LXX vs CMI and Some Straight Inquiries where I Just Don't Know

The Age of the Earth According to the Bible
15th Oct. 2020 | Creation Ministries International
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrAWiEpgrfU

I

10:27 If 480 years is precise, what do we do with chronological statements in judges? Do they overlap?

The reason I ask is, Roman martyrology for dec 25 has Christ born 1510 after Exodus, 1032 after anointing of King David, which anointing was 50 / 51 years before the temple. However with 480 years as exact (not just "on the day" but also with no gaps), it would make more sense to have King David anointed 1081 BC if the Exodus was in 1510. Since that puts the temple in 1030 BC. On the other hand, after making a revision of that chronology, I tried to see if Judges + Samuel + Saul + David + 40 years in the desert + reign of Joshua add up to 480. If we take all statements in judges as serially linked, none in parallel, this seems to add up to more than 480 years. And in that case "480 years" could be, yes, on the day, but after ritual discounting of certain gaps ...

II

11:56 What is Ussher's pharao for the one drowning in the Red Sea?

III

13:09 No, to the image, Masoretic is not the original. It is the c. 1000 AD Jewish version of the original.

The LXX and the Vulgate were translated earlier from it.

If we suppose the original text was identic to some version of the LXX, the change in main Hebrew text would have been in the lifetime of Josephus. He added up Shem to Abraham in numbers of LXX and then gave total of Masoretic. He obviously had accepted the decision in favour of now Masoretic timeline, but before that he had learned LXX-identic or near-identic one as a child.

Hence, the Vulgate has the same timeline (but not all other readings in common) with the Masoretic text.

The Samaritan text has a shorter timeline in Genesis 5, but a LXX-identic or near-identic one for Genesis 11. It's LXX without II Cainan - like Roman martyrology stating Christ born 2957 after Flood, 2015 after birth of Abraham, totalling a difference of 942 years (standard version of LXX would make a difference of 1070 by adding 128 years for II Cainan).

13:35 What if Jewry, in response to Hebrews, in their claim "Melchisedec = Shem," revised, intentionally, the text? Or made a choice between concurrent text versions? And, of course, in the life of Josephus, as I stated.

Sungenis is Right About Geocentrism, But Not Everything Else

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Sungenis is Right About Geocentrism, But Not Everything Else · Creation vs. Evolution: Distant Starlight Problem Revisited

Robert Sungenis Rebuts Dan Olson's: "That Time Geocentrists Tricked a Bunch of Physicists."
17th Oct. 2021 | Robert Sungenis Channel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrzG6g3ed1c

I

6:54 It may be noted - I was promoting Geocentrism before the said works of Krauss and Barber, from 2001, on my then MSN Group Antimodernism. All MSN Groups went down February 2009.

Robert Sungenis Channel

There were a lot more people promoting it before you, and none of them were relying on angels to move stars and planets; not even St. Hildegard.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Robert Sungenis Channel What was her astrophysics? I bet it was not "gravitation + inertia = determines all movements" or similar.

What was her contribution to directly confronting the Distant Starlight problem proposed by Heliocentric / Acentric Evolutionists?

My point is, you have done good things in this subject, but as you mentioned some people before either of us, that means before you too.

And Riccioli was perhaps a Heliocentric, since you pretend the defenders of Geocentrism, none of them, relied on angels to move stars and planets?

Have you even learned Latin sufficiently to read an untranslated text by Riccioli or St. Thomas and at least get the gist of it?

Raghavar Voltore

Do you have any materials of yours that I can ready, like videos or blog post? And also why did your MSN groups went down?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Raghavar Voltore All MSN Groups went down in February 2009. We got notice back in October or November 2008, and I saved some, not all.

I do have blogs, link will be given next comment, otherwise seek the full list on "New blog on the kid" and in October 2021 "Ce que je fais dans la vie? J'écris"

[next comment]

New blog on the kid : Ce que je fais dans la vie? J'écris
https://nov9blogg9.blogspot.com/2021/10/ce-que-je-fais-dans-la-vie-jecris.html

II

30:14 "because the geocentric model shows stellar parallax, just as does the heliocentric model"

Disagreed. It certainly needs to show the phenomenon labelled as parallax, but it does not have to be in fact parallactic. Angelic movers could as easily perform "aberration X parallax X proper motion" of a fix star as all of it actual proper motion, as they can either alone perform, or direct forces of gravitation and inertia to help them perform, the movements of Tychonic orbits (typically spirograph patterns, if you abstract from the daily motion).

This is preferrable, since it does away with the distant starlight problem for young earth and young universe.

30:50 "because the whole star field, led by the Sun"

... is moving with one uniform motion, which is precisely what angelic movers would dispense the model from, and thereby from giving, by stellar parallax, even remotely an indication of how remote stars are.

We have no practical purpose, nor theoretic vested interest, in measuring distances of several light years.

While those "measured" directly by parallax are themselves too short to be important, their indirect upshot involves distances in light years beyond Biblical chronology. This is in the theoretic vested interest of the Bible's foes.

I don't say the model given by Sungenis et al. here wouldn't work. I am saying nothing forces a geocentric to have it need work, nothing really and truly proves it to a geocentric.

31:23 In response to that Physics professor from Illinois:

• Copernicus taken broadly certainly requires parallax, and Copernicus and Galileo taken as they presented it require a parallax different from the one we observe, since they agree with St. Thomas or me that fix stars are basically situated within a sheet around a globe, within an inner surface of a globe => parallax would be uniform in size;
• Tycho does not exclude the phenomenon described as parallax, but also does not require parallax to occur, and therefore does not require the phenomenon to be parallactic. With angelic movers (see St. Thomas) we have an alternative explanation of the phenomenon.

Robert Sungenis Channel

Angels do not move the stars and planets, and Thomas does not dictate how our universe works. There is no other Father or medieval that takes that position, and the church has never given any credence to it, nor has any theologian, scholar, council, pope or catechism.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Robert Sungenis Channel "Angels do not move the stars and planets,"

• 1) last time you argued this, you deduced it from "angel" meaning messenger - are you aware "stars" is also a Biblical name for these holy spirits? and that angels are nine orders, our guardian angels being the lowest one?
• 2) you have no scientific proof - astrophysics (in the broad sense) is unlike planar astronomy not observational science
• 3) it was not just the preferred option of St. Thomas Aquinas, it was not just at least one of the options of St. Augustine (whose other option was also not the kind of cause you classify as physical, but God moving them directly), it does not just have a very impressive namedropping in its favour by the Geocentric astronomer and Catholic priest Riccioli, it is also supported by Bible passages.

"and Thomas does not dictate how our universe works."

Neither do antithomists.

"There is no other Father or medieval that takes that position,"

Fathers, I don't know, the one I know being ambiguous as just stated about St. Augustine. Unless you count perhaps Minucius Felix or someone like that. But "or medieval" is ridiculous, considering the huge name drop by Riccioli. It goes on past Middle Ages to "Conimbricenses" that being Coimbra Jesuits. Riccioli gives first four alternatives and then picks this one precisely because it is the most common one. I took Latin at university, and my somewhat rusty mastery is adequate to read his Renaissance Latin. The book is scanned online.

"and the church has never given any credence to it,"

Are Job and the authors of Judges as well as Deborah outside the Church? I though "una est fides antiquorum et modernorum" but you may have missed that? What about Moses, forbidding to adore "the host of heaven" and Our Lord stating they are real legions of angels, in the context of his being able to summon twelve legions of them?

If you need a Church actual dogma - on the level of Adam instantaneously losing justice when sinning, Trent, Session V, one of the three canons of the decree on Original Sin - what the Hell are you doing towting Geocentrism which also is not on this level?

"nor has any theologian,"

Check that with the Coimbra Jesuits and obviously Riccioli himself will you?

Or, when Bishop Tempier condemned 219 theses, and these included "stars are sentient beings" and included "if an angel were not moving a specific star it would not be in any place in the universe" - why didn't he also condemn "angels move stars"? The fact is, he didn't!

"scholar,"

What was the position of Petrus Lombardus? Is he not sufficiently scholarly for you? Do you want scholars from Denzinger's generation or later? Again, what are you up to with Geocentrism? He didn't include the 1633 condemnation in Enchiridion whatever the full title was, nor did Bannwarth!

"council,"

Dito Geocentrism.

"pope"

Popes have a certain duty of staying aloof from questions that are freely disputed. And while angelic movers was more present than "God by direct fiat" or "stars are sentient" or "mechanic cause" (that one examplified by Kepler's appeal to magnetism and the one least favoured by Riccioli), some of the others are present too. Hence the question was actually disputed.

"or catechism."

Dito.

One more point. While this was generally so, the point about parallax with indirect conclusions from it pointing to light emitted 100 000 or more years ago, which is directly in denial of the Biblical chronology, was not yet an issue. You do not even bother to answer this, though this was my main concern from the day I embraced Geocentrism a few years before, after what I recall from your statements, you did so. That day being 24th of August 2001. The day before, I had been confronted with "Distant Starlight" in a debate on Creationism.

III

32:00 or just before : "If different stars were to show different amounts of parallax, that would rule out all of them being on one sphere, but still not really decide between Tycho and Copernicus." [Quote from the physics lecture at Illinois University, from 2004]

That's the point. Without "parallax" phenomenon being actual parallax, one can still have them on one sphere or between two fairly close ones. It's distance would be beyond the furthest distance measured by sunlight reflected by a planet's side, but it would not be measured by the phenomenon, unless it were in fact parallactic, rather than mislabelled as to cause.

Robert Sungenis Channel

The "point" is that parallax, as an undisputed observed phenomenon, can be shown by a geocentric model, and thus heliocentrism cannot be proved by parallax, which contradicts the common view held since Bradley in the 1700s and Bessel in the 1800s. Please don't make it more complicated than it has to be.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Robert Sungenis Channel The point is that your way of showing parallax can be showed by YOUR geocentric model which is not the only one.

