Just in Case ANYONE Thinks I'm a Muslim

A New Muslim Finds out about AISHA and Muhammad
24th April 2022 | Acts17Apologetics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gm5J0YDFp7o

I

"it's exactly the same here"

Not quite the ages here mentioned for RC, no.

Legal age was (at least since High Middle Ages, early 1200's before St. Thomas Aquinas) 14 for the male, 12 for the female partner and no rule about maximum discrepancy.

St. Bridget married Ulf Gudmarsson at 13 and had sex at 14. A girl of 14 married a much older minor noble in the Savoy, and their son was St. Francis of Sales. In Shakespear, a mother tells her daughter she was already married at 12, while the daughter - Juliet - is 14 days off 14. It may be noted, Romeo was adult enough to have killed in a duel.

II

5:50 "what else are they lying about"

A tip ; could someone have been lying to you guys about me being interested in becoming a Muslim?

III

Given next video automatically linked to ...

St. Thomas considers there are two ages of maturity.

Puberty (in his text 14 / 12, though French versions have changed after new canon law to 16 / 14, I think) is the maturity for a decision where natural taste comes into play. Before puberty, apart from the fact you can't make children (Genesis 1:28) you also don't have your mature taste. Example, before puberty I had no relation to blue cheese or black coffee, this is even more so when it comes to sex.

Signing contracts (business, not marriage contract) demands a maturity of some experience. Hence 25. So, voting at 25, anyone?

On the other hand - I have had friendly gestures from Muslims.

I would not deny that. They have not always, but often come at the right moment. Obviously, I won't push gratitude to accepting their religion as the true one, any more than Protestantism, Buddhism, Paganism, Judaism ...

David Chord seeked an answer on Holy Thursday and Good Friday

Why is it Catholics refuse to accept the truth that they bow down to images like that of Mary? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZesJt_8JBIg (see the Pope kissing, bowing to Mary?)
https://www.quora.com/Why-is-it-Catholics-refuse-to-accept-the-truth-that-they-bow-down-to-images-like-that-of-Mary-https-www-youtube-com-watch-v-ZesJt_8JBIg-see-the-Pope-kissing-bowing-to-Mary/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1

Answer requested by

David Chord

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Catholic convert, reading many Catechisms

Answered Apr 14

Would you mind telling me where in the Bible it is forbidden to bow down to Mary or even images of Her?

I

David Chord

Apr 14

Why would I do that?

If you’d like to ask your own question, you can right here on Quora!!

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Apr 15

Are you the guy who asked the question I answered?

Ah, it seems you were.

I don’t pose rhetorical questions very often without specific provocation, and you gave that one. I don’t feel a need to give all quorans reading my questions a disconnect on why I am asking a thing, so, that’s why I am asking you.

Now, you actually formulated it as we refuse to accept “that we bow down to images of Mary” - no, we don’t, we refuse to accept that that is a sin, for instance idolatry or any other you’d like to pretend it to be.

*mentally bowing down to a stabat mater image*

David Chord

Apr 15

Now if you’d simply answered “Now, you actually formulated it as we refuse to accept “that we bow down to images of Mary” - no, we don’t, we refuse to accept that that is a sin, for instance idolatry or any other you’d like to pretend it to be.” it could have saved so much time!

a)

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Apr 15

I think my version was very comprehensible in that sense.

And I also think it was not the least bit more agressive than your own original question.

David Chord

Apr 15

Did you forget your original response was to ask a question?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Apr 15

Not the least.

Rhetorical question for rhetorical question.

b)

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Apr 15

And I also also think, if you disagree, the onus of proof is on you, as being the accuser.

That’s a good beginning on why I asked the counterquestion.

For instance, if you were thinking of Exodus 20, the Blessed Virgin, like Our Lord Himself, is not a “strange god” and “images” are not a separate commandment from such, and “bow down to them” refers to “strange gods and images of strange gods” - not to God or the things that pertain to God.

David Chord

Apr 15

You seem to be getting confused!

What did my question “accuse” of? …. Catholics refuse to accept the truth that Catholics bow down to images!

The PROOF was in the video and is further proven by the responses of some Catholics here who deny bowing to images.

If you read more into the question than was asked that isn’t my problem… you should stick to the question!

..but while you’re here… let’s go on one step toward where you thought the question was directed and ask… “Are you saying that it’s not possible for some Catholics to idolize such statues and images, even in the tiniest way?”

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Apr 15

“Catholics refuse to accept the truth that Catholics bow down to images!”

When, where and how?

I refuse to accept the non-truth that Catholics bow down to idolatrous or sinful images.

That should be the default for any Catholic.

If you claim “Catholics” (so to speak in general) “refuse to accept the truth that Catholics bow down to images” you need to show me at least one who does so. Otherwise you are accusing us of being so ill-instructed as to take “bowing down to images” as a separately banned item in the commandments and trying to dodge the then obvious accusation.

“The PROOF was in the video”

Technically not, since Antipope Bergoglio is not a Catholic.

“nd is further proven by the responses of some Catholics here who deny bowing to images.”

Ah, which ones?

David Chord

Apr 15

Sorry I’m done with your ridiculous nonsense and your done posting here too.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Apr 15

“further proven by the responses of some Catholics here who deny bowing to images.”

Yolanda Bello didn’t do that. Lek Kodra didn’t do that. Steve Green didn’t do that. Domnhall, Charles Happold, Melissa B, so who?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Apr 15

David Chord pretended I was done posting “here” - under my own post.

[had to use separate thread, though, not under his comment]

II

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Apr 15

Other question, why do you ask me about the guy you presumably mean by “the Pope”? I have no qualms about anti-Pope Bergoglio bowing down to Mary, but he does a lot of other things, those ones really un-Catholic, for the sake of which he is an antipope.

If you had a video with Pope Michael bowing down to Mary, I’d be able to unite myself to his prayer!

The following,

III and IV, are outside the comment section, in this blog post.

III

As David Chord seems to have edited, unless I missed, here is an added question of his and my answer:

..but while you’re here… let’s go on one step toward where you thought the question was directed and ask… “Are you saying that it’s not possible for some Catholics to idolize such statues and images, even in the tiniest way?”

That is irrelevant. It is one question if for instance an icon painter thinks of his painting process as above morality or doctrine, which would examplify the said, and another question totally if the normal use of images is normally idolatry.

IV

It can be noted that this exchange was one of the things that expired before that evening and morning, offered a meal too much on Good Friday evening, rejected it an extra time on Holy Saturday morning, asked the guy to leave, started shoving him to make him do so, he didn't, he ended up kicking my head. I still bear the sequels. I am not saying he was the guy. I am wondering if he could have made some aggressive remarks about me before a band of gipsies and the guy be one of them. Not sure. If he's a shrink and posing as my shrink, that could be why the police and the doctors at Hôtel-Dieu messed things up.

Here is another of those things:

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : Analysing a Long Tirade by Jordan Peterson
https://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/2022/04/analysing-long-tirade-by-jordan-peterson.html

Baud and Stone on a Video with Kim Iversen

Kim Iversen: Former NATO Analyst & Top UN Official Says THIS Is The REAL Reason For War In Ukraine
19th April 2022 | The Hill
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEIFwLKlq1Q

Intro:

Most people won't - I know French, why is there no link to Jacques Baud's article in the description?

1:47 Since Ukraine is opting for EU, I have made a suggestion about official languages.

Russian official all over Ukraine? No.
Russian official in Donetsk, along Ukrainian, in Lugansk, along Ukrainian, in Crimea along Ukrainian and Tatar? Yes, yes, yes.

That's how things are in more than one EU country.

In Spain, only Spanish or Castilian is official all over Spain. But in Barcelona, Catalan is official also, in Irún, Basque is official also, in Santiago, Galego is official also.

There is a certain tension in Western León because of the Galego speakers in the district of El Bierzo, I saw a graffito "O Berzo xa fala Galego" (Galego is kind of related to Portuguese more than Spanish, and don't tell Galicians Galego is a Portuguese dialect, it's actually Portuguese that's a Galego dialect - which historically is a fact, Galego was written before Portugal was reconquered from Moors). But no one is claiming for Galego to be used by judges in Barcelona, or Basque to be used by policemen in Lugo (probably those in Santiago need to know it, because pilgrims come, they arguably have more people speaking English and French too).

In Finland, Swedish and Lapp have regional rights, and between Finnish and Swedish, the all localities where the lesser language has 10 % use both, only Åland doesn't use Finnish, but unly Swedish. Sweden doesn't recognise regional languages, or didn't when I grew up, but in Norrland both Finns and Lapps have ample opportunities for schooling in the own language, though Swedish has to be learned too.

In France, Basque has less rights than in Spain, but it has some rights I think, and so have Catalan in Rousillon, Occitan between Rousillon and Niça la bella, Breton, Alsatian.

If Ukraine follows up with entering EU, and follows this rule, the problem is quickly solved.

Please to note, there was in 2019 an alarm (from a Human Rights organism) that Donbass didn't respect the rights of Ukrainian in practise. Please to note also, the Donbass casualties enumerated in an unsigned word document cited by Russian friendly Bishop Viganò, most who died in Donbass did so before Zelenskyy was elected. He's not the guy people in Donbass should fear.

[Rest of video:

Allegations, some of which I hope are false, that Baud was hoodwinked, but chose not to otherwise comment on.]

