Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: December 2018

Monday, December 31, 2018

Potholer on Egyptian Chronology

Since potholer54 did not provide links to the Answers in Genesis articles he pretends to show as mutually refuting, I don't feel I need to link to the video this is from comments under.

I

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"5,000 years of Egyptian history"

Which version of it?

Manetho?

Abydos Kinglist?

Turin Kinglist?

Archaeology and carbon dating?

Max Mac

The Bible...Which version?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Max Mac Whichever version, it is more fleshed out for most of the time concerned than Egyptian history prior to Manetho.

The three main versions of Pentateuch are better in accordance than Abydos and Turin Kinglists between them or with Manetho.

II

3:21 You missed that the page by CMI actually does give non-Biblical evidence against traditional Egyptian history:

The Egyptian evidence consists of numerous inscriptions, texts, papyrus documents, and artifacts. Although it is very helpful, this evidence provides an incomplete picture of Egyptian history.

The ancient writings of Herodotus, Manetho, Josephus, Africanus and Eusebius provide added historical insight. Herodotus, the famous Greek historian, traveled to Egypt in the 5th century BC and interviewed priests and other knowledgeable individuals. Manetho, as stated above, composed a history of Egypt for the library at Alexandria in the 3rd century BC. Josephus, the famous Jewish historian, quoted from Manetho when writing his historical anthologies in the first-century AD. Africanus and Bishop Eusebius, renowned historians writing in the third and fourth centuries AD respectively, also quoted Manetho and wrote about Egyptian history. However, all of these highly esteemed historians often disagree with one another in the calculation of Egyptian chronology.

Because of the discordant nature of Egyptian chronology, it is impossible to present a comprehensive list of dates, pharaohs, and dynasties. Sir Alan Gardiner wrote, ‘Our materials for the reconstruction of a coherent picture are hopelessly inadequate.’ As a result, we must cross reference the Egyptian accounts with other accurate historical sources. Biblical and Assyrian chronology offer highly consistent dates that can be utilized to rectify many of the ambiguities of Egyptian history. In other words, if Old Testament and Assyrian historical records significantly overlap, then a revision of Egyptian chronology would be perfectly logical in order to harmonize with two independent reliable sources.

Egyptian history and the biblical record: a perfect match?
Published: 23 January 2007 (GMT+10) | By Daniel Anderson
https://creation.com/egyptian-history-and-the-biblical-record-a-perfect-match

III

Conservapedia on Egypt:

"Egypt has endured as a unified state for more than 5,000 years, and archaeological evidence indicates that a developed Egyptian society has existed for much longer. Egyptians take pride in their "pharaonic heritage" and in their descent from what they consider mankind's earliest civilization. The Arabic word for Egypt is Misr, which originally connoted "civilization" or "metropolis.""

https://www.conservapedia.com/Egypt

Would "for more than 5000 years" refer to archaeology which is carbon dated?

Bec. early dynastic Egypt is carbon dated to 3150 BC. Predynastic Egypt goes further back in carbon dates.

However, this is a thing which is fairly easy to fix with assuming a rise in carbon levels and a carbon level lower than present behind an early dynastic Egypt which historically in context fits very well with Abraham c. 2000 BC.

I did an article specifically on this one:

Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : Nabta Playa, Hieraconopolis and Buto
https://filolohika.blogspot.com/2017/08/nabta-playa-hieraconopolis-and-buto.html

Also, you need not assume all editors on Conservapedia are YEC.

IV

4:20 "That's what you get when you try to squeeze things into time scales that don't fit."

Or what you get when you use a wiki type encyclopedia as if it were an editorially unified one. Conservapedia is not a man who has contradicted himself, Conservapedians are men who have contradicted each other (as on more than one wiki).

V

5:42 Sorry, in your comparison you forget, the post-Flood society was not one in which people had to actually scramble for resources.

Also, Mizraim ... in a Masoretic timeline view, he would have been around at Babel and still around when his tribe moved to Egypt.

However, it would not have been necessarily a very small tribe by that time.

This means, there would have been human resources to do the building.

Also, many pathogens would not yet have developed into those species of bacteria. There would have been more resources and less disease just after the Flood (not "no disease" since I consider any skeleton from Upper Palaeolithic as a prematurely dead early post-Flood centuries man).

VI

5:55 You are reading a lot of factuality into "statistics" that are, since previous to 1800 strictly just estimates.

Archaeological evidence is part of what they are based on, but a fairly small part.

If not in proportion to other inputs, at least in proportion to conclusions arrived at.

VII

6:10 [in] 2188 [BC] "Mizraim and his family of eight people"?

Is that what they say?

[I cannot check, I cannot find the article and potholer doesn't link]

Are you sure you are not reading too much into a picture, for one?

Did you note they have different opinions on AiG between different writers on whether Egypt started in 2188 BC?

6:34 "There would have been about 12 of them"

... assuming the doublings were evenly distributed.

We would rather assume population rose much faster just after the Flood.

Here I get to an article saying Step Pyramid starts pre-Abraham:

"Netjerykhet (later dynasties called him Zoser or Djoser) was the second king of the 3rd Dynasty, and his pyramid, the Step Pyramid of Saqqara, was built of stone blocks rather than mud bricks. ... Zoser would have lived around the time of Terah, the father of Abraham of the Bible."

AiG : The Step Pyramid
by David Down and Dr. John Ashton on July 23, 2009
https://answersingenesis.org/archaeology/ancient-egypt/the-step-pyramid/

I differ, I consider carbon dates of Djoser as carbon dates of his vizier Imhotep = Joseph in Egypt (identification built on Hungere Stele).

This further allows population growth in and outside Egypt before Step Pyramid.

I consider Narmer as a candidate for Abraham's Pharao in Genesis 13.

8:57 As said, population growth factors is not a constant like pi - it can vary over time.

Population doubling every 15 years (their actual words stating : each couple having 8 children in 30 years) is probably good guess for early post-Flood times.

9:46 "just hope no one asks both questions at the same time in the same room"

Why?

The growth rates do not contradict each other, unless you assume both apply to same set of people at same time, which clearly was not the assumption.

About as brilliant, potholer, as when you trusted Quentin Atkinson as a linguist, which he is not ...

Michael Dodds

@Hans-Georg Lundahl Abraham never existed

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Michael Dodds Except he did .... without going into Biblical inerrancy between us:

1) the Bible book Genesis, which reads as history says he did
2) it has been received by the Hebrew nation as the early history of mankind and of its own nation
3) it has not been received at a traceable earlier stage as non-history.

Even on naturalistic grounds, this should suffice as a prima facie case Genesis historically attests his existence.

charles madison

Seems like there was a bit of incest & inter-breeding, no?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@charles madison Inbreeding in modern terms, certainly.

Incest is a crime and where the limits are ultimately depends on God's decision, but, after the Flood, cousins would have been available. Generation after three sons of Noah and their wives, that is.

Thomas Binney

Hans-Georg Lundahl Except he still didn’t, and using the Bible to prove the Bible isn’t going to get you anywhere.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Thomas Binney I wasn't using the text of the Bible to prove its truthful historicity.

I was using its reception as a historic work (in the case of Genesis) to prove it is a historic source and not some other kind of text.

FROM THERE it is at least probable Abraham existed.

VIII

13:59 Sorry, but the song is a bit tasteless in this context ...

[One reason not to link.]

IX

[added later]

On the sandstone problem:

Creation vs. Evolution : Quick Take on Sandstone in Egypt
https://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2018/12/quick-take-on-sandstone-in-egypt.html

Sunday, December 30, 2018

Sharing on Morocco Murder

Liberals Send Scandinavian Girls to be Beheaded
Mark Collett | 28.XII.2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3pNbTIP-VI

Saturday, December 29, 2018

... on Language as "Example of Evolution"

Evolution and language
potholer54 | 25.XI.2015
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VqcSDpPWS4

I

2:38 "Who designed Italian?"

Italian speakers and Italian writers in each dispute of usage those who came upper hand.

For instance, we know from Latin grammarians that in the time of Cicero, the ending -um was pronounced like a nasalised -u. We can spell it u~ to distinuish it from both -u and -u+m.

One fairly early such dispute of usage was whether bonu~ was going to remain bonu~ - or become bonu/bono. Guess which side won? In the spoken language this side won all over Romania - not the modern state of that name, but simply Roman Empire the parts with Roman Ethnicity. At the same time presumably, Greek went from agathon (or agatho~) to agatho - which is still the neo-Greek pronunciation.

Why is this "intelligent design"?

Because, there is not very much point in distinguishing bonu~ from bono, when usage is nearly interchangeable. When you really need bono as a dative, just add an "ad" before and pretend it is "ad bonu~" rather than "ad bono" you are trying to pronounce, bec. "ad+accusative" is fairly interchangeable (if not in Classic, at least in post-Classic Latin).