While the phenomenon is undisputed the causality - and how appropriate the name "parallax" is - from here on is very definitely not so.

With "aberration" (Bradley) and "parallax" (Bessel) and "proper movement" all being an actual proper movement, for instance performed by angelic movers, we can get to a position of fix stars being:

• one light day up, all of them
• one light day up for the closest, two light days up for the furthest
• or anything between that

AND where beyond the fix stars, there is the Empyraean Heaven where Christ sits on a throne. This was common ground to Copernicus, Galileo and St. Thomas. This was common ground to St. Robert Bellarmine and to John Calvin. The latter only differed on whether Christ is also present by a miracle resembling somewhat bilocation, which He is.

By making only and uniquely accessible to your public the idea of your model of parallax, you are certainly countering Heliocentrism, but unfortunately not a certain other and more pernicious heresy, like "Heaven is not a physical place" - not to mention the Distant Starlight pseudo-problem for Biblical chronology.

By the way, the eschatological point of where we should be going, giving full local force to St. Thomas More's words (pointing at the Sun on the scaffold) "I'll be above that fellow" is perhaps after all more important than Biblical chronology, but the latter is not "optional" either.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Robert Sungenis Channel And obviously, we still have a point on the fact that you missed where the 2004 proceeding missed a possibility ...

Robert Sungenis Channel

@Hans-Georg Lundahl Of course. If you have angels moving things as if the universe were a Chinese Checker board, you can have them do anything you want. How convenient. But there is no evidence that angels move celestial objects. If you think just because Thomas says it then it must be true, well, that's not the way we do either theology or science. Thomas lived in a time in which they didn't know of either gravity or inertia or inertial forces and how they worked or where they came from. Now we do, and that says nothing against the Empyraean Heaven, since it still exists in the same place, and its called the Third Heaven. If you read my material you would see this, instead of taking a pot shot. As for why we don't have a distant starlight problem, that is not because angels carry light beams, but because the inertial forces of a rotating universe are greater the farther the radius from the earth, and our present science agrees that light can go way beyond C in such frames, just as my above video teaches. And if you think the universe has to be only one or two light days in radius, then you've given in to the myth about C being only 300K/sec, which you could only have gotten from Einstein. So why are you mixing Thomas and Einstein, and then faulting me for using science to explain celestial phenomenon?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Robert Sungenis Channel Let's break this down.

"Of course. If you have angels moving things as if the universe were a Chinese Checker board, you can have them do anything you want."

More like anything God wants, but in my own perspective, anything that will explain viewed phenomena.

"How convenient."

Yes. Explanations should be at least somewhat convenient, right?

"But there is no evidence that angels move celestial objects."

• 1) they are a great explanation for retrogrades and orbits adding up to spirograph patterns in the case of planets, and they are not a bad explanation for the complex viewed movement of stars which is analysed as "aberration X parallax X proper movement" if the analysis is wrong and it is all a proper movement;
• 2) x being evidence for y means y being a great explanation of x - in order to have a complete proof, we would need also to show other explanations are NOT great
• 3) your alternative view on parallax involves alpha Centauri, same size as sun, 4 light years away, moving not just in time but also in equal step with the Sun, not just for its daily motion, but for its annual too, and there is no evidence for that, and I don't see you providing even a weak explanation for it.

"If you think just because Thomas says it then it must be true, well, that's not the way we do either theology or science."

It's not the way I think, or do science, or do theology. But rather, if St. Thomas says it's true, it is perfectly licit, and I'd need heavy authority for rejecting it (like a papal infallible statement in 1854, not like Sungenis saying "it's now the way we ...") or otherwise an alternative that I have reasons to find attractive.

"Thomas lived in a time in which they didn't know of either gravity or inertia or inertial forces and how they worked or where they came from."

O U C H ... patronising St. Thomas like that is a bad move. He certainly did know inertia, though not "inertial movement" as it is part of his via prima, and he certainly did know Aristotle's theory of gravity.

"Now we do,"

O U C H again ... overestimating modern security of knowledge is also a bad move. From wiki an object at rest remains at rest, and an object that is moving will continue to move straight and with constant velocity, if and only if the net force acting on that object is zero - how do you propose to prove part two, the part St. Thomas "didn't know" namely continue to move straight and with constant velocity?

"and that says nothing against the Empyraean Heaven, since it still exists in the same place, and its called the Third Heaven. If you read my material you would see this, instead of taking a pot shot."

Your material has two characteristics : it's vast (so is mine, I recently counted 9242 posts on my present blogger account), and it's not for free. I also have no possibility now, nor had I in the past, to go over all of it from a zip file. When CMI refers to material ignored by the questioner or disputer, they usually link back to their older stories on the web.

"As for why we don't have a distant starlight problem, that is not because angels carry light beams,"

I never mentioned angels carrying light beams, though I'm not sure if it is false ... By what way is the light spread, and heat divided upon the earth? (God to Job, chapter 38, where, by the way, verse 7 is one of the proof texts for angelic movers, though it could equally be so for a theory Riccioli rejected, stars being animate). I mentioned the phenomenon of parallax not being parallactic (where angelic movers are one option more helpful than Newton, though not the only one). And stars therefore being fairly close.

"but because the inertial forces of a rotating universe are greater the farther the radius from the earth, and our present science agrees that light can go way beyond C in such frames, just as my above video teaches."

Our present science ... whatever that's worth.

I did not have time to watch all of the video before ending my comments at 32:00, so a time signature would be helpful.

"And if you think the universe has to be only one or two light days in radius, then you've given in to the myth about C being only 300K/sec, which you could only have gotten from Einstein."

I think it has actually been measured?

"So why are you mixing Thomas and Einstein, and then faulting me for using science to explain celestial phenomenon?"

Denying angelic movers offhand is not science. For an atheist scientist it looks like science because he's an atheist. Supposedly, you aren't.

Have you asked yourself what arguments swayed both Riccioli and probably at least some of his huge majority of authorities?

Robert Sungenis Channel

@Hans-Georg Lundahl It wasn't angels moving planets. Riccioli discovered that if he put the same elliptical orbits on the planets for Tycho's model that Kepler had put on the Copernican model, the two models had the same orbits and speeds for the planets, and therefore Kepler did not prove the heliocentric system. Notice that Riccioli used science to establish his truth. He knew elliptical orbits were correct, and then it was just a matter of applying them to the right model.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Robert Sungenis Channel Look here.

Pars posterior, tomi primi, liber nonus, De Mundi Systemate, Sectio secunda de motibus caelorum, caput I An Cali Aut Sidera Moueantur ab Intelligentijs, An verò ab intrinsecò a prpria Forma vel Natura. Pp 247 and following,

the edition
Bononiae : ex typographia haeredis Victorii Benati,
of the work, obviously,
Almagestum nouum.

I have a feeling you never read that, and that your Renaissance Latin is too slight or even non-extant to read that. I did, and my Renaissance Latin is to the level of understanding his reasoning. My D level (or fourth term) essay in Latin at University was on Desiderii Erasmi Opus de Conscribendis Epistolis. The reason for my failure in the first attempt was getting angry at Erasmus for ridiculing Byzantine court manners especially of the papacy, and my second try a few weeks later was graded "väl godkändt." I'm no longer sure if it was 90 or 91, but I am sure I did it. And also, after 93, while losing most of my Greek, I kept up Latin during crucial years with Roman Missal read at home, Vulgate NT and Psalms, Little office and personally chosen parts of Summa Theologica, editio Leonina, with footnotes from 19th C. My Latin, very definitely, is up to reading this.

The shape of the orbits had NOTHING to do with the conclusion of Riccioli. That it has with MY adherence to the conclusion, doesn't mean it had anothing to do with HIS.

His arguments are purely scholastic and theological, and he rejects Kepler's idea of magnetism as cause of orbits. Why? For the simple and to him sufficient reason that it is a non-living mechanistic cause.

The replacement of magnetism with inertia and gravitation, and the admission of Geocentrism would not have mollified his judgement on that point. Yes, true, he rejected Kepler's Heliocentrism too, but that is very far from the point of this chapter. Here the question is not in what orbits the celestial bodies move, but what makes them move.

He gives four alternatives, 1) movement by intrinsic elementar form (since he specifically mentions magnetism, gravity and inertia would fall here too), 2) movement by intrinsic form as an intellectual and perhaps even sensitive soul, 3) movement by direct Divine Fiat, 4) movement by angels, beings not the form of the stars, who move them, by the fiat of their will.

He also states that the question cannot be decided by empirical observation of the celestial bodies. He therefore wants the most probable alternative as to theological fitness. While he does not agree with St. Thomas, in a neigbouring section, that God by Divine Fiat each days moves the entire universe around (he prefers only celestial bodies moved around, and that by angels), he very much does agree with St. Thomas that each star or planet or comet or whatever else is moved by an angel. I'll try to post the link to the scan in Zurich Library next comment, but youtube sometimes collapses comments of mine including any link.

But meanwhile, you do not know what you are talking about.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

[separate comment for links]

Link to scanned book:
https://www.e-rara.ch/zut/content/pageview/194748
and to my post referencing this link:
New blog on the kid : What Opinion did Riccioli call the Fourth and Most Common One?
http://nov9blogg9.blogspot.com/2014/08/what-opinion-did-riccioli-call-fourth.html

For Some Reason I Write and Article in French and Three Days Later I Get a Non-Answer (or very, very, very general terms answer) in English

It seems, French people are shy of disputing about truth with me, they have a preference for assuming my English is better and so I need an answer in English.

