Thursday, January 30, 2020

What's Accursed Licence of Living? Not Young Marriages!


Not Sure if Someone Prayed for me to See This Video · What's Accursed Licence of Living? Not Young Marriages!

On Anti-Christian Writing: Clement XIII (1766)
Return To Tradition | 11.I.2020
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZGikMi0JsE


Debate under part of my comment II:

Hans-Georg Lundahl
If "accursed licence of living" includes promoting young marriages he would have to condemn himself, since he upheld the liberty for men to marry from 14 and women to do so from 12 both in canon law and in the civil authority over the papal states which did not know the 18 / 18 limit before the invasion of a régime from Savoy.

So, on this matter, where feminists and Puritans would call me "pedophile", the words of this pope is also an acquittal. Against any and all possible accusations on this account.

Carlton Poindexter
@Hans-Georg Lundahl The life span for most people at that time was 35 years of age and most that were married at that young age spent a year or two just getting used to each other. People at that age had far more responsibilities and duties. They were not sexualized like today's youth and were well aware of life by observing animals before food came from far away farms, grocery stores and in plastic or paper and not identifiable to most people except by the label.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@Carlton Poindexter "The life span for most people at that time was 35 years of age"

False, unless you include child mortality.

"and most that were married at that young age spent a year or two just getting used to each other."

That was one option, St. Bridget was married at 13 but the marriage was consumed when she was 14.

"People at that age had far more responsibilities and duties."

Far less too : meaning less "academic" and "personal development" type responsibilities or duties.

"They were not sexualized like today's youth"

Even so, puberty automatically somewhat sexualises one. And if today's youth is in more trouble when it comes to chastity, that is hardly an argument for higher marital age.

"and were well aware of life by observing animals before food came from far away farms, grocery stores and in plastic or paper and not identifiable to most people except by the label."

True, but hardly to the point - if you mean those who grew up in the countryside or when it came to animals that lived in cities ...

On Not Demonising Internet


Answering Rob Skiba on Tower and Other Issues · Chuck MIssler on the Demonic, some Complementary or Corrective Comments by me · On Not Demonising Internet · Matthew 24 and Genesis 6

Demonism - Chuck Missler
Koinonia House | 16.IV.2013
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgbiVTXRGF4


The Otherme
Now with the internet, Satan can have a faux omnipresence and omniscience

kilt6680
Correct!
Its the only way he can begin to even attempt to resemble God's Omniscience. Along with the Demonis hordes reporting back about the populace to their Master.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Satan already had that, in so far as he had and has demons everywhere and they report to him.

Internet has changed nothing about that.

The Oracle
Hans-Georg Lundahl right, their power is telepathic, technology accompanys their set of tools

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Lot's of things on internet are purely natural, even if they may look "telepathic" to someone not very alert.

The Oracle
Hans-Georg Lundahl I’m talking about demons ... they are telepathic. Trust me... I used to work with them veryyyy closely

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@The Oracle Fine, since I suppose you are now saved, you no longer do so.

They do not telepathically inform you when a thing on internet is from them.

If they did, or even if against odds they still do, that doesn't mean you have to trust them.

They are liars.

Jesus Is Greater I’m Jacob
Bingo


The last comment, not sure whether directed at my last one just before it or at the first one by The Otherme.

Monday, January 27, 2020

Rudeness Won't Disprove the Flood or Prove Oparin


Q
If Noah had put dinosaurs on the Ark, would they still be around today? If so, could they be domesticated?
https://www.quora.com/If-Noah-had-put-dinosaurs-on-the-Ark-would-they-still-be-around-today-If-so-could-they-be-domesticated/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1


Hans-Georg Lundahl
none/ apprx Masters Latin & Greek, Lund University
Answered Wed
They could have gone extinct since.

The Leviathan if around and a dinosaur would not be domesticated according to book of Job.

[Obviously, even if not a dinosaur, but then that would be less relevant to the question.]

I

Christopher Cudworth
Thu
See the answer above. Leviathan is a general term for a large animal. And the idea “they could have gone extinct since” has no evidence. Why persist in shallow belief if it serves no purpose?

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Original Author
Fri
A “can” or “could” is not a categoric fact needing evidence.

I don’t know what you mean with “shallow belief” or belief serving or not serving a purpose.

When I say this, I mean dinos probably were on the ark, probably have lived to at least proto-historic times of pagans (like serpopards on Narmer palette arguably being behemoths or sauropods) and that I do not know if all have since gone extinct, or if some could still be discovered.

The evidence for dinos still existing is not very strong and definitely not uncontroversial, but also not non-extant, see crypto-zoology. Kent Hovind’s perhaps finest contribution to YEC (I am less enthusiastic for “pre-Flood water canopy”).

Christopher Cudworth
Fri
By young-earth creationist you mean denying the massive evidence for plate tectonics that accounts for both the horizontal movement of the continents and the vertical column of stratified layers of sedimentary, metamorphic and igneous rock forms around the world, that fit together in near perfect connection and strata? That young-earth creationist? In favor of what, the creationist theory that says a single flood tore apart the continents and “floated” them into position. And in that case, how then did blind cave salamanders migrate from the ark across a salty ocean thousands of miles wide to come to live in the depths of the North American continent. There are no explanations for the worldwide flood that do not require fantastical claims and made up lies to defend the literal interpretation of the Bible. So postulations on the life and times of dinosaurs are worse than that. Lies on top of lies. The idea that the earth is just a few thousand years old is a desperate fable to defend bad theology, defending God on human terms.

[When I later on asked him which of his arguments I had not responded to, I had forgot this list, where I would have welcomed a subthread on each topic - see below - and did not get it.]

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Original Author
Fri
I am sorry, would you mind taking one comment for each?

I just answered the point "dinosaurs are dead since 65 million years or more" by a no, and instead of arguing a yes, you prefer shifting the point.

The idea God has not defended His word from error is certainly worse theology than anything I am culpable of.

Christopher Cudworth
Fri
If scripture is never in error, why did the Catholic Church persecute scientists over the concept of geocentrism. And take 350 years after imprisoning Galileo, plus 13 years of consideration, to officially exonerate the man. It is because bad theology is so dependent and insistent on literal interpretation of scripture that is blinds people to the truth. The same goes for creationism and the notion that science is “wrong” about geology, biology and evolution. You’re “no” is based on a “yes” to falsehood based on errant interpretations of scripture. God is not in error. You are.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Original Author
Sat
My answer is, geocentrism is true.

What you take as “official exoneration” would be a deed by Antipope Wojtyla.

Christopher Cudworth
Sat
So the earth is the center of the universe. Right.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Original Author
Sun
Yes, right.

Your point being that “everyone knows” the opposite or do you pretend to have an argument for it?

Christopher Cudworth
Sun
You never answer any questions. You pick piecemeal at the carcass of your own anachronism, tossing bits my way. Your brand of religious legalism is at once tiresome, naive and stultifying to honesty of any sort. I’ve been nice as the rules dictate on Quora. But your persistent brand of willful ignorance serves no purpose other than to satisfy your own appetite for conundrums that you can’t answer, so you try to bother other people with them. This began with you suggesting that dinosaurs ran around with people sometime in the recent or distant past. Putting it nicely, that’s the stupidest thing a person could believe. So I’m done.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Original Author
Sun
First, what question did I not answer?

[He presumably meant the long list above, which I would have answered in separate subthreads had he started them, had forgotten that.]

Second, where did I show myself as representing legalism in any sensible way?

Third, how about arguing instead of being rude?

Fourth, how about looking at my answers instead of claiming I can’t answer?

Fifth, I never said dinosaurs and people ran around each other. I don’t claim wild elephants and people run around each other now, or lions and people.

Sixth, I could think of a few more stupid things, like believing ancients or a considerable portion of the present are stupid or believing one knows better than God’s word.

Seventh, if you are done, fine, I’ll find other people to answer.

Christopher Cudworth
21h ago
You are a revolving door. I’m not rude. I’m just going out the other side to leave you swinging in the wind.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Original Author
19h ago
Sad that a man stating his profession as writer should be a bad reader …

Christopher Cudworth
19h ago
More antagonism. The reason I don’t “read” what you write is that you are purposefully exasperating and frankly, annoying as all get out. Go the hell away.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Original Author
2h ago
"purposefully exasperating"

More like knowingly exasperating to those who are annoyed in advance of Young Earth Creationists. It was NOT my purpose that you should be annoyed in advance and also not that you should remain such ...

"Go the hell away."

Forgetting who's commenting under whose answer, are you?

Christopher Cudworth
1h ago
I consider Young Earth Creationism to be the product of a form of mental illness. So I’m being purposefully kind and patient. Someone that denies clear and well-documented evidence of the age of the universe in favor of a patently shallow take on scripture with every evidence of bad theology is a victim of their own delusion. There. I’ve said it nicely enough. I think YEC is literally a form of insanity.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Original Author
18m ago
"I consider Young Earth Creationism to be the product of a form of mental illness."

Have you considered Matthew 5:22, last sentence or phrase?

"So I’m being purposefully kind and patient."