Did medieval peasants travel? Jason Kingsley answers, I add marginal notes

Did medieval peasants travel?
25th April 2022 | Modern History TV
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvbm84iN7qk

The one comment where I disagree is the last separate one cited here at time signature 9:06:

I

1:42 I will give you a little hint about travel speed on foot.

In 2004, I made a pilgrimage to St. James in Galicia. Most km in hitchhiking, but last c. 750 on foot. The on-foot part involved two fairly short hitchhikes and took me 50 days including some days spent in rest, for one thing I came to Ponferrada a little before I could go to the dentist there, so, I had to wait (going on would have involved the risk of getting to a village on the Monday, where there wouldn't have been one). 15 km / day is a fair estimate of the medium.

While 5 km/h is fairly attainable, I took rests and I also followed people walking, since I arrived without resources and had to get what I could by being hopefully at least moderately pleasant company.

If you are still into miles, that's about 10 miles a day, a bit more than 3 miles an hour.

No GPS for me, if there weren't yellow bricks like in Oz, there were however lots of yellow arrows.

"Seguir las flechas amarillas, seguir las flechas amarillas, seguir las flechas amarillas, a Sa-an-ti-a-go" (melody see "Glory, glory Hallelujah").

5:28 The way stations have been reconstructed in the shape of "albergues de peregrinos" (at work at least during "años Jacobeos" / "anos Xacobeos", like 2004 was, when St. James, 25.VII, was a Sunday.

6:50 sticks are a very good way not just of being safe, but of walking. A long stick about your own length takes one stride while you take four steps, it helps (as with the guys who use ski sticks when walking) and I had the 4/4 rhythm very well into my organism, as well as a good singing voice.

"muß i denn" taught by Elvis Presley, "red river valley" and obviously "hark when the night is falling" as well as "in Dublin's fair city" ...

II

3:54 I wonder how a man from Yorkshire was going to fare when getting into Kent!

There was no Standard British English mediatised by schools, radio, newspapers, comic books, films and TV back then, and there was this very well known episode just before Caxton started when the dialectal forms "eggs" vs "eyren" came into the way of understanding.

Oxford Street and London Road have counterparts in France. In central Paris, there is a road called Rue de St. Denis, later on Rue de Faubourg de St. Denis, and it would seem if you go on even further, you get to the exact same St. Denis where lots of kings are buried (I usually take or took the transports there).

9:44 Yeah, like I said about "eggs" and "eyren" .... Chapter two of The Hobbit is so right in this respect.

Though to be fair, today it is like going from a place where they speak Danish, to, across the frontier, one where they speak German, after next frontier Dutch, then French, and after Hendaye, at Irún, the language I had been apprehensive of not speaking it good enough - my first try at oral Spanish was a relief, but it was also not bad that lots of people spoke lots of different languages from elsewhere, on the Camino. The most major language change in Spain itself was, in Bierzo and in Galicia, they speak Galego (a graffiti in El Bierzo : "O Berzo xa fala galego") but that was optional, all Galician speakers speak Spanish as well. Plus, in León on the way back, in a homeless shelter, I heard the expression "un cafetín" used as the Mexican "un cafetiiito".

Back then it would have been involving a bit of a language course where the target language was always changing a bit from day to day.

III

9:06 Look, Chaucer doesn't say the Knight is right against the Pardoner!

He's just saying what each of them is saying ... and even if he did say that in his own right, this doesn't mean the knights were right, it may have been a prejudice.

Leopard Wing or Leopard Head? I Hope the Former!

Introducing Yaacov Weinstein. He's a blogger.

Torah from Narnia
https://torahfromnarnia.blogspot.com/

The latest post right now says he is appearing on a C. S. Lewis related podcast called Pints with Jack. And here is that video:

S5E36 – AH – "Jewish Lewis" – After Hours with Dr. Yaakov Weinstein
19th April 2022 | Pints with Jack
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLtRkOjzyrI

And, as is usual on this blog, some comments of mine. It's not up to the end of the video, I stopped at where it leaves off of Narnia and goes on to The Screwtape Letters. About half time.

9:45 Ah, ten men in a quorum, not eleven ... thanks.

Now the point I was making in a debate with a Protestant (extreme anti-Nicene) was that Our Lord was not denying institutionality to the Church, just saying that two or three are the minyan He requires. Considering the prophecy in Luke 12, this is practical, since it means a household of five will be able to furnish two separate minyans, which there will sometimes be a need for.

17:39 If I may interpose ... why is CSL so much less traumatising to Jews (at least some of them) than equally Orthodoxy affirming Christians, specifically as a storyteller?

Now, I'll say where I am coming from. I grew up in an erstwhile Christian surrounding with my mother as remaining Christian, and in my first years she was not very free to give me a complete Christian education. This surrounding involves more than one line of Jewish ancestry - not Old Jewish as the Christians of Palestine, but recent Jewish.

My guess is this. In the world we normally live in, Christ's sacrifice is the great turning point, and it also divides the people of God into two separate entities, the Old Testament Jewish Church before (Kaiaphas being the last of its actual High Priests before God, unless there was a time of overlap when legalities had not yet become inextricably joined to rejection of Christ) and the Christian Church (Kephas being the first of its Popes). Judaism of the OT was national, Christianity became international and supranational.

But in Narnia, though the turning point is the same sacrifice seen from an imagined angle, the conjoined division of two communities is not there. The Narnian world is also a world where two other big divides, Flood and Babel, are absent. The Narnian community remains the same, and the enemy community is also nationally defined, no missionaries from Narnia and Archenland to Calormen. This gives a Jewish reader the opportunity to read about the turning point of redemption as such, with no communal passions interfering.

As I just an hour or two ago argued, the Judaism that split off from Christ and therefore from God, is in my view, one of the four leopard heads, if you read Daniel and Apocalypse 13. I'd like to see men like Yaacov being leopard wings - the kind of entities that do not become parts of the final beast.

(Anglicans may note, the lion of Babylon also has wings which will not become parts of it.)

22:13 No, I had not (while actually being a Christian) figured out that the three times of the echo from Exodus pi were a reference to the Trinity.

I can only say that king Solomon hinted at it by making a "sleight of hand" version of pi equal 3.

23:47 Oh sure. In every generation they try to destroy us, like partly Judaism fuelled Communism put several of our bishops and priests either to death or in prisons back under Trotski.

The reading is perfectly correct, you are just applying it to the wrong community. A very good reason to actually read CSL and a narrative where the split in question is not extant.

24:07 I look up dates on wiki.

The Silver Chair : 1953.
CSL met Joy : 1952.

"Davidman first met Lewis in August 1952 when she made a trip to the United Kingdom. She planned to finish her book on the Ten Commandments, which showed influences of Lewis's style of apologetics. After several lunch meetings and walks accompanying Lewis and Davidman, Lewis's brother, Warren Lewis, wrote in his diary that "a rapid friendship" had developed between his younger brother and Davidman, whom he described as "a Christian convert of Jewish race, medium height, good figure, horn rimmed specs, quite extraordinarily uninhibited." She spent Christmas and a fortnight at The Kilns with the brothers. Though Davidman was deeply in love with Lewis, there was no reciprocation on his side."

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

So, yes, before CSL finished the work, he would have been familiar with the Hagada, a more than just 50 % chance.

26:34 I hadn't noted that Abraham fed them unleavened bread, but that's a great point for the liturgic hymn "panis angelorum" and also for the licitness and excellence of the Latin rite use of unleavened bread, against the Caerularian schismatics who call this "Judaising heresy".

While the word is not used, the thing is processually described:

Make haste, temper together three measures of flour, and make cakes upon the hearth.

Sounds more like chapati or matzot than like French rolls, processually.

28:08 Speaking of prefigurement, what do you think a young teen girl would make of being greeted in words that had been directed to Jael and to Judith?

The words "blessed among women" basically mean "you have killed an enemy of Israel bad enough to be treated like the serpent" (both Sisera and Holophernes were killed by the head), and a girl who had spent her life from 3 to puberty in the temple would know that.

What enemy of Israel had she possibly killed?

30:45 And also prefiguring, what parent looked on while the son actually died, and went through joining the will to that of God Who had demanded one?

Are you saying the Isaac story is commemorated Friday evenings (which is when the Sabbath starts)?

31:31 And it would also seem Moriah is the same mount as a certain hill from which the Temple could be seen ...

31:54 I have seen Catholic commenters state that the breaking of the stone table would have been a hatred of the Catholic Mass.

Not the most Lewis friendly, obviously, but still.

(A Catholic altar is not a stone pile, but a stone table)

32:14 Ah, there is obviously a Protestant misreading of

For by one oblation he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified ... Now where there is a remission of these, there is no more an oblation for sin.
Hebrews 10:10-18.

The Reformers abused this to pretend the Sacrifice of the Mass can't happen.

Now read : Habemus altare, de quo edere non habent potestatem, qui tabernaculo deserviunt.
We have an altar, whereof they have no power to eat who serve the tabernacle.
Hebrews 13:10.

In other words, the sacrifice is being perpetually renewed as to its presence on earth.

33:08 You said Teshuva was created or present before the Creation?

And all that dwell upon the earth adored him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb, which was slain from the beginning of the world.
Apocalypse 13:8

Remember, O Lord, thy bowels of compassion; and thy mercies that are from the beginning of the world.
Psalms 24:6

I'd consider that one theologumenon in the heretical Judaism as a very clear non-heresy.