An even clearer example.

io abbancherò.

First of all, abbancare in itself is an intelligently designed verb, which did not exist in Latin.

It means either "put x on a bench":
To lay out on a bench
or "put benches into x"
To provide a boat with seats for rowers.

And since, surprise, surprise, a "linen shirt" can only be object to first operation and a "ship" only to second, context will always explain which one means (nearly, you could construe sentences in which it were unclear, but they would be very rare).

But suppose "abbancare" already had existed in Latin (certainly other verbs of the type did), there was a time when a certain dispute of usage was getting slightly out of hand.

Adbancavit (he "benched")and adbancabit (he will "bench") were both getting same pronunciation. Intelligently designed? Yeah, with a risk. The designers found a way out.

Adbancavit was more common, so, "abbancò" means "he benched".

For "he will bench" (a shirt or a ship, remember) one could use a kind of circumlocution.

"camisa illi adbancanda est" - "the shirt must be benched by him"
"navis illi adbancanda est" - "the ship must be benched by him"

BUT, there already was "navis illi est" - "a ship is to him" = "habet navem" - "he has a ship".

Also, colloquially and originally from Greek, "camisa/navis illi adbancanda est" comes out as "camisa/navis illi adbancare est" or even "illi adbancare est camisam/navem" (pronounced camisa~ and nave~ or even camisa and nave).

So, the phrase was turned around for better commodity:

"habet adbancare camisam/navem"
or
"camisam/navem adbancare habet"

And that is "lui abbancherà".

Since "ego habeo" is "io ho", you can guess that "io abbancherò" is "I will bench" (the ship or the shirt, whichever).

This is about as intelligent a design as we do with other fashions ...

The same of course is true if you go back beyond Latin, except we can't do that.

Btw, Latin did not develop from Faliscan, but Latin and Faliscan are sister languages or sister dialects, same ancestor. They are Q-Italic, like Irish is Q-Celtic. Oscan and Umbrian are P-Italic, like Welsh is P-Celtic.

"Mr. Fifth" would in Latin be "Quintus" or "Quinqueius" (depending on whether you meant fifth son of someone or the family branch descending from a fifth son long ago). And in Oscan or Umbrian, this latter is Pompeius.

Similarily five in Irish and Welsh is cúig and bump.

II

3:11 "most words weren't intelligently designed"

At some point in the past, they were.

Take Welsh for valley, namely dyffryn.

Once, this was dwfr + hynt = water + way.

Someone noted, intelligently, valleys are waterways, where the water floats (it usually doesn't mount up on hilltops you know).

"mispronounced"

Acceptable and unacceptable mispronunciation does involve a process of intelligent design.

When you drop a distinction, either you make sure everything which coincides due to it will be distinguished in other ways (like the new future in Italian and most Romance languages from Latin infinitive + habeo, as outlined), or you pick it up again, same or new form.

III

3:17 "the great vowel shift in medieval English"

1) AFTER medieval English, it's in early modern times!
2) Note how each arrow binds together an old and a new position so that you don't have or you don't have too many coincidences.

You do have some.

For instance, "break" now has same vowel as "shake" in most dialects (this pronunciation of ea is Irish) and "the book I read" is same vowel as "papyrus is a reed". (This latter pronunciation of ea is non-Irish, the more common one, confer the name of a very popular drink and how it's pronounced by The Pogues in "Oh Whisky, you're the Devil" : that line which goes "you'r spunkier than tay").

IV

3:27 No, "pada" is not the original version of the word, and Danish "fod" is younger, not older, than English "foot" (confer Swedish "fot" and Icelandic "fót").

"subtle changes"

And intelligent design KEPT the changes, at each successive generation, subtle enough.

V

4:23 As to the over-articulated sound, this is not how everyone spoke back then, it is an intelligently designed pronunciation, called "theatre pronunciation" or sth like that, which was designed to be intelligible from front to back of a big hall without microphones.

Apart from that, the differring pronunciation is actually very subtle.

Your pronunciation of "posh" - or if you prefer "peach" - is hardly phonemically different from that speaker's. You just emphasise each phoneme a little less, which is because he emphasised them more when speaking into the microphone, than he would usually have done.

VI

5:20 I would not call it micro-evolution.

I would call it linguistic reflection of social change.

Aristocrats back in 1950 were closer to - though not identic to - theatre pronunciation. Part of their job and ambitions turned on being able to hold speeches.

Aristocrats now are closer to working class or at least middle class pronunciation (which was back in 1950 probably a working class one), partly because speeches are (supposed to be) less important, partly because of microphones allowing you to explore "credibility" in your diction, and partly because anti-aristocratic tempers have made aristocrats wary of being too outspokenly so.

It's not evolution, micro or macro, it is very intelligent design of aristocratic communication.

VII

5:58 A growing lexicon is in a way compatible with a simpler grammar.

And, obviously, some points do get more complex, by intelligent design, even in grammar, as Italian future (which has as a spin off, conditional, from "adbancare habebam" : "abbancherei").

VIII

6:30 While losing grammatical gender is perhaps an improvement, it is loss of information.

On certain islands, beetles will no longer have wings ... because whenever there was a wingless version, those having wings were likelier to be blown off the island.

Advantage and devolution are not mutually exclusive.

In fact, English loss of gender has quite a lot to do with Anglo-Saxon and Norse coexisting on ... an island, with no hereditary borders between them, but bilingualism whereever there were Danes, and Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse expressed gender differently. Some words became ambiguous, and others came to use as simplified versions, which gained ground.

"they" used to be "sie", very easy to distinguish from "seo" (she), but at a certain point, the words became dangerously close. And "they" was borrowed from Norse. (German which had no Norsemen around now has "sie" for both she and they).

IX

7:00 Since languages are designed by users, more like "masochists".

No, sincerely, this is hard for English learners of German or French, it is not hard for German or French children learning German or French as the native language.

English has sixteen tenses. I am not kidding you. German or Swedish has 8. How come?

English doubles each tense for "simple" or "continuous" form.

Even in Shakespear's time, this was not so. "What doest thou?" "I read a book"

What's wrong with you developing this into "What are you doing?" "I'm reading a book" and incidentally abolishing the useful "thou" form, you can not always determine if someone is speaking to "you" in person (="thou") or to "you" as a group. I now try to add a noun or adjective in plural to get this through to English speakers.

X

7:17 No, designing a language like Esperanto is NOT the definition of intelligent language design. An English strong verb and an Esperanto verb, it's far easier to hear past tense in English.

XI

7:36 The greater theorem of Evolution also means, species with eyes evolved from species without them. This is not just "change" but - precisely - new information.

A certain group of fish in a certain cave being born blind by heredity certainly is "evolution" or "devolution" in the sense of "change (downward)" but it doesn't help explaining how eyes are supposed to have evolved in the first place.

There was a list of ten genes involved in rods and cones of these fish, and just two mutations in two of the genes made all the rest of the normal genes useless.

XII

8:47 In fact, two mutually unintelligible languages can become mutually intelligible, with either or both of two procedures:

getting used to the sound changes or sound correspondences, as they are synchronically between the languages
relexification of one or both.

The latter can work even without a common original language.

No procedure can make horses and cows interbreedable in nature (and I hope not even in labs), and you cannot point to any extinct phylum from which both are supposed to have evolved.

XIII

9:52 You cannot make a sound parallel between rich phonemes and rich genetic variety.

They don't work the same way.

On the contrary.

With 141 phonemes, that language arguably has no phonetic variation within each phoneme - language change has come to a stalemate.

XIV

10:56 I suppose you build this on Quentin Atkinson.

"Oxford University Home Institute of Cognitive & Evolutionary Anthropology"

https://www.icea.ox.ac.uk/people/dr-quentin-atkinson

No trace of him being a linguist.

XV

11:45 Deriving American accents from a few of the British ones, actually is meaningful.

That is granted.

Richness of gene pool ... I have heard this is an oversimplification, Middle East and Africa being two alternative knots on the gene pool family tree.

XVI

12:24 I go to Conservapedia and find:

"Since the end of the Great Flood all humans spoke the same language. The survivors started to build a Tower, called Tower of Babel. God thought that the people would become high-spirited and stopped the construction, by creating several languages. The tower was not completed and the people travelled through the world, where they spread their languages."

So far, no problem with that.

I would have a problem with it if one pretended this means Italian and French were available immediately after Babel. But that is not implied by Genesis 11 and also not the creationist view at least by Creationist linguists.

Guess what?

Latin becoming French or Italian very much is like micro-evolution (with speciation), but it is one which involves lots of intelligent design on the parts of the speakers themselves.

