as was his disciple Maurras).

VII

9:39 "If you have faith, you don't need evidence.
If you have evidence, you don't want faith"

You are about as good at misrepresenting Thomism as some Protestants are for roughly speaking same principle.

9:47 "make believe whatever we want to just because we want to"

Every religion?

You think you have shown a superior ethics of research than Catholics or Jews, you have shown your ignorance of both.

10:30 What you just said about science shows how scientists live in a religiously oppressive environment, in which certain answers can't be looked into because SOMEONE (nobody knows who anymore) has decided "there is no evidence for it" or "that kind of answer can't be researched" or "even if such an answer were true, it can't be exclusive of the type we investigate by excluding that type of answer".

11:24 I don't know what your personal experience of discarding what you call a religion is, but what you outlined as a general "experience" (perhaps not yours) seems to correspond much better to my experience on Catholic conversion, than your parody about changing hair styles.

Let book x chapter y verse z be such that I don't understand it immediately, or I see how it could mean two clearly different things. Protestants won't tell me how to decide, just either way is fine as long as I "believe it is true". Catholicism actually has a method of verifying how it is meant.

Just as I trace Lord of the Rings back to a good fabulist called Tolkien, by following the tradition from 1954 to present, also noting absence of references to it in earlier traces of tradition, so also I trace Gospels back to when disciples wrote down what happened (directly as with Matthew or John, via intermediaries as with Luke and Mark) and it is not just the choice of history vs fiction, but quite a lot of other questions of interpretation that can be decided that same way - and in fact must be decided like that.

For instance, St Augustine - he never said Genesis should not be taken literally in an overall way or even just referring to chapters 1 and 2, and he is in a minority in not taking "day" in the usual sense.

This means, six days are probably true, special creation in order (chronological or of one supporting other) outlined there, and deep time is NOT true.

Both one moment creationists were also clearly pro-Biblical chronology as opposed to e g Egyptian or Babylonian timelines of history. These two are Origen and St Augustine.

If Bakker wants to know where St Augustine says creation was recent, refer him to De Civitate Dei, a k a City of God.

VIII

I wrote:

My comment series, which forms a whole review of what you said, is in one spot here:

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : AronRa Trying to Grasp "Evolutionism is a Religion"
https://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/2018/11/aronra-trying-to-grasp-evolutionism-is.html

This happened

So, now I write

It seems that one more trait with religious people is fulfilled here.

They like silencing a strong opposition.

I wrote above notification 18 hours ago, and 17 hours ago several people started commenting, so my comment was hid.

About same thing as happened with my previous comments, when posting singly or in separate thread I to VII ...