You know, like Anglicans and Calvinists are heretical on lots of things, but Christ rising from the dead is not one of them.

"To fix what is broken is not in the natural world, and therefore had to be created before creation"

Well, if there is one heresy, it's Arianism. Christ has a created humanity, but He is not a created person. It had to be before creation, but not necessarily as creatures are because created, more like God is Who is uncreaed.

Jesus said to her: I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, although he be dead, shall live:
John 11:25

34:49 Calormene poetry says a lot about what I have against Jewish "common sense" and "obviously, this is how you do it, this is how life really is" ... and Calvinist and Mahommedan one as well, not to mention Free masonic. (Jews, Muslims, Calvinists, Freemasons share a thing? Four heads sharing a leopard body, but for Weinstein, I hope it's more like a leopard wing which won't stay on the leopard body too long).

37:40 Leopard wings and lioness wings have in common "searching for truth".

The lion of Babylon and the leopard heads have in common with the real lion of Judah (correct Catholicism) to consider themselves as already having the truth - but only one of them actually has it.

I search for arguments, I search for distinctions, I search for the correct application, but as to truth, I consider I already have it since I became a Catholic.

Dialogue with a friend of Rob Skiba II, after the latter recently died from Covid-19

PART 2 - Revelation 12 and the Nuremburg Connection
Apr 15, 2022 | Rob Skiba
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7knfLjjWaw

Hans-Georg Lundahl

It would seem to me, the classic death from Covid is a kind of allergic reaction. Too many antibodies.

This means the infection is dangerous, and it also means vaccines are dangerous.

I'd have loved to see him as a Catholic before he went ... not meaning the Bergoglio style.

V C F

The church is spiritual it's not institutionalized christianity or a specific denomination.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@V C F It was fairly well institutioned by Christ back in the New Testament, so why would it not remain so?

As to "not a specific denomination" ... well it has the denomination "Christians" given in Antioch in Acts and gets the denomination "Catholic Church" just a few decades after the NT, also in Antioch.

V C F

YT keeps removing my comments. The Church was really institutionalized by the Roman Empire, after emperor Constantine convoked the Council of Nicaea in 325 which established one " holy Church" under the same powers that had failed to suppress Christianity . How convenient don't you see? They didn't embrace Christianity they coopted it. It's called controlled opposition. That's 101 enemy MO. I can't believe you're a follower of Rob Skiba and don't understand how the enemy operates and can't see all of the occult Babylonian symbolism permeating the R C C hiding in plain sight as it is customary in the "mysteries" and the occult in general . The o.b.e.l.i.s.k. is probably the most blatant example. This p.o.p.e is just the proverbial tip of the iceberg

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@V C F I am not a follower of Rob Skiba. I am critically sympathising - and absoluetely not agreeing with him on what Babel was.

Now, what you say about what happened at Nicaea doesn't the least explain why the Church prior to Nicaea:

• was Trinitarian and had in Alexandria condemned the priest Arius;
• had bishops (Alexander), priests (Arius, who was as said deposed) and deacons (to my best memory the position of St. Athanasius at the outbreak of the quarrel;
• seemed to have such a structure already in the New Testament;
• heroically resisted when Emperors became Arian, starting with Constantius just after Constantine's day.

It is also not compatible with the promise of Christ given to the twelve in Mt 28:16-20, unless you can point to some parallel Church that remained faithful, and before you cite Anabaptists, they started out more than 1000 years later at the Reformation.

It is also not compatible with the commission given with that promise, since that commission basically states that the Church should coopt nations - including their governments.

V C F

@Hans-Georg Lundahl Either the Church is an institution that exists independent of its members or it is the corporate body of believers. Jesus said ; “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” It doesn't sound like you really need to depend on some corrupt paganized idolatrous institution to serve as a mediating agent between Him and us .

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@V C F Any "institution" is a body of believers in what the institution is about. The military is not just impersonal systems, it is a body of people believing that war is sometimes what one should (in justice or prudence or both, or even in charity too) do, and therefore they prepare for and sometimes go to war.

If the Catholic Church has been really and truly paganised, it is not the Church Jesus founded, if it hasn't (not at all or only in superficial matters), then it arguably is what it claims to be, the Church Jesus founded.

But "institution" is a red herring.

And the Church Jesus founded is sometimes corrupt in places, see Laodicaea.

Now, the Church Jesus founded certainly was institutional. How so? Romans 10. [13] For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord, shall be saved. [14] How then shall they call on him, in whom they have not believed? Or how shall they believe him, of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear, without a preacher? [15] And how shall they preach unless they be sent, as it is written: How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, of them that bring glad tidings of good things!

Now, the word you quote defines 2 or 3 as what Jews would call a minyan - a group capable of praying together. But the Jews don't become Jews by gathering ten in a minyan, they become Jews by birth, circumcision, Bar Mitzvah. Once they are Jews, however, ten or maybe even eleven is their minimal minyan. Our Lord says two or three are sufficient.

If I and you both being Catholics pray the Rosary for a licit purpose, God will hear us, since that is what He promised in the verse you cited. But we become Catholics by steps that do not all of them always involve already meeting the Catholic Institution (or some semblance of it), but at least deal with it sooner or later.

The following

I could not access under youtube but had to try to answer via gmail sending to youtube. I failed, and so I added the answer next day.

V C F

Hans-Georg Lundahl OK from an as unbiased and objective a position as possible ask yourself this question. What is more logical : 1) That those who tried to UNSUCCESSFULLY suppress Christianity converted to Christianity or 2) they simply decided it was strategically the best move to co-opt Christianity (if you can't beat them join them) ? I personally believe "they" did lose some control over it at some point to fully regain control of it during the so-called Renaissance. That's why the Middle Ages have been demonized and labeled the "Dark Ages"and the Renaissance is considered the "rebirth" of classical ideals

Hans-Georg Lundahl

V C F
I am for one thing glad you refuse to demonise the Middle Ages.

Now, for the question:

1) That those who tried to UNSUCCESSFULLY suppress Christianity converted to Christianity
or 2) they simply decided it was strategically the best move to co-opt Christianity (if you can't beat them join them) ?

Both, if you take the question on its terms. And the thing is, the latter type showed their mettle when Constantius persecuted St. Athanasius. Once the Arian crisis was over, the real Christians were again in full control of the Church, and the latter type may still have existed, but had to bide their time.

Again, I refuse to take the question at its bare terms, since the son of a persecutor or grand-son of a persecutor need not follow in his father's or grandfather's evil footsteps. Over time, even in one same household, people die off and are replaced by adults who had previously been children or not even born yet.

And, again, there is a wider question : if you assume the Church was vamped, what became of the Church Jesus founded? Study that question in the light of Matthew 28:16-20. Saying "first it was persecuted, then vamped, but it partially shook the shackles off, then had to do it again after 1000 years by the Reformation, and did so more fully" makes some sense - but forgets that Christ had told His Church to not have communion with Belial. Can you imagine a real Church of Christ partially unwilling and partially inable to do that for a 1000 years? I cannot even do so for 40 years, unlike Israel of old.

Erica Orchard Considered Catholicism as Having Heresies

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Erica Orchard Considered Catholicism as Having Heresies · Great Bishop of Geneva!: Answering the Allegations of Erica Orchard on Twenty Catholic Heresies

Her list of 20 heresies will be answered, not to her, since she die not like to answer me, but on my Catholic blog.

Q

https://qr.ae/pv28dE expands to:
What were the heretical beliefs of Catholicism?
https://www.quora.com/What-were-the-heretical-beliefs-of-Catholicism/answer/Erica-Orchard-2

Erica Orchard

I've been a Christian all my life.

Updated Jun 8, 2021

Heresies in the Roman Catholic Church.

1. Justification by faith PLUS WORKS
2. The selling of indulgences to get time off purgatory
3. Purgatory
4. The veneration of Mary
5. The immaculate conception of Mary
6. The assumption of Mary
7. Praying to Mary
8. The veneration of the saints
9. Praying to the saints
10. The Pope is the head of the church
11. The Pope is infallible
12. The Pontifical Magisterium has as much authority as the Word of God
13. Only the RC church has the authority to interpret the Bible
14. Tradition has as much authority as the Word of God
15. That there is no imputed righteousness of Christ to us at the moment of salvation
16. That the Catholic Church is the only true church worldwide
17. The bread embodies Jesus and can therefore be prayed to
18. Doing penance to gain forgiveness
19. Celibacy of the priesthood
20. Holy water

John Leach

10mo

So you know more than Jesus who set up this Church and gave it His authority?

Erica Orchard

10mo

I don't know more than Jesus, but I do know what he taught. He gave the church the authority to forgive sins in his name. He never gave his authority to change the message of salvation, or have other gods, or pray to the dead. The Church was given the opportunity to get back on line at the Reformation (and several times before that too) but refused and stayed apostate. The True Church teaches Jesus's message given in the Bible. The Roman Catholic church decided to keep its heresies and is no longer the True Church.

Answered twice

first by John Leach, then by me.