Here is my French article, from 12.X:

New blog on the kid : L'œnologue à Cana
https://nov9blogg9.blogspot.com/2021/10/lnologue-cana.html

This section of a longer interview by Matt Fradd came out today, 15.X, doen't really answer it, but takes up the general question of YEC:

Were Adam & Eve REAL people? w/ Suan Sonna
15th Oct. 2021 | Pints With Aquinas
https://youtu.be/xMgN_G-IQTc

And here are a few comments on it:

2:36 "it is never explained where Cain's wife came from"

Genesis 5:4 And the days of Adam, after he begot Seth, were eight hundred years: and he begot sons and daughters.

No, these were not all of them later than Cain's wife (they were later than Cain, since he was first-born). Cain married a sister, born to Adam and Eve before Cain killed Abel, or possibly a niece.

3:22 The idea that men evolved from some kind of apes (we are, on Evolutionist terms, supposed to branch off against Chimps, after our common ancestor with them branched off from Gorillas) is untenable for the reason that language cannot evolve that way.

Let me specific, if you say "Latin evolved to French" you may be somewhat abusing the word evolved, since there was intelligent design involved (when "evolving" Romance future tense, new - Romance only - conditional tense or mood, when replacing the etymon for solem with a diminutive *soliculum so it doesn't coincide with that for solum, hence "sol" is only for "solum" and "solem" being replaced by "*soliculum" is therefore replaced intelligently by "soleil", and, thirdly, when replacing clumsy use of Latin forms with a new orthography, with rules originally roughly matching those of Alcuin's pronunciation of Latin), but while you may abuse the word "evolved" you are still stating in a rough and ready way an undeniable fact.

However, if you say "human speech evolved from ape communications" you are not stating any undeniable fact, you are even stating a complete impossibility. Chomsky, who is an atheist, when pondering what sets human language apart, used to, previously, before recently "called to order" (I think it was), earn the nickname "the Creationist linguist" because he thought a mutation gave us human speech.

Ape "speech" deals with global signals of mainly emotional or, perhaps in some cases, "irritational" or "emotion triggering" sound, and one signal = one sound. They can be taught, but don't naturally deal with, any signal composed by smaller signals, i e sentence composed by words, even then they cannot go beyond two "want/give me" + "apple" = "give me the apple." And the non-composed signal is not composed itself by any ordered sound sequence. Sentence = morpheme = phoneme.

Human speech differs on this line very clearly, since we have double articulation:

1) sentence = morpheme + morpheme (+morpheme ...)
2) morpheme = phoneme + phoneme (+phoneme ...)

No Evolutionist ever gave a satisfying explanation on how the one could have changed into the other.

Some swag pretended that when a tribe of apes came along, someone came up with the sound sequence "tiger" (arguably a stand-in for a word with same meaning in an unknown language) and could call out when tigers came and thereby save the tribe. What really happens is, apes have signals meaning "tiger / lion type danger, flee appropriate way"

It's like pretending communicating in traffic signs could evolve into literature.

Francophone8

Theistic evolution is an acceptable idea, because it means that God directed things according to His will, and it explains how life began in the first place. However, it does not explain whether or not He made everything evolve from the same single-celled organisms, or whether He created different types of life separately (plants and animals, for example). Even though the evolution of languages is sometimes compared to biological évolution, your comparison does not quite work as the artificial modification of language is not the only form of language change, and perhaps not even the primary cause of such.

"No Evolutionist ever gave a satisfying explanation on how the one could have changed into the other." While this may be true for their explanations of how language came to be, it also applies to their explanations about the beginning of life itself.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Francophone8 "Theistic evolution is an acceptable idea, because it means that God directed things according to His will,"

• The Apostolic Creed used to have twelve points, now it is only "Deum, Patrem omnipotentem, Creatorem cæli et terræ," and no more?
• The point "Deum, Patrem omnipotentem, Creatorem cæli et terræ," used to have catechetic points attached about Adam and Eve, and the Fall, as next point starts to deal with Redemption, but now it is only the bare words?

If that is NOT what you are saying, you need to work on showing Theistic evolution as compatible with quite a few other points. Including obviously an Adam that is both historically well known to Moses (impossible if he lived 40 000 BP or earlier) and ancestor of all today (impossible to highly unlikely if his life starting 4004 or 5199 or 5500 BC is to coincide with archaeological items carbon dated to those dates).

"and it explains how life began in the first place."

w a i t ... how is that compatible with next item:

"However, it does not explain whether or not He made everything evolve from the same single-celled organisms, or whether He created different types of life separately (plants and animals, for example)."

First of all, how biological life bagan in the first place is quite well explained with strict Creationism (you know, Young Earth Creationism).

Second, if God created different types, like dogs and cats, like hedgehogs and bears, for instance, or like roses and oaks, for instance, we are not talking evolution at all, we are talking variation within a kind.

Third, the Biblical account, accepted by Church Fathers as true, including those who held that the word "day" and related words "evening and morning" had another meaning than the normal, specifies very clearly, it is indeed different types like dog and cat etc. If you only mean three different types, or four, archaea, fungi, plants and animals, you are indeed talking Evolution, but that doesn't in the least show why it would be acceptable.

"Even though the evolution of languages is sometimes compared to biological évolution, your comparison does not quite work as the artificial modification of language is not the only form of language change, and perhaps not even the primary cause of such."

E x c u s e ... m e ...
did you bother to read what I wrote? Not just skim it through, but actually ...
r e a d ?

My main point is, human language cannot evolve from ape communications, and man can therefore not have evolved from any type of ape. I introduced reserves about the aptitude of the word "evolution" about Latin to French, only because I was stating at the end of the paragraph that // if you say "Latin evolved to French" ... while you may abuse the word "evolved" you are still stating in a rough and ready way an undeniable fact. //

And the only reason I said that is as intro to // However, if you say "human speech evolved from ape communications" you are not stating any undeniable fact, you are even stating a complete impossibility. //

I did not ever pretend during all of this process to use "language evolution" (as said, not a good name for the process, and not a good use of "evolution") as comparison to biological evolution. The point is, if biological evolution happened from cat to dog, arguably "meow" would evolve phonetically to "wooff" - and it's not anyway near how impossible it could be to evolve discourse from "eek, eek, eek" or however apes pronounce one of their signals.

[I had said] // "No Evolutionist ever gave a satisfying explanation on how the one could have changed into the other." //

"While this may be true for their explanations of how language came to be, it also applies to their explanations about the beginning of life itself."

While abiogenesis (usual sense) is also impossible, it is not the same impossibility as man evolving from apes, due to, for instance, the combined need and impossibility of "eek eek eek" evolving, if so, into "hello, how nice to see you!"

Francophone8

@Hans-Georg Lundahl The Apostle's creed does not contradict what I said, or rather, what I said does not contradict the Apostle's creed. "Deum, Patrem omnipotentem, Creatorem cæli et terræ" — this means that God is the creator, but it says nothing about how He actually created (did He create everything in one single moment? Or did He make evolution happen, controlling its progress? If so, did He begin with single-celled organisms, or did He create every basic category of each type of plants, animals, etc., separately? These are examples how He could have created, which is not to say that there aren't others). Variation within a kind is still considered to be evolution, but depending on how you define "kind", it can be called macro-evolution. The fact that God is the creator explains how life begam in the first place, with theistic evolution, one must still believe that God is the Primary Mover. Also, remember that the Bible says that for God, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is like a day. God is outside of time.

W h y d o y o u t h i n k t h a t M o s e s k n e w A d a m ? I f y o u s a y t h a t b e c a u s e o f t h e b e l i e f t h a t h e i s t h e a u t h o r o f t h e P e n t a t e u c h t h e n y o u m u s t a s l o b e l i e v e t h a t h e w a s i n s p i r e d b y t h e H o l y S p i r i t w h i c h m e a n s t h a t h e d i d n o t n e e d t o h a v e f i r s t h a n d k n o w l e d g e o f A d a m.

You are talking about the evolution of language, something that already exists, and the introduction of the faculty of language, or of language itself. They are different. Also, language would only make sense for humans, when God already created Adam and Eve, giving them souls, so even if one does hold theistic evolution to be true, such an idea would not posit that human language came from apes' grunts.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Francophone8 "The Apostle's creed does not contradict what I said, or rather, what I said does not contradict the Apostle's creed. "Deum, Patrem omnipotentem, Creatorem cæli et terræ" — this means that God is the creator, but it says nothing about how He actually created (did He create everything in one single moment? Or did He make evolution happen, controlling its progress? If so, did He begin with single-celled organisms, or did He create every basic category of each type of plants, animals, etc., separately? These are examples how He could have created, which is not to say that there aren't others)."

Again, you forget, that the Apostles' Creed includes more than just this, and that each part of the creed involves catechetic teaching beyond there mere words.

The article, taken catechetically, before extending over into Adam's and Eve's fall and its consequences, involves God creating in the way that the Bible says. For the six days, Moses had no historic, only prophetic, knowledge, given by God.

"Variation within a kind is still considered to be evolution, but depending on how you define "kind", it can be called macro-evolution."

Since basically NO Young Earth Creationists today deny variation within a kind, and since NO such variation brings forth anything radically new (come on, Indian Longeared Hedgehog has some more length to his ears than his ancestor couple on the Ark or his cousin in Europe!) it is formalistic abuse of language to state that it is "still considered to be evolution."

"The fact that God is the creator explains how life begam in the first place, with theistic evolution, one must still believe that God is the Primary Mover."

With Theistic Evolution, one has a "god" with same skillset as the one we worship (not unlike the observation about Islamic Allah), but morally very unlike the One in Three we worship, who set death and inanity as a punishment for Adam's sin, and a reminder we need Christ's redemption.

"Also, remember that the Bible says that for God, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is like a day. God is outside of time."

Yes, but would you kindly explain the relevance of that observation for the question at hand?