I was neither demanding kind, nor patient. I was looking for intelligent debate. Like about the evidences or the arguments, not about my person or yours.

"Someone that denies clear and well-documented evidence"

Which exact evidence is BOTH clear AND well-documented? What exact evidence have I denied? Not the authority of God’s revealed word, at least.

"of the age of the univers"

Or of the distance of the stars, function-shape of near heavenly bodies ... same reply.

"in favor of a patently shallow"

With physical objects, patently shallow is no conundrum. With attitudes of a fellow human being, the only patent thing is what someone is saying, not whether it is "deep" or "shallow" as if the distinction should even matter between people, or even necessarily to oneself. In order to be right with God, there are lots of questions one should ask rather than "am I being deep or shallow". And in order to consider someone else patently shallow, you need to have a somewhat shallow approach yourself.

"take on scripture with every evidence of bad theology is a victim of their own delusion."

What are your evidences of a theology being good or bad?

Why can you consider ideologies opposed to your own "delusions"?

"There. I’ve said it nicely enough. I think YEC is literally a form of insanity."

Whether you said it less nice or equally nice before, what you say is rude. Which was my point. Even extremely rude.

Which of course explains, but does not excuse the rudeness on other issues.

Later
same thread after copying above and what is on from II.

Christopher Cudworth
9m ago
There is NO DEBATE about a young earth. Get that through your head. I’m not interested. Not even remotely convinced anything you could say or quote or pat on the head like a scripture puppet has any merit. I’ve dealt with this crap for forty years, debated YECs sponsored by a wealthy investment mogul four decades ago and found them specious, fatuous and insincere. Your supposedly patient arguments are the same junk that literalists creationists have been harping about for two thousand years. Go away.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Original Author
Just now
“that literalists creationists have been harping about for two thousand years.”

Thank you sincerely for the compliment!

This is identifying me with the Church of the Ages, and I am very gratified.

I would not want to belong to the “Church” of one age only, like the recent modernity!

II

Christopher Cudworth
Fri
Pre-flood “water canopy” is a farcical invention that has no evidence of any kind. It’s a made up story, whereas despite your claim that fossil records are somehow “poor” and that they depend on “can” or “could” is absurd. And your fantasy that “I do not know if all have since gone extinct” are on the level of Flat Earth theory. Belief despite all evidence to the contrary. I’m a Christian, but not in the sense that I suspend reality in order to prop up a batch of concocted wives tales to defend biblical literalism. Jesus taught in parables based on organic truths, drawn from nature. He used nature as a symbol, you see, for spiritual truths. Take that as your example, not the falsehoods of creationism.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Original Author
Fri
"Pre-flood “water canopy” is a farcical invention that has no evidence of any kind."

Did I say I agreed on it? I just said I did not.

"whereas despite your claim that fossil records are somehow “poor” and that they depend on “can” or “could” is absurd"

Would you:

  • a) parse your sentence (if it makes sense, the construction is somewhat dense to me, but as I am good at grammar, you can help that by parsing)?
  • b) tell me where I am supposed to have claimed that the fossil records are poor?


"And your fantasy that “I do not know if all have since gone extinct” are on the level of Flat Earth theory."

Flat Earth can be refuted by going round the earth, specifically both Poles, which Mike Horn just did. Crypto-zoology cannot be refuted except one claim at a time, and many have not been refuted to my satisfaction.

"Belief despite all evidence to the contrary."

Where do you claim to find that?

"I’m a Christian, but not in the sense that I suspend reality in order to prop up a batch of concocted wives tales to defend biblical literalism."

Where do you pretend I suspended reality? What is the reality I am supposed to have suspended? So far you have not mentioned it by name.

"Jesus taught in parables based on organic truths, drawn from nature. He used nature as a symbol, you see, for spiritual truths."

You know, the parables have been considered as parables for near 2000 years. Genesis 1 - 11 can have added symbolic use, but at its most basic, it was taken as literal history for these near 2000 years since Christ and even longer since before Christ.

"Take that as your example, not the falsehoods of creationism."

It starts coming off as plain rudeness, when you give some kind of orders. You are not my pope, my bishop or my priest, not even my deacon. And yet you are basically expecting me to call you "father".

Christopher Cudworth
Fri
The statement that Genesis 1–11 “was taken as literal history of these near 2000 years since Christ…and even longer since before Christ,” exactly illustrates my exasperation and impatience in responding to your “questions.” What you are advocating is anachronism, “a thing belonging or appropriate to a period other than that in which it exists, especially a thing that is conspicuously old-fashioned.” That is why science and even basic common sense has no tolerance for the biblical literalist. It is plainly stubborn to insist that something that was once considered true in the past is automatically true in the present. Hence my commentary on the stubbornness of the Catholic church about geocentrism. Some still insist that the Catholic church was never “wrong” because it was the “accepted” truth at the time. That does NOT make it right.

But it does not make the Bible wrong. Only the interpretation is wrong. Minus its symbolic meaning, the Bible is turned into a supposed scientific textbook, and the scientific method as we know it today was not yet invented.

Worse than that, as people explored the value of observing reality through science and art, they were ridiculed for doing so. Think about how “classic” artists depicted reality. No one could be either higher or larger than the kind or Jesus, whoever was most important in the painting. That’s why Adam and Noah and other archetypes were depicted as having lived for nine hundred years. It was a literary affectation to communicate their importance. But as bible literature moved on, and records of human lives were more credibly based, the lives of people suddenly shrank to normal proportions. Why was that? Well, biblical literalists invent all kinds of goofy explanations such as “the air was clearer than and people lived longer.” Which is absolute rubbish. Certainly not scientific. Made up. That’s what.

Same with the David and Goliath story. Growing up, I recall the giant depicted as thirty feet high. Modern scholarship has determined he might have been eight feet tall and likely his vision and ponderous behavior was the product of defects associated with giantism. David smote him with a sling rock to the forehead because while he was big, he was slow and had really bad vision. Not that hard to take out a big ox really.

So it’s critical to put scripture into a context in which we can better comprehend its true meaning rather than relying on traditional exaggerations and explications to claim a “young earth” or a “worldwide flood” because the knowledge of the world was not that great back then. No one even knew the North American continent or any other existed. So the Genesis tale is based on the best available knowledge at the time. No fault in that. It can still mean a lot. But it should not, and cannot, be extrapolated as science. That’s a falsehood.

Yet with stiff-necked fervor, today’s version of the religious authorities Jesus castigated for adherence to “tradition” on all fronts are still demanding absolute control over the creation narrative. It is a clownish attempt at denying science in favor of anachronism. It makes fools out of Christians and to some extent, as is the case with Trump, Christians out of fools. It’s not about truth. It’s about power. Control. And fear. That’s why the religious authorities killed Jesus. They feared what he exposed about them. That they lied to people and made up rules to control them. It was replicated in the Catholic church with purgatory. All made up to enrich the church. Same with the Inquisitions. Strike fear into people and you can control them. Hell fits in there somewhere too.

So you accuse me of being rude when in fact it is the rudeness of evangelical and fundamentalist Christians that has convinced 40% of Americans to deny science and issues such as climate change in the process. It’s a farce of foolishness. You’ll probably not be convinced, and say I’m not specific enough for you. But unless you grasp the error in your methods at arriving at silly conclusions about the age of the earth or dinosaurs or any other issue, you’ll continue calling me rude because I “disagree” with you. It’s not that I disagree or agree. It’s that fact debunks the creationist worldview and Intelligent Design and all such fabrications of denial in service to biblical literalism. That’s all I’ll say. Moving on now.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Original Author
Sat
"What you are advocating is anachronism,"

If you mean I am anachronistically attributing belief in literal historicity to an era which lacked the concept, wrong, if they lacked anything it was the concept a history had to be chemically free from symbolism to be literally true.

However, the following suggests you mean my beliefs make me a living anachronism. I feel flattered.

"That is why science and even basic common sense has no tolerance for the biblical literalist."

According to the literal sense of the words, science and common sense are not subjects that can have or lack tolerance. Translating your figure of speech to something which makes sense, you mean the science of some men and the common sense of some men prompt them to be intolerant of the biblical literalist. Well, the biblical litteralist too has both science and common sense, how do you prove he has less than the intolerant anti-creationist?

"It is plainly stubborn to insist that something that was once considered true in the past is automatically true in the present."

Where is the exact fault? From "considered" true to "being" true? Agree. It is also naive or haughty to insist that something that is considered true in the present automatically also is true.

Or from past to present? Disagree completely. Bc, the present is not the key to truth, as I just mentioned.

"Hence my commentary on the stubbornness of the Catholic church about geocentrism."

I am a Catholic geocentric.

"Some still insist that the Catholic church was never “wrong” because it was the “accepted” truth at the time."

That idea is a fairly diabolical perversion of Catholic doctrine.

"That does NOT make it right."

No, but geocentrism actually reflecting the real structure of the cosmos does make it right.

"But it does not make the Bible wrong. Only the interpretation is wrong."

I think for Joshua chapter 10 verse 13 your idea could seem plausible at first look, but there are clinching factors.

