Saturday, December 31, 2022

Tolkien on Politics ...


Tolkien on Politics
Tolkien Lore | 4 May 2020
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufT7wgWr3rM


2:43 What is the common foe of the Anarchist and the Monarchist?
Parliamentarian Democracy.

In that precise quote, I feel a certain, shall we say distant kinship, to Action française in one of Maurras' less conventional moments.

"Au delà du socialisme il y a le syndicalisme, audelà de l'anarchie est la monarchie. Certains le considèrent comme le mal, nous la considérons comme le bien"

Not the least saying JRRT was a card carrying member of Action française or that he would have favoured all of Maurras' views, and one of those expressed in his aphorism collection ("collected tweets") Mes Idées Politiques that was omitted from Nos raisons pour la monarchie / contre la démocratie ("posthumously collected tweets") could have inspired Denethor. Maurras, alas, also thought that the soul is unknowable and that the statesman needn't bother about the Catholic soul in terms of salvation, other than as this coinciding with Traditional French Identity (which he valued more than the soul).

But this particular thing, I think Tolkien was no fan of parliamentarian democracy. Or bureaucracy.

3:22 I think you will find that early on he is basically Distributist anticapitalist. Like Chesterton and Belloc;
THEN he mellows up on mass production (famously, printing LotR in millions of copies from the same* physical press is mass production). Somewhat.

Let's take two types of changes in farming since horse drawn ploughs were widely spread.
  • tractors pulling ploughs and also sowing machines reduce the number of people needed to produce a certain amount of food, and transports decrease the necessity to live close to where the food is grown;
  • fertilisers (recall that horse manure was one too) and pesticides (recall that some of them are poisonous) and searching out new varieties tends on the contrary to increase the amount of food produced per acre.


If ever the continents get so crowded that a human being absolutely no longer can get three acres and a cow, but only two acres, and this after grazing ground has reduced his cow to half a cow, on average, even if one can imagine ship gardens with soil from composted algae, the second kind of change will arguably be vital for survival.

But the first change is basically creating unemployment. In France, tractors became a thing in World War I, to replace farmers who were drafted for the war. After the war, tractors meant quite a lot of them couldn't get their land back. A similar spiral of farming unemployment and forced urbanisation of farm born people was in England at Napoleonic wars, when lots of farmers were needed to fight "Oh Napoleon Bonaparte, you're the cause of my woe, since my bonnie dear sweetheart to the wars he did go" and they had no more any enclosures from which to start paying off debts that their farms had incurred in the meantime.

Sure, one can reason like "well, the more farmers are out of work at farms, the more of them can get other jobs" - but overall it's unemployment in "necessary" jobs (for a list of vital necessities, see corporeal works of mercy, Matthew 25 - farmers and brewers come before weavers and carpenters who come before medical doctors, kind jailors and - not mentioned here but in Matthew 2and John 12 - undertakers), which increases a "workforce pool" that's uneasily balanced between "jobs of luxury" (that's the nicer part of not being a farmer), cleaning jobs (less nice, but perfectly honest - unless you harrass a homeless by denying him clean toilets from time to time), unemployed, and those surveying the unemployed so they don't make trouble. In times of unrest and simply bad conjectures, the part of this that goes to "jobs of luxury" clearly is likely to decrease. With an ensuing polarisation between unemployed and those watching over them. More homeless and more police officers. And some kinds of not so kind jailors - the type who will frown on escapism rather than on physical escape. CSL mentioned some of them in The Pilgrim's Regress, the City of Claptrap. On some occasions robbed stingy shop keepers and evil jailors (clap trap type or Alcatraz type) may get together to make evil plans against Genesis 1:28 by speculation on what types of people there could be less of and society would be more peaceful ... God may laugh at their plans, but not all of the victims do. Of all Fascist movements, Nazism involved Eugenics and is for that reason unacceptable, but so did historically several parties of a Democratic type in Canada, US and Scandinavia. In Germany, Patton ended Eugenics in 1945. In the other parts, this was more like 1970's.

If the West has less fossil fuels over a certain war or any future war, it might be a good idea to get people out to farms and start replacing tractors with horses and people. And as many lost jobs or even businesses during lockdowns, some who don't dare count on getting that back would probably be willing, so no constraint would be needed.

* For those reading this and aware that I want to earn money for my writing, my economic setup, which first I present:



is such that decentralised printing in many different companies in several smaller editions is possible. Not necessarily that I'd like to have far fewer copies overall ... but they would involve less transport (and at least in some cases more amateurism).

4:11 Government, except as verbal noun for the action of governing ...

He would approve of "during the government of Churchill as PM" because it pinpoints Churchill as personally responsible, and speaks of "government" as one activity in his life, but he would not approve of omitting the name and just say "government" as "the government has decided" ...

4:49 It is a bit ironic, while what he jocularly proposes as a kind of Stalin purge is precisely against the kind of attitude Stalin was requiring - like Stalin was requiring people to say, not that a policeman or judge or army officer had a limited right to command you, but that the Government, because it was People Incarnate, had a right to command any and every area of your life it chose to so command and found practicable to so command.

5:12 Unlibertarian. I would actually go to his letters a bit more on that issue before we go to his fictions.

In the active common lifespan of JRRT and CSL in Oxford, the no fault divorce by mutual agreement was being introduced.

Both agreed that what was going on before that was extremely hypocritical, some wealthy people wanted to divorce, got a few dollars for a gigolo, got a few dollars for a private detective, got even more dollars on lawyers to punish the unfaithful wife with a divorce. A poor man was basically stuck with his wife.

Now, for CSL, the issue was, the people are anyway not likely to obey laws they don't really understand or relate to. Giving poor people an equal share in a guilty pleasure was kind of just because it made things more equal, and also because it made things less hypocritical.

For JRRT the issue was, the law as it stood incarnated some shadow of the law of God (though it was not exactly a carbon copy of the Canon Law of 1917), and the fact that getting around it was costly was protecting the poor from occasions to sin. So, JRRT was for a just restriction, even if in practise it only incapacitated the poor from vice.

Let's compare prohibition. BOTH would, like Chesterton, have favoured the ending of Eighteenth Amendment, BOTH would, like Chesterton, have dreaded its importation to England, BOTH would have denounced also its hypocrisy, a rich man could pay a bootlegger or could get a bottle of alcohol for wound desinfection in the pharmacy, without getting suspected, and then get into the cocktail party. Here JRRT would have agreed with CSL to end the hypocrisy, but in this case, the restriction was in the view of all three (or four if you add Belloc) an unjust one, an impure importation from Mecca.

5:37 Have you skipped all the chapters about Laketown?

"Master of Lake-town is the title given to the elected leader of Esgaroth. The Master of the town when Bilbo and Thorin's Company arrived in The Hobbit was portrayed as a capable businessman, but more than a little greedy and cowardly. He was stated as having run off with a large amount of gold and dying in the epilogue."
...
"Bard is a descendant of Girion, the last lord of the city of Dale, which had been destroyed by the dragon Smaug two centuries before the events of The Hobbit, which takes place in year 2941 of the Third Age. He is the captain of a company of archers in Esgaroth (also known as Lake-town). His friends accused him of prophesying floods and poisoned fish, but they knew his worth and courage. He is described as tall and grim with black hair."

And if you go to some things in the books, Bard is also described as ridiculed for being basically paranoid or apocalyptic.

Two centuries - somewhat reminiscent of the time from the French Revolution ... basically 150 years back in 1937. Or even the time from Culloden. 1745 - 1937, nearly two centuries.

If we want year by year two centuries, that's 1737 : "July 9 – The direct male line of the Medici family becomes extinct, with the death of Gian Gastone de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany."
Previous year : "January 26 – Stanislaus I of Poland abdicates his throne."
"April 14 – German adventurer Theodor Stephan Freiherr von Neuhoff is crowned King Theodore of Corsica, 25 days after his arrival on Corsica on March 20.[2] His reign ends on November 5 when he flees the island."
"April – The Genbun era begins in Japan. The era of Kyōhō Reforms ends."
"November 5 – King Theodore of Corsica flees the island after a reign of seven months and the kingdom reverts to French control. [2]"
1735 "October 3 – An agreement between the European powers brings a ceasefire in the War of the Polish Succession, one week short of the second anniversary of the war. With France and Spain on the side of the reigning monarch, Stanisław Leszczyński, and Prussia, Russia, and Austria supporting Augustus III, a preliminary peace is signed that was ratified in 1738 as the Treaty of Vienna. By the terms of the treaty, Stanisław Leszczyński renounced his claim on the Polish throne and recognized Augustus III, Duke of Saxony. As compensation he received instead the duchies of Lorraine and Bar which were to pass to France upon his death."

To me this sounds like:
  • A) Tolkien was a kind of Fascist (organising disaster relief, as Bard does, was a very current motif with Fascist movements, just like proposing a somewhat more authoritarian rule in times of obvious unrest, also as Bard does);
  • B) but his ideal Fascism was very far from Hitler's and far closer to attempts of monarchic restoration.


6:30 And obviously, Bard's refusal to usurp the position of an elected official, as long as he exists, is a criticism of Communism, but probably not (despite Azaña still being there) of Franquism. Other Fascist takeovers up to 1937 had been constitutional or sham constitutional, never done by open violence against obvious representatives of the "kind of entity that must not be named" ...

Oh, unless you would count Pilsudski as starting out as Fascist, when bearing arms against Russia, Prussia and theoretically also Austria (but Austria never shot a single bullet in his men's direction, Austrian units had orders to simply allow his takeover). But some would say, he was socialist then and only later became kind of Fascist.

One could of course say, Smetona deposing Kazys Grinius in 1926 did not get Tolkien's approval. And when Smetona fired on farmers in 1935, I think that also was not quite JRRT's taste - or mine.

11:28 Thranduil, Elrond, Celeborn and Galadriel - three elven kingdoms. Oh - four. Cirdan is arguably not just a private citizen within human ruled territory, but actually king of the Grey Havens area.

If Celeborn and Galadriel don't do very much governing, at the least they make laws on who may visit Lothlorien and make a very notable exception to that law. They also organise the defense against Orcs. That puts them as much into Kingship as Alfred was (or even a bit more, since they weren't on the run) in the time of his life a few years up to defeating Guthrum at Ethandune.

I think they are also in the White Council which if I recall correctly is not just the five Istari.

A rose by any other name ... if you call it Gül or you don't name it but describe its petals, it is still a rose.

If you want to decrease the number of kingdoms by denying Celeborn and Galadriel running one, that's a bit bad faith*, after you admitted (correctly) that Denethor was de facto king, though the title was different.

There are two elective societies in Middle Earth, and you get Masters of Laketown and Mayors of Michel Delving.

And a few unconstitutional monarchies (as moderns would analyse them) are bad. Sauron, Saruman, Goblin King of Misty Mountains ... however, in Aristotelic and Thomistic terms, these would be the vice of Tyranny, and actually in opposition to Monarchy.

* Bad faith - a bad translation of "mauvaise foi" which in a context like this simply means "disingenious" ...

15:08 If you recall Girl Next Gondor, she was stating Shire was "not a Utopia" because people were occasionally very spiteful to each other.

But if you see what she is polemising against, the idea is probably best stated that "the Shire is a Distributist Utopia" - and it is in fact not naiveté but plain observational fact that a village with property well distributed and no one landlording the others actually can remain very stably in its customs.

Chesterton gives the Serbian village as an example. One can add Greeks in both Greece and formerly Greek parts of Turkey who have kept up steles of the Decretum Maximum of Diocletian.

Basically up to modern times.

Now, the Decretum maximum gives maximal prices for diverse goods and services. Probably the currency changed, but the translations to later currencies were in the people's awareness, or keeping up the stelai would have been pointless.

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

"The first two-thirds of the Edict doubled the value of the copper and billon coins, and set the death penalty for profiteers and speculators, who were blamed for the inflation and who were compared to the barbarian tribes attacking the empire. Merchants were forbidden to take their goods elsewhere and charge a higher price, and transport costs could not be used as an excuse to raise prices.

"The last third of the Edict, divided into 32 sections, imposed a price ceiling – a list of maxima – for well over a thousand products. These products included various food items (beef, grain, wine, beer, sausages, etc.), clothing (shoes, cloaks, etc.), freight charges for sea travel, and weekly wages. The highest limit was on one pound of purple-dyed silk, which was set at 150,000 denarii (the price of a lion was set at the same price)."

17:23 "Mostly military decisions ..."

My guess is, he was not a fan of governments banning homeschooling - partly because his mother Mabel had been a very capable homeschooling mother ...

He was also not a fan of mass vaccination. When he complains about inflation in PhD's he comparing worthless PhD's to vaccination at birth.

It is true, the more people have a PhD, the less it is worth on the work market.

18:45 An excellent parallel to how Christendom conjugated respect for laws concerning slavery with the ending of slavery.

It is a curious fact that the abolitionist who died in 680 was Anglo-Saxon of origin, even if she was Frankish Queen. She had been a slave, and she promulgated the abolition of slavery.

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

Someone who was probably rooting for a reintroduction of Mosaic legislation on a world wide scale claimed the abolition of slavery was looking away from the law and looking at gain (yes, some people at some times gained as capitalists and factory owners by helping to forbid others to be slave owners), but I answered that Exodus 21:16 puts slave hunt as a death penalty offense, and slaves were so often being actually kidnapped (one Byzantine example in he ninth century got kidnapped and later liberated, and he wrote about slave hunters meriting death), and abolishing slavery was a way of safeguarding against such crimes by taking away the market for such criminals. Vivat Wilberforce!

21:33 "the king cannot do much on his own"

As a Swede ... so totally true.

We have had two systems of constitutional monarchy, unless you count the present one as distinct third when it codified what had long been the practise.

Between the first and second there was a span of two kings who actually ruled without consitutional restraints. Gustav III and his son Gustav IV Adolph, not to be confused with Gustav II Adolph from the Thirty Years war.

Now, Gustav III was "enlightened" and was very popular with the military. This is how he could end the first version we had of constitutional monarchy. While the King had a formal veto, could formally refuse to sign a law, the Parliament (which had four chambers) could use a stamp with his signature instead. Gustav III ended that system and became a real monarch.