XVII

13:06 If you are not hooked on "tower" needing to be a skyscraper, but open to it being a (probably doomed to failure) rocket project, Göbekli Tepe is a very good match for Babel geographically (it's in Mesopotamia, i e Shinar, and it is not where everything is a plain, but up in mountains where plains are things you can look for and find ... GT is in the NW corner of the plain, if you look on a map), and carbon date wise (post-Flood, since after populations came to parts of earth, but pre-Abraham), in its connection to recovered (though you would say invented) agriculture AND linguistically, since prior to any traces of any clearly non-Hebrew language.

Genetic .... not sure what genetic tests have been made on skulls in GT, but culturally, GT has, as Hancock discovered, links to as far away as Australia and Polynesia.

XVIII

15:24 "one people at a gate"

Incidentally, Babel has a double meaning. Babble - or gate of god(s).

Also, "one people" is very compatible with the story in Genesis 11.

Should I or should CMI thank you for making their work for them?

XIX

Hans-Georg Lundahl

As you know Chinese, somewhat, what is "rocket" in Chinese?

Aj Meyers

火箭

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Aj Meyers Thank you!

How do you pronounce it? A transscription in pinyin or Wade-Giles would be appreciated.

And, since it seems to be two words, what does each word mean?

Aj Meyers

@Hans-Georg Lundahl pinyin: huo jian

@Hans-Georg Lundahl what does each word mean?

It isn't two words, it's one word

Edit: but if you're asking what each character means on its own, 火 means ‘fire' and 箭 means ‘arrow'

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Aj Meyers ah, fire arrow, thank you!

Very close to Greek pyravlos, fire flute!

[Nothing involving "tower" though, alas ... ]

XX

15:32 Here I must recur to CMI conjectures : pictophonetic characters can very well have started out differently and then become such through phonetic development ...

On cows, I think you have a point ... exit zao from their list, as far as I am concerned.

... on Sweden

All about SWEDEN, the land of happy vikings
J.J. McCullough | 3.XI.2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UR91rnWYiz8

I

0:49 Skansen?

If you ever get to Södertelge (it's unfortunately spelled Södertälje these days), don't miss Torekällberget!

II

2:21 Did you see any year on the lions?

I was in Stockholm in military service early 1990 ... and I don't recall those lions.

III

2:33 "give kings last names"

Actually, there is only Gustaf Adolf and Carl Gustaf.

There are six Gustaf, the even ones are Adolf and there are sixteen Carl, obviously with numbers 10 and 16 adding Gustaf.

Otherwise, you don't find double names in Swedish monarchs.

In Prussia, you had lots of Friedrich Wilhelm. (You also had some Friedrich and some Wilhelm that were not Friedrich Wilhelm).

Yes, I forgot Carl XIV Johan - there is only he as far as Carl Johan goes, so, if you just say Carl Johan or in Norway Carl Johann, they'll know you mean him. Unless the context allows for a private person unrelated to anything royal.

There is also a ruling Queen who had a double name, Ulrika Eleonora, who ruled two years after the death of her brother CHarles XII, until the kingship was transferred to her husband.

IV

Nobelmuseet ...

"Nobelmuseet är ett museum om Nobelpriset och Nobelpristagarna, beläget i Börshuset på Stortorget 2 i Gamla stan, Stockholm, invigt 2001 i samband med 100-årsfirandet av Nobelpriset."

https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobelmuseet

OK, that recent ... no wonder I haven't heard of it!

V

4:17 "and with it the rise of a strong centralized Protestant monarchy by the 15th C."

No.

1) Sweden was officially Catholic from 1000 to 1527
(it was deprotestantised in 2000, so, the Protestant religion has less history in Sweden overall than Catholicism).
2) This means, arrival of Christianity and of Protestantism were two WIDELY different things.
3) Also, you seem to have mistranslated "1500-talet" to 15th C. when it's actually 16th C.

"The Swedish kings had conquered all of Scandinavia but then they lost it all in the Great Northern war."

No again. It's like saying "French kings conquered Québec from England" (as you would know : not true).

1) Between Sweden's Medieval independent and Catholic monarchy and the modern times independent and Protestant monarchy, there was an all Scandinavian monarchy (a Catholic one).
2) This all Scandinavian monarchy included three kingdoms, but five modern countries : Finland was part of Sweden (SW of Finland had been conquered even before the Viking age, Swedish crusaders had enlarged the Swedish part, by 1400 there was no independent pagan Finland, there was Swedish Roman Catholic Finland and Russian Russian Orthodox East Carelia).
3) It split up between two monarchs, both still Catholics, in 1520. Christian II of Denmark had accused Swedish nobility of schism and conducted a crusade to correct this. One of the executed men was father of a man who became the Swedish King, namely Gustaf Wasa.

Now, Gustaf Wasa needed support against Denmark, got it from Lubeck and when trying to finance a pay back of debts to Lubeck, that already Lutheran town suggested introducing Lutheranism and pillaging Church property, which Gustaf Wasa did. By then his liberation of Sweden (with Finland) from Denmark (with Norway and Iceland) was already an accomplished fact. Nevertheless, recalcitrant Catholics (including over a century later a mayor of Södertelge, Georg Bähr or Ursinus) could be convicted of treason like betraying Swedish liberty to the Danes or sth (or simply not obeying King Gustaf enough).

Denmark followed suit.
4) Above Sweden (except Scanian lands) and Finland, later on Swedish kings (I think already Gustaf Wasa, who ruled to 1560) came to rule parts of the Baltic. Yes, the Swordbearing Knights introduced Protestantism as well, thereby making their régime obsolete, and the dukes of Livonia and Curonia gave their land in heritage to Sweden.
5) There was a war in 1658 in which Charles X Gustaf gained Scanian lands - Scania, Blekinge, Öland, Halland - as well as a part of former Norway, Bohuslän.
6) THEN came the Great Northern war you mentioned, 1700 - 1721. All South of Finland, Livonia and Curonia, were lost to Russia, as well as a good part of West Carelia.
7) THEN came the Napoleonic wars, old dynasty ended basically with Gustaf IV Adolf, who, as he thought Napoleon was Antichrist, opposed him, and as Russia back then was still pro-Napoleon, a war started 1808 and ended in 1809, in which Russia took Finland with Åland and tempoorarily occupied Norrland. When this occupation ceased, Sweden had its modern borders, basically.
8) Later on in Napoleonic wars, the uncle of the deposed king who was childless, was "king" (usurper, Miraz style) and adopted Maréchal Bernadotte, a k a Carl XIV Johann.

He made Sweden a double monarchy up to 1905 by conquering Norway from Denmark. This included respect for the Norwegian declaration of independence from 17 May 1814, it had been signed by a Danish prince regent a few months earlier, but in order to conquer Norway, Carl XIV Johann had to declare he respected it.

So, Norway continued as "other kingdom of Swedish kings" but not as part of Sweden, up to 1905.

VI

5:05 Dalecarlian horses ... well, Dalecarlia is where Gustaf Wasa had his independentist troups against Denmark from ... not counting legionaries from Lubeck, of course.

It is also a region where Protestantism was opposed, a bit like Pilgrimage of Grace in Yorkshire.

VII

6:33 "fika" is originally a noun, in backslang, the real syllables being "kaffi" which is more usually spelled "kaffe" - it means a drink on burnt ground beans,. Coffee.

But yes, since one class of nouns ending in -a, especially if you can't have a clarifying plural of it in -or, would seem to coincide with infinitive ending, so, "fika" is also a verb.

Take a coffee break.

If you say that "jag fikar" when you are taking a tea break, a hot chocolate break or something other than a coffee break, it's a bit ... cavalier about the coffee part.

VIII

8:13 To be fair, the Vikings that pillaged in England and Ireland were usually from Norway and especially Denmark (including Scania, back then), while the Swedish Vikings colonised Lapps, parts of the Finns, founded Kievan Rus' (Ukraine and Russia are in dispute over whether it counts as Russia or Ukraine) and served in the imperial guard of Constantinople, the Variags.

That said, Danes and Norwegians also love the Viking ancestry, and cute Vikings is a bit like .... shall we say Hitler with children congratulating him, you don't seem to see him angry at children ...

This said, Viking age did involve brutality ongoing in our countries, like the slavery called thraldom - where slaves could come from Finland or from ... Ireland. I read a fairly honest novel about two slaves, brother and sister, from Ireland who come to Sweden ... Denmark? Norway?

IX

8:30 AW-berry (in two syllables - the last -ry doesn't form a separate third one).

As you mentioned Moomins ... their author is from Swedish Finland.

You know, the part of Finland that sticks out like Québec does in Canada ... kind of.

And yes, Moomins are probably the most favourite part of Scandinavian childrens culture to me.

Along with Danish Rasmus Klump.

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

Alfons Åberg is 4 years about younger than I.

I prefer Pellefant and Bamse, by Rune Andreasson.

Not Classic liberalism in economic ethics, though, actually Croesus Vole is the same kind of lampooned ultrarich capitalist as Rastapopoulos.