"W h y d o y o u t h i n k t h a t M o s e s k n e w A d a m ? I f y o u s a y t h a t b e c a u s e o f t h e b e l i e f t h a t h e i s t h e a u t h o r o f t h e P e n t a t e u c h t h e n y o u m u s t a s l o b e l i e v e t h a t h e w a s i n s p i r e d b y t h e H o l y S p i r i t w h i c h m e a n s t h a t h e d i d n o t n e e d t o h a v e f i r s t h a n d k n o w l e d g e o f A d a m."

Whatever needs Moses personally had of historic (not first hand, but reliably mediated) knowledge of Adam, we need him to have this knowledge. The bare claim such and such a hagiographer was inspired by the Holy Ghost is not enough, we need historical reliability for the circumstances verifying this claim. Therefore, the historic books of the Bible are first of all transmitted as history, before we also accept them as being inerrant and infallible, by divine inspiration.

Again, I did not say "first hand knowledge" - I said reliable historic transmission.

"You are talking about the evolution of language, something that already exists, and the introduction of the faculty of language, or of language itself. They are different."

If your English had been so good that it were a good choice of you to debate me in English rather than in your native French, you would perhaps already have noticed that I said they are very different.

"Also, language would only make sense for humans, when God already created Adam and Eve, giving them souls,"

Indeed.

"so even if one does hold theistic evolution to be true, such an idea would not posit that human language came from apes' grunts."

No, the population evolving needs to be fully functioning on all levels while evolving. This means genes must be transmitted in viable chromosomes (another block against evolution, theistic or otherwise), but it also means, all of the time, the population needs to be able to communicate. Therefore, if you posit a biological evolutionary transition from apes to Adam's body, you need to posit also an evolutionary transition from their grunts to his language. The exact thing you just admitted as being impossible.

The debate with Francophone8 continues in French on this post:

Répliques Assorties : Francophone8 me répond en français, on continue ici
https://repliquesassorties.blogspot.com/2021/10/francophone8-me-repond-en-francais-on.html

3:34 "retroactive consequences of the fall" ... no and noper.

The fall into Evolutionism among French clergy did not retroactively trigger any epidemic of clerical boy abuse back into the Renaissance.

And if Pope St. Pius V had to deal with one in Rome, it may be because the Renaissance there really was fairly Pagan at times - from before his times.

4:00 Suan Sonna just repeated the heresy of pre-Adamism, which was condemned in perhaps clearer terms than in Humani Generis, when Isaac La Peyrère was put on the Index.

It's a Judaising heresy, in which Genesis 1:26 and following refer to a creation never meant to serve God in such a special way as Adam and Eve, on that interpretation (not share by all Jews) the first Jews.

"La Peyrère's pre-Adamite contentions were fiercely criticized by Protestant, Jewish and Catholic authorities. In 1656 after a storm of indignation the Prae-Adamitae was publicly burned in Paris. In particular, La Peyrère fell foul of the Catholic Church, while in the Spanish Netherlands which was then under the Habsburgs. Here he was arrested and held in prison for six months and only released after renouncing his views and converting to the Catholic faith. He subsequently went to Rome and begged Pope Alexander VII for forgiveness, retracting his earlier views formally. Following this La Peyrère became a lay member of the Oratory of Jesus in Paris and lived out the rest of his life, from 1659 until 1676."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_La_Peyr%C3%A8re#Later_life

4:52 "oh, so day isn't being literal"

Bad conclusion. The timespan as such can literally apply even if there is no Sun to mark it.

And perhaps prompted by some kind of evolutionist background before that.

As for St. Augustine adressing that, this is an urban legend. Popular among Evolution believing "Catholics".

Yes, he took liberties with the word "day", but only with that word and the idea of a chronological order - since he considered all of creation took place in one moment.

But he also very clearly allowed for a literal reading, and in De Genesi ad Litteram book I he clearly does state how in such a case there could be days before the Sun.

In book VI, after outlining his peculiar theory on a 1 moment creation, he goes on to state "but taking it" (I'm not sure if the word was literally) "is good enough for beginners."

Please also note, when St. Thomas arrives to Paris, and writes a commentary on the Sententiae Lombardi, he is attracted to the 1 moment theory. When he later writes the Summa, he states that the one moment theory was only held by Augustine and Origen all others (who commented on it) holding six literal days.

5:20 "a lot of difficult bending and twisting with the evidence"

Hmmm ... not really.

But Suan is of course profiting from the fact that here, no one is asking him for examples in any deeper way (33 seconds left of the video don't leave room for that, and it seems this was the section dealing with YEC).

Also, the exact positions of St. Augustine and young St. Thomas are also YEC and also would require exactly the same "turning every stone in the evidence" as the normal literal six days version.

after the video - I don't think Suan Sonna ever even tried to estimate when Adam and Eve were alive.

If you accept the carbon dates for diverse human, including Neanderthal and Denisovan skeleta, the position runs into a conundrum.

• You pick Adam lived 6000 - 7500 years ago, and that therefore lots of men had lived before him, with agriculture and all. Avoiding polygenism becomes very problematic on this view - carbon dates "from this period" are of a humanity already spread out over continents and already beginning to show the diverse haplogroups (Y chromosomes and mitochondriae) as well as race types we see today. This also speaks against actual universality of the Flood, ten generations after Adam. Result apart from that: lots of remains having shown clearly human behaviour become pre-human. The soul becomes very strictly, not just invisible but undetectable.
• You pick Adam lived c. 40 000, 50 000, perhaps up to 100 000 years ago. You get very bad conditions of historic transmission from Adam to Moses. You also get a direct trace of bad transmission, since it is impossible to make genealogy overlaps in Genesis 5 and 11 add up to 35 000 or more years.

Babel Again

Q

How come so little is written about the Tower of Babel in the Bible if what happened there set the course of history through all the millenniums that followed?
https://www.quora.com/How-come-so-little-is-written-about-the-Tower-of-Babel-in-the-Bible-if-what-happened-there-set-the-course-of-history-through-all-the-millenniums-that-followed/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1

Answer requested by

Marc Bloemers

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Catholic convert, reading many Catechisms

Answered just now

The eleven first chapters of the Bible were probably what was left of pre-Abrahamic history in the oral tradition reaching Abraham.

This means, while the rest of the Bible always had a community to support the transmission of sometimes fairly prolix writing, the first eleven chapters - or all except what Moses later received in a vision on Sinai, about the six days of Creation, was what Abraham had learned by heart when he was small or up to 50, when his great-grand-father Sarug died, the last before himself to worship the true God.

I think there is a reason other than the cause I just outlined. God had a purpose this should be so.

• 1. Some of the early things cannot be properly understood to now, when pre-historians and archaeologists dig up things (and what these dig up is presented in ways that needs reinterpretation to fit the Biblical history, notably in terms of timeline as to absolute dates);
• 2. Even so, some of the very sketchy and extremely basic stories include checklists, so you can check if you are on the right track (so far no item on it has betrayed me with Babel = Göbekli Tepe);
• 3. Some of what we can now understand, what I think I can now understand, involves attempts at modern technology, which had left be described in terms so vague it did not directly provoke the reassumption of it.

What Did the History Teacher Do, What Did Others Do About It? (Sharing)

A History Teacher's Warning
9th Oct. 2021 | gmdinformation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNgt5X2p5x4

Catholic Truth on Faith of Mary

The Amazing Faith of Mary (And what we can learn from Mary!)
9.IX.2021 | Catholic Truth
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hK_6GKtJ950

I

dialogued!

Hans-Georg Lundahl

5:12 While Zachary did ask "whereby shall I know this" to someone he would have been able to recognise as an angel, Mary was given a means of knowing - going to Elizabeth and looking for her pregnancy.

Catholic Truth

Mary believed the long before she went to Elizabeth. She believed the angel immediately.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Catholic Truth Is this a Catholic dogma, and is this in all Catholic authors, and what does believing in the context mean?

she was troubled at being compared to Jael and Judith suggests a somewhat other story than immediate, complete, unreserved acceptance to me, but I have not yet looked up Catena Aurea ...

We know Elisabeth said "blessed art thou who believed" but that is obviously compared to the somewhat silly remarks by Zacharias : first, if he was a Cohen, he was able to recognise an angel of the one true God, so it was just impertinent to ask for verification, and second, if against all odds the apparition had been diabolical, asking the Devil "how will I know" is just as silly.

St. Elisabeth Cohen did not state that she was not giving the verification that the Blessed Virgin had wanted.

Btw syntax - "Mary believed the" - believed the what?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Now I have [looked on Catena Aurea]:

"GREEK EX. But as she might be accustomed to these visions, the Evangelist ascribes her agitation not to the vision, but to the things told her, saying, she was troubled at his words. Now observe both the modesty and wisdom of the Virgin; the soul, and at the same time the voice. When she heard the joyful words, she pondered them in her mind, and neither openly resisted through unbelief, nor forthwith lightly complied; avoiding equally the inconstancy of Eve, and the insensibility of Zacharias. Hence it is said, And she cast in her mind what manner of salutation this was, it is not said conception for as yet she knew not the vastness of the mystery. But the salutation, was there aught of passion in it as from a man to a virgin? or was it not of God, seeing that he makes mention of God, saying, The Lord is with you. AMBROSE; She wondered also at the new form of blessing, unheard of before, reserved for Mary alone. ORIGEN; For if Mary had known that similar words had been addressed to others, such a salutation would never have appeared to her so strange and alarming."

Origen and Ambrose are right about "the Lord is with you", but the words "blessed among women" had been adressed with some modification to Jael and to Judith.

Note also that the source signed as "Greek Ex." states She was not just avoiding the insensitivity of Zacharias, but also the inconsistence of Eve. Exactly as I had imagined She would.

II

6:39 Are you sure you are describing the Blessed Virgin's tactic of verification or making it to make sense correctly?

When exactly does it say She would retreat into Herself to pray and reflect to make things make sense to Her?

6:51 it seems you confuse "was troubled" with "pondered all these things".