I

John Leach

10mo

Erica there is not a single doctrinal contradiction taught by the Catholic Church since Christ instituted it. Look at the man made churches of the reformation and you will not find a single doctrine taught by one that is not contradicted by another yet they all claim the same source of truth - personal subjective interpretation of mainly the NT a collection of writings selected and deemed sacred and inspired by God by the Catholic Church as compliant to its teachings. May I suggest you have been led astray by just another false teacher as what the Catholic Church teaches comes directly from that deposit of Faith once delivered to the saints. Those that rely on personal opinion though in good will presuming to know Gods revelation by personal derived opinion cannot have investigated what was taught by the Apostles in that era just relying on “insights” and end up with conflicting heresy. The One Holy Catholic Church was instituted by Christ so why put your opinion against God?

Erica Orchard

10mo

I’m not the one being led astray here, John. It wasn’t because they were right doctrinally that the church that became the Roman Catholic church suppressed translations of the Bible into the vernacular: they didn’t want anyone to understand what the Bible said, so that they could tell them what to believe.

Luther’s interpretation or Scripture wasn’t personal and subjective. Lutherans emphasise the objective truth of Scripture. It’s the RC church that decided that their own man-made traditions and the Pope had more authority than God’s Word.

John Leach

10mo

The first printed Bible in the vernacular was a Catholic one by the way. Prior to a printing press copies were made in Latin by hand to preserve its purity. Few people had access to a hand copied Bible so relied on the Church to provide Christ’s teachings. It is impossible to conclude doctrinally objective truth using Scripture alone and that is simply proven by observing the thousands of conflicting religions spawned by this method having rejected The Word of God embedded in Apostolic teachings. If you do a word search through the NT you will find more than 50 instances where The Word of God, The Word, The Gospel etc was taken by the Apostles across the known world through the Church. A NT constructed by the Catholic Church was not completed until early fifth Century and a criteria of selection included compliance to Church teaching. People who consider Scripture Alone as Gods plan for the unity Christ prayed for must see God as incompetent as individuals working it out for themselves has proven disastrous causing division upon division making Gods truth impossible to find.

Erica Orchard

10mo

The Bible was translated into Latin because that was the language spoken in most of the Roman Empire. Bible's were hand copied because that's how everything was copied, not to preserve its purity. Whatever that has got to do with this.

And how could the common people rely on the churches teachings when that church was reading sermons, reading scripture, and saying services in a language none of them spoke? How could they be taught Christian morality by a church whose priests had become so immoral at every level?

Scripture alone doesn't mean each individual decides for himself. We have pastors and teachers to explain it to us, as the Bible tells us to. You have a fundamental misunderstanding of what it means.

John, we are not going to agree about this. I will never be persuaded that the sin Jesus condemned the Pharisees for - adding their own traditions to the scriptures, and then making them out to be more important - he would commend the church for. I will never be persuaded that Jesus is happy that his human mother, who is dead, is being treated as equal to him.

I'm pretty certain that you won't be convinced unless God repents you.

So we should leave this conversation here.

John Leach

10mo

Erica the NT is a constructed tradition of the Catholic Church that took centuries to compile and set. Doctrines such as the Trinity could be classed as man made. There is no, none, zip support for the doctrine of Sola Scriptura in Scripture. The fact that priests etc are sinful men like the Apostles is irrelevant as are pastors and those that preached to you. It is a fact that all Christian Religions are in one way or another offshoots of Catholicism the original Church instituted by Christ. If it is corrupt as you claim how can you trust the NT it constructed with the main criteria compliance to its teachings? There remains not a single contradiction in Catholicism from 33AD until now yet outside this Church we find every wind of doctrines even with the very means of salvation. There is but one Faith, one Baptism as there is but one Lord and He has only one bride- His Church.

II

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Just now

If you don’t mind me taking this up again, as I am not John Leach, I’ll answer each item.

“He gave the church the authority to forgive sins in his name.”

Which the Church (the one that is true and has His authority) does by Baptism, Confession, Last Anointing and also (if a sin without deliberate avoidance of above is still there, even a mortal one) by the Eucharist, or rather in that case it is Christ Himself who forgives.

“He never gave his authority to change the message of salvation,”

Prove there was a change?

“or have other gods,”

Prove we have other gods?

“or pray to the dead.”

It doesn’t seem this kind of community with the dead was specifically mentioned with a prohibition in the relevant chapter prohibiting necromancy.

“The Church was given the opportunity to get back on line at the Reformation (and several times before that too) but refused and stayed apostate.”

Is this in line with Christ’s promises in Matthew 28? I mean “the Church” and not just staying apostate, but even becoming so in the first place, except perhaps shorter than for 24 hours (if the Church were reduced to very few persons).

“The True Church teaches Jesus's message given in the Bible.”

If there is one. If there isn’t, or if it was removed and recovered after removal, so that at one time (longer than 24 hours, or even as long as an entire date at the time zone where a remnant of very few might be located) there wasn’t, that promise is broken.

“The Roman Catholic church decided to keep its heresies and is no longer the True Church.”

That makes it difficult to imagine that another Church was the True Church all the time. There are options for reconciling Matthew 28 with Roman Catholicism not being the true Church, but do not include it “no longer” being so.

• If Eastern Orthodoxy
• or some of the other Eastern Churches, like Miaphysites (in two different communions) or Nestorians / Assyrians were so
• or if Baptist Continuity were true and it was preserved along the Roman Catholic Church, not within it.

I have Christological reasons to reject number 2. I have some solid ecclesiological reasons to reject number 1. And for number 3, a knowledge of the history of the relevant ceturies would be sufficient. Hence, RCC is my pick.

Authorship of NT

Q

https://qr.ae/pv2I0X
Which apostle wrote most of the New Testament?
https://www.quora.com/Which-apostle-wrote-most-of-the-New-Testament/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1

Hans-Georg Lundahl

none/ apprx Masters Latin & Greek, Lund University

Answered 1h ago

If you mean “more than half” - no one did.

If you mean “more books than any other” it would be St. Paul. 14 books.

However, if you mean “more text” it is arguably still St. Paul.
16 + 16 + 13 + 6 + 6 + 4 + 4 + 5 + 3 + 6 + 4 + 3 + 1 + 13 = 100 chapters

Followed by St. Luke:
24 + 28 = 52

Followed by St. John:
21 + 5 + 1 + 1 + 22 = 50 chapters.

There are eight authors overall, and only within top three, St. Paul wrote slightly less than half he textmass. I am taking “chapter” as a unit of text length, because while pericopes can be long or short according to content, a “chapter” is a unit of (in the larger books, excepting psalms) c. 30 verses. There are exceptionally long chapters, like Luke 1, but exceptionally short ones are often one chapter books (two by St. John, one by St. Paul).

If the top three authors are at 202 chapters, what do the rest contribute beyond that?

Peter:
5 + 3 = 8 chapters

Matthew + Mark + James + Jude (one book each)
28 + 16 + 5 + 1 = 50

So the New Testament has 260 chapters, and St Paul wrote 100. 38.46 %. But, as said, that is more than anyone else, and more than half of the books (14, vs 13 by others).

And, again, Sharing

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Analysing a Long Tirade by Jordan Peterson

Here is his tirade:

The Biggest THREAT To Our Society WE MUST FIGHT Against | Jordan Peterson's BRUTAL Speech
18th of March 2022 | Pursuit of Meaning
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6VDgysKmtU

Here is my analysis, time signatures (like the first one, 2:32) meaning what he says at that point is what I am (usually) debunking:

2:32 "plight of other societies, throughout the history of mankind"

Ambiguous. Other than Western?

Or other than Modern Western, and that would include the society of Queen St. Bathilde who outlawed selling Christians as slaves and who thereby over time made slavery obsolete?

2:53 "when they live in what's so far the best of all possible worlds"

• 1) "So far" and "what is" compared to what again? Is today's Western Civilisation better than the one of 13th C. France? Or is the Western Civilisation, including 13th C. France, better than extant alternatives?
• 2) It would seem Mr. Peterson is confusing "possible" with "actual" ...

And the overall concept of "not a shred of gratitude" asks the question whether "the society we live in" is what you should be first and foremost showing gratitude to.

Above God? Above close family and friends? Above the ones one chose to learn from (without school compulsion interfering in the choice, except in contributing to decrease its efficacy)? Above the Christian faith and Church?

Well, that kind of demand for gratitude sounds pretty much like the Babylonian view, probably how Haman felt about Mordekai ...

3:01 Oh, "resentment" and "arrogance" are:

• both of them emotions (so there is a purely emotive definition of arrogance, you need not look at the circumstances to see if someone's pride in what he has or scorn for what the other has can be objectively motivated - sounds too post-modernist for my taste!)
• and some emotions are bad and some are worse than others ...

To Aristotle, every emotion has its correct place. Every one is bad outside that correct justification.

But if we humour the point of view, it seems Mr. Peterson sounds a bit resentful in this speech. Against post-modernists as well as against people who are "5 % post-modernist" but who in crowds contribute to post-modernism prevailing.

If in twenty people are each 5 % post-modernist, either they have different 5 % of Derrida and therefore do not constitute a crowd, least of all one capable of imposing him - or they are sharing the same 5 % of Derrida and therefore not sharing the other 95 % of Derrida, and their crowd is therefore not overall post-modernist. Or there are cases between the two.

People who do impose post-modernism are people who together and each of them have more than 5 % of Derrida - or of some other post-modernist.

"resentment, arrogance and deceit"

Deceit is not an emotion, it is an act.

JP isn't mixing apples and oranges, he's mixing apples and orange juice.