So is "Storpotäten" (Big Potato) in Vilse in Pannkakan ...

I also definitely relish Hedvik Hök in Från A till Ö along with her owl friend Helge.

Both these programs lack English wiki articles.

And Fablernas värld ... I just learned it is originally Dutch, De Fabeltjeskrant.

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

When reading that article, remember, it's not the Dutch names I recall.

I mean, there is LOTS of things that make me more nostalgic than Alfons Åberg.

As I just discovered that Fablernas värld is originally Dutch, here are two more:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnomes_(book)

And:

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

Oh, pardon, Spike and Suzy are Belgian, like Tintin, just he's Walloon and they are Flemish. Sorry.

X

Trocadero iconic?

In Norrland, yes, I just found out. Elsewhere, it may be Pommac.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trocadero_%28drink%29

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

XI

11:04 Endorse food products "that they like"

It's more like even being a purveyor to the royal court:

"Royal warrants of appointment in Sweden are granted to the purveyor (Swedish: Kunglig hovleverantör) by the king or the queen."

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

Denmark has similar arrangements, like with Carlsberg. I wrote Her Majesty a letter in early 2000's indicating I thought she ought to degrade Carlsberg from that position, since Carlsberg had bought up the Pripps factories, closed down one and laid off its workers.

The kind of thing I dislike with Capitalism.

Carlsberg is still purveyor to the court of Denmark:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Purveyors_to_the_Royal_Danish_Court

If you want a good Danish beer, I will suggest Faxe Fadøl from this concern:

https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Unibrew

That said, if you are in Sweden offered a Pripps or a Carlsberg ... you might do well to take the Carlsberg.

But the Swedes who prefer Pripps ... well, there are Swedes who like Alfons Åberg too!

Friday, December 28, 2018

Someone Overreacting to JW

I think he's actually a child of a couple who were or are members, so he has some experience, but he's way overreacting:

Jehovahs Witnesses Spread Anti-College Propaganda
Telltale | 14.X.2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XK13ZJOOAc4

I
[on Mt 4/Lk 4]: 2:45 ANY Christian believes this is a real literal event.

I'm Catholic.

Sure, morals can be derived from it, even so it is a real event (as if real events usually were amoral ...)

Where do you get from it is a "parable"?

It's not introduced by Jesus spoke in a parable and said!
II: 11:53 JW are getting one thing here so right - and so wrong.

There are "clouds of witnesses" cheering when Caleb and Sophia pass God's test.

Fine.

The problem, the clouds of witnesses are Father, Son, not any Holy Spirit, angels, not any human deceased saints.

Not any Holy Spirit is of course against Matthew 28, but no human saints ...

Hebrews 11-12 (several verses and first):

[4] By faith Abel offered to God a sacrifice exceeding that of Cain, by which he obtained a testimony that he was just, God giving testimony to his gifts; and by it he being dead yet speaketh. [5] By faith Henoch was translated, that he should not see death; and he was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had testimony that he pleased God. ... [7] By faith Noe, having received an answer concerning those things which as yet were not seen, moved with fear, framed the ark for the saving of his house, by the which he condemned the world; and was instituted heir of the justice which is by faith. [8] By faith he that is called Abraham, obeyed to go out into a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. ... [11] By faith also Sara herself, being barren, received strength to conceive seed, even past the time of age; because she believed that he was faithful who had promised, ... [20] By faith also of things to come, Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau. ... [21] By faith Jacob dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, and adored the top of his rod. [22] By faith Joseph, when he was dying, made mention of the going out of the children of Israel; and gave commandment concerning his bones. [23] By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months by his parents; because they saw he was a comely babe, and they feared not the king's edict. ... [31] By faith Rahab the harlot perished not with the unbelievers, receiving the spies with peace. [32] And what shall I yet say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gedeon, Barac, Samson, Jephthe, David, Samuel, and the prophets: ... [36] And others had trial of mockeries and stripes, moreover also of bands and prisons. ... [1] And therefore we also having so great a cloud of witnesses over our head, laying aside every weight and sin which surrounds us, let us run by patience to the fight proposed to us:

Ergo, Abel, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Rahab, Gedeon, Barac, Samson, Jephthe, David, Samuel, and the prophets and others should be up in that cheering crowd.

Problem is, JW believe all the dead remain totally dead (no survival of soul) up to Resurrection. So they cannot take the implication of Hebrews 11 to 12:1.
III: 12:31 She obviously erased it because she had cheated, not because success is bad.

Very properly too, it is wrong to cheat yourself into advantages. (There may be extenuating circumstances for some, but not on a test).
IV: 14:14 I think you might be overdoing their callousness a bit.

Imagine a JW not being able to pay rent one month .... what do you think the "Hall of the Kingdom" will do?

That's right : extend a rent, especially if it's a JW "on active service" - knocking doors.

If you should have examples of people who are down in the gutter bc JW left them to pverty and misery, that would be another thing, I don't think you have.

As a Catholic, I can only marginally profit from their generosity, I also disagree with them by being "literal six days" YEC (they are into day-age interpretation, these days). And by being Geocentric.

If I were Heliocentric, if I were day age old earth creationist, if I believed the cheering crowd when a Christian defeats a temptation does not include Noah and Abraham and quite a few more, if I had no objections to being JW, I think they would have ended my poverty quite a while ago.

Won't happen that way, though, since I am Catholic, YEC, Geocentric. Since I believe the cheering crowds do include Noah and Abraham and quite a few more.

And since I believe Matthew 28 does specify "all nations" not just "people from all nations" meaning conversion of nations collectively, including soldiers (excludes me from their total pacifism).

Note, wrote this before realising you were raised by a couple of them. Not sure how they did in your life.
V: 14:51 I think she is saying, families in Georgia (Caucasus not US, right? It said "Prime Minister" ...) were setting up 100 % of the children (or nearly) to compete for the 20 - 50 % best jobs.

And I think that is wrong. It definitely breeds failure. And it sets up "failure" as a disgraceful thing.
VI: 15:15 I have actually been more or less as poor as you, twice I was starving for third day on a row.

First time a neighbour who was JW offered me potatoes.

Second time, the heros offering me bread, cheese and beer were some homeless guys.

Both times involves blacks, the JW full black and the homeless guys involving one from Madagascar.
VII: 17:20 Who is speaking in Proverbs 27:11?

Study wisdom, my son, and make my heart joyful, that thou mayst give an answer to him that reproacheth.

One could imagine, the words are spoken to Solomon's son by Solomon ... but JW take it as "make Jehovah happy" ...

When did Jehovah get a heart?

Some time between Nazareth March 25 and Bethlehem December 25.

2019 years ago.

So, if some of them read this, hope they convert and become Catholic, realising that the Father is LORD, the Son is LORD, the Holy Spirit is LORD, precisely as St Athanasius taught.

Otherwise, if The LORD is a name belonging to the Father only, it is difficult to make His Heart happy or joyful.
VIII: 18:01 Yes, I definitely do not think it is child abuse to make your children realise God is watching you.

I do not think it is child abuse to tell children about the universe we live in.

Including, usually, your mistakes about it, but this isn't one of them.

Thursday, December 27, 2018

Dialogue under Luther Video

PragerU Wrong on Luther · Dialogue under Luther Video · Other Dialogue under Luther Video

Henry Law: From an Orthodox Christian perspective, the Reformation appears very different from the way it is described here. From that viewpoint, the Reformation was a bust-up within the Roman Catholic Church. It is rarely appreciated that most of Luther's objections to the sixteenth century Catholic Church had been stated five hundred years previously by Orthodox theologians. In the fifteenth century, however, the Orthodox were captives of the Muslims, apart from those in remote Russia.

Capitalism and the Enlightenment were not unmixed blessings. Among other things, they spawned Marxism, following Enlightenment thinking and reacting against the effects of early capitalism.
Hans-Georg Lundahl: "It is rarely appreciated that most of Luther's objections to the sixteenth century Catholic Church had been stated five hundred years previously by Orthodox theologians."

Most?

I think you are doing Orthodox theologians an injustice.

0
Henry Law: @Hans-Georg Lundahl The Orthodox were complaining about Papal supremacy for 700 years before Luther. Without the Roman dogmas of original sin or purgatory, then there can be no indulgences, which is what kicked off the Reformation. Orthodox have married priests and have always given communion in both kinds. These were the significant objections that Luther re-stated. But please say more.
Hans-Georg Lundahl: "The Orthodox were complaining about Papal supremacy for 700 years before Luther."

That's one on Luther's list; not most.

"Without the Roman dogmas of original sin"

Which your Defender of Orthodoxy Palamas shared - he also believed Immaculate Conception, like we Romans do now.

"or purgatory,"

Which is at least one option of explaining prayers for the dead - which you do too, and which Luther wouldn't have liked your prayers better than RC ones.

