Tuesday, January 31, 2023

Have I Ever Heard an Atheist Compare the Gospels to Spiderman?


Perhaps I have.

This series:
Misunderstanding Matt Slick on Purpose? · Another Video with Scarlett (excursus: Continuing with Bill Garthright) · And YET Another Video with Scarlett
One or two on this series:
HomeSchooling, Germany and US · Other Thread Under Same Video (excursus : Continuing first separate Thread) · When bullies and bullied are both stuck in the same school ... · There are Other Debates Too
This series:
Stories are evidence of the past, and "mythological" is a label with very little precise meaning. · Continuing with Ernest Crunkleton · It's Not Over Yet (But wasn't there some on this series too? Here: Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : Bart answered ... · Continuing with Leo Yohansen · With Leo Yohensen, Snappy Version · Leo Yohansen is Back · somewhere else : Apostles and St. Irenaeus · Where is the First Person if Moses and some Disciples wrote Torah and Gospels? · Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : Also under the video with GMS and Leo Yohansen)
This post:
Gutsick Gibbon on Overturning Paradigms and Castile Formation
This post:
Babel or Exodus Myths?
I bring a distinction up myself* in this post:
Paulogia took on the Tower

What about LotR or Lord of the Rings?

This post:
Gutsick on Radiometric and Heat - My Initial Comments with Answers
I bring a distinction up myself in this post:
subductionzone to the rescue of Forrest Valkai? Or Keith Levkoff? Deus-Stein?
This post:
AronRa and "Wil" Answered
Where I refer to this post:
Bible and Fantasy (quora)
I bring it up in this post:
Debate with Paul Myers
And in this post:
... on Identity of Hagiographers, Debate under my Answer
And in this post:
... to Bart D. Ehrman
This post:
...on Knowledge
I bring it up here:
Evidence for Jesus : NT Biblical and Other

Now, so has Testify, and no lesser Atheist than Paulogia.

No, Christian Apologists Aren't Proving Spider-Man
Testify, 30 Jan. 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y34Qlg2lXo8


Here's** how I think Testify might have handled it better, or own replies to Paulogia:

1:53 It can be added, the "real locations accurately" is more of a proof of "first hand" - the historicity as general in opposition to fiction is about the Gospels being accepted by the Church as the history She could remember.

The "real locations" and "first hand knowledge" are obviously important enough when it comes to countering people who say it was written 100 years later in another part of the Roman Empire.

But they are an argument against an argument against historicity, not a direct argument for it.

4:53 You are glossing over the most basic claim for a text to be historic - that the tradition surrounding it says so.

The tradition around the Gospels in Papias and Irenaeus and in Church councils like mid late fourth C Rome and Carthage as well as Church Fathers say they are history.

The tradition around either Spiderman or Lord of the Rings say they are fiction.

Now, if the tradition around LotR said Tolkien had stumbled across a book in Westron, written in tengwar, and laboriously deciphered it, that would be a pretty fair parallel to Book of Mormon - the claim to historicity would be uncheckable, due to the long delay between supposed facts and supposed rediscovery in a very different society.

But that Spiderman were suddenly to get a following claiming it was historic is totally impossible, or at least highly improbable. Suppose a Robbie Robertson were to say "look, here is the building of Daily Bugle" and he started to issue papers tomorrow, people would clearly be sceptical of articles signed Peter Parker, and ask "where was Daily Bugle on January 31 2023?"

Similarily, if someone in AD 100 had said "Jesus founded a Church" - people would have asked reasonably "so, that's where you go once every seven days now - where was that Church five years ago?"

5:33 The actual process of tradition is very different from the telephone game, anyway, besides you tell me last time you had children playing it come up with a false allegation of a miracle healing or a resurrection from the dead!

7:00 Apart from fiction, there is also lying because of what one wants to be true ... like a suspect lying about an alibi with plausible detail.