There are different moments between the salutation of the angel and some more:

• 1) She doesn't understand what it is, She is troubled, doesn't say She pondered anything right then
• 2) She ponders things in Her heart in Luke 2:19 and 2:51.

III

7:27 I don't find Her going alone, without company or caravan, either in Luke or in Catena Aurea to Luke.

The haste doesn't necessarily mean She went alone, She could have taken servants in sufficient number, the haste does mean, She wanted to see the cousin's pregnancy at least confirm the words of the angel, if you ask me.

And She got confirmation way beyond just that.

7:33 She left Joseph at home ... but She had not yet entered into his household!

They were fiancés, not yet living together.

No reason why he could not be left out of a caravan, especially as She was on distinct women's business (helping someone to get the child delivered).

IV

7:39 "and then, right after that, she comes home"

Ooops ...

And Mary abode with her about three months; and she returned to her own house.

Luke 1:56. I am not sure this means She was left out of the delivery or whether there is a break in the chronological order, but I am sure that it means She did not go home right after that and it's time to deliver Our Lord. After the birth of St. John the Baptist, there are six months more to the birth of Our Lord.

After this, "Catholic Truth" makes many good points in a way I find somewhat overdramatic, but which seems still good. I did not so far watch to the end.

Richard Greene Continued

FFAF - Trent Horn takes on Narcissists with a Psychologist · Richard Greene Continued

Richard Greene

@Hans-Georg Lundahl I have read your posts, and I am trying to understand you. I believe that you misunderstand what narcissism is. I don't think you realize that it is a disorder. It's not about someone presuming a big ego (we are all guilty of that to some extent). Narcissists have an organic lack. They lack empathy, and they have no remorse. They can never fulfill this lack. So, if you are thinking about the word "narcissistic" as we use it in casual context to describe someone with a big ego, you are wrong. It is a psychological diagnosis.

I can't make sense of your temple analogy, either. In the time of Christ, no one knew what narcissism was. Just like the bible says, they thought Jesus was a blasphemer. Nothing more, nothing less. It doesn't matter whether they came to believe Jesus or not by the time he turned over the tables in the temple. Just like thousands of Jews later, their chance to believe came when Jesus rose from the dead. And that certainly is not a sign of a blasphemer...nor even a narcissist.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Richard Greene My point is, the psychological diagnosis pretends to read hearts and kidneys.

Men can't do that.

Hence, what you call narcissism cannot be diagnosed. When people nevertheless do so, they risk calling people narcissists just bc they have a big ego and on occasion refuse to let empathy stop what they are doing.

Sorry I read only first paragraph, but people telling me I misunderstand when they show they didn't understand my point exasperate me.

@Richard Greene "In the time of Christ, no one knew what narcissism was."

Not even the apostles?

Bc, St. Thomas says that the first bishops of the Church, the apostles, were given ALL knowledge necessary for the care of souls.

This means, discoveries in "psychology" or "psychiatry" made since their days are highly suspect of simply being heresies in moral theology.

"It doesn't matter whether they came to believe Jesus or not by the time he turned over the tables in the temple."

He did so twice, beginning and end of His public ministry, and both times He was explicit about having a theological rationale.

"Just like thousands of Jews later, their chance to believe came when Jesus rose from the dead. And that certainly is not a sign of a blasphemer...nor even a narcissist."

Most people don't rise from the dead in this time, only after Christ returns. Most people also don't have 100's of disciples to defend them against being mistreated as either blasphemer or narcissist. Therefore it does matter for most people whether the shrink concerned with them would have been one who'd have perhaps called Our Lord a blasphemer on such an occasion - btw, in Matthew 21, they didn't. In Mark 11, they didn't. In Luke 19 they didn't, that being the second time. In John 2, first time, He prophesied about His resurrection, but the ones hearing Him did not call it blasphemy then and there.

Richard Greene

@Hans-Georg Lundahl I apologize for exasperating you. The fault is all mine for misunderstanding your point. I failed to make it clear that I was trying to learn your point, and that my opinion of your understanding of narcissism was a mere fallible belief (by beginning with “I believe…”), and not a decisive and authoritative judgement.

I may still be confused, however, because it seems to me that you are saying that psychology is not a real scientific study. Or that it is unnecessary in the presence of the Christian faith. I am told that scientists have found locales in the normal human brain where such things as empathy are stimulated. And from that they have seen that there is a population which lacks receiving this stimulation, they’ve predicted that the condition is abnormal, and thus, their consensus is that these people have a medical pathological condition that they’ve named “narcissism” (or in some instances “sociopathy” or “psychopathy”). How is that not a diagnosis? Wouldn’t that mean that men CAN read certain parts of the brain, at least?

I believe the risk of laypeople calling others with big egos “narcissists” is not simply because there is an official clinical definition. I believe it’s because the medical field (maybe imprudently) named it after a myth about an egotistic character. Perhaps they should have called it “Antisocial Type 2,” or something like that.

I believe you would be right about these scientific studies being heresies; but only IF they had anything to do with the soul. But I don’t think they do. I think they are mutually exclusive. A person can know and believe in Jesus Christ despite having these psychological conditions. Loving your neighbor is not predicated upon possessing empathy. Emotions really have nothing to do with it.

Carrying one’s own cross is an example of that. None of us would be able to TRULY carry our crosses or wear the yoke laid upon by Christ if we listened to our emotions (our “hearts and kidneys” if I interpreted you correctly). We do them with service to the Lord, incited by the grace of God; not by an emotion.

Therefore, people with psychological disorders are not excused from having disbelief. The explanation of psychological disorders does not replace sin. And the Church is right and just for discerning between legitimate detection of real demonic activity and real psychological disorders. And that should answer the question about what the Apostles knew, and what St. Thomas was describing.

I don’t see the point in taking the energy to quibble about what the Pharisees thought right at the moment that Jesus turned over the tables in the temple. As a Catholic, I don’t make theological conclusions based solely on chapter and verse of the Bible. All I know is that the Magisterium does not teach that the Pharisees thought Jesus was a narcissist. And since the Church has binding and loosing authority given to it from Jesus, that is good enough for me (despite anyone else’s biblical interpretation).

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Richard Greene Responding to first half or so:

"because it seems to me that you are saying that psychology is not a real scientific study."

You got that one right. At least most schools of it.

If you want to start any correct school, base it on I-II of the Summa.

"Or that it is unnecessary in the presence of the Christian faith."

More like, all there is of correct psychology was given to the Apostles. I don't think all points of Catholic pastoral are always communicated to all of the faithful.

" I am told that scientists have found locales in the normal human brain where such things as empathy are stimulated. And from that they have seen that there is a population which lacks receiving this stimulation, they’ve predicted that the condition is abnormal, and thus, their consensus is that these people have a medical pathological condition that they’ve named “narcissism” (or in some instances “sociopathy” or “psychopathy”)."

I don't think any kind of thought needs exactly one particular locale of the brain, and that in those having this brain condition, other parts can take over. I have heard diabetes, at least type II, could be cured by stimulating the liver to take over the job of the pancreas, I don't claim to know whether this is true or not.

However, it can definitely be predicated, if someone lacks the apparatus for the most usual way of for instance taking into account others and their feelings or repenting of sins, it should be a given that God can make other apparatus take over.

I don't think all who have the diagnosis "narcissism" have been tested with brain scan, and if they have, it is possible the result could be upset by for instance sleep privation.

"Perhaps they should have called it “Antisocial Type 2,” or something like that."

Even "antisocial" being a diagnosis is definitely bad. Did you know some people who tried their hands on dead people diagnosed Samson with it?

"I believe you would be right about these scientific studies being heresies; but only IF they had anything to do with the soul. But I don’t think they do. I think they are mutually exclusive."

Mostly they are used as if they had it. Also, they interfere with human rights. On Gotland, an island in Sweden, a man lost custody with his wife of his own son, because he had the diagnosis "narcissist". A prime example of "forbidding to marry" because one "heeds doctrines of unpure spirits".

@Richard Greene For your final words (skipping some before that):

"All I know is that the Magisterium does not teach that the Pharisees thought Jesus was a narcissist."

And I know that the question is only now being posed, or very little ago.

Btw, I think the kind of magisterium that does too much rely on psychology is thereby showing itself non-Catholic and thereby not the object of Christ's promises.

Richard Greene

@Hans-Georg Lundahl Well, (re: your citation about the brain and diabetes) there’s not much for us to work with when we “don’t know whether this is true or not.” I’m sorry, but I’m not convinced of your position. I wish I could see the logical basis for it. You have to admit that your objection to the findings by scientists about the matter is pure conjecture, right?

Also, the Catholic Church is the one, true, holy and APOSTOLIC church. Therefore, it does pastorally communicate all that the apostles have known and communicated. Thus the Magisterium is infallible; and any rejection of that tenet is most assuredly non-Catholic.

I think the error you are making whilst skirting the realm of this heresy is that you deny the mutual exclusivity of psychological disorders and the saving of souls. First of all, (a point I tried to make earlier) there is no emotional apparatus necessary for a faithful life in Christ. So, as far as God making another apparatus “take over” He already did that in the sending of His Son. If the only way that humans can be holy is to possess all the available emotions, then there would be no need for revelation. There would be no need for grace. There wouldn’t be a need for logic. Your boy, St. Thomas, would be irrelevant.

Therefore, the Church/Magisterium does not rely on psychology too much (insofar as the study of pathologies). It doesn’t rely on it at all. And that’s because psychology (insofar as the study of pathologies) does not effect a soul’s ability to be saved. The one, true, holy and apostolic Church still does drive out demons like the first Apostles did. And it can do the same for any clinically-diagnosed narcissist who happens to also be possessed.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Richard Greene The problem is when someone professing to be part of the magisterium encourages either psychologists or exorcists to interfere with the liberties of someone who's deemed perhaps possessed bc "extreme narcissist".