  • Moon stood still as well as Sun. If Earth had stopped turning and everything else had gone on as usual, the Moon would have moved visibly during 12 or 24 hours.

  • Verse 12 has Joshua making the miraculous command while adressing Sun and Moon, and no, this is not identic to his speaking to God same verse, since he was not considering Sun and Moon as God, but we must take it he first spoke to God, then to Sun and Moon.

  • Habaccuc parallel says of Sun and Moon that they stood still "in their orbits" or courses, i e not just visually seen from Holy Land.


The first and last were pointed out by St. Robert Bellarmine, when examining Galileo's first book on the topic, and cited by Robert Sungenis, the mid one is my contribution.

"Minus its symbolic meaning, the Bible is turned into a supposed scientific textbook,"

Strawman. No creationist or geocentric considers the Bible as a scientific textbook. This in itself does not mean there can be scientific positive inaccuracies in the word of God and even if it were the word of men, an inaccuracy in science does not amount to one in history.

"and the scientific method as we know it today was not yet invented."

Totally beside the point, plus it is heavily overrated as an actual way to make scientific discoveries.

"Worse than that, as people explored the value of observing reality through science and art, they were ridiculed for doing so."

Who were ridiculed for exactly that, when, by whom? Washington Irving is not a textbook in history, and is historically inaccurate.

"Think about how “classic” artists depicted reality. No one could be either higher or larger than the kind or Jesus, whoever was most important in the painting."

I think you are making a point about Pharaos or Sumerian rulers.

"That’s why Adam and Noah and other archetypes were depicted as having lived for nine hundred years. It was a literary affectation to communicate their importance."

If Adam and Noah are archetypes and not real people, to you, you are not a Christian.

St. Paul attributes death to one man's sin. St. Peter insists 8 people survived a Deluge, and Noah among them. Or was that St. Paul too? I do not know the Epistles as well as the Gospels.

"But as bible literature moved on, and records of human lives were more credibly based, the lives of people suddenly shrank to normal proportions."

Check Genesis 11. The lives don't shrink suddenly, but gradually from Shem to Abraham.

And if you think the records of the lives of Adam and Noah are not credibly based, again, you are not a Christian.

"Why was that? Well, biblical literalists invent all kinds of goofy explanations such as “the air was clearer than and people lived longer.” Which is absolute rubbish. Certainly not scientific. Made up. That’s what."

You are making up all kinds of goofy explanations on the literary side. "Symbolic of importance" and implicit "while records weren't yet credibly based" - which is absolute rubbish. Certainly not literary history. Made up. That's what.

My own explanation to shrinking life spans:

  • higher levels of cosmic radiation deteriorated genes or shortened telomeres which shrank life spans

  • higher levels of cosmic radiation led to more cold, hence the Ice age during all or most of the 350 years remaining to Noah after the Flood

  • higher levels of cosmic radiation meant carbon 14 was being produced more rapidly than now, which makes a convenient rise in atmospheric carbon 14 content from a little above 1 pmC in 2957 BC (Flood, carbon misdated to 40 000 BP) to a little less than 100 pmC in 1590 BC (Moses' birth, Sesostris III's burial, carbon dated and misdated to c. 1700 BC or 1800 BC).


"Same with the David and Goliath story. Growing up, I recall the giant depicted as thirty feet high."

That is the fault of the artist, not of the Biblical account.

"And there went out a man baseborn from the camp of the Philistines named Goliath, of Geth, whose height was six cubits and a span:" 1 Kings (1 Samuel) 17:4

The six cubits would have been either 12 or 9 feet, depending on which cubit version is used (2 feet or 1 and 1/2). Then some more. But NOT thirty feet.

"Modern scholarship has determined he might have been eight feet tall"

Fits well with an interpretation of the text using the 1 and 1/2 foot cubit, and I'd still go for nine feet plus. However, the foot being shorter than the English, that might reduce to 8 English feet.

"and likely his vision and ponderous behavior was the product of defects associated with giantism."

You are contradicting nothing at all in the text.

"David smote him with a sling rock to the forehead because while he was big, he was slow and had really bad vision. Not that hard to take out a big ox really."

Supposing you figure it out - or you dare anyway. David is not lauded for muscle strength of Herculic type, he is lauded for bravour. Btw, a fairly good model on how Hercules took out Geryon too.

"So it’s critical to put scripture into a context in which we can better comprehend its true meaning"

Note well, when a better comprehension is actually achieved.

"rather than relying on traditional exaggerations and explications to claim a “young earth” or a “worldwide flood” because the knowledge of the world was not that great back then."

A flood limited to cover only the Middle East would have been lots less safe for even the Ark to float in. There would have been shores across the Atlantic or Indian or Pacific and the Ark could have been crushed on them.

By contrast, with a global Flood, the Ark was a fairly safe thing.

As to Young Earth, it is not deduced from exaggerations, but from Genesis 5 and 11. If you think the real life spans were shorter, you make the earth even younger. Unless you add generations between Adam and Moses, making Genesis 3 less credible as history.

"No one even knew the North American continent or any other existed."

In Moses' time apart from prophecy arguably not so much.

"So the Genesis tale is based on the best available knowledge at the time."

Sorry, but Genesis 1 to 11 reflect things so much before Moses' time and before from when we have written original manuscript records, we cannot extrapolate Bronze Age ignorance of geography to Noah. Remember, if Noah lived in 2957 we cannot compare to tablets carbon dated to 2957 which are much younger, so the Sumerian tablets or Egyptian papyri you would compare to are irrelevant, Sumer and Egypt themselves only getting national identities after Babel, that is, after Noah died.

Plus, Thor Heyderdahl tested a hypothesis Canaaneans could have reached Americas and be behind the story of Viracocha and whatever he was called in Mexico. The reed boat Ra II did float across the Atlantic. This suggests people might come that way, and done so because they knew.

"No fault in that. It can still mean a lot. But it should not, and cannot, be extrapolated as science. That’s a falsehood."

The exactitude I claim for it is history. The inexactitude I claim for you is not distinguishing history from science. The history part was naturally knowable, as history usually is. As to science, God would not have wanted Moses to teach the Mendeleiev table, but "waters above the firmament" to me, unlike Hovind, suggest sth which still exists and is scientifically observed : spectrography detecting as most frequent interstellar molecule H2 and second most so H2O. I consider Moses called both molecules water. Because he was not writing a science textbook.

And yes, I consider Moses knew of these observations going to be made, because he was a prophet. Btw, Genesis 1 is not ordinary history but revealed pre-history.

"Yet with stiff-necked fervor, today’s version of the religious authorities Jesus castigated for adherence to “tradition” on all fronts are still demanding absolute control over the creation narrative."

You might want to tell me when and where Jesus castigated ANYONE for adherence to tradition as a general concept, specifically tradition about haggada. I don't know any such context in the Gospels. Or did you mean a specific text mentioning "tradition of the ancients" about a halakhic value? In that case, what is its relevance to Genesis 1 to 11, which is haggada?

"It is a clownish attempt at denying science in favor of anachronism."

Clownish ... I recall Chesterton's words "when all church bells were silent, our cap and bells were heard" (cap and bells being medieval insignia of a fool, jester or clown).

Attempt ... I feel mine is successful.

At denying science ... as in you think Heliocentrism and Old Earth are science?

In favor of anachronism ... as in what is considered true by the present is the rule for presently living people? But Geocentrism and YEC are also considered truth in the present, only by different and fewer presently living people.

"It makes fools out of Christians"

So does the cross, at times, remember?

"and to some extent, as is the case with Trump, Christians out of fools."

Don't say that to his face, remember Matthew 5:22 and Gehenna is hot.

"It’s not about truth."

According to your analysis.

"It’s about power. Control. And fear."

I feel I cannot share your analysis or even 5 pence in a dime of it. If anyone has shown me power, control and fear on the issue, it is rather evolutionists.

"That’s why the religious authorities killed Jesus."

Because He challenged Young Earth Creationism and Geocentrism? I don't think so.

"They feared what he exposed about them."

I don't fear what you expose about me, since it is nothing. But I do have some reasons to apprehend your analysis being taken seriously by people who deal with me. Whether you know it or not, you are in fact helping to fan a hysteria of which I am at the business end.

"That they lied to people and made up rules to control them."

Like your lies about Young Earth Creationism and your rules about Bible exegesis and Science belief?

"It was replicated in the Catholic church with purgatory."

Oh, now you are at odds with Tobit, Maccabees, one or two Gospels and one of the epistles to the Corinthians. Nice ... for me not to share your errors.

"All made up to enrich the church."

When? As in when do you find the Church NOT praying for the dead (which is the action the Church mainly got riches by, remember)?

"Same with the Inquisitions."

Exactly when do you find an entire population targetted by these?

"Strike fear into people and you can control them."

Like Ku Klux Klan and you strike fear into US Americans about Catholicism and Creationism, to control them?

"Hell fits in there somewhere too."

Oh, you are accusing Jesus now? He was THE most prominent proponent of there being such a thing in the entire New Testament. (Perhaps only direct one? Or is that just my bad memory?)