3:42 "that even a building like this represents"

Picture shows the building type that is easier to distribute among shareholders of Blackrock than among normal people owning a building in a normal way.

Absolute wealth can reach a point where it is absolute insurance of someone's very top heavy power over someone else.

4:34 Some people don't agree with letting me speak. Or at least with allowing my speech to actually reach the public at large.

And I very certainly do believe in logos and in the individual. However, I do not believe in individual-ism, in making every right and title centred on an individual as opposed to a community. I believe the 1860's seeing an increase in individual rights at the detriment of some communal ones, has caused impoverishment.

4:48 "you are an exemplar of x" (post-modernism) is different from "you owe gratitude to x" (JP) exactly how?

If JP thinks I am an ungrateful traitor for not upholding all and sundry parts of Modern Western culture, and a Black Postmodernist thinks I'm a privileged White for being part of Western culture, how is one of them more or less Babylonian or collectivist than the other?

5:30 The "working class" saw its standard of living elevated as a working class after decades and centuries, but initially came into being as industrial working class by individually getting their standard of living in artisan and rural ownership degraded considerably.

5:43 I don't think you can make Yugoslavia responsible for the failings of Stalinism.

Note, I don't like Yugoslavian attitudes to education and Christianity and I am happy Croatia and Slovenia are now free.

But the oppression of thought went along with a modest prosperity of food and buildings, on the poorer side, but not a disaster - and the murderous part started after this was rejected.

One cannot compare this to the Holodomor.

And everyone who is against Capitalism is not necessarily a Marxist. He can be a Syndicalist. He can be into Albert de Mun and René de la Tour de Pin (two men who are to Christian trade unionism what another Albert and René are to comic books). And in case you don't know, the prosperity of a company like Loréal over the years comes from the Syndicalist heritage of the latter, via Action Française. He can be a Fascist, and there are Fascisms that didn't fail - like Franco's.

6:42 "you don't apologise and you don't back down"

What is it you'd like other groups than your version of Conservatism to do?

What is it we would need to do before God on a day like Good Friday?

How is dialogue preserved? By some people admitting guilt and apologising. I prefer if it's the right ones who admit guilt and to my taste, people like JP are among these right ones. He's resentful of people who are resentful of parts of the world we live in.

He's an inspiration for the kind of legislation Russia has against "hooliganism" - meaning disrespect for society.

Some societies do need to be disrespected, and since Adam, this applies to some degree to every one of them.

A good society can not only deal with those disrespecting it, but also learn from them (or at worst pretend to) ... recall that time when an English King stood with the back naked in a Cathedral and got scourged, like Christ on the pillar, for having contributed substantially to the murder of St. Thomas Beckett? Catholics attributing miracles to him were lucky that they lived under a Catholic (more or less) kingship and not under a disciple of JP.

7:36 That 80 % of theses aren't cited means what?

That a few examples of each thesis dutifully are bought means what?

Well, it means among other things that someone who is not a Neo-Marxist but who manages to pass a thesis also gets into the library and can be consulted.

It also means, some subjects are overfunded, and I'd gladly cut down JP's subject, namely psychology.

And when it comes to tax money, I'd be happy for a society in which people were not forced to attend sessions with psychologists and psychiatrists whom they don't think they need, and this obviously funded not by their paying voluntarily the fee, but by tax money or by them being charged the fee, like families in China are charged the bullets.

Some people in France speak of a foreign invasion in relation to the number of Mosques and of Halal Restaurants ... wait a minute, no one thinks France is occupied because of all the number of shrinks that can be seen having offices in Paris about as frequent as bakeries?

8:19 You want to defund OISE?

Sounds like an option - if you agree to homeschooling, unschooling and private schools. As I recall, JP, unfortunately, doesn't.

A clientele is forced into institutions paid by tax money.

If I shall be grateful to Swedish schools for teaching me nearly excellent French, why should I not also be resentful for them pushing me into what may probably have been what is called "clinical depression" through the bullying I went through? People have started to get aware of bullying - but have not taken the radical anti-bully option of saying : a bullied person's dad can take him or her out of school, without stating the reason, and a bully who's caught can be thrown out of school without a long process, since that particular type of education is an option, but neither a strict obligation, nor a strict right. (If anyone calls me a Neo-Marxist for saying this, he hasn't read Marx' and Engels': "10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c, &c." - please note : "all children in public schools" - no children working at the farm, no children sweeping the floor of the master of their own future trade, no children homeschooled, no children schooled in private schools).

9:48 Note JP's tirade against freedom "it's not the kind of thing that makes people happy, it makes them troubled ..." ... yeah, I think Stalin would have been fairly proud of JP.

Freedom is a prerequisite for things that make one happy. Freedom is the prerequisite of responsibilities freely chosen and not just foisted on one.

For instance, if a boy of 14 and a girl of 12 are not free to marry and together educate their children, that's one freedom they lack, that's one source of happiness they lack and that's one source of income for people like JP when they deal with their frustrations, unless it's the undertaker who does so. Dito obviously for quitting school and starting a job (employment or own business, the latter normally less available in this age group, but not impossible) which is a normal prerequisite for caring for one's family.

King Louis IX married a girl of 12 or 13 (I've seen both figures, they didn't have modern statistics back then) and this was not because he was a jerk - he was a saint, canonised by the Church - and also not by abusing royal privileges of being "above the law" - it was absolutely within canon law. And some people have pretended this was of course not very common, it was extremely rare, people saying this have been conservatives ... well, they take their stats from England 1820, not from France around 27th of May 1234.*

I have taken other stats** from the great-great-grand-parents of Marie-Antoinette and a generation before (available on wiki) and got one in seven ladies married before 16. It was not extremely rare as they said.

10:03 "that you shoulder the responsibility of the freedom"

Fine ... there is a very old synonym for shouldering the responsibility, and that is marriage. When exactly did JP start advocating for lowering the marital age and for fewer people studying and more marrying young?

* Som JP-minded jerk goes nuts about my citing a fact from wikipedia. Or referring to a statistic which I have taken by painstakingly going over article after article on wiki, extracting exactly the relevant information, when a man married a woman, and getting the next one, for the article on the man or the article on the woman, by looking up the father and the mother and in each or one of these the year in which the persons married. This type of research argues I am a lazy slop, too pampered to look at the original works of reference - of which only little would be available on the internet, therefore blocked from one who researches from a position of homelessness. I had to rewrite the date and the ensuing sentence.

** Here is the article:

Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : A Generation or Two More Back
https://filolohika.blogspot.com/2021/11/a-generation-or-two-more-back.html

Dick Harfield Went After the Flood on the Q "why did not other boats float?"

Q

In the Bible story of Noah’s flood, why did no boats, other than his Ark, float?
https://www.quora.com/In-the-Bible-story-of-Noah-s-flood-why-did-no-boats-other-than-his-Ark-float/answer/Dick-Harfield

Dick Harfield

lives in Sydney, Australia

Answered Sep 8, 2020

If one man could build a massive boat such as Noah’s Ark, then it is logical that other people had been building other boats that they could have used to escape from the biblical flood. However, myths have to be kept simple, and one of the necessary compromises in the telling of this story is that no one else in the world had a boat capable of saving any other humans on earth.

I

Terry Terril

1y

The whole story is so weak, I still can’t believe I ever fell for the concept. Even into adulthood I never paid much attention to the now known myth. I was like so many others when it comes to religious stories. Brain washed as a child. Never question anyone telling me such nonsense, and never taking the time to check the facts.

Now I believe religions are a business. They sell a product for profit. There is good and bad in all of them.

Keith Twort

1y

And it is not even biblical. Cherry picked from a Sumerian legend. An earlier version was found on a cuneiform tablet, with instructions how to make one! It was round!

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Mon

And would, unlike the Ark, have been drowned quickly in a world wide Flood.

Oh, before you consider the Sumerian legend deals with a local flooding, such as still happen, their “Ark” is supposed to have started from a city that’s 28 meters above sea level and gone to a mountain that’s 800 meters above sea level.

[Take off : Shuruppak, landing : Mount Nisir]

[Mon and Tue in the previous and following mean Monday and Tuesday of Holy Week, namely 11.IV and 12.IV.2022]

Keith Twort

Mon

Except that it was big! See the ark before Noah by Irving Finkel on youtube. And Ararat is a district, not a mountain.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Mon

Even big, that round shape would not have been ideal.

I never mentioned Ararat being “a” mountain, the Bible says MountainS (pl) of Ararat = of Armenia.

Keith Twort

Mon

Whether it is ideal or not, it corresponds to the round craft of the time. Why would it not be ideal? Nobody would be going anywhere! And there is the matter of feeding the animals. You mention A mountain specifically 800m above sea level!!! And collecting and delivering animals and birds from other continents. And killing all the plants. Nope a complete fantastic fable in common with much other biblical nonsense.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Mon

“of the time”

Remains to be proven.

“You mention A mountain specifically 800m above sea level!!!”

It so happens, a river can’t flood to several hundred meters above normal level. From Shuruppak to Zagros mountains.

So, even with the Babylonian preference, it could not be the kind of naturalistic flooding you had in mind, that source too is speaking of a world wide one.

“And collecting and delivering animals and birds from other continents.”

Here is the Biblical one - but who says they were living on other continents before the Flood or indeed that there were oceans between continents before the Flood?