And I have not the least denied there is a real magisterium, with real successors of the Apostles.

I don't think YOUR Church is it.

I admit Pope Michael as the true Pope since 2014.

@Richard Greene "You have to admit that your objection to the findings by scientists about the matter is pure conjecture, right?"

No, according to the claim, it has been tested. Liver stimulated to replace pancreas and so on ...

However, I can't find the reference right now. It was some year ago.

If you meant in psychology, I already made my position clear : it contradicts the privileges of the Apostles, and is therefore both heretical and as per that a pseudo-science.

It is also a real, illicit, art of bullying.

Richard Greene

@Hans-Georg Lundahl “The problem is when someone professing to be part of the magisterium encourages either psychologists or exorcists to interfere with the liberties of someone who's deemed perhaps possessed bc ‘extreme narcissist’.”

When did this ever happen? And how can it happen, given the fact that psychological disorders do not concern the Magisterium nor exorcists (a point I’ve indisputably made a couple of times before)? If you are referring to the Gotland case (a story that I’ve hitherto been unaware of, and did some cursory research), I don’t see anyone from the Church being involved. And from what I’ve read, psychologists haven’t even been involved. From what I’m reading there never was a diagnosis nor even a psychological exam. Perhaps you can offer a source that shows otherwise.

As far as the apostles go, yes, you’ve made your position clear but you failed to back it up with any facts or logic. The clinically diagnosed disorder Narcissism does not stand in the way of someone’s salvation. Therefore, the apostles would not have an instance to use their privileges on it. The apostles also never had to deal with Covid-19. Does that mean that the diagnosis of that virus is heretical and pseudo-science?

It’s interesting that you call the psychological diagnosis of narcissism a “real, illicit, art of bullying.” I wonder if you’ve ever lived with anyone with a personality disorder. I have. And I can tell you that the abuse dished out to the families of these individuals is catastrophic. Along with the narcissist’s (or socio/psychopath’s) daily abuse, the burden is always with the healthy individuals to learn mechanisms on how to cope with the ill individual. You won’t know what bullying is until you’ve lived with one of these people.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Richard Greene "When did this ever happen?"

Let's say ... when Jewish priesthood was the magisterium, if I'm correct that they considered Our Lord in terms that today would translate as narcissist.

"And how can it happen, given the fact that psychological disorders do not concern the Magisterium nor exorcists (a point I’ve indisputably made a couple of times before)?"

Do you know who declared you mad, if anyone, in Spain in 1600, if it had to do with your behaviour? Arguably the Inquisition. They had doctors at their side, but it was for instance used in order not to punish some, therefore arguably overdone.

But another way, suppose a doctor portrays someone as having such and such failings, therefore such and such needs, and that the priests should pray for these needs - I think it happened in my case, more than once, to my great annoyance - this would be a collaboration involving YOUR magisterium (or a similarly "pro-science" one) relying too much on a modern pseudo-science.

"If you are referring to the Gotland case (a story that I’ve hitherto been unaware of, and did some cursory research), I don’t see anyone from the Church being involved."

Makes sense, since the family isn't Catholic.

"And from what I’ve read, psychologists haven’t even been involved. From what I’m reading there never was a diagnosis nor even a psychological exam. Perhaps you can offer a source that shows otherwise."

Social workers in Sweden have all studied psychology, and they arguably did an assessment with what they knew.

"As far as the apostles go, yes, you’ve made your position clear but you failed to back it up with any facts or logic."

We'll see.

"The clinically diagnosed disorder Narcissism does not stand in the way of someone’s salvation."

Suppose x wants to do y, he is stopped bc that would be narcissistic and he's argued as being a narcissist. Then he gives up, he wants to do z, and that is stopped too. You see how this could make someone too bitter to accept the graces needed to make his eternity?

Because, here is a thing you previously said:

"Loving your neighbor is not predicated upon possessing empathy. Emotions really have nothing to do with it."

and following paragraph:

"Carrying one’s own cross is an example of that. None of us would be able to TRULY carry our crosses or wear the yoke laid upon by Christ if we listened to our emotions (our “hearts and kidneys” if I interpreted you correctly). We do them with service to the Lord, incited by the grace of God; not by an emotion."

Wrong. This is called Stoicism. Grace is not mutually exclusive of emotion, for instance St. Ignatius of Loyola considered weeping precisely a grace.

While we could not do our duty, including bear our Cross, if we listened to all emotions, we do not as people act without emotional fuel. If one has no incentive in pitying emotions to make an act of mercy, one certainly needs some emotional fuel to do it, or one would not be doing it. Devotions like the Rosary, sorrowful mysteries, like Way of the Cross and a few more, are there to encourage the emotions that will help us do our duty to Christ.

This means the idea that emotions and (by extension) the brain does not consider the pastoral is false.

"Therefore, the apostles would not have an instance to use their privileges on it."

How many "narcissists" would be judged as either "arrogant" or "vain" in older terms? Since the sin of pride is divided into the species "arrogance" (usually mortal) and "vanity" (often venial, unless other circumstances advene), the case should be judged on Christian and not on medical terms.

"The apostles also never had to deal with Covid-19. Does that mean that the diagnosis of that virus is heretical and pseudo-science?"

It means they knew what would be necessary for pastoral. Or civil justice.

I believe the agenda pushed is excessive compared to the medical threat, and therefore pseudo-scientific. It also happens, hydrochloroquinine expert Didier Raoult pointed out as faulty two studies involving it : one used three times his posology (dangerous) and the other a third of his posology (inadequate). He therefore considers - as a scientist - that part of what is now considered medical science is pseudo-such.

"It’s interesting that you call the psychological diagnosis of narcissism a “real, illicit, art of bullying.”"

I didn't. I called psychology so. And psychiatry.

"I wonder if you’ve ever lived with anyone with a personality disorder. I have. And I can tell you that the abuse dished out to the families of these individuals is catastrophic."

In that case, it certainly has to do with the persons' salvation, and should be judged on Christian terms.

"Along with the narcissist’s (or socio/psychopath’s) daily abuse, the burden is always with the healthy individuals to learn mechanisms on how to cope with the ill individual. You won’t know what bullying is until you’ve lived with one of these people."

Or a network showing such behaviour. Shrinks have adequate knowledge and sometimes adequate bias for chosing to do so against someone, whom for some reason they don't like (as in he refuses to call on their help).

To clarify : I do not call the "personality disorder" of narcissism a real and illicit art of bullying, since the bullying of someone who would now be considered a narcissist may sometimes be artless.

I call the diagnosis an art of bullying, since it will, on your own words, stamp someone as a bully.

But that diagnosis is only one of the ones shrinks can use for bullying.

Next comment

Greene makes a bad move. It will not be given in full, and I am blocking him.

"We covered a lot of this already. Look, Jesus wasn’t crucified for having Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD)."

Let's break it down.

"We covered a lot of this already."

Offensive, as taking the tone of giving me a session, helping me with an issue. And seeing me somewhat ill equipped to fully take in what he says, and telling me so.

"Look, Jesus wasn’t crucified for having Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD)."

• 1) While crucifixion was decided soon after the second cleansing of the temple, it was c. 3 years after the first one.
• 2) In the meanwhile, one of the ideas was "he was possessed" and one was "who are you anyway". Demons or pride pushing disorderly actions through a personality.
• 3) I did not state they considered Our Lord as "having NPD", I stated "they considered Our Lord in terms that today would translate as narcissist." Note, "that today would translate as" and not immediately same terms. He's the one not taking in what I am actually saying.

His next sentence is totally disingenious: "And the Inquisition wasn’t about treatment of psychological disorders."

• 1) It sometimes was, as when the confessions of certain ladies to witch sabbaths were broken down to being morbid fantasies rather than actual communications with the devil:
  
  // The Inquisitor-General appeared to share his view that confession and accusation on their own were not enough. For some time the central office of the Inquisition had been sceptical about claims of magic and witchcraft, and had only sanctioned the earlier burnings with considerable reluctance, and only because of the reported mood of panic from Logroño. In August 1614 it ruled that all of the trials pending at Logroño should be dismissed. At the same time it issued new and more rigorous rules of evidence, that brought witch-burning in Spain to an end, long before in the Protestant North. //
  
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basque_witch_trials
  
  The witches who weren't burned were obviously offered some kind of spiritual and by way of coherence also psychological therapy - like going to Saantiago or saying certain prayers.
  
  
• 2) Death penalty in US is also not about treatment of psychological disorders, and yet the judges do consult psychiatrists to see if someone is not accountable for his actions, and sometimes also psychologists if some witness statement or confession is not reliable. Ergo, judgements involving death penalty tend to, with certain ideas of leniency to the insane, to boost psychology and psychiatry. The Inquisition was also sometimes concerned with death penalty, in Spain more directly so than elsewhere, and therefore it also, having similar ideas, tended to boost the excuse of insanity.

Therefore I blocked him. Those of you who haven't can still to to the thread on the video. (See previous)

Quadragesimo Anno and Austria

Q

What is the historical context of Quadragesimo Anno?
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-historical-context-of-Quadragesimo-Anno/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-2

Hans-Georg Lundahl

studied Latin at Lund University

Answered 1m ago

• As the name implies, it comes 40 years after Rerum novarum.
• It involved real time observation of corporativism (not exactly what an US American may think it is), a kind of employer-friendly syndicalism, both in Italy and in Austria and elsewhere.
• It approved the model being promoted by Christian Social Party in Austria, and when this later became “Austrofascism,” by coalition with Heimwehr, or more properly Vaterländische Front, Austrofascism vowed to implement Quadragesimo Anno.
• They got no reprimands for implementing it wrong, Mussolini got a slight one over making corporazioni compulsory, in Austria they weren’t, but were the only syndicates that were legal.
• The economic model isn’t all, and Austria got no complaints comparable to Italy in Non abbiamo bisogno or Germany in Mit brennender Sorge. Both of these acted, unlike Austrians, as if the state could decide the education for all children.