"So you accuse me of being rude"

You are being rude now again.

"when in fact it is the rudeness of evangelical and fundamentalist Christians"

Well, I have known fundamentalists lots less rude than you.

"that has convinced 40% of Americans to deny science"

And fundamentalists being nice and cheerful obviously convinced no one. Everyone doubts when Ken Ham and Kent Hovind smile, everyone fears and caves in when they get rude ... er, no. That's not how it works.

"and issues such as climate change in the process."

Climate change is a separate issue. I am a man, not a statistic.

"It’s a farce of foolishness."

So is the cross, to some.

"You’ll probably not be convinced, and say I’m not specific enough for you. "

I've enjoyed more than one of your specifics as a challenge to meet (not very high ones), but now the time is near up.

III

Wolfgang Potratz
Fri
“They could have gone extinct since.”

Since what? Do you really believe that silly story about a world wide flood that is said to have happened about 4200 years ago?

There is absolutely no evidence FOR it, but scores of evidence AGAINST it! Only daft cretinists believe this fairy tale.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Original Author
Fri
I thought you were done debating with a Geocentric, weren't you?

Wolfgang Potratz
Fri
Wherever and on whatever topic you spread nonsense, I will call you out.

You are ignorant of reality and only a bible-thumping moron.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Original Author
Fri
I'll feel free to do the same to you then - minus some incivility.

Wolfgang Potratz
Fri
Unfortunately you have noting to call me out on, because I am on the side of science, while you only have silly religious ideas that don’t hold water.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Original Author
Sat
Do you call Abiogenesis science?

Well, Oparin doesn’t hold water and Urey Miller doesn’t help him.

I call you out on badly researching what you proclaim to be your side.

As for “silly” - who minds? The Ark did hold water, or we wouldn’t be here.

Wolfgang Potratz
Sat
“The Ark did hold water, or we wouldn’t be here.”

Oh no, not that insane nonsense again! There NEVER was an ark. Full stop.

“Do you call Abiogenesis science?”

Most certainly!

Abiogenesis - Wikipedia

And if you don’t trust wikipedia, you can read several hundred papers that are linked from there. AFTER you have done that, come back and produce some criticism that can be taken seriously.

Oparin only formulated a hypothesis, the Miller-Urey experiment proved that hos hypothesis was not really wrong.

Now we know that no “higher power” is required to form complex molecules and systems from much simpler molecules and systems, without invoking ANY “goddidit”.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Original Author
Sat
"Oh no, not that insane nonsense again! There NEVER was an ark. Full stop."

There are plenty of accounts saying the Middle Ages knew Crusades ... how would you prove the Crusades happened, if you don't trust the accounts for the Flood (plenty of different ones independently of the Bible) why those for the Crusades?

"Insane" is another example of your preferring rudeness over argument.

Perhaps AronRa might like the rude part, but he at least tries to argue, from time to time.

Now, from the wikipedian article:

"The classic 1952 Miller–Urey experiment and similar research demonstrated that most amino acids, the chemical constituents of the proteins used in all living organisms, can be synthesized from inorganic compounds under conditions intended to replicate those of the early Earth."

It so happens, the same conditions don't synthesise from inorganic compounds any phospholipids, and sugars would also be needed and would need somewhat different conditions to synthesise.

It also so happens, the conditions do not synthesise chirality or order or information.

For chirality, “outer space” is invoked. Abiogenesis of the gaps, anyone?

“Now we know that no “higher power” is required to form complex molecules and systems from much simpler molecules and systems, without invoking ANY “goddidit”.”

If you had read the article with some circumspection you might have been less hasty.

Wolfgang Potratz
Sat
“how would you prove the Crusades happened, if you don't trust the accounts for the Flood “

Non sequitur. For the crusades we have have plenty of evidence, both in documents and archaeological, for thew Flood there is only evidence that it DID NOT happen and even could not have happened.

“It so happens, the same conditions don't synthesise from inorganic compounds any phospholipids, and sugars would also be needed and would need somewhat different conditions to synthesise.”

As with your crazy Flood myth, you keep making false assertions. Even IF “somewhat different conditions” were necessary, rest assured that the young Earth had a plethora of different conditions to offer, so there would not have been a shortage of the appropriate material to start early life.

“It also so happens, the conditions do not synthesise chirality or order or information.”

Again a set of false assertions. I don’t know where you get your nonsense from, but all your “questions” have been answered satisfactorily. There is no scientific argument that renders a totally natural origin of life on Earth hard to imagine or even impossible.

Order and information arise automatically, after complex molecules are formed and interact:

“In 1977, chemist David Deamer mixed glycerol, phosphate, and several different fatty acids in a test tube. When he put this mixture under primeval conditions (a mixture of the gases thought to exists in Earth’s primeval atmosphere), he found that phospholipids emerged spontaneously.

This was a key discovery because phospholipids will then spontaneously self-assemble into three-dimensional membranes whenever they are placed in water. Just as fatty acids are attracted to each other and form micelles under most conditions, phospholipids are attracted to each other and form membranes.”

Origins of Life II | Biology | Visionlearning

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Original Author
Sat
"For the crusades we have have plenty of evidence, both in documents"

Parallel to diverse Flood myths documenting Flood.

"and archaeological,"

Parallel to Permian, Jurassic etc. palaeontology for Flood.

"for thew Flood there is only evidence that it DID NOT happen and even could not have happened."

Says a man wildly partial to AronRa, who probably watched every video he devoted to this topic (I am still behind on one) and who neglected even looking at my refutations of AronRa.

"Even IF “somewhat different conditions” were necessary, rest assured that the young Earth had a plethora of different conditions to offer, so there would not have been a shortage of the appropriate material to start early life."

Sufficiently close to each other and non-destructive of the results of each other? I don't think so. And if your documentation is "otherwise we wouldn't be here" that is a bit provocative like my observation on the Ark's floating capability.

"Again a set of false assertions."

Not really. For chirality you don't even try.

"Order and information arise automatically, after complex molecules are formed and interact:"

Your quote adresses a kind of architectonic order, of membranes and of its layers, but presupposing phospholipids already there, and even so definitely not including information for DNA.

Also, your quote involves a claim on phospholipids.

"In 1977, chemist David Deamer mixed glycerol, phosphate, and several different fatty acids in a test tube."

Glycerol is not a product of Miller Urey, neither are fatty acids.

Wolfgang Potratz
Sat
“Parallel to diverse Flood myths documenting Flood.”

Rubbish! A myth is not evidence and your flood tales stem from different times and are invariably about local floods, even if people BELIEVED it was more than that, because they had no idea of how big Earth is.

Besides, several highly developed cultures 4,000 odd years ago did not at all notice a flood and went about their business as usual.

“Parallel to Permian, Jurassic etc. palaeontology for Flood.”

Again, there is no evidence that a GLOBAL flood ever happened. ALL evidence for floods points to different times and MOST of it centuries, millennia and even millions of years before historic times.

YOUR flood definitely DID NOT happen.

“my refutations of AronRa.”

YOUR “refutations”? When I read this, I could hardly stop laughing.

“For chirality you don't even try.”

Firstly, it’s no valid point and secondly, you don’tr even understand, what the term entails.

“but presupposing phospholipids already there”

So what? It is all mentioned in the link I gave you. If you want more information, get yourself a textbook:

“Beginning with Stanley Miller’s famous experiment in 1952, origins of life researchers have shown that all major classes of life’s chemical building blocks can form spontaneously under conditions found on the young Earth.“

“and even so definitely not including information for DNA.”

“Information is produced AUTOMATICALLY, when more than one nucleotide becomes part of a chain. Even two nucleotides put together, form one of several different pieces of information: AA, CC, GG, TT, AC, AG, AT, a. s. o. Are you too blind to see this?

“Glycerol is not a product of Miller Urey, neither are fatty acids.”

Who cares? After the Miller-Urey experiment became public, it was repeated over and over again and still is under various conditions. Read the quote above: all major classes of life’s chemical building blocks …

Findf more information here:

Exploring Life's Origins: Fatty Acids

Are you deliberately playing stupid again or are you really this daft? I’m almost convinced of the latter.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Original Author
Sun
"Rubbish! A myth is not evidence"

Something you have always in our previous discussions presumed and never argued.

"and your flood tales stem from different times"

Meaning Flood is set in different times? Yes, so? Chronology is the first victim of inaccuracies of transmission. Ermanerik and Theoderik are not contemporaries, but an account of the Rabenschlacht makes them so.

"and are invariably about local floods, even if people BELIEVED it was more than that, because they had no idea of how big Earth is."

A survivor from a local flood would come to a shore, not to a mountain slope. Even if his boat got to a mountain slope, he would sooner or later meet people from elsewhere who had not been in the Flood. One of the accounts replaces the Ark with the Andes. Good luck showing how a local Flood could have made Andine tops into islands.

"Besides, several highly developed cultures 4,000 odd years ago did not at all notice a flood and went about their business as usual."