Keith Twort

Mon

And how do you explain other civilisations that never even noticed a “world wide flood”? Or the complete absence of a geological record? No it is pure fiction.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Mon

It seems you have dropped the argument “why didn’t all the other boats sink” and are in for a general debate. Fine with me.

Chinese Emperors didn’t have to deal with a world wide flood because it happened before Fu Hsi (not sure of the Pinyin spelling) came along in Palaeolithic post-Flood conditions.

Egypt’s creation account matches parts of the Flood account.

Hinduism took Flood and early post-Flood Ramayana adventure and transposed them to before the pre-Flood Mahabharata wars that match parts of Genesis 4 and 6.

Japan starts its mythology with the creation of Japan in post-Flood times, even if Jimmu came from elsewhere.

Peru and Babylon and Altai mountain plains all have stories of the Flood.

And the geological record from the Flood is disguised by being divided into very many differently labelled “geologic recordS” supposed to be from different times, like Permian or Palaeogene.

Keith Twort

Mon

And when exactly do you think the “flood” happened? When the “creation” was supposed to be 6000 BCE or so?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Mon

I think that the creation was 5199 BC and the Flood 2957 BC.

Keith Twort

Mon

And the Cishan culture arose in China from 6500–5000 BCE. They don’t seem to have noticed a flood, or even a creation!

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Tue

Would you mind telling me what remaining Cishan chronicles tell us, we are now 8522 after founding of Cishan and in 3543 after same epoch, they noticed no Flood?

Ah, wait … you mean in “carbon dated” 6500 to 5000 BC … carbon dates coincide with real dates from c. 1180 BC (fall of Troy), and before that are inflated.

Carbon dated 6500 BC would be somewhat post-Babel.

Keith Twort

Tue

Haha. If the flood fable is to be believed, the Cishan culture would have ceased to exist. Or are you postulating a Chinese ark!

Carbon dating ties up with several isotopic dating techniques and also ties up with geological dating. Sorry!

Consider coal measures a mile underground dating around 300 million old. Nicely debunking creation!

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Tue

“ the Cishan culture would have ceased to exist”

Supposing it really existed as far back as 6500 or 5000 BC. If these are carbon dates of the outer limits, this gives the real dates 2355 - 2153 BC for the outer limits according to this extract from my carbon tables:

2355 B. Chr.

0.596678 pmC/100 (or 59.6678 pmC) , so dated as 6605 B. Chr.

...

2153 B. Chr.

0.706677 pmC/100 (or 70.6677 pmC), so dated as 5003 B. Chr.

Creation vs. Evolution : New Tables
https://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2020/08/new-tables.html

What carbon dating is supposed to tie up with is much less interesting than the carbon dates themselves - as they tie up with Biblical chronology.

II

Geoffrey Walden

1y

I don’t think even the pope believes the flood story

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Mon

Have you asked him?

Welcome - Vatican in Exile

A Q on a Novel by Alexander Dumas

Q

Was the Count of Monte Cristo a real free spirit? He can stand his ground and would go very far for it. Would the count be an ideal role model?
https://www.quora.com/Was-the-Count-of-Monte-Cristo-a-real-free-spirit-He-can-stand-his-ground-and-would-go-very-far-for-it-Would-the-count-be-an-ideal-role-model/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1

Answer requested by

Alexander Indianer

Hans-Georg Lundahl

none/ apprx Masters Latin & Greek, Lund University

Answered just now

I have actually read a complete version of it in Swedish translation.

As other men have pointed to Edmond Dantès prior to meeting Abbé Faria in prison, I think this is not a real issue, since we would be talking of the person after he assumed the guise of Count of Monte Cristo. To bring in his past prior to the imprisonment is like asking if Bruce Wayne was a good crime hunter prior to his parents being murdered.

Before we go on, I will however mention that the denial of human rights given to Edmond Dantès during the Restauration of Bourbon Monarchy is, according to an issue of Ça m’intéresse based on a real case, but who got out of unjust imprisonment precisely then, while the culprits had been free to act this vilely with such power abuse during the time when Napoleon I Bonaparte was in power. Alexandre Dumas the Elder being highly pro-Napoleon, this was changed so that the Restoration régime should seem less good than it really was in the case.

Now to the diverse questions:

Was the Count of Monte Cristo a real free spirit?

He was after Abbé Faria became his mentor, partly free spirit, but even more the kind of intriguer whom certain people call out as “Illuminati”. Insofar as these are based on false speculation (which I would not guarantee), characters like Abbé Faria and Count of Monte Cristo have highly contributed to fuel these. Recall (assuming you read the full version) the lessons about controlling coincidences?

He can stand his ground and would go very far for it.

Destroying one’s enemies and at last killing both one’s love and her son for revenge is not my definition of standing one’s ground. It’s more like my definition of making a devil’s bargain and having to regret it without being able to repair the damage.

Would the count be an ideal role model?

No way José!

It is possible that he was even invented in order to show himself off as a warning example to the reader. Or that Dumas brought such things in, in order to please the censorship and the as yet fairly Christian taste : the publication in serialised form started in 1844, under Louis Philippe. It’s not as if it had been published in US or Third Republic.

I am glad he ended up dissatisfied with his schemes, since that may have preserved me from taking such a man as rolemodel.

Plus, I don’t think an adult who takes a mentor to arrive out of trouble is a very good rolemodel either.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Just now

Pierre Picaud — Wikipédia
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Picaud

Twelve Questions on Genesis I to XI

John Hunt Thinks Nimrod is a Myth, dito for Babel · Three QQ from Issah Mohammed, on Babel · Twelve Questions on Genesis I to XI

Q I

What is the first thing a Catholic should do before talking with a fundamentalist?
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-first-thing-a-Catholic-should-do-before-talking-with-a-fundamentalist/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Catholic convert, reading many Catechisms

Answered 6h ago

Be wary if some people around might mind him talking to himself.

I’m a Catholic and I’m a fundamentalist.

Q II

Is it acceptable to interpret Adam as an allegory, not a historical person?
https://www.quora.com/Is-it-acceptable-to-interpret-Adam-as-an-allegory-not-a-historical-person-1/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Catholic convert, reading many Catechisms

Answered 13h ago

No, it is not, the Session V of the Council of Trent clearly links Original Sin to Adam as one individual and first man.

If he hadn’t been an actual individual, he could not have committed one actual sin on which a loss of grace and perfection immediately followed, and if he hadn’t been the first man, head of mankind, it is not understandable why his sin should affect all men after him.

Q III

Did Adam and Eve have children between Abel and Seth?
https://www.quora.com/Did-Adam-and-Eve-have-children-between-Abel-and-Seth/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1

Hans-Georg Lundahl

none/ apprx Masters Latin & Greek, Lund University

Answered 8h ago

Arguably yes, the words “And the days of Adam, after he begot Seth, were eight hundred years: and he begot sons and daughters,” certainly mean Seth was not last, but do not necessarily indicate he was only the third child of Adam and Eve.

Q IV

What's up with the ridiculously high ages in the Bible?
https://www.quora.com/Whats-up-with-the-ridiculously-high-ages-in-the-Bible/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1

Hans-Georg Lundahl

none/ apprx Masters Latin & Greek, Lund University

Answered Apr 5

That we have ridiculously low ages now, compared to our ancestors, first ten generations (all from Adam to Noah being ancestral to all after the Flood, except Noah’s wife and daughters in law, and that’s ten generations).

Imagine mankind were reduced to a subset with diabetes type 1 and we lived in a world with no artificial insuline. Yes, men would live much shorter than now.

This is basically what happened the first thousand years after the Flood.

Carl Wieland on CMI also came up with “genes over pre-Flood environment” before I did, and obviously, when I made my tables on rising C14 levels, the common causality of more radiation from the cosmos than before and than now would have achieved three things:

• human genes and in general genes deteriorate = lower life spans
• carbon 14 is produced quicker than now, explaining why it rose quickly (1.4 pmC at Flood in 2957 BC to 100 pmC achieved at Fall of Troy in 1180 BC, with first half having the quicker rise)
• ionising particles would also have helped to cool the weather for the post-Flood ice age.

Q V

Would Noah’s ark have been as sea worthy as the steel ships of today because of the SAP turned into tar that covered from inside to outside?
https://www.quora.com/Would-Noah-s-ark-have-been-as-sea-worthy-as-the-steel-ships-of-today-because-of-the-SAP-turned-into-tar-that-covered-from-inside-to-outside/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1

Answer requested by

Marc Bloemers

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Catholic convert, reading many Catechisms

Answered 29m ago

Yes and no.

In proportion to circumstances yes - and by that I mean, the Ark was not navigating anywhere. Hence the only one of the movements imposed by the waters on the ship would be “the rolling,” as the Ark would have its length parallel to the wave troughs.

The steel ships can certainly navigate, but on the other hand would not be able to survive the kind of waves you get in a world wide Flood.

Q VI

Is it possible that there were not nearly as many species on the Earth before Noah’s flood than after because of the increased size?
https://www.quora.com/Is-it-possible-that-there-were-not-nearly-as-many-species-on-the-Earth-before-Noah-s-flood-than-after-because-of-the-increased-size/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1

Answer requested by

Stef Lynn

Hans-Georg Lundahl

amateur reader of it

Answered Fri

There were not as many species before than after because the species diversified after the Flood.

There was one hedgehog couple on the Ark, there are 17 hedgehog species today.