Ex-JW Took On the Flood

Here is his video:

Noah's Ark: The Story That Disproves the Entire Bible
19th March 2021 | The Truth Hurts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9XryKMRATE

I took on him, point by point (some points involve more than one time signature).

I

2:10 As a logician, the circle is actually broken by the fact that other reasons show the Bible to be the word of God, namely Jesus' Resurrection, in its turn credited as historical by a Church he had founded 3 years or so before that (3 and a half years before that) and which exists still today, the Catholic Church.

So, no, it is not a circle as logical fallacy.

Just because two things logically prove each other, the circle is not vicious, unless that's the only proof for each, only then is there a vicious circle.

2:17 No, it would be like believing Surah 5 on Jesus' denying divinity, if we had a similar reason to believe Muhammed, human author of the Quran, was in so authoring, a prophet of God. He made no miracles to prove that.

II

2:26 Er, no, the beheaded son in this case got resurrected with an elephant head ... in other words, we do not have any human witnesses to the event.

I just checked, it happened on "Mt.Kailash"* - meaning c. 6638 m above ground level:

"Mount Kailash** (also Kailasa; Kangrinboqê or Gang Rinpoche; Tibetan: གངས་རིན་པོ་ཆེ; simplified Chinese: 冈仁波齐峰; traditional Chinese: 岡仁波齊峰; Sanskrit: कैलास, IAST: Kailāsa), is a 6,638 m (21,778 ft) high peak in the Kailash Range (Gangdisê Mountains), which forms part of the Transhimalaya in the Ngari Prefecture, Tibet Autonomous Region, China."

This means, the story happened out of reach of human observation, precisely like Muhammed's journey to heaven on a winged horse.

Very contrary to the Ark, where every man now alive would descend from those on it.

* Online with Amma : Lord Ganesha: his birth story, symbolism meaning and practice, 9 August 2000
** wikipedia for Mount Kailash

Sorry I didn't link, but youtube collapses comments of mine if there is a link in them. [Omission repaired on this blog post]

III

3:48 Actually it is not so bizarre at all. One could imagine some kind of story where other details from the Flood had been kept and the destruction by water had been erased.

I actually think Jimmy Aikins gave one Amerindian story which closely parallels the Flood in being survival from another world but where instead of sitting in a dark Ark one had been walking through a dark anthive.

IIII

4:21 The lack of gods in some Flood stories would perhaps be their theologies.

The Babylonian story has two different gods involved - one deciding the destruction, namely Enlil, and another one saving a man with his family, and therefore mankind, Enki.

This is not a distortion from bad retelling techniques, it is a distortion from bad theology. So, of course are those with no gods, except when we are probably dealing with later major Floods, which may have helped to obliterate the memory of Noah's Flood (like one Flood in China, dealt with by an emperor).

V

4:44 The Altai Flood legend involves being told by people who live very deeply inland.

So, it actually speaks against your observation. It is also useful in giving as a hint how Noah could know when waters were 15 cubits over the highest mountains. 1) He was on the highest mountain (meaning pre-Flood mountains were not too high to have fairly flat tops where an Ark could be built), 2) he could have used ropes to do some kind of line sounding.

The Altai legend misses the mountains altogether, it says water rose 80 feet over the plain.

4:51 "nearly all of these legends are from islands or lands that border the sea"

A description that fits human habitation overall very well. Siberia would be a very huge outlier on this one.

VI

5:13 "ignorance of modern science and history"

Why would knowledge of modern history be required to keep overall decent historic records?

Or of modern science?

Btw, I am not "convinced by the table in the insight book" since it leaves out the Altai example. I got that one from TalkOrigins.

VII

5:30 The "logic" is not the "same".

Earthquake legends derive from earthquakes, local floodings legends from local floodings, the same logic would say legends of a world wide Flood derive from a world wide Flood.

There would have been only one of them, if any.

And the point is not these legends being derived from the "legend" in the Bible, that is from the event as retold in Genesis by Moses, the point is them being derived from the one event behind that story.

VIII

6:11 "They were simple speculations and assertions ...."

I don't think you will find it hard to prove that the correspondences exist.

You find it problematic if "eight + mouth" really is derived from the Flood? Well, why wouldn't other interpretations of other correspondences be as problematic? Like the evolution story saying five or fewer tips on the extremities are recurrent in diverse animals because we evolved from a fish with five bones in the fins?

Haven't you simply transferred the respect you had for the institution of Watchtower Society to the institution of "science" and universities?

VIIII

6:56 Here is another claim which could be a game changer.

I claim that Göbekli Tepe (which has certainly been found) is the city of Babel, not Classic Babylon as built by Amorrheans during the Israelite stay in Egypt, but the one in Genesis 11 - between the Flood and us.

I also claim that ""men of renown" in Genesis 6 can be clarly identified as still having renown, namely the heros of Mahabharata. This despite the fact that Hindoos pre-posed the Flood to c. 10 000 years earlier than that or even more.

X

debate

BabyYeeta

Some dude wrote the Bible as a story and somehow it turned the entire world into a cult.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Somehow ... care to flesh out the details of that somehow?

XI

debate

Red Reaper

Even IF Noah was capable of a supernatural contraceptive, why would he wait five hundred years to have children? So they would be young and dumb so they wouldn’t question the sketchy things he had to do before the flood? 😹

Hans-Georg Lundahl

How about, conditions of man in society before the Flood were such he didn't get a wife or couldn't stay with her until way after his puberty?

A bit like today ...

XII

7:45 I don't think at all that pre-Flood world was before contraceptives, they were mercifully taken away by the Flood.

And getting married as soon as their bodies were physically able arguably became a thing again after the Flood, I think fairly modern conditions may have come into play in the ugly city life of the pre-Flood world.

In other words, Noah was probably stopped from marrying earlier.

Followed

by debate:

Eddie X

The flood isn't real, silly.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Eddie X

• 1) I know very well your position is what "The Truth Hurts" is arguing for;
• 2) your position is what I am arguing against;
• 3) I take great care to go through all of the video and counter all of the arguments;
• 4) this being so, do you have any valid point to counter my answer on this particular topic, Noah's late child bearing?

XIII

8:18 "he probably had greater control over his reproductive powers"

Bizarre indeed. Your family member seems to have been some kind of Malthusian.

He was probably right Noah could abstain from sinning before marriage - but, there is nothing meritorious in married people generally speaking abstaining from procreating (unless times are very bad, which they wouldn't have been all the time for 480 or even just 400 years - puberty may have been later than now in pre-Flood times, and one may have been children or at least barely teens when 20 back then).

debate

followed:

Chrystal Lee

That makes sense. If people lived for hundreds of years then puberty would have been delayed. Today's 13 yr old may have been 313 in biblical times.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Chrystal Lee If you compare with the ages at birth of relevant son of previous patriarchs (Genesis chapter 5), it would seem they could marry at 100, if not earlier.

Noah was certainly delayed in getting these children.

• because he had preferred to be celibate?
• because he was stopped from marrying until fairly late?
• or because he had lost previous sons in pre-Flood wars, or because previous ones didn't listen to him?

XIIII

8:55 Have you tried the idea the couples represented genus or even family level of taxonomy?

Do you realise the hedgehogs are not one species, not one genus, but a subfamily of 16 species in 5 genera?

Let's divide by 16 ...

mammals 343.75
reptiles 625
birds 625

We are up in 1594 couples, except for the few pure animals (none in reptiles).

8:58 amphibians could probably survive outside the Ark as tadpoles and insects on driftweed.

If you like, still dividing by 16, add 438 couples for amphibians.

Insects are not "nephesh khayyah" (a key term in the passage).

[10:28, I get 0.09816425121 per second - 1 in more than ten seconds.

Arguably, 16 is too low a reduction factor.] (the comment was deleted)

I am pretty sure I added something here about each individual animal (if walking in only one by one) having a bit more than 10 seconds.

Given of course my reduction by 16.

However, hedgehogs are only one of two subfamilies, the other being gymnures, and there are 9 species in 5 genera of those. The whole family gives a reduction factor of 25, not just 16.

25 / 16 * 10 seconds = 15.625 seconds.

But suppose instead animals walked in couple by couple, it makes twice that: 31.25 sec.

So, a correct evaluation would be, animal couples walking in one in each half minute.

XV

11:26 Elephants are untypically large for the animals on the Ark, plus Noah could have got a very young couple that only started breeding years after the Flood. Same as with dinos.

I have calculated the freighted weight of the Ark to: 50 thousand 970 metric tons, supposing a cubit of two feet.

I was out, I calculated that total weight of Ark with load when waterline was 15 cubits up was 50,970 metric tons. I took into account that there were three storeys on Ark, and considering foot tons and calculating for even distribution of weight over three storeys, I got it to a centre of gravitation of either 21.37 feet above keel/bottom, if lowest storey count as ten feet up, or if the foot tons are zero because the height is zero, 18 feet above bottom.

Recalculate for 1594 couples or, if you prefer no tadpoles in Flood waters, 2032 couples. Note that average size of an animal on the Ark would have been like small cattle - sheep or things like that.

I think it will fit within 50 thousand 970 metric tons, or even a bit less, if you have a smaller cubit.

Followed

by debate:

Zrips

"Noah could have got a very young couple that only started breeding years after the Flood"
That at best lowers issue and doesn't eliminate it.

"Same as with dinos."
? Dynosaurs lived 69+ million years ago, dating doesn't match suposed flood story...

"supposing a cubit of two feet."
Why do you need to supose anything here? Isint its weird that you need to presupose quite a few things without actually having actual real numbers?

"f you prefer no tadpoles in Flood waters, 2032 couples"
Doesn't make any sense, but lets grant you that...