His son was more like perceived as what Erasmus would have called a "dark man" - while Napoleon was popular, our king thought of him, since the illegal execution of the Duc d'Enghien, as the Antichrist. He didn't do any gematria for it, he just saw the acts. Well, perhaps some, perhaps he too, added "Napoleon" sounds a bit like "Apollyon" which in the five cases added together adds up to 4666, but anyway, he considered Napoleon a malefactor of Apocalyptic proportions. As a result, he refused to join Napoleon's continental blockade. And as the Czar back then was an ally of Napoleon ... the Czar was tempted to start a war.

Now, Gustav IV Adolph was deposed when the war ended, with acceptance of defeat, but even at the very start, he was not being obeyed by people. He had no chance if Hell froze to ice to get the staff he wanted into the war. One can discuss whether the actual staff were traitors, Masons trying to align with Napoleon via a defeat, or whether they were incompetent. But one cannot deny, he, the King, had no chance to get the staff he wanted. The military just wouldn't obey him. That treason, arguably for a Masonic preference for Napoleon, was very clear from the start.

And it was due to the king having a Christian conscience. A hatred of the French Revolution, and its deeds and its pomps. Perhaps his having become fatherless early on due to another regicide contributed.

22:57 Yes, you can say that again.

Small shops. Letting sons of shopowners remain shopowners and not letting others buy them up and reduce them to employees.

Chesterton considered this could be done without Corporatism both on the country and in city businesses.

Belloc considered, for city businesses, Corporatism was needed.

And in Austria, before 1938, you had Corporatism very clearly meant to favour small business - that's a reason Chesterton spoke of "the paradox of Fascism in Italy, the parody of Fascism in Germany" since Hitler was really good friends with Big Business.

25:33 It is abundantly clear both from this and from Letters that JRRT was no fan of Stalin.

25:53 He is criticising Socialist Peoples' Republics.

Social Democracy did not create that want, they were - like Fascism - pretty well providing for widespread material well being. It's just that they are too oppressive (basically no homeschooling, and when I was at school age no Christian private schools, except for 7DA, for some reason) and sexually permissive (with contraception - not sure whether abortion sould count as sexual permissivity, but it was marketted in a context of that type), and formerly, as said, oppressive by eugenics, like our PM did in early 70's what Patton did in 1945 to disestablish medical doctors from that particular type of slave hunt.

Obviously, during the post-war rationing, England had and US hadn't certain traits of the Soviet Union. You recall "Brideshead Revisited"? Well it ends up with that kind of property being confiscated by the state, since the owners weren't rich enough to pay the prohibitive real estate taxes that rose in an anti-aristocracy surge of socialism.

CSL mentioned the war time drills as a threat to liberties in the post-war era, in an essay called Blimpophobia.

26:57 Tolkien expressed his utter dislike for Stalinism more than once.

The Yalta conference ... recall that letter?

As to post-War England, remember that Churchill was in office 10 May 1940 – 26 July 1945, and was in the immediate post-War days replaced by Clement Attlee. In office 26 July 1945 – 26 October 1951. Party? Labour.

"The following provisions of this Part of this Act shall have effect for the purpose of securing that owners of agricultural land fulfil their responsibilities to manage the land in accordance with the rules of good estate management, and that occupiers of agricultural land fulfil their responsibilities to farm the land in accordance with the rules of good husbandry."


Quoting Clement Attlee's Agriculture act.

Meaning, probably, government got more power to get rid of small and inefficient farmers.

"(1)For the purposes of this Act, an owner of agricultural land shall be deemed to fulfil his responsibilities to manage it in accordance with the rules of good estate management in so far as his management of the land and (so far as it affects the management of that land) of other land managed by him is such as to be reasonably adequate, having regard to the character and situation of the land and other relevant circumstances, to enable an occupier of the land reasonably skilled in husbandry to maintain efficient production as respects both the kind of produce and the quality and quantity thereof."
"(2)In determining whether the management of land is such as aforesaid, regard shall be had, but without prejudice to the generality of the provisions of the last foregoing subsection, to the extent to which the owner is providing, improving, maintaining and repairing fixed equipment on the land in so. far as is necessary to enable an occupier of the land reasonably skilled in husbandry to maintain efficient production as aforesaid."
"(3)The responsibilities under the rules of good estate management of an owner of land in the occupation of another person shall not in relation to the maintenance and repair of fixed equipment include an obligation to do anything which that other person is under an obligation to do by virtue of any agreement."


I can see how some farmers previously getting by were ruined and their land bought up into larger farms because of this Act.

Ah, yes, here are a few more titles from that same Act:

Dispossession of owners or occupiers on grounds of bad estate management or bad husbandry.
16.Dispossession on grounds of bad estate management.
17.Dispossession on grounds of bad husbandry.
18.Power of Minister to take possession where occupier dispossessed and no other arrangements made.
19.Power of tenant or landlord to apply for dispossession of owner or occupier under supervision.

You recall Enid Blyton's Famous Five sometimes stopping at farms and trying to pay for the provisions they got and then housewife insisting "no, that's on me" ?... well, in the time after this act, such generosity might have been curbed.

29:20 [individual responsibility, whether that means anarchy or unconstitutional monarchy]

And by individual responsibility, let's not mean "responsibilities under supervision" ...

30:46 In fact, neither did Chesterton.

He specifies it in England by being neither LIberal, nor Labour, nor Conservative, and not succeeding in getting an own group elected (Belloc at at least one election was a candidate, circumscription being Brewers' Guild of London), and he specifies it for the US in stating he falls between two chairs, but if he had to chose, it would arguably be the party of "Rome, Rum and Rebellion" (this was before Nancy Pelosi was pushing for abortions, obviously). With very obvious reservations against then rampant Eugenics racism.

For the video on law-breaking, go here:

Lawbreaking in LOTR: Conflicts of Moral and Legal Duties
Tolkien Lore | 9 Dec. 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ggh4oAdiXM

Thursday, December 29, 2022

A Remaining Catholic


New survey shows why Catholics leave the Church
The Counsel of Trent | 9 Dec. 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sav-7ky3F0


11:33 My mother treated me at age 9 - 15 as capable of asking hard questions. After 15, administration made sure we were separate most of the school year, but still.

That's when the more or less Evangelical Fundie became a Catholic - without ceasing to be Fundie, via Lutheranism.

9 - 15 by contrast was when a former Evolutionist discovered the Gospels, the Apocalypse and Genesis, in a Fundie way.

16:00 Please note, there is a kind of equivocation among Novus Ordo and some trads.

A person with SSA - what does that person do? Can he marry, should he be celibate?

By marry, I obviously mean someone of the opposite sex.

Now, Joseph Sciambra who just left for Russian Orthodoxy and "Cardinal" Arborelius have come out on one end - homosexuals should not attempt marriage.
Chaput who was recently replaced in Philadelpha, came out on the other end. He said, specifically, they are free to marry, obviously someone of the opposite sex, and his successor as Novus Ordo non-bishop of Philly told the gay community "we are sorry for Chaput's version of conversion therapy" - which I suppose means precisely that.

Where are my own stakes on the question?

  • While I was in Sweden, a land with very harsh laws against homophobia, I found it tactical to say "God doesn't hate homosexuals as long as they don't commit sodomy" and "no, this doesn't mean homosexuals can't have sex, they can still marry someone of the opposite sex" - I also found and still find it true.
  • If a pastoral involves "homosexuals should not attempt marriage" this may, combined with allegations about someone being homosexual add up to an intrigue stopping someone from marrying. I think my continued poverty and celibacy, both involuntary by now, and also not hallowed by any current vow, may owe something to this type of pseudo-pastoral.


Which, frankly, seems to be pleasing to the gay community, because it chases SSA people away from Catholicism and from the rejection of sodomy. It also seems to be rising, to judge from the replacement in Philadelphia.

16:20 I agree on the brainwashing.

Adults who get into "cults" more or less usually recognised as such, who are therefore suspected of being brainwashed by many, not sure if that's true, usually spend about 200 - 300 hours of adult life with the instructors from the cult, before becoming "card-carrying members" ... maybe no big deal, actually, could be normal for RCIA.

Now, how much time is a young Swede spending in school just the compulsory 1st to 9th grade?

I calculated it was sth like 800 - 900 hours. And it starts with people who are that same year having their 7th birthday. It is not chosen by the parents. Homeschooling and Christian free schools are very restricted in Sweden. The society functions as a cult.

16:44 You mean reliable surveys say 1 - 2 % outright predominantly Homosexual or you mean 1 - 2 % some kind of degree on the Kinsey scale and including predominantly hetero occasional bisexuals?

Because, LGBTQ - especially B and Q - normally would include for instance predominantly hetero occasional bisexuals.

The Q part can also include total heterosexuals who are into BDSM.

I am fairly confident the 40 % of gen Z who identify as LGBTQ are not all predominant homosexuals. But I am also concerned that exclusive homosexuality has become more prevalent, because people actually can be conditioned to it.

I had a conversation in 1995 or 1996 with a colleague or former colleague as teacher (grades 7 - 9). He told me that some remote Polynesian (or Papuan?) societies with lots less gender roles are also according to anthropologists he believed totally free from homosexuality. I am not sure if this is true.

But I am fairly confident that males in the Stuart line have about equal predisposition to being feminine between Medieval kings and King James and the recent still alive case of Francis of Bavaria. By contrast, machism has not been equal in the societies, and King James was clearly predominantly homosexual, while still a married man, Francis of Bavaria is unmarried, and some Jameses of Scotland in the Middle Ages were just artistic and still without even homosexual scandals.

I am not saying that feminine males who meet too much machism growing up are the only conditioned recruits to homosexual identification, but they are among them.

This means, conditioning to homosexuality is a now fairly prevalent danger.

18:24 At 54, if I want a fruitful marriage, I need to marry someone younger than myself.

That's what I'm looking for anyway, getting back what I lost in teens and twenties.

You defend the sanctity of a couple where both are 85 - do you so also with a couple where the man is 85 and the wife is 55?

Because, historically, Catholicism doesn"t sneer at that kind of age disparity. The modern world does.

So, if you lived in the area of Paris where I stay ... if you saw me smiling in a somewwhat suggestive way to ladies clearly younger than myself - would you be among the guys who said "beware of that pedo" or among the guys who said "he has a right to look for a wife"?

In the latter case, why are you involved in blocking me out from getting an income as your colleague?

Jimmy Akin obviously has his agenda on this issue, since he's Evolutionist. Are you equally against Catholicism in the public eye being sometimes identified with a YEC? Because, if you are, I would need to count you as my persecutors.

The parish right five minutes walk from where I have my luggage pretty certainly is Jimmy-Akin-ing, and by now perhaps also encouraging or being more tolerant of disparity shaming.

20:51 29 % unhappy with teachings about the Bible.

This is very vague. It could involve those going:
  • Atheist / None over Catholics being too affirming of Biblical authority (like disagreeing with Bart)
  • Evangelical over their experience of Catholics being too un-Fundie
  • Orthodox over either combined with Catholics preferring Vulgate OT over LXX.

Wednesday, December 28, 2022

Between Ex-FSSPX-ers


I'm one, and taking a look at the other one interviewed by Michael Lofton, namely Andrew Bartel:

Why I Left the SSPX with Andrew Bartel
Reason & Theology | 29 July 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_YA-mJj9Ks


5:37 He was confirmed by Mgr Fellay - was this after Mgr Williamson was already out?

8:36 No, [I] was wrong.

I'm a fan of the Eleison comments too, back when they were a public blog.

I was sad when denied access to them over not being an invited reader.

12:37 This is where SSPX is inconsistent.

When in 2000 - 2001 for a year I went to a Novus Ordo parish (with a conservative priest who certainly had the intention to bring forth the sacrifice of the mass), I was acting on the counsel "we don't recommend anyone to attend to Novus Ordo," and "some masses are certainly invalid, due to new rite shifting then intentions" and "Novus Ordo is a danger to your faith" (I considered I had a very solid one, so I thought "I can handle").

Furthermore, part of the case against Novus Ordo was due to translations like "for all" - Swedish and Polish both had "for you and for the many" ... (Swedish has "the" in the translation, while Polish like Latin is without the feature "article").

This has probably got me regarded as "confused as to their doctrinal position" ... which I was only in so far that I refuse to develop a radar for unstated "statements" and act on those even more than on what is stated by someone I consider as legitimate.

It can be added that before 2006, I had also had very little occasion to "develop a radar" since my contact with the FSSPX had been very occasional.

Mitteilungsblatt, yes, some correspondence with the priest who baptised me sub conditione, yes, but not a weekly personal contact with people. Advent 2004 to 2nd Jan 2005 and for five weeks in 2005, I was hosted by FSSPX priests, and me being already homeless, they were not concerned with discussing theology with me, more with getting me manual work. I had quit Swedish University over administrational mixup, not over Academic failure, and I was partly amused, partly somewhat starting to feel ill treated by them over that.

But back then I was way more charitable over this, and they were polite, so we were not in open conflict.

13:58 The "Open Letter to Confused Catholics" specifically doesn't deal with what happens if Latin, Swedish, Polish texts are far better than French or English back in his day translations on "for all" instead of the actual formula. He seemed unaware that this existed.

16:30 I would say this is where Sedevacantism and Orthopapism are way more consistent.

If Novus Ordo is a banned liturgy (and especially if it is invalid), this means that Montini was not Pope.

If Montini was not Pope, neither was Wojtyla, and if Wojtyla was not Pope, in 1988, there would have been 30 years since there was a Pope, and that would signal a duty to get a Pope elected.

David Bawden acted on that duty, as he saw it, and got elected.

17:46 "you don't disagree with Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre"

From the end of my times at St. Nicolas du Chardonnet, this rings so true.

"Sedevacantism is not held by" her* words in French were "théologiens de qualité"

Not sure if it was theologians, people, priests, but the words "de qualité" have remained.

It is to a pretty big degree "we are right, because we are posh" ... or "oh, you disagree, but you can't point to anyone as posh as our clergy to substantiate your position" ...

Their defense of "una cum" not making a mass illicit even if Ratzinger or Bergoglio is heretical was so off the mark historically.

"Well, Popes approved English province missals with 'una cum papa nostro NN et rege nostro NN' and the rulers of England were Protestant heretics"

Misses the point that Stuart claimants from 1688 to I think 1830 or so (see Henry Edward, Cardinal Stuart) were supported by the Catholic Church. And as (usually) Catholics were people that Catholics could (usually) pray with.

* Those of a woman I talked to after ceasing to assist masses but while still begging outside.

18:13 Answering in parallel with Bartel.