Carbon dates showing "2957 BC" are from later and the real date 2957 BC is carbon dated much older. You did not go very well defending carbon dates calibrated with certainty from dendrochronology.

"Again, there is no evidence that a GLOBAL flood ever happened. ALL evidence for floods points to different times and MOST of it centuries, millennia and even millions of years before historic times."

How do you prove a Permian Biarmosuchian is millions of years older than a Jurassic T Rex? If you can't, you cannot rule out both are from a Flood in 2957 BC.

"YOUR flood definitely DID NOT happen."

Thank you, I already noted that is your opinion.

"YOUR “refutations”? When I read this, I could hardly stop laughing."

Laugh if you like, but it leaves the fact that I gave you more than 20 links to my refutations of him and those links you seem to not have dealt with. Some of the things you say I already took up on those.

"Firstly, it’s no valid point and secondly, you don’tr even understand, what the term entails."

I most certainly do. Not just vitamin C, but stuff much more basic than that can have threedimensional atom configurations in the molecule turned one way or the other.

And it is a valid point that Miller Urey produces mixed chirality, while life requires one chirality.

“Beginning with Stanley Miller’s famous experiment in 1952, origins of life researchers have shown that all major classes of life’s chemical building blocks can form spontaneously under conditions found on the young Earth.“

Except that these conditions are different, and except that the experiments seem to presume presence of substances not accounted for, when you look at them.

What one would need would be all produced by conditions varying within hours to days and each substance accounted for, you do not have that.

“Information is produced AUTOMATICALLY, when more than one nucleotide becomes part of a chain. Even two nucleotides put together, form one of several different pieces of information: AA, CC, GG, TT, AC, AG, AT, a. s. o. Are you too blind to see this?"

There is a difference between simple non-symmetry and functional information.

"Who cares? After the Miller-Urey experiment became public, it was repeated over and over again and still is under various conditions. Read the quote above: all major classes of life’s chemical building blocks …"

I know, thing is your former quote includes an origin of phospholipids involving fatty acids already there. And fatty acids are not accounted for by Miller Urey conditions. If they could be produced in conditions millions of years before Miller Urey conditions, that doesn't help. They would disintegrate before being useful to amino-acids produced in Miller Urey.

"Findf more information here:Exploring Life's Origins: Fatty Acids"

I did. I found this:

"Similar to phospholipids, fatty acids have a hydrophobic tail and hydrophilic head, and can thus form the same types of structures, such as bilayers, vesicles and micelles, but are structurally much simpler and may have formed more readily in a prebiotic environment."

Did you note it : your link says "may have formed" and does NOT give any reference for how an experiment shows this.

"Are you deliberately playing stupid again or are you really this daft? I’m almost convinced of the latter."

I think you may want to read things when you have less gallons of coffee or less adrenalin from workout in the blood. You seem to neither read what I argue, nor what the links you provide actually show, you only read the subjects in each case hoping (even if it has several times over not been the case) that your provided link would annul my provided argument.

Wolfgang Potratz
Sun
“You seem to neither read what I argue”

ARGUE? Where? ALL you ever did was making stupid assertions that do not hold water.

The very fact that you still insist on a world wide flood, quite contrary to masses of evidence against it and not the slightest piece of evidence in favour of it, PROVES beyond any doubt that you are just a moronic cretinist with no knowledge of the real world.

Apart from that your twisting around and misreading of quotes also PROVES your dishonesty which also is an unmistakable sign of a cretinist.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Original Author
Sun
"ARGUE? Where? ALL you ever did was making stupid assertions that do not hold water."

Easier to say than to uphold any of the by now tens of lines of argument you already gave me the last word in.

"The very fact that you still insist on a world wide flood, quite contrary to masses of evidence against it and not the slightest piece of evidence in favour of it, PROVES beyond any doubt that you are just a moronic cretinist with no knowledge of the real world."

In other words, it's easier to make assertions about me than about the subjects, when I am around, to you at any rate.

"Apart from that your twisting around and misreading of quotes"

Any given quote so far, I had the last word on who was misreading or even possibly twisting.

"also PROVES your dishonesty which also is an unmistakable sign of a cretinist."

How come I see more of a likeness to a writer in the Stürmer describing Jews than to Maximilian Kolbe or someone arguing with their Christ-denial?

I will not put it down to your being German, but it could be you are an Ossi and it could be you are ex-Stasi ... at least that is how Stasi were influential in twisting Swedish coverage of school subjects via contacts with our schools.

Appendices

Appendix on Cudworth
His qualification stated on quora was "writer".

I took this as meaning sth like full time writer, which was perhaps not the case.

On the one hand, on Amazon, I find one book:

1 result for Books : Mr. Christopher Lynn Cudworth
https://www.amazon.com/s?i=stripbooks&rh=p_27%3AMr.+Christopher+Lynn+Cudworth&s=relevancerank&text=Mr.+Christopher+Lynn+Cudworth&ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1


On the other hand, on a preview for his FB page, I find this:

Christopher Cudworth. 212 likes. Christopher Cudworth is a painter and writer who has sold more than 1000 original works and published more than 2000...

More than 2000 what? Books? Probably not. More probably articles.

More background:

Artist Christopher Cudworth displays solo art exhibit at Luther College
September 16, 2019
https://www.luther.edu/headlines/?story_id=880034


From now through Oct. 6, artist Christopher Cudworth ‘79 will be displaying a 40-piece solo exhibit in the Center for Faith and Life on the Luther College campus.

Is he 79 years old?

Anyway, I looked up Luther College Campus' self description. They are Lutherans and fairly modernist ones. The kind with whom Antipope Bergoglio continues the ecumenism after Antipopes Wojtyla and Ratzinger.

I must admit there was one set of his questions which I did not answer, since he did not pick them apart to separate subthreads as I had asked.

Here, Cudworth:
By young-earth creationist you mean denying the massive evidence for plate tectonics that accounts for both the horizontal movement of the continents and the vertical column of stratified layers of sedimentary, metamorphic and igneous rock forms around the world, that fit together in near perfect connection and strata? That young-earth creationist? In favor of what, the creationist theory that says a single flood tore apart the continents and “floated” them into position. And in that case, how then did blind cave salamanders migrate from the ark across a salty ocean thousands of miles wide to come to live in the depths of the North American continent. There are no explanations for the worldwide flood that do not require fantastical claims and made up lies to defend the literal interpretation of the Bible. So postulations on the life and times of dinosaurs are worse than that. Lies on top of lies. The idea that the earth is just a few thousand years old is a desperate fable to defend bad theology, defending God on human terms.

And
I must also admit I missed answering one of his bad replies. Extracts from above plus two following:

Cudworth
... The idea that the earth is just a few thousand years old is a desperate fable to defend bad theology, defending God on human terms.

HGL (me)
... The idea God has not defended His word from error is certainly worse theology than anything I am culpable of.

Cudworth
... God is not in error. You are.

So, I'll answer
that I had not considered Cudworth's words made "God in error" I had only considered it as making God negligent in defending His word (little w, not Second Person, but Bible + Tradition) from error as to what a fairly normal and not highly "initiated" and "deep" reading of it would make it look as expressing.

Back to
his qualifications : he also wrote two books on Christian theology, according to one of his answer qualifications on quora.

Appendix on Potratz
I spoke as having met him earlier, see these posts:

Mit Potratz über Exodus und Metaphysik · Mit Potratz über Flut und Mythus · Mit Potratz über Genesis und Rassismus

If you read German, that is.

I reminded him of my refutations of AronRa, see these links, with comments in both German and English:

Citing Potratz
Original
"Das würde mich mal interessieren, wie ausgerechnet DU AronRa wiederlergt haben willst."
English
"I'd be fairly interested in how someone like YOU think you have refuted AronRa."

Responding
Original
Translation

Toll!
Fantastic!

Ich habe einen Leser!
I have a reader!

26 Posts hier:
26 posts here:

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : Showing posts with label AronRa.
https://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/search/label/AronRa


Einen hier:
One here:

Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : Dating History (with Some Help from AronRa)
https://filolohika.blogspot.com/2014/07/dating-history-with-some-help-from.html


20 hier:
20 here:

Creation vs. Evolution : Showing articles by relevance for the search AronRa.
https://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/search?q=AronRa

Tuesday, January 21, 2020

Babel, Language and Archaeology Related on Quora


Q I
How can I show that the story of the Babel Tower is just a myth? How do different languages really evolve?
https://www.quora.com/How-can-I-show-that-the-story-of-the-Babel-Tower-is-just-a-myth-How-do-different-languages-really-evolve/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1


Answer requested by
Edvaldo Almeida

Hans-Georg Lundahl
amateur linguist
Answered 21h ago
I'll break up your question into two:

"How can I show that the story of the Babel Tower is just a myth?" "

By JUST a myth, I suppose you mean untrue? You can't. Because, the following is too unrelated to decide the one you just asked about, your goal.

"How do different languages really evolve?"

First of all, languages as observed now do evolve differences over time.

Second, this need not lead to a language split. French dialects are converging, not splitting away from each other. In order for two dialects to really diverge, they need not only to change, but to do so without much contact for each other.