Q VII

Do Young Earth Creationists really believe that God created the world 6,000 to 10,000 years ago, and how did they arrive at that number?
https://www.quora.com/Do-Young-Earth-Creationists-really-believe-that-God-created-the-world-6-000-to-10-000-years-ago-and-how-did-they-arrive-at-that-number/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1

Hans-Georg Lundahl

none/ apprx Masters Latin & Greek, Lund University

Answered 7h ago

"Do Young Earth Creationists really believe that God created the world 6,000 to 10,000 years ago,"

Yes, we do.

"and how did they arrive at that number?"

Adam was the first man, created within 168 hours from the creation of the universe (Genesis 1). Counting together the ages of fathers at birth of sons, in Genesis 5 and 11, from Adam to Abraham via Noah, noting Abraham was 75 when he had a promise about Exodus happening 430 years after the promise (see Galatians 3:17), and the Exodus happening "480 years" before the Temple of Solomon, which was around 1000 BC. There are text variants for 480 and there are explanations according to which it would cover only part of the actual years (like not counting bad years).

c. 1000 + 480 + 430 + 75 + A + B = C
A is Abraham born 292 or 942 or 1070 after the Flood, depending on text version.
B is Flood coming 2242 or 1658 after Creation, also depending on text version.
C is the BC date of Creation.

Let's put in 1070 for A and 2242 for B
c. 1000 + 480 + 430 + 75 + 1070 + 2242 = c. 5297 BC

Let's put in 292 for A and 1658 for B
c. 1000 + 480 + 430 + 75 + 292 + 1658 = c. 3935 BC

Add 2022 after Christ:
2022 + 5297 = 7319
2022 + 3935 = 5957

So, about 6000 to 7500 years ago.

Michael Somerset

8.XI.2022

Can you provide any testable and verifiable evidence that is beyond reasonable doubt to support the claims made by creationism?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

8.XI.2022

History is not court justice.

But yes, I consider historic evidence of genealogies in Genesis 5 and 11, along with evidence for Flood mentioned after Genesis 5 and for Babel mentioned in first part of Genesis 11 as fairly good historic evidence, and all doubts I have so far seen on it as unreasonable doubts. Care to take up one of yours, and see what I make of it and if I already dealt with it?

So, beyond any reasonable doubt I would have come across, to say the least.

Michael Somerset

8.XI.2022

Care to take up one of yours, and see what I make of it and if I already dealt with it?

You are the one who has made public claims. It is up to you to provide the evidence to support those claims.

You noted some Bible passages as well as the genealogies. Can you show how they all are testable and verifiable.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

9.XI.2022

The test for a text from older times being historic rather than fictional is, the earliest known audience takes it as historic rather than fictional.

1st C. AD and late BC commentators on Genesis obviously took it as historic, do you have any earlier commentators who can be nailed down as taking it as fictional?

The verifications involve seeing if other historic accounts about same or potentially same events are more or less credible, more or less scrupulous in recording, for instance and if there are any obvious points at which frauds or misunderstandings would have been very likely to induce the tradition even if it was not their true historic memory from before.

Do you have alternative accounts that involve the same events and that you find more credible? Why so?

Do you see an obvious point at which a story told for fun could have been misunderstood as history or at which someone had the opportunity to fake knowledge of earlier events? When and who?

That is precisely the kinds of tests and verifications that history gets.

Michael Somerset

9.XI.2022

So, in other words, these Bible passages do not have any testable and verifiable evidence to back them up. I thought that would be the case.

Just because something is written in an ancient text it does not mean that it has to be taken as literal truth. The arguments you have provided can also apply to other ancient religious texts such as the Sumerian tablets or the Egyptian texts or the Indian Rigveda. That is why testable and verifiable evidence is needed to support your claims that the Biblical texts are true. Credibility is based on this evidence, not on your say so.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

10.XI.2022

"in other words, these Bible passages do not have any testable and verifiable evidence to back them up."

In other words, you don't know what testable and verifiable evidence means in connection with history.

"Just because something is written in an ancient text it does not mean that it has to be taken as literal truth"

History is not always literal truth. It is sometimes literal fraud.

"The arguments you have provided can also apply to other ancient religious texts such as the Sumerian tablets or the Egyptian texts or the Indian Rigveda."

For Sumerian texts, you have a point. Hence I mentioned that the relative value of two different sources should be compared. Sumerian Ark is not seaworthy for a world wide ocean, the Biblical is.

Religious texts of a certain other type, like Book of the Dead or Rigveda do not even claim to be historic, that is about past events witnessed by men. That is off topic.

For India, you would have done better to cite Mahabharata and Ramayana, and yes, I believe them to be mainly historic, with certain reversals of chronology and distortions of theology to the minus.

"That is why testable and verifiable evidence is needed to support your claims that the Biblical texts are true."

It is true that in my main answer I mentioned believing the Bible is not just historic (for this book), but even true (for this and all books).

But after you commented, I actually was providing what you are asking for.

"Credibility is based on this evidence, not on your say so."

Historic credibility is based on some old and dead guys say so.

Michael Somerset

10.XI.2022

History relies on multiple primary and secondary sources including some old and dead guys. Note I said multiple sources, not just one.

You are relying on just one source, the Bible. And no one has yet provided any testable and verifiable evidence that is beyond reasonable doubt that support the supernatural claims made in the Bible.

So, I still don’t see any testable and verifiable evidence that is beyond reasonable doubt from you.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

11.XI.2022

St. Martin of Tours

"Note I said multiple sources, not just one."

For there being a Flood, there actually are multiple sources. By the way, the main thing is primary sources, and that means contemporary ones, while secondary sources are a standin.

That said, it doesn't make sense to pretend "one source has zero credibility, ten sources have total credibility" since 10/10 doesn't equal 0.

For most of what we know of ancient history, we do not have multiple and especially not multiple independent contemporary sources.

"And no one has yet provided any testable and verifiable evidence that is beyond reasonable doubt that support the supernatural claims made in the Bible."

Leaving aside the prophetic and doctrinal claims, since Apocalypse and Ephesians, Ezechiel and Wisdom aren't exactly historic books, by "supernatural claims" I suppose you mean miraculous events. If you didn't, if you confused the two questions of historic reliability with theological reliability, too bad, and I'll ignore that for the following, since we are here talking of history.

Testable and verifiable evidence is texts. "No one has yet provided" is your prejudice. Reasonable doubt is what I challenged you to provide. And you haven't.

There are two kinds of doubts that are not reasonable against Biblical history:

• miracles don't happen
• past events are proven by multiple independent contemporary text sources plus archaeology.

The latter is a near good position for events 1800 AD, but atrocious for events 1800 BC. Not all events leave physical traces, not all physical traces are preserved. A leper healed by Christ will not have traces of having had leprosy, otherwise the priest could not have pronounced him clean, and his flesh will be rotted in the grave a long time ago, by now.

The former is putting the cart before the horse. It's the miracle that is to prove the theology not the theology that is to prove the miracle. And pretending a historic text containing miracles is as moot as a doctrinal text containing doctrine is missing the point. Most false doctrines didn't come about through miracles.

What would constitute a reasonable doubt? Two options: prove the dating methods used by evolutionists allow no reasonable doubt or that their reasonable doubt doesn't extend to the position of Biblical chronology, or prove some other text tradition involves better genealogies and more credible descriptions of the Flood. So far you haven't even tried either.

So, I haven't seen any reasonable doubt, I have provided my evidence, you have not provided reasonable doubt. Just saying “it isn’t beyond reasonable doubt” doesn’t make that so.

Q VIII

How many years are there between Noah and Moses?
https://www.quora.com/How-many-years-are-there-between-Noah-and-Moses/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1

Hans-Georg Lundahl

none/ apprx Masters Latin & Greek, Lund University

Answered 6h ago

From Flood to birth of Abraham, 292, 942 or 1070 years.

From birth to vocation of Abraham, 75 years.

From vocation of Abraham to Exodus 430 years. 75 + 430 = 505.

292 + 505 = 797
942 + 505 = 1447
1070 + 505 = 1575

If you meant from birth to birth instead of from Flood to Exodus, add 600 and subtract 80 = add 520.

797 + 520 = 1317
1447 + 520 = 1967
1575 + 520 = 2095

Q IX

Was it a Mesopotamian disaster or a world catastrophe? The flood continues to fuel speculation worldwide.
https://www.quora.com/Was-it-a-Mesopotamian-disaster-or-a-world-catastrophe-The-flood-continues-to-fuel-speculation-worldwide/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1

Hans-Georg Lundahl

none/ apprx Masters Latin & Greek, Lund University

Answered 6h ago

If it was a Mesopotamian disaster:

• how come it is recalled (with some variation) in the Andes?
• how come a vessel taking off at 28 m above sea level landed 800 m above sea level?
• how come the Mesopotamian vessel would not have been able to float even through a “Mesopotamian” flood on previously mentioned condition?

In other words, as the Bible says, it was a world wide catastrophe.

Q X

If the ice age occurred as a result of Noah’s flood, could that possibly be how fantastic formations like the Grand Canyon occurred?
https://www.quora.com/If-the-ice-age-occurred-as-a-result-of-Noah-s-flood-could-that-possibly-be-how-fantastic-formations-like-the-Grand-Canyon-occurred/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1

Answer requested by

Stef Lynn

Hans-Georg Lundahl

amateur reader of it

Answered Mar 31

When the creation science groups like CMI or AiG have an answer on a thing, I usually don’t put that into question, unless I already arrived at a different one (Neanderthals as a human race were - me : pre-Flood, they : post-Flood).