Yes, some accepted history is false history, either due to misunderstanding or, as this is what is brought up, fraud.

However, fraud is a special case, a very minority case of everyone mentioning a park is making up a false alibi, so, this alternative should be directly argued, not assumed as a possibility on a priori equal footing until it's disproven.

I can see why a criminal would lie saying "no, I wasn't in that dorm when the three students were killed, I was in my own bed" or "I was walking in the park" (fairly impossible alibi in Paris at night, except a few parks in summer - they are closed off - unless you and others good at climbing are drinking in a park after climbing the fence). But it's a bit hard to imagine why someone would invent "I saw Jesus making a miracle at Cana" as an alibi.

It's very hard to imagine why some people who for instance had seen Jesus fail as a Messiah would prefer inventing miracles like the Resurrection over simply saying "the Messiah wasn't for right now" or "we'll see if the next guy is the real Messiah" ... and if it were a case of a few cooks, how did they convince a lot of other people?

7:55 I would highly disagree with classifying Homer as fiction.

Docufiction is closer to it ... like The Assisi Underground by Alexander Ramati, or Lanzmann's Shoah or Wajda's Katyn ...

Apuleius and Petronius are definitely writing fiction, and so are comedians, like Plautus and Terence.

For neither of them do I concede "crudely written" ... except insofar as Petronius' satire is crude as satire.

9:19 While the genres were not the genres we are used to, they are known.

Comedy and novels are fiction.

The gospels fall fairly neatly into biographical history.

we have categories of fiction and non-fiction

These not being genres, but very large categories of genres.

For Chesterton, non-fiction covers:
  • autobiography
  • biography (Sts Francis and Thomas Aquinas, often reprinted together)
  • travel journalism with political analysis (Ireland and US to the West, Rome and Mandate Palestine to the East)
  • history (Outline of the History of England)
  • meta-history (Altamira to Rome, Christ to Present)
  • essays and diversified essay collections
  • structured analyses
  • essay collections on similar topics


And equally in his case, fiction covers:
  • novels (basically Uchronias or Alternative History genre, except Manalive)
  • short stories (usually detective fiction, mostly involving Father Brown)
  • epic poems (The Ballad of the White Horse, Lepanto)


By the way, the epic poems here mentioned are not strictly fiction, they are docu-fiction, like I claim for Homer.

The point being, we know very well for the 1st C AD what the Roman world had as fiction genres and as non-fiction genres.

9:39 What legends tend to do over time is not grow, but concentrate by reduction.

The legendary "Rabenschlacht" where "Dietrich of Bern" or "Tjodrekr" beats "Jormunrekr" or "Ermanerich" reflects two battles of Ravenna, Theoderic conquering Ravenna from Odoacer in the 490's and Ermanaricus losing against the Huns in 375. Possibly also some battle Ermanaricus won before that which right now I cannot locate.

The important thing here is, duels are not exaggerated to battles in armies. Neither is exaggerated to miracles.

Paulogia has no clue how the forming of legends works.

9:44 Legends usually are anchored in actual events - of the same type.

9:49 If Paul Bunyan exaggerates the strength of Fabian "Joe" Fournier - that's not because of how legends grow by exaggeration, it's because lumberjacks (those primarily telling the legend) exaggerate. When they tell. Even if it's yesterday's firsthand news.

I don't see anything in how Johnny Appleseed is represented that totally marks the legend as exaggerated. Planting appleseeds is a quick way to get apples to harvest. The apples won't be sweet, since sweet apples are genetically a rarer mutation, meaning lack of certain acids. The apples from such trees are great for making cider or applejock, at least tolerable for hot apples if you add molasses before baking, but not what you would want to bite in raw for a modern healthy snack without added sugars or fermentation.

Ever wondered why "apple-pie" is more common than "apples" in American tradition?

Perhaps because the legends of Johnny Appleseed aren't exaggerated.