Third, not only could an original language have remained fairly unified despite such developments, but it is also to this day impossible to outline a proto-human language and the steps by which this could have led to all the known language groups, or rather to each of these.

For Latin to Romance : possible, since Latin is known, and known to have happened.

For Proto-Indo-European to its nine branches : possible but less than for each branch or for Romance which is a subbranch of a branch, and it is not known to have happened.

For Proto-Human to branches like Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Afro-Asiatic, Proto-Austronesian, Proto-Sino-Tibetan and so on : not even possible to reconstruct and the process is also not known to have happened. There are evolutionists who think man acquired speech independently in different places (after already acquiring toolmaking and lots more in Africa).

I don't believe there ever were men who "had not yet developed speech" but I agree with that scenario that English and Chinese don't descend from a common proto-language like English and Dutch do.

So, I believe the "myth" if that is what you called it, and also I believe the Bible where it is told as history as being God's word.

Q II
Is Akkadian still spoken?
https://www.quora.com/Is-Akkadian-still-spoken/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1


Hans-Georg Lundahl
amateur linguist
Answered 21h ago
No, it died out 1st C AD or sth (Sumerian 1st C BC, I think).

By then, both had for a millennium been spoken by learned men, not by the people.

Q III
Did the Latin speakers of the Late Republic already use most of the typical prepositions found in Romance languages as an alternative to the synthetic forms using noun cases? Or was it still extremely rare?
https://www.quora.com/Did-the-Latin-speakers-of-the-Late-Republic-already-use-most-of-the-typical-prepositions-found-in-Romance-languages-as-an-alternative-to-the-synthetic-forms-using-noun-cases-Or-was-it-still-extremely-rare/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1


Answer requested by
Ygor Coelho

Hans-Georg Lundahl
none/ apprx Masters Latin & Greek, Lund University
Answered 22h ago
I think you might want to get to 300 AD before you get confusion of case forms, perhaps even later 500.

Cicero in the very late Republic would have said "Romam" when meaning "to Rome" or possibly he would have preferred "urbem". A generation earlier comedy writers like Terence and Plautus say "Romae, Romam, Roma" and not "in Roma, ad Romam, de Roma".

Q IV
Why did humans develop different languages?
https://www.quora.com/Why-did-humans-develop-different-languages/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1


Hans-Georg Lundahl
amateur linguist
Answered Fri
I was asked Why did humans end up with different languages?

This is different from “how do languages diversify now” which is another question. I here answer the question of original cause:

Creation vs. Evolution : How is Babel across non-Hebrew cultures?
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2020/01/how-is-babel-across-non-hebrew-cultures.html


Q V
What is the difference between the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, and Neolithic sites of history?
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-the-Paleolithic-Mesolithic-and-Neolithic-sites-of-history/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1


Hans-Georg Lundahl
none/ apprx Masters Latin & Greek, Lund University
Answered Jan 15
Type of Stone Tools and Life.

Palaeolithic = rougher stone tools of flint with many indentures, and a lifestyle with traces of hunting and gathering.

Mesolithic - not sure, but I think it’s like tools of neolithic with life style of palaeolithic.

Neolithic = polished stone tools (not sure if it can be done with flint) and agriculture.

Last part of Palaeolithic, from carbon dated 40 000 BP to end, when no more Neanderthals are left (except perhaps Gorham cave) has carbon dates earlier than Mesolithic and Neolithic. While these carbon dates cannot be reconciled with Biblical chronology if taken as normally presented, I use a reduced calibration, in which I use the last part of Neolithic for the remaining lifespan of Noah after the Flood, and the Neolithic starting with Babel = Göbekli Tepe. Mesolithic probably the very last years of Noah.

Obviously, this is somewhat depending on where, I am here talking of where Neolithic emerged, in other parts, Palaeolithic lasted longer.

Saturday, January 11, 2020

Not Sure if Someone Prayed for me to See This Video


Not Sure if Someone Prayed for me to See This Video · What's Accursed Licence of Living? Not Young Marriages!

On Anti-Christian Writing: Clement XIII (1766)
Return To Tradition | 11.I.2020
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZGikMi0JsE


Here are my comments, in which I come back the question, eventually.

I
I am not at all sure whether he will come to the need of apologetics, but by now apologetics are more of a way of saving souls than censorship could hope to be.

Hence, you might be not too surprised if I have often an apologetic slant on other subjects, and if I have dedicated three of my blogs nearly exclusively to apologetics against three errors:

Creation vs. Evolution : Apologetics Section
https://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/p/apologetics-section.html


Soul:

somewhere else : Answering Barbara Smoker, Part II
https://notontimsblogroundhere.blogspot.com/2016/03/answering-barbara-smoker-part-ii.html


Eternity of matter would have been among the errors condemned in the syllabus of Stephen Tempier of Paris:

EN LENGUA ROMANCE EN ANTIMODERNISM Y DE MIS CAMINACIONES : Index in stephani tempier condempnationes
http://enfrancaissurantimodernism.blogspot.com/2012/01/index-in-stephani-tempier.html


II
3:09 I hope "hidden mysteries of faith" does not too much include what was the difference between Our Lady's somewhat diffidence to the angel's words and Her complete confidence and joy at St. Elisabeth Hakohen's.

EN LENGUA ROMANCE EN ANTIMODERNISM Y DE MIS CAMINACIONES : A Joyful Realisation Behind the Words of the Magnificat
https://enfrancaissurantimodernism.blogspot.com/2019/12/a-joyful-realisation-behind-words-of.html


It will most certainly NOT include things like how Biblical chronology square with carbon dates that are longer since for that end, one needs to know:

  • Biblical chronology
  • objects tied to specific years in it and carbon dated
  • know by halflife exactly what number of excess years an initial "deficit" from 100 percent modern Carbon 14 will cause in the interpretation.


This subject being one on which I have often dwelled on my Creationist blog against the errors of Evolution, gradual hominification, and Old Earth.

3:32 When faith in the Bible and faith in the discourse of scientists are in conflict over some matter, one needs to examine with human reason where exactly the human reason of the scientists went wrong and therefore against the Biblical inerrance which is one of the matters of faith.

If this were not so, this Pope would have had to condemn Dom Augustin Calmet for giving the explanation of a discrepancy apparent between Kings and Paralipomenon in Hittite chariots having ten chariot-fighters each.

If "accursed licence of living" includes promoting young marriages he would have to condemn himself, since he upheld the liberty for men to marry from 14 and women to do so from 12 both in canon law and in the civil authority over the papal states which did not know the 18 / 18 limit before the invasion of a régime from Savoy.

So, on this matter, where feminists and Puritans would call me "pedophile", the words of this pope is also an acquittal. Against any and all possible accusations on this account.

III
4:36 This is where God has shown the modernists that infiltration by Wojtyla, Ratzinger and Bergoglio was to no avail - we have Pope Michael.

IV
5:17 "elements of wickedness"

Note, His Holiness Clement XIII was not speaking of men, since "elementa" is at its most elementary meaning (ha ha) "letters of the alphabet". In other words, he was recommending book burning, not burning of heretics, which would have in most places been difficult to arrange in 1766 and which would also have been outside the desire of the Church except in situations where a heresy can be so eradicated - which was more the case with Albigensians in 13th C. when British Isles and Scandinavia were Catholic, than with multiform modernism in the 18th, with British Isles, Scandinavia, American parts, open to heretics by Anticatholic zeal of their rulers.

V
7:21 "elements that can shock the reader"

Might depend on what exact reader.

"which are contrary to faith, religion and good morals"

My blogs aren't.

"and which lack an atmosphere of Christian virtue"

With Puritans around, this is a criterium which can easily be perverted in application.

VI
Thank you for a word from undisputed papal authority, which some would perhaps have prayed I heard as a warning against continuing to write, but which I take as at least mainly ("and which lack an atmosphere of Christian virtue"?) an endorsement and exoneration.

And thank you for reading more vividly than last occasion I commented on it.

VII
Now, Clement XIII was recommending open condemnation and burning of books which were bad.

In any such case, the author would certainly be notified.

He was most certainly not recommending secretive gate-keeping as in the Jewish synagogue and then being secretive about it even to the writer.

A bishop burned a book because it contained pornography? Fine, the author would know allowing the heroine to bathe naked before the reader's eyes as well as those of the hero was a no no. If he had defended Heliocentrism absolutely prior to 1820, he would have been told Heliocentrism can be a mathematical model that simplifies the calculations (as is also the case for not taking the diurnal turning of what turns, namely the universe, into account), but it cannot be defended as how reality is.

But a cabale from SSPX recommends hush hush about one writer's blogs, well, there is not much that writer can do to defend himself, since he is not told what real or pretended error the cabale is condemning.

Sunday, January 5, 2020

For and Against Greg Koukl


Here is David Wood rooting for him:

The ONE Apologetics Book Every Christian Needs to Read in 2020
Acts17Apologetics | 1.I.2020
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnp4rmk3ax8


I respond to this video on two levels - about the book, and about Greg Koukl's presumable Old Earth stand. For and against.