I came back to Catholicism in 2009. Neohimerites were hopelessly modernist (one had criticised "Pope Benedict's" condoms are not a complete solution as "uncharitable" and after that Pentecost I didn't get back to Divine Liturgy with Neohimerites), and Paleohimerites were (at least mostly) too Anti-Catholic.

I had an an Eastern Orthodox ecclesiology and a Roman Catholic theology on other subjects.

I was more than once preached to without being nominatim preached to, a habit Novus Ordo's seem to have in common with FSSPX, since then, and made my avowals of Orthodoxy. Yes, the Blessed Virgin was free from Original sin from the very moment of Her conception, not just five minutes afterwards, after She had prayed to be delivered from it (or two seconds).

When it came to "yes, the successors of Peter are the Popes and not the Bishops" - I had to quit. The FSSPX confesses that with their mouth, but they act as if EO ecclesiology were true.

A thing like "obedience was good, when the Popes were good" (Mgr Lefebvre) is so "yeah, we could sign Pope Hormisdas' formula when Pope Hormisdas was Orthodox" - all the while Neohimerites state that the Modernists and Latins in Rome actually are canonically Popes. On this ground taking a huge distance from Sedevacantism.

So, the deal breaker was finally, I could not consider a sell-out to psychiatry like "Benedict XVI" as Pope if I really took the RC view on papacy seriously. Hence, Sede or Orthopapist.

The remaining time up to the "abdication" (of someone who had no papacy to begin with), I was Sede, a bit into 2013 after the "election" I was three ways ... Bergoglio, Greijo or Bawden, and from late 2013 to early 2014 on to present, Pope Michael (Bawden). He had been consecrated bishop already in 2011, Gaudete Sunday.

20:24 Full communion with the Church.
Well said - was the incumbent bishop of Rome on August 1st in Rome or in Kansas?

So, the choice was Bergoglio or Pope Michael.

Pope Michael being about having trad positions in certain areas (he's not an avid defender of clerical celibacy requirement, his first ordained priest is a married man, and he allows the TLM to be said in English and presumably also Spanish) and being "in full communion with the Church" and one counting to have a Pope on the day when Christ arrives to Armageddon.

40:24 For those who do accept Vatican II, how come adherring to your last three "Popes" starting with the "saint" (whom I admired at conversion), involves a conflict against § 3 of Dei Verbum, which is clearly affirming Biblical chronology from Creation of Adam on?

God, who through the Word creates all things (see John 1:3) and keeps them in existence, gives men an enduring witness to Himself in created realities (see Rom. 1:19-20).

This is less concerned with Biblical chronology than with Geocentrism or Irreducible complexity, but wait ...

Planning to make known the way of heavenly salvation, He went further and from the start manifested Himself to our first parents.

Stating that Adam and Eve are "mythology, but divinely inspired of that genre" is therefore against this paragraph. It clearly involves "our first parents"

Then after their fall His promise of redemption aroused in them the hope of being saved (see Gen. 3:15) and from that time on He ceaselessly kept the human race in His care,

Ceaselessly is not consistent with allowing them to so neglect history that Genesis 5 and 11 (clearly after the first parents and after Genesis 3:15) become less "Swiss cheese genealogies" than such with more holes than cheese or generations actually recorded. And especially not with so many generations of oral only tradition that Genesis 3:15 becomes iffy as historical memory.

to give eternal life to those who perseveringly do good in search of salvation (see Rom. 2:6-7). Then, at the time He had appointed He called Abraham in order to make of him a great nation (see Gen. 12:2).

Some Catholics think "Genesis 1 to 11 is against science, but from Abraham on, we need to accept historicity" - well, this paragraph certainly does tell you to accept the historicity of Abraham, but with Genesis 14, you can't unless you have reed mats with evacuated temple treasure from En Geddi misdated by 1500 years.

But this is only possible if the Earth was still young, its atmosphere still young and carbon 14 had not reached its present level yet.

Through the patriarchs, and after them through Moses and the prophets, He taught this people to acknowledge Himself the one living and true God, provident father and just judge, and to wait for the Savior promised by Him, and in this manner prepared the way for the Gospel down through the centuries.

The traditional view of these patriarchs being, it's not just the five generations in the main action of Genesis (Abraham to sons of Joseph), but all the way from the time when Seth replaced Abel as patriarch of the just. I think your first eucharistic prayer (if you consider it valid) still mentions "Abel" ... as part of how God collects His people.

So, given you wish to uphold Vatican II and the New Liturgy, you come into conflict with your "last three Popes"

Please note, this translation into English misses the exclusion or Old Earth Compromise of even the Fundie type, namely before creation of mankind:
"He went further and from the start manifested Himself to our first parents."

From the start doesn't sound very catchy ... and doesn't sound very Biblical. Check the Latin:
"insuper protoparentibus inde ab initio Semetipsum manifestavit"

Ooops ... "ab initio" suddenly sounds very Biblical and Mark 10:6 ...

Montini, who wasn't living for decades in a Commie occupied country never towted Old Earth or Evolution.

You know that the Palmarians actually canonised him? Wouldn't have happened, if "Paul VI, Pope and Martyr, Prisoner of the Vatican" (as I used to call him) had signed documents denying Adam and Eve were created within humanly easily overseeable time from when God created heaven and earth.

Here is the first roughly half, not sure if I will make an update post with the second half, but here is the first half.

Monday, December 26, 2022

On the Late Pope


Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: On the Late Pope · Correspondence of Hans Georg Lundahl: An exchange with Lauren Bass, on Pope Michael

I shared this for the sermon on my main blog. Here is for the debate with someone:

Christmas Sunday: A Passage To Remember
vatican in exile | 26 Dec. 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ve4_dXNfl8


Paula A Johnson
I always felt sorry for poor David. He wasn't evil, just mentally ill.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Where do you get that from?

Paula A Johnson
@Hans-Georg Lundahl The poorly educated, unordained fool had himself elected Pope Michael I by 6 lay crazies in Kansas, his delusional old parents included.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@Paula A Johnson You are poorly educated if you think a man has to be ordained before being elected Pope.

Bishops in the first millennium, including in Rome, were elected by acclamation, mainly by laymen.

And apart from your disliking the position, how do you argue mental illness? So far you have just used that terminology to express your dislike of the position.

More on Papacy


Wretched - 25 (such) "reasons Peter was not the first Pope" · Mariology · Michael Lofton Qualifies Protestantism as Self-Contradictory - a Qualified Agreement · More on Papacy

Does This One Pope Discredit the Papacy? w/ Erick Ybarra
Pints With Aquinas | 31 March 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97b-HbHK-O4


4:55 Is this why Pope St. Leo IX says that the decisions of the first see are "ex se irreformabiles, nisi quid supreptum sit"?

In the first decree Vigilius was dealing with something "subreptum" - a swapped letter.

9:42 "two Isaiah, five writers of the Pentateuch" ...

According to modern (very flawed) scholarship.

On the topic of the Pentateuch, it holds up in Biblical history. Not identic, but akin to and included in dogma.

10:04 Let's distinguish "infallibility" and "inerrancy".

The Bible is inerrant, but it could lead someone unwary astray, or rather allow someone to twist his understanding of it astray. It's basically for bishops or theologians rather than normal lay men. But the original and at least somewhere preserved version of the text cannot be factually wrong (either dogma or small fact).

The Church is infallible. It could be wrong (in much, but not all of Tradition, as in Fathers) on a fact, as long as the fact did not affect dogma.

Example : nearly all Fathers after St. Irenaeus (the exceptions being some of his contemporaries and only maybe a Gallican martyrology) identify the Beloved Disciple with one son of Zebedee, one of the twelve. As soon as he was an "apostle" in any sense, it still upholds revelation being completed before the death of the last apostle. If he was a Cohen and one of the 72, that's fine, even if most Church men since St. Irenaeus were factually wrong : because they were not doctrinally wrong.

It's like Aristotle's strongest argument for earth being round is sound as an argument even if wrong as a fact : Magellan providing what "Ganges = Gibraltar" lacked.

What matters is, a Gospel written AD 100 and a Revelation received AD 90 on Patmos were received and written with the competence of one who had known Jesus and the Blessed Virgin - and this is correct even on the thesis of Fr. Jean Colson. So, the Church is infallible, but not factually inerrant. However, if all Church fathers, including Papias and Asia Minor ones, remaining there (unlike St. Irenaeus, who left Asia Minor at 16), had said or shown agreement that the Beloved Disciple were the Son of Zebedee, then probably Church infallibility would have provided inerrancy on the case, even if the Church in principle does not have inerrancy.

But the Bible actually having inerrancy is part of Church teaching over the centuries, and "Deutero-Isaiah" and "Yahwist-Elohist +" is not. Unlike the Cohen John as one of 72, this is not compatible with the sources' claims about the authorships.

13:26 One reason I reverted and on one issue even before my conversion to Romanian Orthodox - filioque - is because St Athanasius (the hero of heros in patristics, the gold standard) clearly taught the doctrine, not just in the disputed quicumque vult, but also in letters.

Another one is, Photius died in peace with Rome, and indirectly in communion with Franks teaching the filioque, while Caerularius missed out on some aspects of the chronology of the passion.

Let's recall, the excommunication was immediately over Caerularius pretending "azymes" are illicit matter. And even invalid matter. He did this over pretending Christ "could not" have celebrated a normal legal torahic Seder. Why? Because He was crucified "on the day of preparation of the Jews" ... he missed that Christ and the Temple could have started Nisan on two consecutive days, if Caesarea Philippi spotted the new moon one evening before Jerusalem (which is further east), since the Jews didn't have a printed calendar according to a foreseeable programme (we can foresee the calendar of 2024, a leap year beginning on a Monday, unless a revolutution or Doomsday intervenes) but an empiric calendar, with observation of the new moon starting months, like Muslims have to this day (and a few years ago, Muslims in France started Ramadan on different days).

Dialogues under others' comments:

I

PloopPloop
Count on a Catholic to discredit scriptural inerrancy while arguing for papal infallibility and supremacy. What a joke. Who do you worship? Christ or his disciples ?

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Erick Ybarra is a Vatican II:er and therefore, while hoping to be a Catholic wrong about actually being one.

Real Catholics do not discredit or attack Biblical inerrancy. They claim it both for and through Papal infallibility.

II

Gerald
Matt you should check out the interesting story of Pope Stephen VI and the Cadaver Synod. It’s a WILD story

Hans-Georg Lundahl
And it proves, sedevacantism can be true at times.

I think it was Stephen VI who claimed the see of Peter had been vacant in the day of Formosus.

Whether he was right or wrong on Formosus matters less than the fact that he held it compatible with his Catholic doctrine that the previous "apparent" Pope (apparent from facts like recognition, coronation etc, not on all counts) was in fact no Pope.

Confer some Vatican II:ers who now compare Sedevacantism in all forms to heresy (I think I heard Fr Pine going on that theme).

Tennis Brah
@Hans-Georg Lundahl Could one claim that being a Sedevancant in times of serious heresy from the Pope is actually right in God's eyes than to stay with the Pope and closing your eyes to church's heresy in hope of 'being safe'?

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@Tennis Brah Right now, I am technically speaking not Sedevacantist, but Conclavist. But this presupposes Sedevacantism being true back in the day when David Bawden was convoking an emergency conclave.

III

John G.
It is not an issue when you never placed any FAITH in a pope to begin with. The word of God comes from the Bible, not the pope.

erojerisiz
yeah good luck interpreting it properly without the assistance of a magisterium that's been trained to understand and interpret it as accurately as possible

Hans-Georg Lundahl
The canon of the Bible comes from the Pope.

Why is the NT 27 books, like a council of Rome said and not 26 as one of Laodicea said, mid 4th C?

Rome was, Laodicea wasn't the city of the Pope.

Michael Lofton Qualifies Protestantism as Self-Contradictory - a Qualified Agreement


Wretched - 25 (such) "reasons Peter was not the first Pope" · Mariology · Michael Lofton Qualifies Protestantism as Self-Contradictory - a Qualified Agreement · More on Papacy

One Question Protestantism Can't Answer
Reason & Theology | 16 June 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zFgiVvKqEs


1:26 I totally agree.
Since my conversion in 1988, I have been much of 3 years into Orthodoxy, but not even one half hour fully into Protestantism.

I had that doubt on St. John Chrysostom perhaps having indicated "spiritual presence" is correct, and therefore Calvinism being correct. Meaning, I was damned, and predestined to damnation.

I never caved into it and it took me half an hour of prayer to get rid of the temptation.

3:49 On this one, Testify (Erik, whatever his name is) would say "the non-canonic Gospels are all at the earliest from late 2nd C" - meaning, they are not as early.

He'd refer to expert opinions on this one.

4:14 Late first century, you do have Gnostics, and that means that all the Synoptics were already written.

St. John is sufficiently coherent with the Synoptics to be part of this clearly some decades earlier message, and he warns against Ebionites denying the divinity in his Gospel, and against Gnostics in the Epistles as well as in his personal example.

5:03 According to Catholic tradition, no Gospel appeared clearly "in the sixties or seventies" and none in the last years of the sixties or any of the seventies. You have St. Matthew appearing clearly earlier, and Mark and Luke while St. Peter was still alive in Rome - but John wrote the Apocalypse in 90 and the Gospel in 100.

7:26 It can be noted one version of Protestantism claims - spuriously - that yes, for the first century we do rely on tradition. B u t ... after the apostles and their immediate disciples died, the one remaining standard to that tradition that was reliable was NT Scripture. It can be noted Joseph Smith also claimed the NT Church, as a Church, deserves our respect, but doesn't continue reliably (or acc. to JS at all) past the death of these witnesses.

Another version is Ruckmanism, a k a Baptist continuity.

10:21 No, Gnostics do not agree apostles are reliable guides to what Jesus taught.

The "Gospel of Thomas" pretty much puts into place safeguards against appeals to apostles by having Jesus tell them they understand nothing.

That's one giveaway that they are not actually confident in having apostolic succession.

11:25 By now, the test of Irenaeus is ambiguus.

Not with Gnosticism or Protestantism, but within Churches having a realistic Apostolic claim.

Ephesus, Crete, Beraea - all of these (and therefore Timothy, Titus and the most noble synagogue that checked every claim St. Paul made scrupulously against OT scripture) are all of them in Greek Orthodox territory.

"The Metropolis of Ephesus (Greek: Μητρόπολις Εφέσου) was an ecclesiastical territory (metropolis) of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in western Asia Minor, modern Turkey. Christianity was introduced already in the city of Ephesus in the 1st century AD by Paul the Apostle. The local Christian community comprised one of the seven churches of Asia mentioned at the Book of Revelation, written by John the Apostle. The metropolis remained active until 1922-1923."