YOUR options are varied, and Markos Evgenikos' saying no to Purgatory and yes through retroactive efficacy to back before the person died is the one furthest away ... you also have "airy tollhouses" which are fairly close.

"then there can be no indulgences"

AND a Patriarch of Constantinople was protesting that not just Popes, but also Patriarchs can issue plenary ones.

AND giving cakes and wine to the poor is an indulgenced act with you.

"which is what kicked off the Reformation."

It occasioned Luther's theses. These were not yet the Reformation.

"These were the significant objections that Luther re-stated."

Luther alas was stating lots of objections which you don't share, in the end, and which I honour you for NOT sharing.

You do believe Calvary sacrifice is present in a Divine Liturgy.

You do believe images can be honoured.

You do believe in Monasticism.

You do believe the sacraments are seven (at least).

0 You do believe absolution can be had.

You do believe reconciliation with God involves an indwelling of God in the soul, not just a juridical declaration of "not guilty before the law", and this indwelling transforms the soul.

And a lot of other things, which we Catholics do and Lutherans, let alone other Protestants do not believe.

Oh, I forgot: you also do believe pilgrimages are healthy for the Christian soul and the Church and Monastery can extend sanctuary to criminals:

Supremacy and Survival: The English Reformation : Henry VIII and Sanctuary
http://supremacyandsurvival.blogspot.com/2018/12/henry-viii-and-sanctuary.html

Two more things which Luther was against.

So, saying you stood for most of his opposition to Catholicism is doing yourself an injustice.
Henry Law: @Hans-Georg Lundahl Catholics have made dogmas out of what in Orthodoxy are theological speculations. That gave Luther a handle. Logically, Luther should have taken himself off to Mount Athos, but it was dangerous due to the Ottomans.
Hans-Georg Lundahl: Theological speculations if licit is at least different from heresy.

The accusation of heresy on these accounts came, usually, from Luther, not from Orthodox.

Who is accusing innocent theological speculation of heresy? Someone who's really Orthodox? I don't think so.

And wishing Luther at mount Athos is ... naive. He wanted to get rid of monastic vows, not strengthen them.

"Conspiracy Theory"

Just promoting:

CIA Ignites “Powerful Weapon” That Will Make All Conform…If It’s Not Exposed!
Lisa Haven | 27.XII.2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNdMgqkQqTw

Or so I thought, I had to make one correction:

One correction - if you look at "List of conspiracy theories" article, and go to "Antichrist" and "Bible and Jesus" ....

1) it basically does say stamping someone as Antichrist is a conspiracy:

"Apocalyptic prophecies, particularly Christian claims about the End Times, have inspired a range of conspiracy theories. Many of these cite the Antichrist, a leader who will supposedly create an oppressive world empire. Countless figures have been called Antichrist, including Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, Russian emperor Peter the Great, Saladin, Pope John XXII, Benito Mussolini and Barack Obama."

2) BUT it does not equate believing in Jesus or Bible with conspiracy theories, it lists "Dan Brown" as a conspiracy theorist:

"Bible conspiracy theories posit that significant parts of the New Testament are false, or have been omitted. Various groups both real (such as the Vatican) and fake (such as the Priory of Sion) are said to suppress relevant information concerning, for example, the dating of the Turin Shroud."

"Much of this line of conspiracy theory has been stimulated by a debunked book titled The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (1982), which claimed that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were lovers and that their offspring and descendants were secretly hidden in Europe following the death of Jesus, from whom the then-living French draughtsman Pierre Plantard claimed descent. Interest in this hoax saw a resurgence following the publication of Dan Brown's 2003 novel, The Da Vinci Code."

PragerU Wrong on Luther

PragerU Wrong on Luther · Dialogue under Luther Video · Other Dialogue under Luther Video

How the Reformation Shaped Your World
PragerU | 24.XII.2018
https://youtu.be/NCbhlC_sThY

Long link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCbhlC_sThY

0:22 - 0:27 "Indulgences might be loosely described as "get out of hell free" cards: pay this amount to the Church and the Church would make sure you don't suffer unduly for your"

Whatever.

This comment drains PragerU of much of its already somewhat strained credibility.

1) There was no indulgence for giving money "to the Church".

There were indulgences for giving money to specific good purposes, like feeding the poor, (feeding them in person, especially on the funeral or memorial day of someone you want to win an indulgence for is also per se indulgenced, even Biblically, in Tobit) as well as for other good deeds.

2) Indulgences don't get you out of Hell, they only speed up the train to Heaven in Purgatory - those who go to Hell already eternally missed that.

I'll give you a comparison. Someone offers you, when you are in hospital (the kind of poor old medieval hospital which isn't tax financed), resources for more food and camphor for the chest and other things which will speed up your full recovery. If you are alive when they arrive, they will do so. BUT, if you are already dead, you can no longer profit from them, and the resources are valuable for other patients of the hospital.

So, any merit of Christ (whose merits are infinite) beyond the bare minimum to get us saved (God knows what this is) and any merit of the saints (whose merits are based on His) beyond what it took to get them saved and to Heaven without passing by Purgatory, is disposed of by the Church. You gain an indulgence for yourself of someone else, the Church gives a part of that.

The good deed does not need to involve spending money, and it is not a requisite that money is given to the Church's alms collectors.

And, obviously, if you go to Hell, you miss all that, just as a dead patient misses the camphor and extra food portions.

Is this myth about indulgences being a sales deal by the Church so persistent because Burghley insisted on making it so? Cecil, Lord Burghley or Burghley Lord Cecil, whichever it was ...

0:53 "his complaints - and he made a list of 95 of them"

No, the 95 THESES are 95 theses as in academia a thesis is a thesis.

They are not a list of 95 complaints within a sole thesis "reform or you lose out on being Church".

Not all of the theses are complaints against Catholicism, or against Catholic practise and not all were condemned either. All of them are theses - topics he was willing to defend with further argument, if opposed. It should be added:

41 theses (not all of them from the 95) were condemned, and he got a chance to debate for them, with Cajetan.

On the Catholic view, he lost the debate.

You are somewhat sketchy on how Luther's "no division between Bible and believer" - btw, shared by Erasmus, who stayed Catholic - would take away the very foundation of Catholic authority.

If you meant the Bible includes passages condemning Catholicism (not Vatican II sect, but bona fide historical Catholicism and even as many aspects of the Vatican II sect that still with various local shades live up to that), that would have been an argument, but it would have been in need of stating and it would have been an untruth, which I could have contradicted you on.

2:37 "born a free actor endowed with God-given rights that exist independent of government"

I'd say Erasmus' other friends, Sts Thomas More and John Fisher are more involved in that one.

Luther was pleading for more totalitarian secular government, that is why Henry VIII and Gustav Wasa indirectly or directly backed his ideas.

A free actor implies the right to join a monestary. The right to do that involves the right to keep property collectively and accept donations. And THAT right was attacked by both Lutherans in Sweden and para-Lutherans in England.

Swedish nobles supported Reformation in 1527 (Luther's specifically, they took in two disciples of Luther from Wittenberg) because it allowed them to accuse monasteries of fraudulent reception of donations over centuries and to reclaim donations made by their forefathers.

2:45 "each person could find those rights by reading and interpreting the Bible himself"

To Luther, each person should find his duty of absolute obedience to parents and to secular rulers in all things except a minimum of what could very definitely be labelled sin even on clear and undisputed Biblical grounds, independently of the Catholic tradition : in other words, parents and government replaced tradition and magisterium.

Note : Luther was telling one secular ruler he couldn't forbid him bigamy.

2:51 "And throughout the first millennium, right up until Luther's day, only a few people could"

A small percentage, perhaps, in terms of affordable editions, but not few in total numbers.

3:12 "a language familiar only to the clergy and educated elite"

Except ... not. Getting an education and getting an élite position was far from synonymous, you did not even need to become clergy and you most certainly could be clergy without being very élite.

In fact, in Erasmus' day, barriers to learning Latin were raised, and Luther was not against that. Medieval Latin is easier to master than Classic. St. Thomas Aquinas is easier than Cicero.

3:21 "Luther answered this problem, by translating the Bible into everyday German"

The Saxon chancery was not more everyday than any other German which had been used by prior Roman Catholic translations to German. It was less dialectal by modern standards, which Luther's choice of language and his religion's success helped to mold.

3:40 How about NOT giving Luther the credits for what actually Gutenberg did?

He was a Catholic, by the way.

Updates:

3:52 In fact, Jan Hus could have given a precedent for how Luther could be treated at Diet of Worms.

However, this did not happen, and even a sound long debate ending with his sound refutation (other option) did not happen due to some corrupt nobles - notably the one of Saxony. We'll have a look fast forward 4 centuries at relations Lutheranism and secular power:

Did you know that Luther's successor in Saxony, basically, the Landesbischoff of Sachsen, this is a post which in 1930's and early 40's was held by Friedrich Coch? 1933 - 45.