Now, I’d consider the Ice age began after Noah’s Flood, I’d add that higher levels of cosmic radiation speeded up the process.

But as to Grand Canyon, I simply leave the answer to those guys, and theirs is, the excavation of that canyon was during the Flood, after the Flood had already piled lots of sediments on top of each other. A stream of water came to carve out a canyon in the sediments that were still soft.

Here is one article on CMI:

A receding Flood scenario for the origin of the Grand Canyon
by Peter Scheele | This article is from
Journal of Creation 24(3):106–116, December 2010
https://creation.com/grand-canyon-origin-flood

Q XI

Where and how did Noah build the Ark?
https://www.quora.com/Where-and-how-did-Noah-build-the-Ark/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1

Hans-Georg Lundahl

none/ apprx Masters Latin & Greek, Lund University

Answered Dec 10, 2019

Where?

Where he was getting into it and that would have been on top of the highest mountain known to the pre-Flood world, since 14 and a half to 15 cubits could then have been his waterline, and he could have known it covered it and all equally high mountain tops by 15 cubits when the Ark started floating. I presume he knew all of the pre-Flood geography very well, and therefore that he was chosing the highest mountain.

How?

• 1. According to God’s instructions;
• 2. Using the best technology the pre-Flood world had to offer him (not Neanderthal hunting spears from same time, like Versailles wasn’t built by the tomahawks of Chingachgook);
• 3. Certainly with the help of his three sons, possibly with help of other hired labour or volunteers who were stopped from coming along, probably also involving a hand or two from Methusalem, unless he was too old to do much - not sure how the age just before death affected pre-Flood labour capacity.

Q XII

Is the Tower of Babel the originator of languages?
https://www.quora.com/Is-the-Tower-of-Babel-the-originator-of-languages/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1

Hans-Georg Lundahl

amateur linguist

Answered 17h ago

First, the tower itself is not originator of languages, the language differences came when God wanted to prevent the tower from being built then and there.

Second, human language existed well before, but very important language barriers didn’t, so, God working at Babel is the originator of language differences.

Three QQ from Issah Mohammed, on Babel

John Hunt Thinks Nimrod is a Myth, dito for Babel · Three QQ from Issah Mohammed, on Babel · Twelve Questions on Genesis I to XI

Answer requested by

Issah Mohammed (QQ I - III, not explicitly the extra Q IV)

Q I

Is there historical evidence of the Tower of Babel?
https://www.quora.com/Is-there-historical-evidence-of-the-Tower-of-Babel/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1

Hans-Georg Lundahl

none/ apprx Masters Latin & Greek, Lund University

Answered just now

Given the historic evidence for the Flood, there is a definite need for an event that explains why there are so very different languages after the Flood.

Then there is the fact that Göbekli Tepe does fit the the geographic bill (West of Mountains of Armenia), the temporal bill (Babel being between Flood and Abraham, and Flood having a carbon 14 level of c. 1.4 pmC, Abraham up in 80–90 pmC, and Babel, if identified with GT, has 43 - 49 pmC which is between the other values).

It also fits the linguistic bill, no written language differences are documented before Göbekli Tepe. And if you say “that is because there were no writings at all” - no, there was after all the 32 symbols studied by Genevieve von Petzinger in palaeolithic caves (from Noah’s post-Flood lifespan).

It also fits the cultural bill : “And so the Lord scattered them from that place into all lands, and they ceased to build the city.” - and it so happens, symbols found at Göbekli Tepe have been found in use among Polynesians and Australian aborigines - birdman for the first, lying down “figure eight” (or actually lying down oval cut in half from top to bottom) for the latter.

And obviously, stories from the past are the main historic evidence for any event. Not just in a particular religion, but in general. See thereon my debate with Kevin R. Henke: The Real Reason Why we Can and Could All the Time Say we Know Alexander's Carreer (linking to last part of more than one).

There are no other ones from the Old World, and this confirms (to some degree) that non-Hebrew people setting out from Babel were venerating Nimrod and the world project, and therefore ashamed to state how it worked out in Nimrod’s time.

Q II

Was the Tower of Babel before or after Noah?
https://www.quora.com/Was-the-Tower-of-Babel-before-or-after-Noah/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1

Hans-Georg Lundahl

none/ apprx Masters Latin & Greek, Lund University

Answered 12m ago

Babel ended - as to the city - when Peleg was born.

Noah died 350 years after the Flood.

Peleg was born according to different chronologies for the Genesis 11 genealogies in one of three years : 101 after Flood (Ussher, Masoretic, Vulgate, King James versions), 401 after Flood (Samaritan or LXX without second Cainan), 529 after Flood (LXX with second Cainan).

If you ask me, Noah died, Babel project took off, and then ended when Peleg was born 401 after the Flood.

Q III

Was the Tower of Babel in Eridu?
https://www.quora.com/Was-the-Tower-of-Babel-in-Eridu/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1

Hans-Georg Lundahl

none/ apprx Masters Latin & Greek, Lund University

Answered 15m ago

If you ask me, no.

• I identify Genesis 11 Babel with Göbekli Tepe;
• “And when they removed from the east, they found a plain in the land of Sennaar,” - while both Göbekli Tepe and Eridu are in Mesopotamia (what Shinar / Sennaar arguably means in context), only GT is West of reasonable candidates for the landing place;
• Given Biblical chronologies - all three ones - of the Genesis 11 chronogenealogy - Babel comes fairly early and this makes for a less credible rise of carbon 14 in the atmosphere if you take Eridu (carbon date c. 5000 BC) rather than GT (carbon dates 9600 - 8600 BC).

Q IV

added later

What were men trying to do at the Tower of Babel?
https://www.quora.com/What-were-men-trying-to-do-at-the-Tower-of-Babel/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1

Hans-Georg Lundahl

none/ apprx Masters Latin & Greek, Lund University

Answered 22h ago

The Bible text, Genesis 11:1–9, doesn’t seem to give a concrete answer as to the goal.

Some have from the words “and let us make our name famous before we be scattered abroad into all lands” following after the decision to make the tower concluded the tower was meant to make their name famour or prevent them being scattered into all lands.

I disagree, I think - I do not pretend to know - that Josephus was right. In the passage I will here quote:

2. Now it was Nimrod who excited them to such an affront and contempt of God. He was the grandson of Ham, the son of Noah, a bold man, and of great strength of hand. He persuaded them not to ascribe it to God, as if it was through his means they were happy, but to believe that it was their own courage which procured that happiness. He also gradually changed the government into tyranny, seeing no other way of turning men from the fear of God, but to bring them into a constant dependence on his power. He also said he would be revenged on God, if he should have a mind to drown the world again; for that he would build a tower too high for the waters to be able to reach! And that he would avenge himself on God for destroying their forefathers! 3. Now the multitude were very ready to follow the determination of Nimrod, and to esteem it a piece of cowardice to submit to God; and they built a tower, neither sparing any pains, nor being in any degree negligent about the work:

So far, right : they imagined God as their enemy, and reaching up hgh enough as a good stratagem against the next Flood (either not hearing about or not believing God’s promise to Noah).

Next is where I think he goes wrong and where I think the Bible is - unlike him - not too specific:

and, by reason of the multitude of hands employed in it, it grew very high, sooner than anyone could expect; but the thickness of it was so great, and it was so strongly built, that thereby its great height seemed, upon the view, to be less than it really was. It was built of burnt brick, cemented together with mortar, made of bitumen, that it might not be liable to admit water.

Josephus Antiquities Book I, chapter 4, from §2 quoted on this site: Josephus – Antiquities of the Jews – Book 1
https://onlineancientwitness.wordpress.com/josephus-antiquities-book-1/#JAnt-01.4

First, very likely the “tower, the top of which shall reach into heaven” encapsules the general idea of a three step rocket of which only the capsule (!) on the top actually reaches into space. Nimrod and his pals had no material means to actually pull it off, so God put it on hold for 4500 years.

Second, if not, second likeliest possibility, Nimrod tried to figure out the height beforehand, he built small towers of equal height, the first three at 63 feet equilateral triangle between the centres, so if the rise of heavenly bodies occurred at different times seen from them, that would give a possibility to triangulate the height of heaven. As any body, Sun, Moon or any given star, rose at the same time seen from each tower, they expanded. And expanded some more, and some more. Göbekli Tepe finally covered 20 acres, before God said “stop, you’ll speak Coptic and you’ll speak Sumerian, and you over there will speak Elamite and …” so Nimrod had to quit.

Either one or two would explain why we have found no big skyscraper like thing in Göbekli Tepe.

Third Josephus says burnt brick and a mortar made of bitumen would not have been in the actual building materials. Here again, I have two possibilities:

• 1. the Hebrew words mean sth else, the burning was not actually in ovens but by some chemical fire, like for burnt chalk - there is a Swedish style of farm house architecture where stamped earth and burnt chalk combine;
• 2. sth closely like this (not the burnt chalk, but the Biblical description as usually translated) has been found in Jericho (West of Mesopotamia, but starting out at the time of Göbekli Tepe = Babel) and it isn’t used for walls, but on the floor, as a kind of streets.