If we go to Rome, we again have the question who was Pope August 1st the last Church Year. Bergoglio? Ratzinger? Odermatt in Palmar de Troya as "Peter III"? Pope Michael, who died the next day, and whose successor has not yet been elected?

I discount the former three on account of various heterodoxy, while Pope Michael:
  • was YEC (as Odermatt but unlike Bergoglio and Ratzinger)
  • was Geocentric (unlike Odermatt or the other tw)
  • didn't get involved in revising Bible text so Solomon is Bathseba's first son ... (unlike Odermatt but like the other two).


I identify these as desiderata of orthodoxy from previous Popes. I mean Popes where adherents of Odermatt, or of Bergoglio / Ratzinger agree they were Popes, like Pius IX or Urban VIII.

18:24 If you are even considering playing "expertise over tradition" - and by adhering to an Evolutionist like Bergoglio, you actually do that - there is Protestant expertise that will tell you "yes, we are rooted in the NT Church, in the apostolic succession up to Irenaeus, but then it got lost and hijacked by false messages, and we can document how they crept in over the first centuries after the apostles died ...."

The main go to in this case is, does the NT allow for the succession of apostolic men losing the tradition of the true message.

And the answer is a blatant no, Mt 28:16-20 was a promise spanning all centuries.

One can obviously also answer the claim to document gradual additions of RC pseudo-dogma, by stating that documenting that this dogma or practise connected to one is documented only after that one which is documented only after that one, the problem with that is that a succession of earliest mentions isn't proof of a succession of inventions. I made a fairly fun story about the "Mexican in Edinburgh" who thought he was seeing someone slowly go mad and absolutely not being true to the admired Scottish tradition, when one day he saw him don a kilt, another day drink whisky with clear peat smoke ... it never occurred to him that the first time he saw it wasn't the first time the Scotsman did it.

Great Bishop of Geneva! : The Mexican in Edinburgh and Church History
https://greatbishopofgeneva.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-mexican-in-edinburgh-and-church.html


On that precise pericope, on that precise verse, Calvin showed some clear bad faith.

It is technically true that the promise is not valid for people who change their faith - for instance, even if George of Alexandria was consecreated in due form, he was not representing the Apostles, because he represented the Arian heresy.

But the problem for Calvin is, he forgot to mention the promise clearly precludes this being the case with all bishops at a certain time.

Great Bishop of Geneva! : Protestants - Not - Getting Around Matthew 28 Last Three Verses: John Calvin's Attempt
http://greatbishopofgeneva.blogspot.com/2014/07/protestants-not-getting-around-matthew.html


21:20 I disagree.
The idea that apostolic succession in early NT and ante-Nicene to early post-Nicene Churches gave us the NT, but that the Churches then changed, that is not "unverifiable" because you can fake verification of mariology to saying "this is an early example of what later added up to apostasy" or pretend it is later (the 2nd C Coptic Christmas hymn Sub tuum praesidium confugimus, which in both Coptic and Greek contains a reference to immaculate conception, I saw one pretend it was only 6th C).

The Protestant proposal should still not be entertained, because, saying "the apostolic succession stopped being faithful" contradicts the NT, specifically Mt 28:16-20. Not saying "it stopped being faithful in some areas" - which is obvious unless you want to say excommunications between Catholics, Orthodox, Copts, Armenians and Assyrians are invalid excommunications of people who never were schismatic - but "it stopped being faithful everywhere" ... which is what the claims of Reformers amount to.

Calvin could hope he'd find an apostolic Church that was teaching Calvinism since the apostles, because he had no means to look further than to the Orthodox and he could have thought Kyrillos Loukaris looked promising - but by now every Calvinist should already know that this is a no go.

Thursday, December 22, 2022

Let's Fact Check First ... or Not


I tried to fact check with Nanterre University on whether it was credible that UPenn had 26 or 27 professors in Political Sciences.

So now I tried, and already having told you it looks a red flag to me, but then I was at much smaller subjects at University, and Lund is a smaller one than UPenn, so I really don't know.

Actually I'm not really even positive that "professor" covers same thing in US and Sweden. I think I have come across "docent" or "lector" being in English "assistant professor" - in Sweden a professor is chief of a department.

Internet Sleuths, I need help ... Who Is Brandan Roneel? | Ep. 62
Candace Owens Podcast | 16 Dec. 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81K7Eikx9UE


4:33 While listening, I have found Brandan Roneel as being a professor of political science at University of Pennsylvania.
He's not the first search result on this one, but I kept clicking "show more" ...
https://www.ratemyprofessors.com/search/teachers?query=*&sid=1275&did=45

Here is how he's rated:
https://www.ratemyprofessors.com/professor?tid=2701331

7:06 And a professor of political science being:
a) left leaning in many questions (guess why he got his seat!)
b) somewhat desperate to show off real documented knowledge about a right winger (even they need to sometimes back their statements up)
is also an option, and before you say "wait, professors don't get unhinged" - you haven't seen Frédéric Kurzawa who concluded I was a moron for not agreeing the Biblical Flood was a pure myth. Modern current sense of the word, obviously. He's professor of Catholic theology.

8:15 Technically, I more or less speak 8. But Dutch, Spanish and Italian just in written form, not in speech at normal speed. And for Latin that's the case with most, except set prayers. Me too.

Before you get unduly impressed by such a thing, check the language families. My 8 are only from Germanic and Romance. I have lost my Greek. I was getting into Polish and Lithuanian, but my Lithuanian from Spring Term 2003 was very rusty by Spring Term 2004, and my Polish from Autumn Term 2003 has rusted since 2004.

The only languages I have some fluency in (written, or spoken and written) are from Germanic and Romance families. Pick up one of either fairly well, and you can pick up others too, with due diligence and much use of writing. One could consider Swedish, German, English, Danish and Dutch as dialects of Germanic. One could consider Latin, French, Spanish and Italian as dialects of Romance. So, I usually say "I only know two languages, but in more than one dialect" ...

It is not highly usual, but it's also not something like a prodigy either.

9:45 I must admire you for one thing. You are able to sit at a dinner table with two male homosexuals in love. (Or at best two men pretending to be that, and realistically).

Perhaps it's more like I could endure the company of two lesbians, so perhaps I should admire your husband more. B U T ... while this tolerance is admirable, it is not always commendable.

14:17 Unfortunately, Josh Weed, who was gay when meeting and remained so when marrying his wife, Lolly, and who has four daughters with her, divorced her and is in a romance with another man.

Josh and Lolly and presumably the daughters are Mormons.

Mormons come in more than one denomination, by now. Some of them, apparently, are gay tolerant.

16:17 Yes, he did tell you he was a Doctor. He said he had PhD's and PhD is short for Philosophiae Doctor.

When you speak of a man with a PhD, it's proper to use Dr. When you speak of Dr. Jonathan Sarfati, it doesn't mean he has a MedDr but he has a PhD in physical chemistry.

17:32 Yes, not only he is a "professor at UPenn" / University of Pennsylvania, but he's also in fact rated as one.

This could be a scam involving the university in question, but it could also involve a real feat of someone being authorised to skip unnecessary parts of school and go directly for the things he was interested in.

As I look it up again, it is a kind of red flag to me, that one single university has 26 professors for one single subject.

26 professors in the Political Science department at University of Pennsylvania
1) Rudra Sil, 2) John Diiulio, 3) Avery Goldstein, 4) Marie Gottschalk, 5) Ian Lustick
6) Henry Teune, 7) Julia Lynch, 8) Robert Vitalis, 9) Edward Mansfield, 10) Michael Horowitz
11) Nancy Hirschmann, 12) Dan Gillion, 13) Rogers Smith, 14) Diana Mutz, 15) Albert Matteo
16) Michele Margolis, 17) Dorothy Kronick, 18) Andy Rachlin, 19) Marc Meredith, 20) Michael Jones-Correa
21) Guy Grossman, 22) Nathaniel Shils, 23) Brandan Roneel, 24) Brian Rosenwald, 25) Paul Silva, 26) Michael Strokan

Seven of them have no ratings, but Brandan Roneel 5 ratings, with medium rate 4.4.

21:27 A foundation is not a bank. It does not need to receive people over a desk.

Some foundation may think that using an apartment as an adress is a good security investment.

That said, those things are not my world. I wouldn't know if it was unique or marginally current or totally out of the question.

What I find intriguing is a university having 26 professors at one single subject.

At the then Classics Institution (perhaps it's reemerged into independence), there was one professor each of Latin, Ancient Greek, and it seemed to be the case with Classic Archeology and History and with Modern Greek, except perhaps Modern Greek was just a Doctor or Docent or Lector. In addition, Latin had a Docent (my second regular father confessor) and Greek a lector (a neo-pagan who liked making fun of feminists and wokeness), and I don't know exactly how much subsidiary teachers there were in the other parts, and all had pretty many PhD students. I interrupted my studies just before actually becoming one, but got access to seminaries when I had made 3 or 4 terms in Latin. Or exams for this, with some delays ...

Could be because the subjects were small ones. I'll ask Patrick Trabal if Sci Po is different so 26 professors at UPenn becomes credible.

[Patrick Trabal, as mentioned, did not answer.]

Bible Misreading from Gospel Broadcasting Coalition


This one is so bad, I am not linking. You have the title, the author and the URL - I am not making it easier than that to get to watch it. Some of my early comments are answered later on, but finally the author fails as contradicting sound Catholic tradition, and also he is using the wrong Bible translations.

What Does The Bible Say About Drinking Alcohol?
Gospel Broadcasting Network | 9 Sept. 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaF-4iIQ698

1:01 Oh, no. Wine then, as wine now, was fermented.

The wine at the last Supper was not miraculously made into wine, and wine harvest was Sukkot - September / October, this year straddling both months.

It is technically impossible for wine to be unfermented 5 months after the wine harvest under the then conditions.

Plus St. Paul mentions wine for the stomach ... grape juice is probably not the best thing for it if you have a stomach condition.

1:10 Between grape juice and vinegar, you have alcoholic wine.

Alcohol gets fermented from grape sugars by yeasts.

Acetic acid gets fermented from alcohol by bacteria.

1:23 I read the text of what you yellowed from Aristotle.

Not a single line of it indicates he considered non-alcoholic drinks as wine.

1:35 Noting that "permanent must" is not considered as "real wine" by Pliny.

1:42 "sweet wine" is not made by not fermenting, but by harvesting so late that the sugar content exceeds what can be fermented - they still contain alcohol.

In Germany one calls this Spätlese, in France there is vendange tardive, and I looked it up, these are actually stronger than some other wines.

2:01 The juice of the grape is called wine because the one way it is kept available for consumption is fermented.

You are cherry-picking quotes with occultation of context to make a dishonest point.

2:13 Note, newly pressed from the grape.

It doesn't stay must. Not between sukkot and seder, and not between wine harvest in Ephesus or Crete and when the guy needed wine for his stomach.

7:01 The difference is, "getting drunk" is a later stage than euphoria.

7:31 No, the idea that "drunkenness begins at the first drink" is a puritan heresy.

If one continues, and depending on acquired tolerance, that first drink has laid the ground for drunkenness, but it is not in itself drunkenness.

You get this view of drunkenness from the Qoran, basically.

7:45 You are overreading the meaning of an inchoative verb.

It is a process - but it is a process from after euphoria which is the initial effect.

The Bible doesn't define alcohol as a toxin, and therefore is not concerned with "intoxication" which in its turn is a dubious way of dealing with the concept.

The reason why the inchoative is used is like in English "do not GET drunk" - it's useless to tell someone "don't BE drunk" if he already is.

Eli tells Hannah "How long wilt thou be drunken? take away thy wine from thee," - in other words, he's not blaming her for being drunk right then, but for being it in the temple, and telling her to GET sober.

Not immediately, but before revisiting the temple.

It turned out, she wasn't drunk.

8:36 Again - the Bible was not concerned with the medical jargon of intoxicated.

Tipsy is not drunk.

Numquam inveni ebrietatem, saepe crapulam. St. Augustine from memory.

9:06 Does the Bible really speak of complete abstinence here?

1 Thess 5:6-8 In fact, St. Paul contradicts your interpretation of the inchoative verb.

καὶ οἱ μεθυσκόμενοι νυκτὸς μεθύουσιν

The first verb is the inchoative - you said inceptive, same thing - and uses a form about those who are doing it.
The second verb is about BEING drunk - in a way making it clear it is not about drinking wine to make the food more digestible.

But be thou vigilant, labour in all things, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill thy ministry. Be sober.

In the previous letter he had specifically said sobriety does not require abstinence. I Tim 5:23.

Do not still drink water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake, and thy frequent infirmities.

Be sober is in Nestle Aland is ... νῆφε,
Σὺ δὲ νῆφε ἐν πᾶσιν, κακοπάθησον, ἔργον ποίησον εὐαγγελιστοῦ, τὴν διακονίαν σου πληροφόρησον.

Now, in some contexts it had meant "without wine" - but that would involve drinkofferings ... a very special context.

When Strong speaks of "abstaining from wine" that could be due to the heresy you are an exponent of.

9:12 You are aware that Gerhard Kittel was basically a Nazi?

9:27 ... and that William Edwy Vine was a Plymouth Brother?

9:31 John MacArthur is Anti-Catholic and more than once incompetent.

Certainly, the case of drinkofferings you have "nephalios" such being wineless, but this does not mean that nephein means total abstinence from wine.

9:41 No, not one of these passages I Thess 5:5-8, I Peter 1:13 and 5:8, II Tim 4:5 ban social drinking.

On top of that, II Tim is to a bishop who has an extra duty of sobriety.

I Tim 5:22 Impose not hands lightly upon any man, neither be partaker of other men's sins. Keep thyself chaste.

Guess what - St. Paul had imposed hands on him and expected him to be celibate.

10:09 Oh dear ... proverbs 23:31 comes after verse 30:
Surely they that pass their time in wine, and study to drink of their cups.

Meaning, what King Solomon is after is setting one's mind from morning to evening or hours on hours at night on wine.

Habaccuc 2:15 Woe to him that giveth drink to his friend, and presenteth his gall, and maketh him drunk, that he may behold his nakedness.

doesn't curse serving wine, but serving deliberately too much to someone who is likely to get actually drunk (normal, modern sense), as in ... we might have an idea why Noah cursed Chanaan - if Cham gazed, Chanaan had probably helped him by serving too much of a drink he or his father had tested more than his grandfather and better knew the dangers of.