Credits to Michael Pollan for drawing my attention to Johnny Appleseed in The Botany of Desire!

10:11 If you want a theological treatise rather than a biography, take a look at Romans!

Or Hebrews.

Or, for pastoral theology, Titus and the two to Timothy.

I recall getting an NT, as a child or eight going on nine, and I was so excited reading the Gospels and Acts and what a bummer when I came to real theological treatises.

When Paulogia claims Gospels are "theological treatises" he's basically saying his alibi was drinking in a park with pals - in Paris, in winter (when parks have closed fences) and with his leg in plaster so he couldn't have climbed the fence!

10:14 The Qoran is a very different genre from historical books in the Bible.

It's a collection of sermons verging on poetry. Try mixing Psalms with Hebrews, and you get a very rough approximation of the genre of the 114 Surahs.

If you want a biography of Mohammed, that's outside the Qoran, and as a Christian, I believe the historic details, where the only supernatural thing is the revelations. The one thing I disbelieve is them being from God.

Just because I don't think John Knox was a man of God, doesn't mean I deny he inspired Covenanter violence or held inflammatory sermons. Nor do I deny he had another religion before converting to his well known one (Catholic for Knox prior to Calvinism, Arabic Gentile Pagan for Mohammed prior to Islam, with some years as seeker inbetween). Nor do I deny both claimed to and probably believed they were closer to Jesus' Gospel than the actual Christians (i e Catholics). In other words, I have no reason not to believe a Calvinist history about Knox or a Muslim one on Muhammed - except on things that are theological claims, rather than historic claims such and such an event occurred.

11:10 You are leaving out that satire actually does mime history.

Lucian whom you mentioned was in fact a satirist.

When it comes to Josephus, his being a historian for Antiquities is because he reformulates with explanations to a Roman audience the Biblical history, and with his Jewish war, he tells a history which Jews up to this day commemorate by a glass being shattered at weddings, to mourn for the shattered temple.

If Lucian's biography of Demonax is a biography or a satire is difficult to know. For Walden being bona fide autobiographic, we have the testimony of the Transcendentals. Thoreau knew Emerson.

We probably to this day have people intellectually in a straight lineage of discipleship from Thoreau and Emerson. We certainly have a tradition by editors.

11:46 Here is the exact point. For Justin martyr's testimony to be valid argument, we need to rely on tradition since he was born around when the last apostle died. And not in the same place.

12:11 I think apocryphal writings are not the closest comparison.

Plato's dialogues did have a religious significance in the Academy, so, take Plato's dialogues. Apologia, Symposion, a few more.

* The fact is, sometimes I am more of dealing with authorship and genre assignment staying with the traditional one, which is also my reply to the argument.
** Time signatures refer to time stamps in the video, usually where I halted it after hearing the argument.

Genuine Beneplenist Conclavism? Or Spoof on Conclavism?


What Does Kwasniewski mean by "Brain Disease" ... · Genuine Beneplenist Conclavism? Or Spoof on Conclavism?

BREAKING: Papal Conclave Elects New Pope?
Reason & Theology, 30.I.2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-ysvstqJXU


Links to:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sG2qDb7TDxQ&t=2579s

I'm so far commenting on the former.

6:07 I sent the links to Vatican in Exile asking if the new pope was a pope or a schismatic - apparently it was a heretic, the conclave was hijacked by Bergoglionists.

I think I can predict how Vatican in Exile will react ...

6:15 It seems, they tried to make an emergency conclave from 1990 ridiculous, and you are making them ridiculous.

Much obliged ...

9:08 Noting that Orthodoxy by Chesterton is from 1908, by which time he was still under the bad influence of the Anglican heresy.

It is probable he was speaking from experience of people who shouldn't have been detained in mad houses, but who were.

Checking : "He entered full communion with the Roman Catholic Church in 1922."

It's like citing Newman when he was saying "Rome can't be in Canterbury" ...