A. For his tactics, possibly:

I
0:54 "in a corner" and "woefully unprepared" was a few decades ago. I'm 51, if you flip the integers, happened once in a while back then.

Fair warning : my apologetics is part of what brought me to Catholicism and any dealing with my apologetics other than with the extreme caution of an atheopath (or likeminded) might get you to Catholic.

II
8:55 I get the gist ... I think if I went through the book, I would find several times over I was reminded of this or that essay or even book chapter in CSL or GKC ... and probably I might learn one or two they didn't use, and be reminded of one or two they used but I so far neglected.

Which means, the level is a totally different one than the one I expected and which prompted my initial comment.

III
And I could add, I don't mean I always have the answer, but when I haven't, on internet it is no problem to say "wait, I will look it up before tomorrow" or even to admit "I did not actually find the reference I expected". In a conversation with a stranger, orally conducted, you can't.


B. Against his defense of Old Earth:

I
Let's practise Koukl's tactics against himself. I'm taking this video, and since it has turned off comments, I am commenting here on it:

On an Old Earth View, How Do You Reconcile Animal Death Before the Fall with Genesis 1?
28.VII.2014 | STRvideos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOCKF7HIbTg


0:39 Koukl : "people in ancient times communicated differently than we communicate today"

What exactly does he mean by "differently"? And how does he know?

II
0:47 Moses wrote Genesis 3500 years ago, fine, but why would that change how people communicate?

Note, I am not speaking about language, grammar, English didn't exist back then, his Hebrew isn't by itself a living language now, when he says "water" I wonder "does he mean H2O or H2, water or hydrogen?" and a few more.

But this isn't about "how we communicate" in a larger "tactic" sense, this is about our means of communication in translatable grammar and terminology.

So far Koukl gives no reason why "how we communicate" in the larger sense would have changed drastically just because 35 centuries went by, but I am posting this comment and allowing him to go on ...

III
0:56 Koukl : "there were different methods or sensibilities about recording events"

On some very banale issues, I'll have to agree.

What Moses does between chapters 1 and 2 (after verse 4) would to a modern sensibility take "let's go back to the beginning of day six, when God had created animals, but not yet man, and look in a bit more detail". Such transitional sentences could be left out, but then obviously, they can be figured out.

And if he's going for "no scientific exactitude" - granted. But that's not bc then vs now, it's bc of history vs science. For Ghettysburg, I couldn't care less about exact scientific numbers about how much lead was fired in bullets, I just want to know more men died than usual, it was a longer and deadlier battle, and who won. And this can be got very much without another method than we use now, because we do not always communicate in the science way now. If Moses were trying to teach a lesson on how to produce glass, he would have been sufficiently scientific for his readers to be able to reproduce Egyptian glass production.

IV
1:07 Koukl : "things don't seem to be in the same chronological order"

With routing of merchants in the temple, St. John and the Synoptics are arguably talking of two different occasions, near beginning and near end of Christ's public life.

After the first one, Pharisees and Priests would have said "let's give him a chance to back this gesture up, but let's be critical" (which they were to a fault). After the second one they would have said "oh, he relapsed? and he rode in on a donkey, as Davidic King?" and they were already against Him.

V
1:30 Koukl : "people were free to shift things around to make a point"

If he means shifting the telling in comparison to the events as presented, agreed. But if he means shift about order of events presented rather than just of presentation, not agreed. Caesar would never have told of his invasion attempt to Britain before telling of how he got involved across the border of Gallia Transalpina with Oregetorix and Ambiorix trying to conquer and him - at first - simply defending allies (Aedui, I seem to recall) against their agression, and then repeat with the German attempt by Ariovistus. And he wrote one century before the Gospels were written, nearly. 80 years, around.

VI
1:54 Koukl : "some people have tried to match up [etc] with something which, if they had been there at the time, they would have seen happening"

Beg your pardon, is this supposed to be faulty?

Koukl is basically shifting from saying people were less of sticklers for chronological order than now (even if some still are, due to telling manystranded stories : in Tolkien's magnum opus, books IV and VI tells us what happened to Sam and Frodo and mostly also Gollum, at the same time that books III and V tell what happened to the rest of the Fellowship, and there are more than one strands in these too), so we are very well familiar with situations in which thematic order takes precedence over chronological.

But even in such situations, what happens is not that words don't match up with observations for a timetraveller, it only means the timetraveller's words would be arranged on more than one axis.

And this is definitely not the same thing. Koukl's pretence of being savvy about ancient communication boils down to his ignorance of contemporary one.

VII
2:27 "what if they had a different purpose?"

What difference would the purpose of a text make to its genre, in such an automatic way?

Obviously, an author would decide on genre keeping his purpose in mind, but the genre would be identifiable independently of the author's purpose.

Second, even suppose that Genesis 1 involves no chronological history, which I do not grant, Koukl cannot argue the same for Genesis 5 and Genesis 11. Or Genesis 4. He cannot argue that Cain and Tubal Cain were reversed in order, or that inventions that arose with 2000 years of interval were both attributed to Tubal Cain without accusing Moses (or his sources) of lying.

I can argue the archaeological beginnings of bronze and iron were post-Flood rediscoveries of what some Stone Age men already knew about because Tubal Cain had invented it, and I keep Tubal Cain the inventor of both.

Genesis 5 and 11, depending on texts, put Adam between 2000 and 3300 years before Abraham. We cannot have a communication system in which it doesn't matter if the real genealogic relations would be five times longer, at the very minimum, for Adam to be ancestor to pre-Columbian Americans. And one reason is, we cannot have Genesis 3 having so little guarantee for its historicity before Moses : because in Genesis, Moses writes as a historion transmitting historic knowledge, not as a prophet, transmitting what God told him in a vision. Except possibly, even probably, the six days' account.

VIII
2:44 "you guys are reading it the way a 20th C. person is reading .."

Koukl very clearly loses me here.

He is attributing to a shady figment of his imagination or of a collective imagination, "ancient man" the kind of intellectual irresponsability claimed to have been reported among modern savages. His "ancient man" is worth about as much as the "stone age man" who clubbed his "wife" on the head while wooing her, because back in the stone age they didn't have too many expressions for saying things like "I love you, will you marry me".

But we have found exactly zero traces of stone age men guaranteed to have clubbed their wives on the head, and zero traces proving they were not ceremonially married exactly like now, and Koukl has produced zero texts from 2000 or 3500 years ago, except the ones where his interpretation is disputed, where such a lack of consideration for actual events and actual order of events can be proven, to the satisfaction of a Young Earth Creationist like Ken Ham. He hasn't proven any such thing for Homer, even if Homer is 700 years later than Moses. He hasn't proven any such thing for the Ipuwer papyrus.

IX
3:45 Yeah, at least some early Church Fathers took St. Paul's "through one man's sin" to mean exactly that.

We have another problem than animals though.

There is a Cro-Magnon woman carbon dated to 42 000 BP. We have her skeleton, so she died. The carbon date may or may not be identic to the real date of her death, but it is at least related. So, if carbon dates duly reflect real dates, not just their chronology, but the approximate time for each event (event of death and in the case of that woman, of human death), we would either need to assume Adam was 42 000 years before us, which makes historic records from Genesis 3 very moot, or that she died as pre-Adamite, despite sharing to all purposes except very minute detail the human anatomy we deal with today.

X
He also claimed to be cashing in on neither side, but the fact he is even resorting to this tactic and responding more to YEC shows somewhat otherwise.

XI
4:13 He claims to see no place either in Genesis 1 excluding animal death before the fall and no place in St. Paul either.

And God said: Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed upon the earth, and all trees that have in themselves seed of their own kind, to be your meat: And to all beasts of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to all that move upon the earth, and wherein there is life, that they may have to feed upon. And it was so done.

All beasts created to eat vegetable food seems to exclude at least one type of animal death from before the fall : carnivourism.

Obviously a T Rex biting a chunk of another dinosaur (forget which one) is not clearly reconcileable with this. But Koukl doesn't care for going into detail.

But supposing one can have animal death and even carnivourism, we still have the anatomically modern human skeleta carbon dated to 42 000 BP.

XII
And even the Church fathers who accept carnivorousness before the fall would certainly not have accepted it would be as wasteful as some things we see in the palaeontological record, like a T. Rex with ribs missing fitting the size of a chunk taken out with another T. Rex' mouth.

But in fact, the palaeontological record very well fits a flood model which takes into account ...

Thou by thy strength didst make the sea firm: thou didst crush the heads of the dragons in the waters.
[Psalms 73:13]

Sure, the traditional view of what it refers to is march through Red Sea and Egyptians drowning in it, but King David can have had a vision of what happened in the Flood as a parallel to what happened to Egyptians.

AND lots of dinos are in fact found either head without torso or legs or torso and legs with no head - or lots less than either.

XIII
Also, in Romans 8 Paul is talking about even non-human creation:

[19] For the expectation of the creature waiteth for the revelation of the sons of God. [20] For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him that made it subject, in hope: [21] Because the creature also itself shall be delivered from the servitude of corruption, into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. [22] For we know that every creature groaneth and travaileth in pain, even till now.