10:15 I Peter 4:3 For the time past is sufficient to have fulfilled the will of the Gentiles, for them who have walked in riotousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and unlawful worshipping of idols.

Let me do some underlining:

for them who have walked in riotousness, lustS, excess of wine, revellingS, banquetingS, and unlawful worshipping of idols.

Going to one occasional banquet or drinking party once in a while which there was a reason for (Seder or marriage would both be reasons) is something other than walking in ... banquetS

10:40 Restriction against excess is not a command to partake in moderation, but clearly a permission thereof.

10:47 Your comparison to ecclesiastes 7:18 isn't one. King Solomon is not giving commands for a righteous life, but good tips on being streetsmart.

[16] These things also I saw in the days of my vanity: A just man perisheth in his justice, and a wicked man liveth a long time in his wickedness. [17] Be not over just: and be not more wise than is necessary, lest thou become stupid. [18] Be not overmuch wicked: and be not foolish, lest thou die before thy time.

Here is the Challoner comment:

[17] "Over just": Viz., By an excessive rigour in censuring the ways of God in bearing with the wicked.

[18] "Be not overmuch wicked": That is, lest by the greatness of your sin you leave no room for mercy.

In other words, King Solomon is counting on some hearing this to sooner or later be wicked and telling them to take care not to overdo it. It's easier to be forgiven a rape of (won't mention his name now, he's forgiven by the victim) proportions than to be forgiven a rape and murder after tens of other rapes and murders of Ted Bundy proportions.

So, unlike I Tim 3:8 and Titus 2:3, which involve commands, about what is done when things are in order, King Solomon was dealing with advice for people with lives in disorder.

10:51 I Peter 4:4 ... what is the word you translate as "excess"?
Anachusis means expansion, it would seem ... and asotia prodigality.

And you do not even have a direct ban on "tes asotias anachusin " you are just told that pagans blame you for not doing the SAME expansion of prodigality.

In I Tim 3:8 you have "much" as qualifying the object to be avoided - that is, a little of it is not to be avoided. Same in Titus 2:3.

10:59 In I Peter 4:3 ἀθεμίτοις presumably qualifies εἰδωλολατρίαις as an epithet, there being no other kind (unless St. Peter would have called eiconodulia "licit idolatry" but he would not have called it that). In I Tim 3:8 and Titus 2:3 "pollo" is a significant attribute for the context, since the contrasting "οἴνῳ ὀλίγῳ" is pretty obviously a possible thing.

The one occasion where these things mention "polu" is ecclesiastes 7:17 (which it is in the LXX) and this is because King Solomon isn't giving instructions for a good life, but advice for not making it horrible when one is sinning.

11:12 Restrictions against "polu" or "pollo" can be taken as some kind of authority for moderation.

In NT Tim / Tit epistles, authority for good life, and in Ecc authorities not to a bad life but about how to manage it.

11:34 Deut 14:26-27 has ū·ḇaš·šê·ḵār - šê·ḵār means a kind of beer that very certainly was fermented drink.

It's made from breads cast on waters, a bit like kwas, but with barley breads it is closer to regular beer than kwas is, as made from rye bread.

I am obviously making some kwas for Christmas.

11:53 While cidre is indeed from šê·ḵār, it is always alcoholic. Sweet cidre like 2 %, while brut is more like 5.5 %.

The ancient šê·ḵār was a mixture of barley bread and apples or even dates thrown on the waters, while the modern beer and cider have tended to go separate ways (unlike with kwas, which combines the two).

12:12 That šê·ḵār is related to a word we get sugar from doesn't mean it means sugar.

Beers and ciders typically are sweet, but certainly not non-alcoholic (OK, 0% beer exists now, but that's a tour de force of modern technology).

12:30 While wine is for some time must, šê·ḵār before fermentation is not a drink, but a mess of bread and water.

It may indeed have much more sugar than alcohol, but bread is not emitting sugar without also doing so with alcohol ...

12:45 Cider and hard cider are both alcoholic. Cider is 2 % (cidre doux), hard cider is at least as alcoholic as cidre brut, i e 5.5 %.

Cider differs very sensibly from apple juice by the bubbles, and the same fermentation that gives carbon dioxide also gives alcohol.

The anaerobic fermentation of glucose (C6H12O6) to form ethanol (C2H5OH) and carbon dioxide is written as:
C6H12O6 (aq) ————> 2C2H5OH (aq) + 2CO2(g) + 2ATP

https://www.oculyze.net/what-is-the-chemical-equation-for-yeast-fermentation/

12:56, nope šê·ḵār (like cider) is not unfermented fruit juice, it is fermented bread beer with fruit additions (with cider and beer each taking half of the original recipe, and chlebowy kwas doing it very near it, but with rye bread instead of barley bread).

13:29 There is a real difference between responsible thinking people in general and kings.

The latter are not just "responsible" but they have an enormous responsibility - and I don't think the previous verse forbids a king alcohol before going to bed, it is about important decision making while under clear influence. Yes, it actually happened in places. Herodotus says Persians considered each thing both drunk and sober.

13:38 Oh dear, you are using the TALMUD ... yes, you have already shown your third leopard head affinity with the second leopard head Islam, and now you display it with the first leopard head, Talmudism - the religion that rejected Our Lord!

14:14 There is more than one stomach problem I could think of, and no, I don't think it's about bad water.

Ephesus has good well water.

If we deal with laxative effect of alcohol, obviously one could think of solid sweet stuffs that are also laxatives - like dried dates.

But if we deal with diuretic effect, this one has a fairly ideal effect depending on dose that is not equalled by sweet stuff - which on the contrary would tend to make the person need to go to pee more times per night.

15:31 Your claim about total abstinence is contrary to the fairly obvious implication of the generic word "oino" - the grap-juice paste had a more specific term which he would have used if that was what he meant. The context "don't drink just water" obviously means "don't push your sobriety to excess" (as total abstinence from wine would be doing).

16:22 Your objection is a misreading.

It is also condemned by the usage of the Catholic Church.

Here is a man who is missing some nuances and who is not in the true Church, but who gets this one right:

What does the Bible say about alcohol? | UNLEARN the lies
UNLEARN the lies | 11 July 2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThH9ItOj5uE

Wednesday, December 21, 2022

Faking the Logistics of the Ark to Make it Ludicrous ...


Just the first 5 minutes.

The Ludicrous Logistics of Actually Making Noah's Ark "Work"
BioArk | 20 Febr. 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCjXo4W3Q7Y


2:05 First fake factor in your account.

No, the salinity was pre-Flood low, salinities in the seas have risen since and sea life has adapted.

2:19 On my calculations, passengers would be very little weight compared to that of food in which plant life would also be included.

Plus plant life surviving as mats of flotsam.

2:28 And, again, the flood waters were not salt water.

2:43 Animals on the Ark could partially eat fish and scavange afterwards and partially, adding plant life would have happened miraculously, as this doesn't fake a vital continuity of lineage, since plant life doesn't count as fully living.

??:??

Exaggerated estimates:

8.7 million species - eucaryotes. BUT it is an estimate.
1.2 million species - formally described.
99 % of ever existing species extinct ... BUT it is an estimate.

3:31 "we need them all"

No. First of all, we need no "ghost species" extant in only estimates. Second, we need no fish or sea life. Third, we do not need all species, we need kinds. We have 17 species in 5 genus of the probable kind "hedgehogs" - other possibility, the kind also includes gymnures, making it 25~26 species in ten genus for the kind.

I counted 2032 couples on the Ark as perfectly adequate.

This would include 55 kinds of now extinct life, esp. dinos, perhaps a few less of for instance Moschops or Uintatherium.

Luther Anderson
Well I would like to point out that most fish can't live in the opposite types of water. For example, goldfish can't live in freshwater environments. Secondly, if you think about ants, that have likely millions of species at this point, how can they happen from two kinds of ants? I'm confused

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@Luther Anderson "most fish can't live in the opposite types of water."

I think some of the even most sensitive fish have in aquarium experiments been proven to acclimatise to opposite salinity, with a transition going on for seven years, mind you.

Salinity in seas have risen since the Flood which means some fish have in 5000 years become "salt addicted" ...

"ants, that have likely millions of species at this point, how can they happen from two kinds of ants?"

Not a very remarcable thing, probably means either ants have an aversion to mating with even slightly different ants or that scientists studying them (a subcategory of entomologists) have a taste for splitting rather than lumping in classifications.


4:07 Prokaryotes do not count as "life" in Biblical terms.

4:28 Sorry but your view of Minimum viable population (that's the technical term) is wrong.

The Laysan duck were reduced to 12 individuals, and the population of Pitcairn has reached similar lows.

And this even for populations 5000 years later with 5000 years' worth of accumulating bad mutations since the Flood.

5:05 Here we are in the surreal. "5 billion eucaryotic" - no baraminology allowed - and "100 trillion procaryotic species" - as if "special creation" meant "no speciation allowed" ... and this is especially problametic in procaryotes, since they don't breed with each other, and you cannot take breeding together as a corrective saying "same species" ... what if all gram negative bacilli were present in one version on or outside the ark, that one didn't do any damage and damaging versions have arisen since by mutations that actually stifle the procaryote's living ability?

No, no "750 billion eucaryotic specimens" either ...

Tuesday, December 20, 2022

III - Genesis and the Church


Genesis and Science I · Genesis and Science II · III - Genesis and the Church

Q I, Catholic apologetics
Was Jesus infallible?
https://catholicapologetics.quora.com/Was-Jesus-infallible


Hans-Georg Lundahl
none/ apprx Masters in Latin (language) & Greek (language), Lund University
Fri 16.XII.2022
Infallible and inerrant.

This follows from Catholic Christology and this is a problem for all “non-Fundie” versions of Catholicism, like anything that denies the historicity of Moses or the individual existence of Adam and Eve.

Q II, parent question
What is the scientific evidence for young earth creationist claims like Noah's Ark, Adam & Eve, etc.?
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-scientific-evidence-for-young-earth-creationist-claims-like-Noahs-Ark-Adam-Eve-etc


Hans-Georg Lundahl
Catholic convert, reading many Catechisms
Fri 16.XII.2022
I do not remotely claim these events are discoveries of a scientific type or “scientific” reconstructions of the past (which are in fact not scientifically certain).

I do claim these are sth, even before Divine Inspiration is considered, much better and even humanly speaking more reliable : history. In the case of the two items named, we deal with chapters 1 - 11 of Genesis, and apart from the six-day account in Genesis 1:1 to 2:4, this is arguably orally transmitted history from the time of the things happening to Abraham, and then put into writings preserved by the “early Hebrew Beduin tribe” by Abraham.

It may be noted, even later chapters of Genesis would involve a young earth creationist claim.

There is archaeological evidence for one specific item in Genesis 14. En-Gedi, in this chapter referred to as Asason-Tamar, was inhabited by Amorrhaeans and evacuated. This was in Abraham’s lifetime, and Abraham was born around 2000 BC, the Roman Martyrology says in 2015 BC, making Genesis 14 c. 1935 BC. However, the evacuation of En-Geddi involves reed mats that carbon date to 3500 BC.

If a carbon date with very low to nil likelihood of reservoir effect is off by 1565 years, this clearly involves the kind of rise in carbon 14 levels that Young Earth Creationism speaks of, and not just smaller variations in the carbon 14 level, as accounted for with standard Uniformitarian calibrations.

Minze Stuiver and Berndt Becker give, for 1900 BC a little less than 3600 uncalibrated carbon years before 1950. Like 1650 BC.
For 5450 uncalibrated carbon years, they give two possible values of real time, namely 4330 BC or 4260 BC.

So, to claim a real year 1935 BC carbon dates to 3500 BC is in and of itself to make a YEC claim, and that is involved in the historicity of the chapters that even “non-Fundie Catholics” tend to consider as historical.

Q III, parent question
How does the fossil record support or refute the notion of creationism?
https://www.quora.com/How-does-the-fossil-record-support-or-refute-the-notion-of-creationism


Hans-Georg Lundahl
none/ apprx Masters in Latin (language) & Greek (language), Lund University
17.XII.2022
I would say support. More specifically Young Earth Creationism, with Flood Geology.

For marine biota, we have piles of different layers, stretching over supposedly more than a billion years at least in one place, the Grand Canyon - and there it is marine biota all the way through. Apparently this piece of our earth which now is land, was, for all those times, under water.

For land vertebrate biota, we have “fossils from one layer” in each place, you don’t ever dig down under an Uintatherium of the land (Eocene) to find a shark from the sea (Jurrassic) to find even lower a Moschops of the land (Permian), even if supposedly millions of years passed between these “periods” and there was both time for more than one burial and for more than one change between land and seafloor. What you find instead is, you find each land bioton in a sole layer with fossils, and no other layers carry obviously older fossils below it.

Pretty inexplicable, if:

  • fossilisation is easier on land than in the sea
  • there were millions of years in each.


Pretty explicable, if:

  • fossilisation is easier on land than in the sea
  • most of it happened under the flood
  • which provided very unusually many chances of rapid burial in both places, but in the sea this also involves new floating creatures floating in over already buried creatures and then getting buried themselves.


Answer II

Q
How does the fossil record support or refute the notion of creationism?
https://www.quora.com/How-does-the-fossil-record-support-or-refute-the-notion-of-creationism/answer/Peter-White-574


Peter White
Fri 16.XII.2022
The basic problem with Creationism is it completely fails to explain (1) the existence of a huge number of extinct species that (2) each appeared on this earth in a time window that has an absolute order on the timeline, and (3) there appears to be ancestral relationships between species.

To repair Creationism, one has to start introducing the concept of multiple “Creation Events”. But how many? Ten is not enough. One hundred is not enough. How about a thousand? At some point, you are forced to throw up your hands and say “creation is happening all the time, for a very long time”.

“Creation happening all the time” = “the fact of ongoing evolution”

And, to be precise, the fact of evolution is separable from Darwin’s work. The realization of the fact of ongoing evolution occurred first, among a group of natural philosophers who tried very hard to shoehorn everything into the story as told in Genesis. They were already giving up on Creationism, but did not know what to replace it with when Darwin stepped onto the Beagle. Darwin created a mental framework for explaining the observed fact of ongoing evolution.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
17.XII.2022
“that (2) each appeared on this earth in a time window that has an absolute order on the timeline”

Would you like to explain the way you determine that time window?