Did you know Deutsche Christen actually started out independently of National Socialism, but not independently of Reformation?

Zum 400-jährigen Jubiläum der Reformation 1917 gaben Andersen, der Schriftsteller Adolf Bartels, der Kirchenrat Ernst Katzer und Hans von Wolzogen 95 Thesen heraus, um ein „Deutschchristentum auf evangelischer Grundlage“ zu begründen. Darin hieß es:[3]

„Die neuere Rassenforschung endlich hat uns die Augen geöffnet für die verderblichen Wirkungen der Blutsmischung zwischen germanischen und nichtgermanischen Volksangehörigen und mahnt uns, mit allen Kräften dahin zu streben, unser Volkstum möglichst rein und in sich geschlossen zu halten.

Religion ist die innerste Kraft und feinste Blüte im geistigen Leben eines Volkes, kann aber nur in völkischer Ausprägung kulturkräftig wirken […] Eine innigere Verbindung zwischen Deutschtum und Christentum ist nur zu erreichen, wenn dieses aus der unnatürlichen Verbindung gelöst wird, in der es nach bloßem Herkommen mit der jüdischen Religion steht.“

Der „zornige Gewittergott“ Jehova sei ein anderer als der „Vater“ und „Geist“, den Christus verkündet und die Germanen geahnt hätten.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Christen

4:33 Capitalism and Enlightenment ... don't shove that dirt on Luther.

Calvin is closer to both.

Luther was a rigorist about taking of interest being usuary, he was harsher than Pope Leo X on that account.

Pope Leo X had allowed municipal pawn brokers to charge a very moderate interest to a very sober upkeep of the clerks (and presumably janitors) BUT he had added it was actually holier if half those expenses were covered by municipal property, like income from such or such a municipally owned farm - or municipal taxes.

4:51 of the 56 signers, all but one was a Protestant

Let's not forget how many were freemasons, and I don't think even one was a Lutheran.

Luther momentous?

Sure, one day that will be said of False Prophet and Beast too .... is perhaps already said of the persons, I have two main suspects, but think they have some way to go before full satanic evil.

Friday, December 21, 2018

Bill Nye Supposed to Destroy the Flood, sorry, the Ark - I, my comments

Bill Nye Answered on "Science Works" Meme, Inter Alia · Bill Nye Supposed to Destroy the Flood, sorry, the Ark - I, my comments · Bill Nye Supposed to Destroy the Flood or Ark, sorry - II the dialogues

Bill Nye Destroys Noah's Ark
The Daily Conversation | 7.II.2014
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4OhXQTMOEc

I: 0:51 Grand canyon ... you seem to overdo segregation of marine invertebrates a bit.

How many of them are unknown from other places so they are considered as "their layer" bc they come between this or that layer?

In a Flood scenario, how much sorting of marine invertebrates could occur by currents overflowing the place from different directions?
II: 1:36 evidence of kangaroos between Middle East and Australia ...

You know, there is evidence of Australian aboriginee art in Göbekli Tepe ... as for kangaroos, they could have transferred quickly, during a post-Flood Ice Age.
III: 2:07 Land bridge or near such ... Sunda Sahul, during glacial maximum.

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

That [the] Glacial Maximum is misdated as older than 5000 years ago is another story.
IV: 2:43 "these people were unskilled"

How do you know?

For one, how do you assess pre-Flood skills?

For another, how much skill will an amateur acquire during a 100 year building experience?

For a third, how much know-how would God have provided (we need not assume Genesis 6 détails every word God spoke to Noah)?

For a fourth, how do you know others weren't helping building without getting into the Ark?

Nodian government can have provided some sponsored workers on the dole (whatever that is in English, in French you'd say stagiaires). I mean ridiculing rather than persecuting the Ark project. Relatives helping to build could have got old and died before it was ready, or even gotten martyred. And so on.
V: 3:16 Six-masted schooner Wyoming is no parallel, since it was meant to navigate, not to drift. This puts extra pressure to the boat. Also, it necessitates a prow that was narrowed and therefore perhaps more vulnerable.

Yes, it would twist, but precisely because it was navigating through the sea, not drifting with the waves.

3:57 "Very skilled shipwrights" ... how do you know the shipwrights of Wyoming were even equal to the skills of Noah and family with pre-Flood skills?

4:34 "Superpowers" is not necessary.

Only thing needed is the shipwrights in your ancestry were recovering a lost art and still not equalling what had been lost.

On to:

part II, the dialogues.

Thursday, December 20, 2018

... on Flat Earth Theories

Flat Earth Conspiracy: The Surprising Truth
America Uncovered | 15.XII.2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GP0zYqoMwk

I: "Being five centuries regressed in your reasoning" (Quoting the tweet of Neil deGrasse Tyson)

Proof of complete sphericity (not curved like a chapati pan or yarmulke, but a complete sphere or at least reasonably close to, unless there was a hole down south which hasn't shown up) - Magellan.

Proof of curve and suspicion of complete sphericity - since Eratosthenes and Aristotle (who also had a pseudo-Magellan, but this was soon revealed to be wrong).

Magellan is arguably about 500 years ago:

"Ferdinand Magellan (/məˈɡɛlən/[1] or /məˈdʒɛlən/;[2] Portuguese: Fernão de Magalhães, IPA: [fɨɾˈnɐ̃w dɨ mɐɣɐˈʎɐ̃jʃ]; Spanish: Fernando de Magallanes, IPA: [feɾˈnando ðe maɣaˈʎanes]; c. 1480 – 27 April 1521) was a Portuguese explorer who organised the Spanish expedition to the East Indies from 1519 to 1522, resulting in the first circumnavigation of the Earth, completed by Juan Sebastián Elcano."

Eratosthenes who gave a near correct angle of curvature is quite a bit older:

"Eratosthenes of Cyrene (/ɛrəˈtɒsθəniːz/; Greek: Ἐρατοσθένης ὁ Κυρηναῖος, IPA: [eratostʰénɛːs]; c. 276 BC[1] – c. 195/194 BC[2]) was a Greek mathematician, geographer, poet, astronomer, and music theorist. He was a man of learning, becoming the chief librarian at the Library of Alexandria. He invented the discipline of geography, including the terminology used today.[3]"

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

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

As the rapper said "where is the curve" it is more like 22 centuries ago.

I disagree with a terminology like "regressed in one's reasoning" since it illicitly compares the civilisation one enjoys and its development over time with individual age development.
II: 3:36 Without Magellan, I might explain lunar eclipses like very traditional Hindoos, if I weren't a Latin Rite Catholic Christian as I am and therefore biassed for Round Earth.

Flat Earth is more Nestorian or Jewish or Muslim, I'd say ...

But the Hindoos do account for eclipses by claiming "Rahoo" is a planet usually hidden below the ultimate horizon and sometimes going forth to instead hide Sun or Moon.
III: 4:27 Thank you very much.

I agree that it is bad to use Flat Earth as a bat to beat all other non-mainstream theories with.

One way to combat this, is of course to destigmatise Flat Earth.

It's incorrect, I wouldn't go for it, but it certainly is not "regressed reasoning" as Tyson put it (even if he said 5 centuries rather than age 5, appreciated measure in expression).

Bonus for Flat Earthers, how many corners does Australia count for?

I think it's more reasonable to count Australia as one corner if any at all, if Singapore isn't the real SE corner, which is easier to find on a globe.

Answering Barron on Hell

Bishop Barron on Whether Hell is Crowded or Empty
Bishop Robert Barron | 28.III.2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmsa0sg4Od4

I: 2:05 Origenism, specifically apocastasis and perhaps also preexistence of souls, weren't a lot of these positions condemned by a Council, Ecumenical V, II of Constantinople?

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

While it seems the Pope did not sign those condemnations, but condemned three chapters instead (though it's a long time since I read that in Newman and he could have been wrong, even if not likely), hasn't tradition since then given an ordinary magisterium acceptance of Origenism being condemned on such points?
Bishop Robert Barron: So what? I condemn it too.
Hans-Georg Lundahl: @Bishop Robert Barron will be noted.
II: 3:25 As I recall St Thomas : most people overall will be damned.

Most Catholics will be saved.

However, it seems some saints, like was it Liguori go one further and say even most Catholics will be damned since not practising Catholicism seriously enough. To St Thomas they are a minority.

Perhaps reflects a bit on the Catholic societies St Thomas and St Alfons were seeing.

In 13th C. most of Western Christendom had no slaves and sweetened things mainly with honey.

In 18th C. colonies were usually with black slaves and many Europeans even in countries with no colonies sweetened things with sugar (typically produced by slave labour).