Here Bishop Challoner confirms that St. Paul is not talking of human creatures only:

[19] "The expectation of the creature": He speaks of the corporeal creation, made for the use and service of man; and, by occasion of his sin, made subject to vanity, that is, to a perpetual instability, tending to corruption and other defects; so that by a figure of speech it is here said to groan and be in labour, and to long for its deliverance, which is then to come, when sin shall reign no more; and God shall raise the bodies and unite them to their souls never more to separate, and to be in everlasting happiness in heaven.

This means, either animal death as such, or at least the more gruesome modes of it would be due to Adam's sin.

XIV
5:21 Koukl : "well justified examination of the natural world"

Does not seem to indicate any animal died within the hours between when they were created and when Adam was created, no.

Koukl is dismissing without even examining the evidence or the cases - other than the one he favours - the idea that the palaeontological evidence is evidence of the Flood of Noah.

XV
5:42 Koukl comes off as Antisemite : "Hebrew genealogies are wildly incomplete"

No, not really.

If the main reading of LXX and the main reading of Luke 3 is correct, the Masoretic reading of Genesis 11 is incomplete by exactly one man : second Cainan. There seems to be some Jewish traditions (not Josephus) which favour the view that he was an evil man, and that would mean that he was left out deliberately of a genealogy with ritual value, similar as to the 3 generations around Jezebel's daughter Athaliah are left out from the genealogy of Matthew.

XVI
5:52 "that was not their style to be complete"

Again false. Here is the Haydock commentary on Matthew 1:

Ver. 8. Joram begot Ozias, three generations are omitted, as we find 2 Paralip. xxii; for there, Joram begot Ochozias, and Ochozias begot Joas, and Joas begot Amazias, and Amazias begot Ozias. This omission is not material, the design of S. Matthew being only to shew the Jews that Jesus, their Messias, was of the family of David; and he is equally the son, or the descendent of David, though the said three generations be left out: for Ozias may be called the son of Joram, though Joram was his great-grandfather. Wi. — It is thought that S. Matt. omitted these three kings, Ochozias, Joas, and Amazias, to preserve the distribution of his genealogy into three parts, each of fourteen generations; and, perhaps, also on account of their impiety, or rather on account of the sentence pronounced against the house of Achab, from which they were descended by their mother Athalia. 3 Kings xxi. 21. C.

Wi = bishop Witham, C = bishop Challoner.

Haydock Comment on Matthew 1
https://www.ecatholic2000.com/haydock/ntcomment3.shtml


XVII
6:29 Koukl : "not really discussed until modern times"

Actually St. Thomas would agree on that one : since any times after Christ and after He founded the Church are "modern". One is the faith of ancients and moderns = one is the faith of OT Jews and NT Christians.

However, that is not really what Koukl meant, and as to what he meant, he is wrong.

Biblical inerrancy was attacked in scholastic times and defended by St. Thomas in argument and by bishop Tempier in condemnation.

XVIII
6:39 Koukl claims "from what we can tell, what would be considered now an old earther"

Oh, very clear fact error, Koukl! St. Augustin was not a six literal days creationist, since he promoted the idea of compressing the six days into one moment, but as to Genesis 5 and 11 he very clearly does defend both long lives of individual patriarchs and comparatively short overall chronology in the face of pagan old earth scenarios (Egyptian, Babylonian).

No, St. Augustin was a Young Earth Creationist and so were the rest. The other opponent of six literal days, Origen, also was an opponent of long Egyptian chronologies. So he was a Young Earth Creationist too.

XIX
7:10 He is somewhat falsely paraphrasing St. Vincent.

In necessariis unitas, in non necessariis libertas, in omnibus caritas.

So, essentials or non-essentials, charity applies to both. But what Koukl considers charity is the liberty applying to non-essentials.

It is in fact (I'll believe St. Vincent of Lérins over Koukl) charitable to clamour for unity in essentials.

And if genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11 are not essentials in and of themselves, they become essential by what their credibility does to the credibility of Genesis 3.

As I mentioned against certain Catholics (we are very fond of Genesis 3 when it comes to defending the privileges of the Blessed Virgin Mary), if the real genealogies are at least five times longer (in time) than the recorded ones, this damages the realistic claim for facts from before them to have been correctly transmitted doubly : by adding very much time in which errors could have crept in but also by showing error as having crept in.

So, by extension to Genesis 3 being reliably transmitted history, Genesis 5 and 11 do become essentials.

XX
7:18 Genesis 3 and therefore Romans 5 depend on the correct historic transmission of Genesis 3 which in two ways depends on the overall correct transmission of Genesis 5 and 11.

XXI
PLUS he misunderstands what the genetic analyses of Neanderthals show.

On an Old Earth View, How Are Neanderthals Accounted For?
26.IX.2014 | STRvideos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1speKp9NuM


They do show a mainly human genome, they show some genes are not found anywhere among modern humans (Y-chromosomes and mitochondria) and these mean the analysed Neanderthals are no man's father's father's father twenty - forty - sixty generations back purely patrilinear and no man's mother's mother's mother and so on either. But they also show they had genes in common with some and not other human populations today.

Meaning, while we do not have them as genetic ancestors all of us, we arguably do have them as actual ancestors.

The speech gene clearly shows they could learn language. Some anatomic evidence suggests they might have had speech handicaps, communicating with men having exactly our thoraces or our skull floors, but this would only mean they spoke another dialect (of presumably Hebrew) where these handicaps are compensated for.

When they had art and buried their dead, it is immensely patronising of him to pretend that they could have not been made in the image of God.

This also makes the Old Earth View heretical on an essential.

XXII
Cro-Magnon are not a dead race. He gets that wrong too.

We are all Cro-Magnon.

Black, White, Yellow, these are subgroups of Cro-Magnon.

Post-Flood man is essentially Cro-Magnon with admixture of the pre-Flood races Neanderthal and Denisovan.

XXIII
Overall, his view of genealogies (apparently - since he is defending it) makes Biblical historic inerrance a pure mystery of faith instead of a clear-cut credible thing and the idea Neanderthals could have art and make burials without being images of God makes the idea of a human soul different from brute souls also a pure mystery of faith.

While the faith has its mysteries, these two are not meant to be so.

Friday, January 3, 2020

Real Bad Calumnies - Anti-Catholic Ones


Q
Is it true that the Catholic Church preached that non-White people are subhumans without souls until the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s?
https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-the-Catholic-Church-preached-that-non-White-people-are-subhumans-without-souls-until-the-Second-Vatican-Council-in-the-1960s/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1


Hans-Georg Lundahl
none/ apprx Masters Latin & Greek, Lund University
Answered Dec 28
Answering: "Is it true that the Catholic Church preached that non-White people are subhumans without souls until the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s?"

No, it seems that some Anti-Catholic is collecting calumnies against Catholicism and even including the least realistic ones.

It is true that Catholics preached that Albigensians (who were usually white Europeans) had subhuman behaviour through the choices of heresy and sins allowed by that heresy. It is true that Catholics preached that some Pagans of non-White type had also fallen through choices of their own, and even some ideas it could be indirectly due to the curse on Canaan.

But, it is not true that Catholics preached that non-Whites were soulless or had bodies preventing them from reversing bad choices and making good ones instead. If anyone did that, it was rather Progressive Protestants.

Catholics vs Protestants - the Orthodox won't Defend the Latter


Q
Why do Catholics always attack Protestants? Don't they realize that they have the Orthodox to deal with too?
https://www.quora.com/Why-do-Catholics-always-attack-Protestants-Dont-they-realize-that-they-have-the-Orthodox-to-deal-with-too/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1


Answer requested by
Matthew Johnson

Hans-Georg Lundahl
none/ apprx Masters Latin & Greek, Lund University
Answered Thu
It so happens, more than half of what we have to say about Protestantism, the Orthodox would also say about Protestantism.

With the Orthodox, the number of discrepancies is more limited, it’s more like a competition on which of Rome and Constantinople, Alexandria or Etchmiadzin or Ecbatana is the real Catholic Church.

With these we agree that:

  • Christ founded a Church with a Magisterium (not with private judgement on part of each faithful of what the Scriptures mean);
  • it is remaining to Doomsday;
  • it can be identified at all times (one in five is not “needle in a haystack”);
  • it has a real sacrifice in the Mass, it can be offered for the living and for the dead;
  • it has seven sacraments;
  • we can honour images, saints, angels (the first part also means we can and should honour church buildings);
  • we must honour the Blessed Virgin more than other saints and more than angels;
  • She is body and soul in Heaven;
  • sacraments are tied to clergy (except baptism, we Catholics would say, and matrimony) with apostolic succession, which is divided into bishops, priests, deacons - of these the bishops have a special responsibility as magisterium, if they are in communion with the Church;
  • and while monks and nuns are not as such clergy, they are also to be honoured and it can well happen monks are a privileged source for bishops;
  • not to forget, we believe the state can have or lack a privileged relation to the true Church.


Only a few of these points (like the last one) is shared by some few Protestant denominations like Anglicans and Lutherans.