Perhaps even comment on my alternative answer to yours (my other profile), and you click on the question and then under it you change “recommended” to “recent.”

“and (3) there appears to be ancestral relationships between species.”

How many such can you name? How much ancestrality would remain without the datings?

“But how many? Ten is not enough. One hundred is not enough. How about a thousand?”

I suppose you derive that from dates of Permian fauna and Eocene fauna within your ideology, right?

“The realization of the fact of ongoing evolution occurred first, among a group of natural philosophers who tried very hard to shoehorn everything into the story as told in Genesis. They were already giving up on Creationism, but did not know what to replace it with”

Would you mind telling me who they were and if that “giving up” hadn’t something to do with the new paradigm in geology, since Lyell’s time?

It’s precisely geology I take on in my answer.

Peter White
17.XII.2022
Do you have a specific point on which you are confused, and you seek clarification? Do you have a reasoned disagreement about something foundational, such as Lyell’s work?

My 193 word answer is not going to summarize geology as it was understood in 1840–1850. There are books on that topic.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
19.XII.2022
I am giving glimpses of my reasoned disagreement with not just Lyell, but also more recent ones. That’s why I give a point by point challenge to your answer.

I am contenting myself with the reasons you were giving.

Peter White
19.XII.2022
Fair enough. It is possible to make a reasoned argument against Lyell, or simply not be aware of his work.

The point of my answer was not to delve into the details of the fossil record, but to clarify the correct context of how Creationism fell out of favor. Many people seem to imagine that Darwin came out of nowhere and defeated Creationism in some kind of ideological conflict.

The truthe is very different. Darwin did not need to defeat Creationism. Creationism as a belief among those competent in geology was already in steady retreat long before Darwin stepped onto the Beagle.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
19.XII.2022
“but to clarify the correct context of how Creationism fell out of favor.”

In fact, the question involved how the fossil record supports or not creationism - not what it was thought to do in 1830.

Also your answer states:

“The basic problem with Creationism is it completely fails to explain”

An overreach on your part?

“Creationism as a belief among those competent in geology was already in steady retreat long before Darwin stepped onto the Beagle.”

How were Flood Geologists “not competent”?

Or how is their retreat, if you admit them competent an argument for now, rather than a curiosity from back then?

Peter White
19.XII.2022
A correct conclusion is overreach how? Perhaps I did not argue it sufficiently well in my post for your tastes.

I think you are picking nits now. The fossil record and the geological record are pieces of the same puzzle picture, especially since they did not yet have reliable dating methods in the early 19th century. Creationism failed to explain in the face of the known geological/fossil facts.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
19.XII.2022
And how is it still failing?

How are dating methods reliable now (when it comes to fossils, not old bones of men that get carbon dates, inflated when far back, but in the right order, mostly)?

Remember, the original question and your original answer purported to be about what is logically valid as arguments about the fossil record now.

If we take Grand Canyon, I propose that different types of shellfish were streamed and sequentially buried during the Flood. Plus stacked up a bit when it comes to rise of mountains after the Flood.

If we take Lyell’s Paris basin, it’s not much different from GC.

If we take land biota, they don’t come in several layers at the same place.

Peter White
20.XII.2022
(1) Your idea about the Grand Canyon is not knew. It was believed, then reconsidered, and fell out of favor approximately 180 years ago. Lyell’s idea won the debate.

(2) Your idea about the shellfish does not really work. Layer 1 has Type A shellfish. Layer 2 has Type A + B shellfish. Layer 3 has Type B shellfish. Layer 4 has Type C shellfish. Why do we never ever see even one single Type A shellfish in layer 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9? They is no logical reason to expect such a strict sequential pattern. In fact, we would expect a tumultuous event to have some amount of mixing.

Answered twice
A and B

A

Hans-Georg Lundahl
20.XII.2022
(1) Winning the debate socially and winning the argument logically are not strictly speaking the same.

(2) Type A could come from a source that was exhausted by layer 2. Layer 2 from two sources mingled, the source B also into layer 3.

“In fact, we would expect a tumultuous event to have some amount of mixing.”

Have you studied the flume experiments by Guy Berthault?

Answered twice
i and ij

i

Peter White
20.XII.2022
“Type A could come from a source that was exhausted”

What would that source be? Why is there no logical place to look for this source that anyone can describe? Why is there no physical sign this source ever existed anywhere on the entire planet? Why are there zero examples of similar looking sources that have not been completely destroyed?

Why are the same results replicated with consistency across the whole globe? One might imagine one local “mountain of stuff A” getting spread around around , then a local “mountain of stuff B”, but this becomes impossible to believe at a global scale.

Worse still, how do you explain the existence of not one of these absurdly improbable distinct sources that simply disappeared, but thousands of them?

There are no explanations. The Creationists tried and tried and tried, and no explanation other than vague handwaving has ever been made. At the end of the day, the Creationist explanation boils down to “a magic wand did it”.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
20.XII.2022
“What would that source be?”

A bank of shellfish of a specific type.

“Why is there no logical place to look for this source that anyone can describe?”

Because it was exhausted.

Flood water saturated with sediment was abrasing dune after dune, and rock after rock of the pre-Flood both sea and land.

“Why are there zero examples of similar looking sources that have not been completely destroyed?”

How would it look other than the parts being deposed?

“Why are the same results replicated with consistency across the whole globe?”

Are we dealing with “fauna of the same epoch”? Then it is because of classification.

Are we dealing with identic same fauna?

First of all, insofar as that is true, it is more about things like trilobites in the bottom, sharks in the midfield, whales and plesiosaurs high up.

Second, if it were about identic same shellfish, it could be that shellfish from identic same source was spread before that of the next one, across the world (remember - the Flood made the ocean temporarily global) or it could be something else, I haven’t actually heard of this.

“One might imagine one local “mountain of stuff A” getting spread around around , then a local “mountain of stuff B”, but this becomes impossible to believe at a global scale.”

Not with flood water streaming around the world.

Or what about certain types of shellfish having less cohesion and therefore getting abrased and spread more quickly?

Plus, again, is it same stuff or is it simply “classified as same period”?

“Worse still, how do you explain the existence of not one of these absurdly improbable distinct sources that simply disappeared, but thousands of them?”

It’s not improbable, as distinct colonies of shellfish exist today.

With most of the shellfish being non-identical, it would mostly be a repetition of a similar process of layering and a classification abusively pretending to time.

“The Creationists tried and tried and tried, and no explanation other than vague handwaving has ever been made.”

I don’t think a reference to Guy Berthault’s flume experiments is handwaving.

Now, how about YOU looking at my counter challenge, for land biota, and YOU not doing “just a vague handwaving”? [See under B]

ij

Peter White
20.XII.2022
Fundamentally, a Lyellian framework makes the world more and more understandable. The more one looks at the rocks and fossils, the more they make sense.

Creationism only makes less and less sense. Not only do you have to hypothesize these bizarre unique “sources” for specific fossils that were perfectly destroyed in a specific order, such a worldview does not really fit with anything described in Genesis. The more one looks at the fossils, yet more and more implausible sources must be handwaved.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
20.XII.2022
There is nothing implausible in different colonies of shellfish becoming sources of different layers.

Take a thinker about what it means when streams of ocean width get saturated with sediment and start abrasing both rocks and previous sediment.

You handwaved my fine tuned criticism of your previous answer.

Me : “how much is literally the same and how much is just categorised same period across the world?”
You : “the more one looks at rocks and fossils, they more they make sense” …

Not an answer.

B

Hans-Georg Lundahl
20.XII.2022
(3) Counterchallenge. If millions and billions of years were true, in land biota, one would expect some layering corresponding to GC, there isn’t one.

Peter White
20.XII.2022
“GC”?

Hans-Georg Lundahl
20.XII.2022
Grand Canyon.

Peter White
21.XII.2022
I am not certain what you are precisely asking, but there is abundant evidence of huge changes in the climate over the eons. A 28 inch dragonfly simply could not survive today on our planet — it would suffer for lack of oxygen and probably be unable to fly at all. The massive coal layer found in many parts of the globe, which we know is biological in origin because sometimes fossil imprints are preserved, cannot have been made in 40 days and 40 nights, and points to a very long period where most of the earth was very different from what we know today.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
22.XII.2022
“A 28 inch dragonfly simply could not survive today on our planet”

Probably a different pre-Flood climate.

“cannot have been made in 40 days and 40 nights,”

Floating mats of entangled vegetation, piled on top of each other by the turmoil. The trees obviously grew in different places well into centuries before the Flood.

I should have said “land biota” as fauna; not flora.

Peter White
22.XII.2022
Turmoil? What turmoil? What we see in the strata is amazing ordered consistency in an apparent timeline. That contradicts your suggestion of turmoil.

That there was turmoil is just a story. You cannot point to any evidence whatsoever of turmoil in the Grand Canyon.

Furthermore, turmoil implies mixing.

When I see a layered cake with vanilla on the bottom and chocolate on the top, I say the surely the vanilla was poured first.

You are suggesting that both the vanilla and chocolate were poured in approximately the same time and stirred. Yet you cannot say why the vanilla always ends up on the bottom. Luck? Luck might work for one location…but it is still a very poor explanation even if we limit ourselves to the Grand Canyon. Consider how the strata are consistent across the globe and the turmoil idea becomes ridiculous.

You need turmoil because you need an island with dinosaurs to have been 100% completely obliterated with no trace whatsoever to be found. Then repeat this idea one thousand times. That is a lot of necessary turmoil.

Or we discard turmoil and recognize that Lyell got it right (for the most part). It is simpler. It is more elegant. It explains the observable data. And no necessity for claiming “turmoil” without evidence.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
22.XII.2022
First, you missed my most important input. When I said land biota, I meant land fauna, especially land vertebrate fauna.

We do NOT get several layers of these in any place. I’ll get back to that at the end.

Now, for the rest of your answer, to what you did comment on:

"That contradicts your suggestion of turmoil."

If we DID see "strata is amazing ordered consistency in an apparent timeline" which we do not.

"That there was turmoil is just a story."

Which is generally speaking more credible than reconstruction.

"When I see a layered cake with vanilla on the bottom and chocolate on the top, I say the surely the vanilla was poured first."

Yes, but that is not quite what we do see in fossils ... contrary to your allegation.

"You are suggesting that both the vanilla and chocolate were poured in approximately the same time and stirred."

Not with each other. You are interpreting "turmoil" as a scenario of a) everything suspended in turmoil and getting mixed, b) this mixture persisting when the calming down allows sedimentation to happen.

You have not seen the experiments by Guy Berthault (which were on the internet about ten years ago, but have become scarce, since).

Or you don't seem to have seen them. Two takeaways a) with water over-saturated you get sedimentation while the strong currents actually last, b) and sorting happens when particles of different size and density are suspended together. Wharves are very good images of what Berthault produced.

"Luck might work for one location…but it is still a very poor explanation even if we limit ourselves to the Grand Canyon."

Grand Canyon was not coal anyway.

"how the strata are consistent across the globe"

When it comes to a labelling that's put in place on the hypothesis there are "consistent strata" ...

"You need turmoil because you need an island with dinosaurs to have been 100% completely obliterated with no trace whatsoever to be found."

That is neither what I "need" nor what I actually said. I mentioned turmoil as explanation for one feature, namely thickness of coal layers. I could mention another feature, height of the layers in Grand Canyon.

And I never said the dinosaurs were 100 % obliterated by the Flood either.

"It explains the observable data."

NOT the ones related to vertebrate land fauna. As I just mentioned.

According to your theory, one would expect (in the case of a spot being land over the billions of years) to find dinosaurs under Uintatheria, pelykosaurs under dinosaurs. We don't. We very consistently don't. We very consistently do find herds of creatures buried in turmoil of incoming water and mud.

We also very consistently find one layer of fossils - not several on top of each other (with sea biota it's different, one can relate to sharks swimming above trilobites and below whales or plesiosaurs.

So, we don't find lowest a layer of Permian Moschops, above that a layer of Jurassic dinos, and above that fossil mammals. It's much more like one single giant flood found diverse biotopes and buries them in situ.

Interested in links to my research on the matter or you prefer being obtuse and repeating catchwords, like what you just produced?

Peter White
22.XII.2022
“So, we don't find lowest a layer of Permian Moschops, above that a layer of Jurassic dinos, and above that fossil mammals. It's much more like one single giant flood found diverse biotopes and buries them in situ.”

If it were one giant flood, then you would be able to point to examples of diverse animals mixed together that contradict the timeline interpretation. Such an example has never been found, in spite of the fact people have been looking for it for about 200 years.

Lacking such an example, it is logical to conclude you are wrong.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
22.XII.2022
Not if there were different habitats.

How often do you see frogs and wolfs in the same surroundings?

My turn now: if there were billions of years, somewhere levels of land and levels of sea would change, and in each case (all land, all sea, changing) more than one level of creature would be found.

Finding shellfish above land animals wouldn’t count, as shellfish are easily swept along Flood waters. I think there is one place for that in California la Baja (Mexican California).

Still no interest for the research I already did?

Q IV on Forum Catholic Apologetics
Can knowlede obtained through scientific study contradict truths revealed through the Lord's true prophets; and if there appears to be a cotradiction, should we not sincerely study both sides of the issue until we fully understand it?
https://catholicapologetics.quora.com/Can-knowlede-obtained-through-scientific-study-contradict-truths-revealed-through-the-Lords-true-prophets-and-if-there


Answer I

Tom Arachtingi
amateur apologist about 20 years ago
19.XII.2022
Can knowlede obtained through scientific study contradict truths revealed through the Lord's true prophets; and if there appears to be a cotradiction, should we not sincerely study both sides of the issue until we fully understand it?

The Catholic Church acknowledges that all Truth leads back to the author of Truth. And if you see a contradiction, then the problem is lack of knowledge, not lack of truth.

Thus, those who claim the world was created in 6 days are missing the point of the story(ies). The first creation story, a song, tells us that God created the world, and what He created was good. Cosmology tells us that the time involved was billions of years long. That doesn’t contradict the truth that God created the universe, and that what He created was good.

And to try to understand the world, because it reflects the glories of God the Church has supported scientists for centuries.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
19.XII.2022
“those who claim the world was created in 6 days are missing the point of the story(ies).”