"Note that average size of an animal on the Ark would have been like small cattle - sheep or things like that." Cool, now calculate that with those 2032 couples in mind. Calculate how much food you would need in a day then multiple it by 365. On top of this major issue, how about carnivores? How about animals which need specific food and cant eat dry grass? How the hell could anyone manage to store food for entire year for 2032 couples with stone age technology?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Zrips "That at best lowers issue and doesn't eliminate it."

Check the other factor lowering it, namely not counting insects and reducing number of species by 16 to 25, as species within a family could well evolve from a single couple.

"? Dynosaurs lived 69+ million years ago, dating doesn't match suposed flood story..."

We [Young Earth Creationists] obviously believe the date is wrong.

"Why do you need to supose anything here? Isint its weird that you need to presupose quite a few things without actually having actual real numbers?"

Not the least. Noah would have known exactly how long the cubit was, but we have different cubit measures from history, some medieval ones, still in use, have two English feet for a cubit, others - for instance an Egyptian one - have only 18 inches instead of 24. Hence, the word "cubit" is in a historical text from an unknown civilisation (we don't know the pre-Flood civilisation in any detail beyond a few narrative points) is ambiguous at least between 18 and 24 English inches, perhaps even more.

"Doesn't make any sense, but lets grant you that..."

Yes, it does, since amphibians aren't land animals all of their life cycles. One can imagine amphibians in terrestrian adult form on the Ark, or one can imagine tadpoles in the waters.

"Cool, now calculate that with those 2032 couples in mind. Calculate how much food you would need in a day then multiple it by 365."

First google hit:

// We should feed them with the concentrate mixture @ 250 – 350 grams for a sheep in a day. The ration of the sheep should be feed with available green fodder @ 7 kg per sheep in a day. //

I go with 7 kg. Makes : 28,448 kg.
I go with 350 g. Makes : 1,422.4 kg.

"On top of this major issue, how about carnivores?"

There were lots of fish outside the ark and there was a window.

"How about animals which need specific food and cant eat dry grass?"

They would probable be eating less than 7 kg.

"How the hell could anyone manage to store food for entire year for 2032 couples with stone age technology?"

Correction : Nodian technology. While we have Neanderthals and Denisovans with what you'd call stone age technology, we don't have the Nodian technology that also existed in their time. But we need not guess that it was as rudimentary as the very little we can gather from grave goods in those times, as it most often is a case of deliberate burial.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Zrips I missed a thing:

28,448 kg = 28,448 kg per day
10,383,520 kg or 10,383.52 metric tons per year.
10,383.52 tons / 50,970 tons = 20.37 % of freighted weight.

Suppose the cubit was just 18 inches, this means 75 % in each direction, so 75 % cubed, 41 %, which would also be the percentage for the weight.

10,383.52 tons / 20,897.7 tons = 49.69 % of freighted weight.

It should be more, since in a year the weight consumed exceeds the body weight. Don't bother with a separate account for "shit weight" since that at end of voyage would depend on food weight at beginning of it.

This means, one would have room for more than just 2000 couples.*

* (footnote)

According to a post I made as follow up, Ark : empty weight and freighted weight, number of couples on the Ark, on my Creationist Blog, I concluded the couples could be from the 2032 here mentioned to 7317.

XVI

12:37 I have not argued for 43 kinds, but I do argue for kinds being generally around the level of "family" in Linnaean terminology, not the level of "species".

12:49 The variety is not all that great. It only sounds impressive if you take the numbers as referring to things as different as hedgehogs from dogs or cats. But 5500 or even over 6000 mammal species refers to minute differences within the hedgehog subfamily or somewhat less subtle ones within the whole Erinaceidae family.

First check on "how many mammal families are there" gave : "There are more than 5,500 species of living mammals, arranged in about 125 families and as many as 27–29 orders (familial and ordinal groupings sometimes vary among authorities)." It's from Encyclopedia Britannica.

Now, the family of Erinaceidae comprehends as most radical variety within it, whether spikes are hard and directable, as with hedgehogs or only extra thick hairs, as with gymnures.

Also, the varieties started separating c. 5000 years ago. Since last time I checked, there are now one species more of hedgehog, so seventeen hedgehog species.

I think 5000 years is enough for Indian Long Eared Hedgehog to get long ears or for it to keep them while other species lose them. And even for gymnures to lose some hardness in the spikes.

XVII

13:15 If we accept one species of monkey stepped or climbed off the ark, and evolved into over 330 species, we would not 5000 years into the future have the square of that, for two reasons:

• 1) species do not only split, they also die off altogether
• 2) there arguably won't be any year 7000 AD, since Christ was born in the fulness of time, 5200 - 5500 years after creation.

XVIII

14:28 Baraminological answer: your turtle obviously can survive in nature too, somewhere.

And if turtles on the ark were two, they were arguably hardier than the musk turtle.

Evolution since then has been a narrowing of possible habitats for more than one of the species, arguably for each of them, and would therefore be better termed a devolution.

14:42 "the turtle would not have been able to survive off the ark in the global ocean"

That one wouldn't.

Same answer for the other one, plus, no, electricity and petrol based technologies aren't indispensable for creating turtle friendly micro-environments.

Check with the ark encounter. I think there are even live amphibians in the kind of storage they arranged with pre-modern technologies (yeah, frogs aren't turtles, but anyway ...).

XVIIII

15:02 It actually says "in the montains of Ararat" meaning the Armenian mountain range.

The "Mount Ararat" you refer to only got its name much later as one guess on where the Ark landed.

My own - also in Mountains of Armenia - is Mount Judi. It is a tradition among both Jewish and Muslim locals there.

15:12 "from the starting point to the finishing point"

Sorry, but the Bible actually doesn't specify where the starting point was.

It's a popular meme among creationists of the 50's that it was in Iraq, but it actually doesn't say so in the Bible.

Considering however that the ark had no sails, no oars, no other propulsion, and that waves may go very far, but won't necessarily bring along a thing that's just floating on top of them, the "short" distance is no problem for a global flood.

What is problematic is, if Noah wasn't on the highest mountain that the pre-Flood world could offer, he could not know when the Ark took off from ground that water had reached 15 cubits above the highest mountains, just that it had reached 15 cubits above where he was. I credit him with geographical knowledge where the highest pre-Flood mountain was, and I credit pre-Flood mountains with being so low and having so flat tops, that it was possible to built the ark on the highest of them.

XX

15:30 I believe that the "top of Mount Everest" (anachronistic term for the period) would just after the Flood have been on or very little above seashore level.

All of these mountains rose after the Flood. Mount Judi was already there.

15:47 "they had no idea that these mountains even existed"

Well, for Shem, Ham and Japheth just after the Flood, rightly so - they didn't exist back then.

15:49 "of these continents"

I consider the Americas were reached by post-Flood man c. 123 years after the Flood, according to my carbon 14 tables (this is what 20 000 BP reduces to in them).

Therefore the space in geography would have been known, even if just after the Flood it was hard to orient itself to them.

Btw, for the peopling of Americas, I agree with Spanish theologians who spoke of Atlantis - still being there after the Flood, sinking after people had passed.

XXI

16:46 "22 feet in height around 2900 BC"

The archaeologists carbon dating sth to 2900 BC would have been dealing with something after the time of Abraham (according to my carbon 14 calibration, already alluded to).

This was not the Flood, and any vessel surviving that smaller flooding would not have landed either on Mount Ararat or on Mount Judi. Any vessel surviving it would likely have come to a shore of it with people already there and therefore have not concluded that the flooding was a global Flood.

Btw, a flooding may leave a trace in terms of mud, but how did they figure out it was 22 feet high?

17:24 If you think Sumerian nobles in Shurruppak would have had geographical knowledge of Mount Ararat, or that a flood 22 feet high in Shurruppak would have reached to Armenian Mountains, you should perhaps read up a bit on hydrology, sources of Sumerian culture, geography.

See this extract from 3 wiki articles:

Cizre, height over sea level / elevation : 377 m (1,237 ft)
Shuruppak - doesn't say, but it's 55 km S of Nippur
Nippur, Height 20 metres

A flooding in Nippur 8 metres high would not reach to Cizre, at the foot of Mount Judi.

And where does any Sumerian source even mention Mount Ararat or mountains of Urartu as landing place for Utnapishtim?

The Gilgamesh Epic actually features (arguably as little realistically, if the flooding was only 22 feet high) Mount Nisir, in Sulaymaniyah, in Kurdistan. Elevation : 882 m

XXII

18:15 I don't think the theory is very well chosen.

Many animals would survive elsewhere and get extinct near Mount Judi - or first couple flee in a direction before dying already far away from Mount Judi.

Then again, the landscape is very densely inhabited by humans - who as known have a somewhat lethal influence, from time to time, on animals.

XXIII

20:11 "to an indoctrinated mind"

In fact, to a Christian mind.

Jesus is God, Who cannot lie.
He also would not have been able to be ignorant of doctrinal truth, since what He came to do was "witness to truth".

Obviously, if you have gone Atheist or Jew or Odinist, that's not an issue.

But if you are a Christian, indoctrinated or not, it is.

Btw, I have just indirectly stated that people like "Bishop" Robertson or "Bishop" John Shelby Spong are NOT Christians. And I obviously mean that. Whether these two became so before getting before judgment, I think it's unlikely but not totally impossible, but the texts they leave behind are apostasy.

XXIIII

20:55 You spent 25 years of your life? [Going from door to door.]

That would make you at least 43, if you started at 18? You don't look that age!

22:30 I have the critical thinking skills to realise your debunking doesn't work, and adding your personal story with some emotional appeal doesn't do it for me either.

Zrips, Eddie X, BabyYeeta and Red Reaper have so far not answered more than is here visible, as per 2.X.2021, 13:56 Paris time.

Dito at 17:43 Paris time, when I add one more reply to Zrips. The 50 thousand and more metric tons are from the post For Sea-Farers .... on my creationist blog./HGL