Entertainments were also a bit different ...
III: 4:26 While I relish Balthasar as Mariologist, I am less into his Barthian venture.

Also less into his admirer (if I recall correctly) Augustine Bea.

If I'd pinpoint one chief agent of Satan in founding Vatican II Sect, I'd chiefly suspect Bea - confessor of Pius XII in his worse years and of Antipope Roncalli.

I'd even except Roncalli from Hell, if he really cried "stop the council" ... less optimistic of Bea.

After hearing you out, semi-Barthian.
IV: 6:04 "spatial and visual metaphors"

If you mean a space and a vision provided by God as Creator and judge metaphorically appropriate to the state of those damned, very possible.

But if you mean the space is not there and cannot be seen outside metaphors in texts, no.

Heaven and Hell really are places.

One bonus with being Geocentric is, you can debunk "infinite universe" as impossible and also "billions of light years" as unproven and very improbable.

In the cosmos, you have globe within globe, and Hell is within or therefore beneath Earth, Heaven above or outside the Stars.

Article 11, Resurrection of the flesh.

There really is a place where Christ is seated (or standing as a sacrificial lamb) and from where He is "bilocated" (loosely speaking) to each Holy Mass and each tabernacle with valid consecration. His dear Mother is there, also risen. We (those of us who are saved) will be there.

Considering Hell as a "spatial metaphor" implies you could consider Heaven so too. No.

6:28 Not just the loneliness as poena damni (losing God), but also the fire, as poena sensus. Or sensuum.
V: 6:42 "the Church has never declared on that subject"

Except through ordinary Magisterium about Judas, about Beast, about False Prophet and about those taking their mark.

"the Church has never declared on that subject" is often - as here - a copout for not wanting to believe the traditional position of the ordinary magisterium of hundreds of popes and thousands of bishops and the believers they so taught.
VI: 8:53 I think you may be taking the sense of the "the love of God lights the fires of Hell" in a somewhat non-Lewisian sense.

If you go to Pilgrim's Regress, God's love poses Hell as a limit of evil. Evil being privation, any further evil is always logically possible, but by making Hell, God has posed a limit on how much you can hurt yourself by abusing your free will.

Like a suicide in Dante, if you live in eternity like a tree without movement, you are in a cosmic straightjacket ...

You are more making it like "rejecting God's love hurts" ... as in human relations. While true, this is not about Hell fire. It's about the poena damni. Yes, the damned who realise who God was in their lives and cannot get Him back will curse Him for that too. But the fires are something else and physical.

It's not to Lewis but to some Eastern Orthodox you want to go if you want a confusion of those levels.

And while Hell is in a sense self imposed, it is also imposed.

God decreeing that a soul shall face the reality of what it chose ...

Even if CSL missed part of that. He was not infallible.

Answering John MacArthur, II

Answering John MacArthur, I · part II · part III

POPE & PAPACY Part 2 JOHN MACARTHUR
Blaze25z | 4.XII.2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5RMFu-JHGs

I: 0:12 "and all the people said "amen", it was the Antichrist whom they beheld seated on the Pontifical throne"

What "all the people"?

Are you quoting from a Protestant history book?

It should be more precise on who these "all the people" were.

If you meant "all the people" who had gathered to hear this conclusion from Luther after it was already advertised, very possible.

If you meant "all the people" who had been Catholics up to Luther's time, no way. Not in Germany, see Eck, and most definitely not elsewhere, see how Henry VIII earned the title "defensor fidei" from a Pope.
II: 0:16 - 0:22 "this new idea which derived greater strength through the prophetic descriptions"

And these were strong, precisely because Catholicism had kept inculcating these prophecies.

"launched forth by Luther into the midst of his contemporaries"

Nice to note you note they were new ideas and whom they were launched by.

A bit sadly ironic that Antipope Bergoglio so celebrates Luther.

"inflicted the most terrible blow on Rome"

So "terrible" that Pope Leo X noted Luther was involved in some other "monk brawl" ... in other words, nice rhetoric, but not born up by the facts of the time they refer to.

Oh, the Pope would hang Peter and crucify Christ again ... now, neither St. Peter nor Our Lord were walking on earth and with counterfactuals you have a nice playground for fancy.

1:33 I'd like to know what Calvin's argument for Papacy being the Antichrist of II Thessalonians was ....

I'm not guessing. Here is from his commentary:

"Here, however, the subject treated of is not the name of God himself, but his majesty and worship, and, in general, everything that he claims for himself. “True religion is that by which the true God alone is worshipped; that, the son of perdition will transfer to himself.” Now, every one that has learned from Scripture what are the things that more especially belong to God, and will, on the other hand, observe what the Pope claims for himself — though he were but a boy of ten years of age — will have no great difficulty in recognizing Antichrist."

Except, this is not true. The Pope does simply not demand to be worshipped as God. Calvin was simply lying.

1:40 "because they had some special insight"

From where? A man claiming special insight in a prophetic way would need to be exmined by the Church (to which Luther and Calvin did not submit, exalting themselves over the piety, if not over God's Person, as they recognised it, and therein in a conflict with each other, since Luther's disciple Melanchthon rejected Bucer and therefore also later Calvin).

A man claiming it from his studies, which is possible, would need even in absence of a way to get tested by the Church to give credible arguments, which Calvin and Luther didn't.

"that in fact the final Antichrist was actually to be a Pope?"

Ah, you are admitting they hadn't.

"No"

"Because the Pope personified everything that the Scripture described the Antichrist to be"

Except, not.

2:10 "Thomas Cranmer, one of the great martyrs in England"

One of the few who could be described as martyrs, from a Protestant point of view and who were Reformers.

The Coventry martyrs were not Reformers, but Lollards of a very vague tradition. Luther, Zwingli, Oecolampadius, Bucer, Calvin and Knox were not martyrs, and neither was Melanchthon, nor the Petri brothers, nor Agricola ...

But if I were to name Reformers that were "martyred" there are basically two, Cranmer and Tyndale. [Make it four, see below]

However, martyred or other Reformers, you are appealing to them like a Catholic would appeal to Sts Augustine or Thomas Aquinas ... but they are not in the same martyrology and you are not accepting the martyrology in which Church Fathers and Scholastics are well represented.

2:41 Noted that Westminster Confession contradicts the Catechism of the council of Trent as well as the Catechism of Pope St. Pius X as well as Baltimore Catechisms 1 to 4.

I could resume this : you are appealing to something old, the Reformers, I am appealing to something older, the Church which was there before they came on the scene.
III: I looked up Westminster Confession of Faith, with Biblical proof texts.

There are two propositions about the Papacy, one indirect and one direct:

"6. There is no other head of the church but the Lord Jesus Christ.n"

The proof text is:

n. Col. 1:18. And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence. Eph. 1:22. … and hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church.

This does not dispose with the question whether there is a visible head.

"Nor can the pope of Rome, in any sense, be head thereof.o"

The proof text is:

o. Matt. 23:8–10. But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren. And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven. Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ. 1 Pet. 5:2–4. Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; neither as being lords over God’s heritage, but being ensamples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away.

The first seems to be somewhat relative in relation to other NT texts, like St Paul saying:

"For if you have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet not many fathers. For in Christ Jesus, by the gospel, I have begotten you."
[1 Corinthians 4:15]

The second very clearly by calling Christ the "chief Shepherd, St Peter is also saying there are secondary Shepherds under Christ. To which the Pope would belong.
IV: 2:59 Cotton Mather - as unwary of demons as to use spectral evidence in witchcraft trials, according to this:

[Wiki : ]
"In 1689, Mather published Memorable Providences detailing the supposed afflictions of several children in the Goodwin family in Boston. Catholic washerwoman Goody Glover was convicted of witchcraft and executed in this case.[9] Mather had a prominent role in this case. Besides praying for the children, which also included fasting and meditation, he would also observe and record their activities. The children were subject to hysterical fits, which he detailed in Memorable Providences.[10] In his book, Mather argued that since there are witches and devils, there are "immortal souls." He also claimed that witches appear spectrally as themselves.[11] He opposed any natural explanations for the fits, he believed that people who confessed to using witchcraft were sane, he warned against performing magic due to its connection with the devil and he argued that spectral evidence should not be used as evidence for witchcraft.[12] Robert Calef was a contemporary of Mather and critical of him, and he considered this book responsible for laying the groundwork for the Salem witch trials three years later:"

[quoting Robert Calef:]
"Mr Cotton Mather, was the most active and forward of any Minister in the Country in those matters, taking home one of the Children, and managing such Intreagues with that Child, and after printing such an account of the whole, in his Memorable Providences, as conduced much to the kindling of those Flames, that in Sir Williams time threatened the devouring of this Country.[13]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_Mather#Pre-trials
V: 3:41 "great Reform leaders through the ages"

Luther, Calvin, Knox, Cranmer, Cotton Mather, Spurgeon.