Apart from a few (very few) preferring the world created in one single instant, that’s the whole array of Church Fathers and Scholastics you say are “missing the point” …

“The first creation story, a song,”

What is the exact metre of that song? You know, while Biblical songs originally in Hebrew are in fact a kind of prose in translation, they are perfectly metrical in Hebrew. The psalms for instance have a metre of two halflines per line, and each halfline has three accented words. Not two. Not four. Between the halflines, or between two consecutive lines, there is usually parallelism.

How exactly does such a scheme apply to the panorama account?

Because, Hebrew scholars actually say that in the early chapters of Genesis (1 - 11) only two small passages are in metre. Adam admiring his wife. Lamech boasting his capacity to take revenge. ALL the rest is in prose.

So, how exactly is this “a song” …?

“Cosmology tells us that the time involved was billions of years long.”

No, certain cosmologists will tell us that. They are speaking for “cosmology” which is not a magisterium which had any promise of infallibility and not a Church where no gates of Hell shall prevail.

“That doesn’t contradict the truth that God created the universe,”

Depends on what God you are speaking of …

“and that what He created was good.”

Yes, it actually does contradict this. It contradicts:
  • no suffering or death in the physical world before Adam sinned
  • no suffering for Adam himself before he sinned
  • historicity of his fall into sin. AND the promise about Jesus and Mary.


Or in other versions, Adam even existing.

It adds up to a gigantic denial of God’s goodness, if you “read the small print” (I’ll happily respond if you are interested), and it adds up to a gigantic denial of His truthfulness.

More humdrum. It adds up to a denial of Abraham’s historicity, since if the atmosphere had been in place for millions of years, an equilibrium between decay and new production of carbon 14 would have already been reached and carbon dates would need to be taken as usually presented, which involves En-Geddi (Asason Tamar) being evacuated from Amorrheans 1565 years before Abraham was involved in Genesis 14 events, supposing any of it happened.

Biblical chronology for Genesis 14, Roman martyrology says Abraham was born 2015 BC, Abraham was c. 80 (between 76 and 86) and this makes the Biblical chronology for Genesis 14 c. 1935 BC. The carbon dates for the reed mats on which temple treasures ascribed to the Amorrhaeans were evacuated is 3500 BC. And next population inhabiting En-Geddi (which is an oasis, you cannot pretend the housing shifted a few kilometres outside) was in the Iron Age. Way after Abraham.

“the Church has supported scientists for centuries.”

She condemned one She had supported in 1633. BECAUSE his “science” contradicted Joshua 10.

Answered twice
C and D

C

Karen Thomas-McKearn
19.XII.2022
You kind of ramble. You need to get to your one point easier. All you talked about was deciding how old the earth is. Hasn’t science already proven it?

Hans-Georg Lundahl
19.XII.2022
How could it?

It’s a question of past events, and that is history, not science.

D

Tom Arachtingi
20.XII.2022
“Apart from a few (very few) preferring the world created in one single instant, that’s the whole array of Church Fathers and Scholastics you say are “missing the point” …”

If the point isn’t that God created the universe and what He created was good, then what is the point?

“So, how exactly is this “a song” …?”

It is obvious it is a poem - stanzas with repeating format and a refrain. Then I heard a Jewish scholar on the radio say that it was a song, which fit right in with the obvious poetry. I don’t know Hebrew, so I’ll accept a scholar’s views, as they don’t contradict what I can plainly read.

The magisterium hasn’t stated anything about the depth of the ocean, the color of the sky, or the germ theory of disease. The fact that they haven’t said anything about the age that scientists put forth for the universe doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

“She condemned one She had supported in 1633. BECAUSE his “science” contradicted Joshua 10.”

Er - nope. The Church never condemned Copernicus. Galileo’s problems were political (probably wasn’t smart to put the pope’s words into a character called The Fool in his book), and disobedience (because he was ordered not to teach his hypothesis as a fact, because he didn’t have the data to support it).

And if you think that the heliocentric description of the solar system is invalidated by Joshua 10, then we have nothing else to talk about.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
20.XII.2022
"If the point isn’t that God created the universe and what He created was good, then what is the point?"

All of it is to the point - not just this resumé.

"stanzas with repeating format and a refrain."

And what is the metre?

"Then I heard a Jewish scholar on the radio say that it was a song, which fit right in with the obvious poetry."

I think this is not very representative for the scholarship in Hebrew.

"I don’t know Hebrew, so I’ll accept a scholar’s views, as they don’t contradict what I can plainly read."

I don't know Hebrew either - but my mother studied it. I was allowed to attend lessons, and know that Hebrew poetry is structured as I explained.*

As long as I do not hear a Hebrew scholar explain how this has another metre of for instance four accented words per halfline, I'll stick with that.

"The magisterium hasn’t stated anything about the depth of the ocean, the color of the sky, or the germ theory of disease. The fact that they haven’t said anything about the age that scientists put forth for the universe doesn’t mean it isn’t true."

The depth of the ocean, the colour of the sky and the action of germs in certain diseases can be ascertained in the present, about present recurring conditions. Here we are dealing with a past that is not recurring.

"The Church never condemned Copernicus."

He never published in his life before his deathbed, he never went further than a hypothesis, he never drew attention to the conflict with Joshua 10 by trying to give a non-patristic exegesis of it.

"Galileo’s problems were political (probably wasn’t smart to put the pope’s words into a character called The Fool in his book),"

So, you are stating that the Pope Urban VIII was as corrupt about Galileo as Bergoglio about Frank Pavone?

"and disobedience (because he was ordered not to teach his hypothesis as a fact, because he didn’t have the data to support it)."

Disobedience can land you with many penalties, but not abjuring a thesis that is not found by the magisterium to be contrary to faith or morals.

"And if you think that the heliocentric description of the solar system is invalidated by Joshua 10, then we have nothing else to talk about."

More specifically verse 12. For that matter verse 13 too, considering the unanimous patristics for the obvious sense, but if we ignored that, we have verse 12. Joshua is not adressing the earth to stop rotating. He's adressing sun and moon to stop. If they are not what normally go and then stopped, this would be the only Biblical miracle in which the miracle worker was in error about what happened.

* If I were to be wrong, here are some others:

If Genesis were poetry what would it look like?
CMI Video | 29 Sept. 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHMOsUwc56E


Is Genesis poetry / figurative, a theological argument (polemic) and thus not history?
Critique of the Framework Hypothesis
by Dr Don Batten, Dr David Catchpoole, Dr Jonathan D. Sarfati and Dr Carl Wieland
https://creation.com/is-genesis-poetry-figurative-a-theological-argument-polemic-and-thus-not-history


Jewish Encyclopedia : METER IN THE BIBLE:
By: Joseph Jacobs, W. H. Cobb
https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/10738-meter-in-the-bible


Answer II

Erich Walrath
Catholic
19.XII.2022
The question revolves around the appearance of contradiction. Typically, when this occurs, it’s either a misunderstanding of either scripture or science. It helps to remember that science is primarily a methodology of discovery. Scientists are like cartographers, mapping time, space, and everything in between. But no scientist would ever claim to have the absolute truth. The categories contained within science can, on occasion, contradict each other. This is expected. It is the work of scientists to resolve those seeming contradictions, particularly at the theoretical level.

This does not apply to revealed truth. What, for example, is the scientific basis for the Noahide Law, or the Ten Commandments, or the Sermon on the Mount? One could argue that the resurrection of a dead man is impossible. But that’s not science. The best one could really say is that it’s highly improbable, and that, in fact, is the point. It is in the nature of miraculous events to be highly improbable. Perhaps, one day, we will understand the mechanism of Christ’s death and resurrection, but that would not detract from event nor contradict the underlying message.

Likewise, it’s a misreading of scripture to suggest that legends are literal; Creation for example, which, if one reads the Genesis account, is actually three distinct stories. Those that compiled the scriptures could read. They could see the disparities yet chose to include them.

That tells us that something else was afoot in the telling of the tales and we risk missing the message when arguing about a 6,000-year-old earth. Likewise, with the Babel story, or Noah’s flood. Scientific method does not apply. The point is the fallen state of humankind, and the necessity of divine law. These legends are startlingly significant insofar as everything in scripture flows from them. To the Christian, the fall of Adam and the resurrection of Christ are the bookends of belief.

But it is revealed Truth from a Source other than science.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
19.XII.2022
“Likewise, it’s a misreading of scripture to suggest that legends are literal;”

Name a Church Father who said that …? Just one?

“Creation for example, which, if one reads the Genesis account, is actually three distinct stories.”

I’m used to hearing “two” - 1:1 to 2:4 and 2:5 to end of chapter 2.

“Those that compiled the scriptures could read.”

Moses certainly could read, yes. When did his favoured pronoun become “they”?

“They could see the disparities yet chose to include them.”

Disparities or change of perspective? I see first a big panorama, then a closeup on day VI. Account n. 2 being an extension in more detail of verses 26 - 29.

“That tells us that something else was afoot in the telling of the tales”

Deliciously imprecise …

“and we risk missing the message when arguing”

Because we suddenly have attention span zero?

“when arguing about a 6,000-year-old earth.”

7200 years according to the Roman martyrology - which via the Historia Scholastica does go back to SAINT Jerome actually ARGUING about it.

Erich Walrath
19.XII.2022
  1. Genesis 1:1– Gen. 2:3.
  2. Genesis 2:4 - Gen. 2:17
  3. Genesis 2:18 - Gen. 2:35


Hans-Georg Lundahl
19.XII.2022
Why would there be a different account instead of a continuation between verse 17 and 18?

Brandon J.C.
20.XII.2022
It's not a different account. It's a retelling of the same event just with added details. Genesis 1 is the outline. Genesis 2 is the detailed version.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
20.XII.2022
Well, yes, with two accounts or retellings, I’m on board. But you just stated three, with another limit between verses 17 and 18 of chapter 2.

Wait, sorry, you are not Erich Walrath - he did.

Answer III

Bernard Dick
Teacher, Visual Arts (Retired)
19.XII.2022
Yes. The Catholic Church maintains that there can be no real contradiction between science and revealed truth as God is the source of both. The Church has always promoted scientific investigation. There have been instances where that did not appear to be true but a close look, as in the Galileo affair, always reveals circumstances that make the individual situation complex. To over simply, Galileo maintained that the Bible was wrong. The Church taught that the Bible was correct in its basic truth as was science. Both were correct.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
19.XII.2022
The Galileo affair is actually straightforward.

Galileo Was Wrong, The Church Was Right. As Robert Sungenis discovered c. 2 years after I did (2001 vs 2003) - but he’s more known.

Answer IV

Karen Thomas-McKearn
I use research to help answer your questions.
19.XII.2022
There doesn’t need to be contradictions. Science and the Bible can be compatible. Remember that the Bible is bright a science book, not a history book. It is the word of God. Too many people get hung up on this vs that! The Bible is a love letter to us from God. Of course it has many other things, but basically it tells us how much we a lived by God. It is right judgement. God lives all his children and wants them to come back home to Heaven when we die. Sometimes we have to be like little children and accept the beauty, love, mercy and grace that our Heavenly Father offers us. Repent from sun that separates us from God. Keep trying to be perfect, knowing only God is perfect, but when we fall down we get right back up again! Trust in God for he is the Truth! 🙏🙏🙏

Hans-Georg Lundahl
19.XII.2022
“not a history book.”

A Catholic Bible has more than half of its chapters in what one can overall call historic books.

Unlike the Quran, the Bible actually is a history book. The history of salvation actually is “incarnated” into much more mundane history.

I suppose the spelling mistakes are due to answering from a phone, I highly recommend using a computer.

Karen Thomas-McKearn
19.XII.2022
I don’t own a computer, but thanks anyway. I also came down with the flu and don’t feel very well! My fingers don’t work very well at age 74. But thank you for your Christian care!

The Bible has never been claimed as a historical book! It does have a lot of history information in it, and it is the “history,” of our salvation, but it isn’t like your typical history book.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
19.XII.2022
The difference is, a history book is usually less well written and riddled with lots of useless scepticism.

And sorry for the suggestion being little use, perhaps your libraries and cybers aren’t as good as here in Paris.

Answer V

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Catholic convert, reading many Catechisms
19.XII.2022
First, in both the YEC and the Geocentric issue, I have done so, insofar as it is humanly possible.

Second, science was never promised “the gates of Hell shall not prevail” and some scientific “logic” or “method” these days is simply shady.

Third, the solution in each case is the Lord’s prophets being right. The solution is NOT in each case a scientist being also right. Especially not when a real contradiction is fairly hard to get around. Between the statements, that is.

Ian Senior
19.XII.2022
How about anthropology and the origin of mankind?

Hans-Georg Lundahl
19.XII.2022
What is anthropology supposed to show about it?

Ian Senior
20.XII.2022
Anthropology is science. The Church is infallible in faith and morals. There are proclamations that are classified as divine revelation, in the Church, relative to the origin of man, and descent from the original male- female pair of fully human members of mankind.

What I am asking is basically, does the Church have the right to make infallible assertions on anthropolagical science?

Hans-Georg Lundahl
20.XII.2022
When speaking of origins, as distinct from races or ethnology, anthropology is NOT a science.

The Bible as such is inerrant on every matter it touches on. And this was defined by Trent, Session IV, and did not include exceptions for science.

The “anthropological science” does not have any promise of infallibility, nor of Hell not getting better of it. It cannot be a magisterium rivalling the Church as She has been over centuries, nor the Bible.

Ian Senior
20.XII.2022
Do not confuse the term inerrant with infallible. Anthropological science is science.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
20.XII.2022
Of the two, inerrant is the stronger.

Infallible means, it cannot fail in connexion with doctrines and morals as necessary for salvation.

Inerrant means, cannot fail in any single fact in the autograph of the hagiographer.

What exactly are the scientific credentials of anthropology? That it’s taught at universities? So was at times Parapsychology in the Soviets and and so were Evangelical views of Late Antiquity’s Church History.

But frankly, I didn’t say anthropology had NOTHING scientific to say, I said it is not a scientific account of ORIGINS. The two concepts are distinct. Denisovans and Neanderthals certainly existed.

But pretending they and we come from sth like Homo erectus soloensis is dependent on even less credible assumptions.

If you ask me, our race (Cro Magnon) came to coexist with Neanderthals, Denisovans and Erecti soloenses before the Flood, possibly all and very probably the last of which represent either Nephelim or some transhumanist genetic experiments, leaving them somewhat stunted.

Ian Senior
20.XII.2022
Your definition “Inerrant means, cannot fail in any single fact in the autograph of the hagiographe “, places the term in a very arkward position as far as scriptual texts are concerned. Time periods differ , one text to another .Generations from Abraham, even inthe first and second also differ, from Ketura, accounts of man’s creation differ, etc etc.

The Bible , in my view is truly inerrant, as far as the Church interprets it for our salvation. That does not ascribe to your definition though. Pope Francis recently gave a treatise leading the faithful to beleive, that the idea of God being one who just brings about a new form without a due process (such as evolution), is erroneous.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
20.XII.2022
“Time periods differ , one text to another”

Yes, one of them is obviously not the autograph.

“Generations from Abraham”

Don’t you mean Noah to Abraham? As I go by the Roman martyrology, I am obviously aware it is different from a text common to Vulgate and Masoretic. It is “LXX without the Second Cainan” - which is in turn a minority reading of LXX manuscripts and agreeing with the Samaritan Pentateuch.

“even inthe first and second also differ, from Ketura”

What chapter? Anyway, if true, I didn’t know it, the solution is the same - one of the versions differs from the autograph.

“The Bible , in my view is truly inerrant, as far as the Church interprets it for our salvation.”

That’s not what Trent Session IV says. Nor how St. Thomas felt about it. The interpretation for our salvation, or pastoral plus major salvation related dogmas and correct morals are far from exhausting inerrancy. Even where the choice which was the original text is inaccessible and the original meaning of the text is not sufficiently clear by Church Fathers agreeing, the autograph was still inerrant on any matter of fact the hagiographer spoke on therein.

What you are talking about is infallible - the Church over the centuries (and where the real hierarchy is now) does not cheat us out of necessary or even highly useful truth and even less of our salvation. Fallere is the Latin for deceive.

“Pope Francis recently gave a treatise leading the faithful to beleive, that the idea of God being one who just brings about a new form without a due process (such as evolution), is erroneous.”

To me that is one major clue Bergoglio is not Pope. Non-Catholics are not Popes.

God in Cana turned water to wine instantaneously, not over weeks or months of intermediate stages.

Satan was perfectly right that Jesus, as God, COULD have turned stones into bread instantaneously.

Ian Senior
21.XII.2022
First and foremost Pope Francis IS pope, Bergoglio that is.

Secondly, only what happened, happened. This serves for doctrinal purposes.

Third… St Thomas and St Augustine are great theologians, but not the Magisterium(s), of the Church. I am sure you agree that marital relations are holy rather than (venially) sinful when its purpose is procreation, or even open to procreation. How about early abortion? Certainly it is evil, even if the foetus does not have a human soul.

Fourth….. God can do anything that is ‘do- able’. Its up to him to do it in his most expedient way. The method at the wedding feast, possibly amounts for a few billionths of the wine ever produced. Lets not expect miraculous occourences to be everyday ones; other than the procreative ones ,plant and animal.

On a closing note, i was referring, just as I said, to Abraham’s descendents through Ketura. Descent from other people such as Noah and even Adam ,dont always square off, text for text. But that does not make the Bible, for what it is meant to be, errant.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
21.XII.2022
First, though not foremost, you are wrong.

Second, I am not clear what you refer to - what happened in the previous century and this one, like election and death of Pope Michael, or what happened before Moses. Yes, only exactly one thing happened as opposed to conflicting scenarios both being true, but the correct scenario is there in the original autograph of the hagiographer, whatever versions later on may have a slightly off version. And it is also there in the Bible, even if “science” (a modern idol, to be distinguished from the sciences) says otherwise.

Third:

“I am sure you agree that marital relations are holy rather than (venially) sinful when its purpose is procreation, or even open to procreation.”

It might seem that you refer to St. Augustine only, not St. Thomas here. Nevertheless an irregularity attaches to them - the night before communion, or before a priests celebrates Holy Mass, abstinence is normally required. Recent dispensations may obviously apply.

Anyway, the Council of Trent IS the magisterium and you do not find a single Church Father (did I mention it was session IV?) who is not saying (if saying anything all on the matter) that the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11 are the amount of time between THE beginning and the times of Abraham that involve early pharaonic (possibly pre-dynastic) Egypt and chalcolithic En Gedi. Depending on versions, this is between 1599 and 3432 years to Abraham’s birth and 75 to 76 years to his visit in Egypt, between 76 and 86 years to Genesis 14. NOT millions or billions of years.

Fourth: “Lets not expect miraculous occourences to be everyday ones”

I’d correct this to everyday and down to earth. I do believe every day is a miracle of God turning the universe around us, that this was the proof of God in Damaescene and in Prima Via, and the one St. Paul most probably had in mind in Romans 1.

Putting nature in place is however NOT even when it’s down to earth, everyday. Hence no reason to imply creation took long time.

The closing note or fifth, the Bible is indeed not errant, as only one of the versions also about Ketura is that of the hagiographer’s autograph.

Ian Senior
21.XII.2022
No . You ARE wrong. If you are Catholic Pope Francis is, was duly elected, and duly installed as temporal vicar of Christ upon earth. He is who we refer to as ‘Pope’.

As you like to take chunks of others statements and erroneously comment upon them, rather than upon the whole which contains its true meaning, know a simple fact that has totally eluded you ,and your false reasoning….. God does what He does in His time. Remember ,He is eternal.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
21.XII.2022
If Bergoglio is Pope, the Church is dead, already over this issue.

While God is eternal, we are not. While thousand years are like a day to God, they are not so to procreating patriarchs.

And if I comment on snippets, it’s to cut down the argument for you at every point it lends itself to it, which is plenty.

AND - if the last pope died on August 2nd this year, the Church stands a chance. Like Christ kept that promise.

Ian Senior
22.XII.2022
The Church upon earth is very much alive, and yes, with Pope Francis at its helmn.

If anyone, at present ,ascribes to a Holy Communion mandatory abstinence from marital sex for 3 days, or even a night, before reception of the sacred species, they are living, either in a time zone 5 centuries ago, or Mars.

The Church upon earth is alive in the now. We have no information about the church in Mars.

P.S. Treasure the privaledge of present access to daily Holy Communion.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
22.XII.2022
Frank Pavone is one reason more to doubt your assessment of where the Church is.

If anyone etc … or they are Eastern Rite or other married clergy.

The Church on earth is alive over the centuries from Ascension to Second Coming, including now, but not exclusive to now.

The Church on Mars would be one angel moving it in an epicycle around the Sun.

Ian Senior
22.XII.2022
I do not know enough about the Fr Pavone affair to comment. I do not trust what comes from the media, but I know that the group in question is not a Church group.

I do not see how rite fits the equation! All 7 rites are represented in the 24 churches of the Catholic Church.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
22.XII.2022
I think Eastern Rite are also more strict on fasting issues.

Perhaps I got it wrong and confused Byzantine Church with Byzantine Rite, and Byzantine Rite in Latin Rite regions go by local rules. Or perhaps I didn’t, and they go by those of the Byzantine Church.

Anyway, I would suspect that they, like Orthodox priests, abstain the night before celebrating and leave celebration on some other days to monk priests. I could be wrong.

While the procreative act is righteous, in marriage, under due circumstances, it is also tainted because that is how Original Sin is transmitted.

And a boy of five blasphemed and was killed instantly, and Pope [St] Gregory found the mother had been using the marriage a night before going to Church.

But frankly (pun on Pavone intended) the magic wand speech in 2014 is clearly way more damning for Bergoglio being Pope than even lifting sanctions on Ruplik while heaping them on Pavone (a comparison made by Return to Tradition). The creation week was not your everyday occurrence, and you could expect miracles in it.

And Jesus also said “from the beginning of creation” which is very odd in the light of Big Bang chronology but very understandable in Biblical chronology. Mark 10:6. And before you say this means from the beginning of specifically human creation, referencing Mark 16:15, we Catholics believe in blessing pet animals and cars, so we do not take this word as a token only human creation is meant.

Ian Senior
23.XII.2022
It would be good for anyone to listen to the priest witnessing ,a Catholic marriage claim that matrimony is the one institution not affected by original sin, before claiming an Augustinian construct ,that Original sin is transmitted by ‘generation’. I wonder why ‘test tube’ babies have Original sin as well !

‘From the beginning of creation’ ,male and female etc. Anyone who knows Genesis scripture, would realize that male and female members of mankind were created a few ‘days’ into creation. This ‘beginning’ may indeed be a few billion years! So lets allow the Church to place your quote into its proper context. Science can also be of assistance.

Most of all, know that marital relations open to procreation are God given and blessed, not sinful. And whilst you conjure ‘tainted’ , most charitable pursuits are transacted in a medium of money, as the Lord himself said, ‘that tainted thing’ . Fortunately, no one has to stop being charitable. And know for certain that a marriage is only complete when consumated sexually; yes, even sacramental marriages.

If you do not beleive what I am saying, ask a bishop.

So long for now,regards.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
23.XII.2022
“I wonder why ‘test tube’ babies have Original sin as well !”

They are also generated, albeit in less than usual naturality.

“This ‘beginning’ may indeed be a few billion years!”

Not according to the Church over the centuries. Not according to Pope Michael up to when he died in August.

“Science can also be of assistance.”

ScienceS sometimes assist, but not all equally and the dating methods are among the more tainted things. Not just with un-Biblicalism, but with bad science. As in bad logic.

I have no doubt that marital relations open to procreation are God-given and blessed. So is human nature. Yet - human nature is tainted by original sin.

“And know for certain that a marriage is only complete when consumated sexually;”

Apart from white marriages - not that I am planning that - but yes, normally a marriage is binding when it is “ratum et consummatum” - between a wedding and a wedding night a marriage could be dissolved by one contrahend going into a monastery, not that I plan that.

“an Augustinian construct”

Trent Session V, canon 3:

If any one asserts, that this sin of Adam,--which in its origin is one, and being transfused into all by propogation, not by imitation, is in each one as his own, --is taken away either by the powers of human nature, or by any other remedy than the merit of the one mediator, our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath reconciled us to God in his own blood, made unto us justice, santification, and redemption; or if he denies that the said merit of Jesus Christ is applied, both to adults and to infants, by the sacrament of baptism rightly administered in the form of the church; let him be anathema: For there is no other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved. Whence that voice; Behold the lamb of God behold him who taketh away the sins of the world; and that other; As many as have been baptized, have put on Christ.

Presuming you have some orthodoxy left and misspoke, blessed Christmas.

Ian Senior
23.XII.2022
Merry, happy and holy Christmas.

Let me inform you that Original sin WILL be in all members of mankind whether or not they have been generated in a test tube, ilicit sex, or holy matrimonial sex. Holy matrimonial sex is NOT sinful.

The Church has clearly ruled out immitation as the way of Original Sin’s transferrence, but is not specific as to ‘generation’ in meaning and form. Indeed, I will never accept that a married couple has to spread sin to consumate a sacrament. You should know well that God does not lead people into temptation, or sin for that matter.

As I told you before 1. Stop taking segments of a treatise and commenting upon them erroneously, to errroneously illustrate your misunderstanding. 2. Do not quote Popes and other Church documents out of context to further deepen your misunderstanding. This is not a law court or a lawer’s office.

My orthordoxy is sufficient. My Catholicity even more so. Is yours? A parrot can quote anything, but a human mind is needed for spiritual understanding and will.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
23.XII.2022
“Original sin WILL be in all members of mankind whether or not they have been generated in a test tube, ilicit sex, or holy matrimonial sex.”

Meaning, the gametes carry it or the male gamete carries it to the forming of the zygote.

“Holy matrimonial sex is NOT sinful.”

No, but it involves releasing gametes into a life starting with original sin from the zygote stage.

So obviously do non-natural methods, whether medically or demonically assisted.

I’ll give you a comparison. Your family is dying from starvation, the only way to get food to save you is to break up a shopwindow and start shoplifting. The act is tainted by this stealing, nevertheless justified.

It is tainted if you cook a decent meal and say grace before eating as you should, and it’s also tainted if you do something totally ridiculous, like decide to not to look to each other.

Tainted does not mean sinful, since the just act cannot avoid this taint - applies to both stories.

“but is not specific as to ‘generation’ in meaning and form.”

I think it is obvious from the Church Fathers.

“I will never accept that a married couple has to spread sin to consumate a sacrament.”

Sorry, but this seems to be somewhat off. They spread life, but they do so with tainted means, namely gametes getting original sin from them. So, while they spread life, they accidentally also spread original sin.

"Stop taking segments of a treatise and commenting upon them erroneously, to errroneously illustrate your misunderstanding."

Treatises usually involve segments, and if the segments are wrong, as I am showing, so is the treatise.

"Do not quote Popes and other Church documents out of context to further deepen your misunderstanding."

Do you believe you are God? Do you believe I am a five year old child you can give daddy talk?

Even if you were a bishop, even if you were a perfectly orthodox pope, that would not be a way to talk to me.

What you are NOT showing yourself is a capacity to back up treatises segment by segment when attacked or showing where my "quoting" is "out of context" or what "misunderstanding" it either deepens or shows or whatever.

"My orthordoxy is sufficient."

Not to me. You are for instance Evolutionist, contrary to all of the Church Fathers. You are an idolater of Science (hypostatised superknowledge, as distinguished from sciences that are fallible but fairly good repositories for actual knowledge), as you show by saying Anthropology is not just "a science" (debatably half correct in some aspects of it), but that it is so in relation to "human origins" which is a historic and not a scientific question, and prior to the existence of human observers transmitting observations (i e prior to Adam being there) a question of prophecy.

"My Catholicity even more so."

Not to me. Neither are others of the club who get around Church Father consensus by saying "the Church has not decided" - if a thing is in all the Church Fathers the Church actually has decided in Trent Session IV.

Q V (submitted to Catholic Apologetics)
How did the Great Flood affect different cultures?
https://www.quora.com/How-did-the-Great-Flood-affect-different-cultures/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-2


Hans-Georg Lundahl
Studied Latin (language) at Lund University
20.XII.2022
The cultures you think of are usually post-Flood.

First, most of them don’t have a good written documentation reaching even comparatively far back. Some of them did have writing, like Egyptians, but what’s left of history is very fragmentary.

Second, this means that their early states are dated by carbon 14.

Third, this means that if carbon 14 was rising after the Flood, it was way lower near the Flood.

My carbon date for the Flood, for 2957 BC, is not carbon dated 3000 BC or 5000 years ago. It’s 39 000 years ago.

So, all the times of those cultures you would be thinking of as in conflict with the Biblical date of the Flood are in fact post-Flood times that are misdated due to carbon 14 levels still rising.