Luther started out in about 1520 (since the deed in 1517 was before he became really Protestant). Spurgeon died 1892.

1892
1517
=375

In Catholic parlance, "through the ages" is not limited to 375 years.
VI: 4:01 "puts sacramental efficacy in the place of His atonement"

Raving of Spurgeon.

Christ's atonement is available through the sacraments. Each of the 7 is shown in some place in the NT.

When a sacrament is efficacious and when it is not is about as useful a question as "was I really saved, or wasn't I". Except, generally it can be solved and in cases of doubt measures to ensure one valid sacrament of salvation in two acts (rebaptism sub conditione valid when the previous baptism wasn't for instance, and no offense to God if it was).

4:02 "and lifts a piece of bread into the place of the Saviour"

Oh, Spurgeon denied Real Presence and contradicted Our Lord in John 6?

4:06 "and a few drops of water into the place of the Holy Spirit"

Actually, John 3 Christ mentioned "water and spirit". They go together.

4:10 "and a mere fallible man like ourselves up as the Vicar of Christ on earth"

Popes are conscious that they are fallible in their personal capacity. That doesn't cancel the vicarship.

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were also fallible men like ourselves, at times - but that doesn't cancel they wrote the Gospels and Acts inspired by the Holy Ghost and inerrantly.

If Spurgeon attacks papacy, why not hagiographers? If God can make exceptions for special occasions, like when hagiographers writing Gospels, why not for Popes when defining what the Gospels mean?

This attack is illogic and senseless.
VII: 4:51 "all Bibles were removed from the Churches"

With mistranslated ones, like those before the Great Bible, well done.

"all Bible printing ceased and was forbidden, became a capital crime"

Here is wiki on this one:

"Under Edward VI, the regency cast off all restrictions on translation and publication of the Bible; all the suppressed versions were republished. The order for a Great Bible in every church was renewed, and there was to be added to it a copy of Erasmus's paraphrase of the four gospels, in an English translation undertaken in part by Princess Mary, the King's Catholic sister. Nearly fifty editions of the Bible, in whole or in part, appeared in those six years. When Mary herself succeeded to the throne in 1553, she maintained her brother's policy of encouraging public reading of the Great Bible and Paraphrases; but versions with overtly Protestant notes were once again liable to be burned."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Modern_English_Bible_translations#Great_Bible

One more:

"The Great Bible was issued to meet a decree that each church should make available in some convenient place the largest possible copy of the whole Bible, where all the parishioners could have access to it and read it at their will.The version gets its name from the size of the volume. That decree dates 1538, twelve years after Tyndale's books were burned, and two years after he was burned. The installation of these great books caused tremendous excitement as crowds gathered everywhere. Bishop Bonner had six copies of the great volume located throughout St. Paul's. The Great Bible appeared in seven editions in two years, and continued in recognized power for thirty years. Much of the present English prayer-book is taken from it. But this liberty was so sudden that the people naturally abused it. King Henry VIII became vexed because the sacred words "were disputed, rimed, sung, and jangled in every ale-house". King Henry began to put restrictions on the use of the Bible. There were to be no notes or annotations in any versions, and those that existed were to be blacked out. Only the upper classes were to be allowed to possess a Bible. Finally, the year before his death, all versions were again prohibited except the Great Bible, whose cost and size precluded personal use. The decree led to another great burning of Bibles in 1546—Tyndale, Coverdale, Matthew—all but the Great Bible. The leading religious reformers took flight and fled to European Protestant towns like Frankfurt and Strassburg."

Same link.

Perhaps you were confusing Mary Tudor with her father?
VIII: 5:10 Whether you admire John Rogers or not, even Fox would have said there were other things he burned for than translation.

"The circumstance of Mr. Rogers having preached at Paul's cross, after Queen Mary arrived at the Tower, has been already stated. He confirmed in his sermon the true doctrine taught in King Edward's time, and exhorted the people to beware of the pestilence of popery, idolatry, and superstition. For this he was called to account, but so ably defended himself that, for that time, he was dismissed. The proclamation of the queen, however, to prohibit true preaching, gave his enemies a new handle against him."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rogers_(Bible_editor_and_martyr)

Quoting the last big section.

"Ridley and Latimer"

The guys I tend to forget with Cranmer:

"In 1555 under the Catholic Queen Mary he was burned at the stake, becoming one of the three Oxford Martyrs of Anglicanism."

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

"The three martyrs were the Anglican bishops Hugh Latimer, Nicholas Ridley and Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury."

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

Do you agree with these being martyrs?

You cited Westminster Confession of Faith on no one but Christ being head of the Church.

But these were considered as heads of the Church in Worcester, London and Canterbury with all England (under the monarch, whom they recognised as visible head of the Church of England).

If you are sincere, why do you not condemn these Anglicans as much as Catholics?

Because they were martyred?

St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen was martyred by Calvinists, like the Gorkum martyrs and like that blessed Dominican Prior of Castres, but Anglicans also martyred a lot of Catholics, like Sts Thomas More, John Fisher, and about 300 more, saints or blesseds.
IX: 5:32 "Tyndale ... finally martyred for the crime of translating the Bible into English"

That is a lie. The translation was known when he was arrested by Belgian Inquisitors in ... I had thought it was 7 years before he died, but even if it was only a year before ... 1535.

It took to 1536 to get him executed, well into second half of the year by which time he had documented a heretical understanding of Romans 3 in the exchange of writings between himself and Latomus.

So, while Bible translation was occasion of his arrest, the crime was heretical understanding of the Bible.
X: 6:06 "Luther didn't mince words."

No, but what he said about Popes was arguably more true about himself.

Again, Schmalkald articles, it is a far cry from Westminster, on some issues, except in condemnation of papacy and it is within the last 1/4 of the time the Church has existed.

As said, when we Catholics say "through the ages" we may refer to anyone from Apostles to Father Kolbe who died in Auschwitz. That's about 4 times as long a period as Protestantism from Luther on.

Also, his accusation is hard to substantiate directly from Catholic material: you don't find Catholics denying redemption is from Christ. You do find Catholics saying Christ uses means which Luther didn't agree with. Like papacy, bishops, seven sacraments, Holy Mass.

6:11 Luther trying to paraphrase II Thessalonians 2 ....

Ironic that Wojtyla, Ratzinger and Bergoglio all enjoin Ecumenism with Lutherans - even if most of them are not all that very Lutheran in this respect.

He also overdoes the extent of how many heretics were executed, in a way sounding a bit like Foxe or James Milton Carroll.
XI: 7:23 "how could the Church live if its head were dead"

We do not consider popes as the lifegiving head of the Church, that being Christ alone, but as his visible representatives.

Sth which Christ made Peter, Himself the Good Shepherd, He made St Peter Shepherd, that is, representative of His own quality as "chief Shepherd".

Similarily, the Pope is not the source of holiness in the Church, therefore a wicked pope who really is pope doesn't make the Church unholy. He just refuses to use the Church to make himself holy.

7:29 "the true head ever lives and the true Church ever lives in Him"

Actually a true word.

Hence it is shameful to except so much of Church history, most between 33 and 400 and all between 400 and 1500 from the testimony of such a living Church.

7:40 "first makes a dupe out of others and then becomes a dupe to himself"

That's how we consider authors of Schmalkald articles or Coran or Book of Mormon or Westminster Confession ... unless we are charitably inclined to reverse the process and say these were deluded before deluding others.
XII: 7:53 "what the Pope really believes he is infallible and shall be greeted His Holiness, it must have taken him a good time to arrive to that eminence of self deception."

As to the second, why would the exact words of adress be so weighty as to oppress a conscience not long in the process of delusion?

The Pope doesn't believe he is personally necessarily a saint, the words are adressed to him to remind him he needs to be one. As a Catholic, he has called others "His Holiness" before he was elected. And as to "call no man rabbi" ... St. Paul shows this is not to be taken with rigorous literal observance, since it was also said "call no one father" and St Paul tells the Corinthians he is their father.

As to infallible, Spurgeon seems to have imagined (though I would try to be careful not to practise pseudo-empathy) that Popes imagine they are infallible whenever they sneeze.

In fact, Popes take care before making the kind of decisions that require infallibility and that care usually involves consulting other collectively infallibles, like the Catholic bishops all over the world, like totality of previous popes and ecumenic councils and so on.

Here I must reject as blasphemous the contention of Westminster Confession of Faith that all visible churches are to some degree mixed with error.

This is expressly against Matthew 28:20 (as well as Matthew 16:18, and that observation does not depend on who is the rock).
XIII: 8:11 Spurgeon's analysis of papacy is perhaps a better one of a Protestant ministry claiming to correctly interpret the Bible.

The ministers are surrounded by Protestants who confirm them in their being right to be supreme independent local ministers answering to no one on earth.

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere

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