For better thought through attitudes on psychiatry by him, see:

Manalive
The Return of Don Quixote

9:29 If I say people are conspiring against me, as a writer, if they obviously don't want to publish my saying so on the kind of commercial paper known as books, they are still perfectly free to dispute the conspiracy by publishing something else by me.

I'm about as prolific a writer as GKC, and publish on my blogs.

Anyone who truly wants my best, and does not want to republish any charge against him by me stamping him as conspirator, is perfectly able to prove the opposite by taking a look at my blogs and seeing what he'd like to publish.

10:45 It is highly probable that the election of "Pope Francis" as successor of "Pope Benedict XVI" (supposedly never emeritus up to death) will free the actual clergy in the heritage of Pope Michael to make less of stepping aside for a Beneplenist conclave.

10:49 Thank you for reading probably the worst single paragraph or sequence of paragraphs in Gilbert Keith Chesterton's extant writings.

As said, it's from when he was Anglican. It's contradicted by what he stated of psychiatrists in two later novels. Manalive and The Return of Don Quixote.

And in his autobiography, I think it was, he stated things about the roots of humanity being torn out, not about madmen, but about converts far more heroic than he.

Nope, not the autobiography. I was confusing two paragraphs in The Catholic Church and Conversion, one of which was autobiographical. Here is the other:

"These are the general considerations which govern any personal study of conversion to the Catholic faith. The Church has defended tradition in a time which stupidly denied and despised tradition. But that is simply because the Church is always the only thing defending whatever is at the moment stupidly despised. It is already beginning to appear as the only champion of reason in the twentieth century, as it was the only champion of tradition in the nineteenth. We know that the higher mathematics is trying to deny that two and two make four and the higher mysticism to imagine something that is beyond good and evil. Amid all these anti-rational philosophies, ours will remain the only rational philosophy. In the same spirit the Church did indeed point out the value of tradition to a time which treated it as quite valueless. The nineteenth-century neglect of tradition and mania for mere documents were altogether nonsensical. They amounted to saying that men always tell lies to children but men never make mistakes in books. But though our sympathies are traditional because they are human, it is not that part of the thing which stamps it as divine. The mark of the Faith is not tradition; it is conversion. It is the miracle by which men find truth in spite of tradition and often with the rending of all the roots of humanity."


May I repeat?

"It is the miracle by which men find truth in spite of tradition and often with the rending of all the roots of humanity."

Unlike Orthodoxy, it has an Imprimatur:

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND CONVERSION
BY G. K. CHESTERTON
http://www.gkc.org.uk/gkc/books/conversion.txt


Nihil Obstat: Arthur J. Scanlan, S.T.D. Censor Librorum.
Imprimatur: Patrick Cardinal Hayes +Archbishop, New York.
New York, September 16, 1926.
Copyright, 1926 by MacMillan Company

10:30 So far no - as long as Fr. Francis Dominic doesn't accept him, I probably won't either.

Especially if he doesn't apologise for the infamous Magic Wand speech from 2014.*

12:43 I think the underlying premise is somehow "emergency conclaves can theoretically be valid" - the ambition of those voting Bergoglio would obviously have been to counter that and counter any tendency to conclavism.

One year ago, we had at least four options on who was Pope.

Bergoglionist
Beneplenist
Vatican in Exile
Palmar de Troya

Pope Michael died, his succession is as yet undecided. I am decidedly a non-candidate, since I'd like to marry, but I would be available if the new pope wanted a theological counsellor or a Latin specialist.

15:32 I have a very real suspicion the guy on the phone is not Graceda ... he even said "Jackson" ...

15:53 I get a feeling that instead of calling Graceda, you take caller after caller ....

Sorry, Gracida, my bad ...

And no, René Henry Gracida sounds different ...

16:59 Here is at least one pope Michael follower who feels fairly iffy about that "dark horse" ..

17:30 In defense of conclaves in Kansas.** There have been valid conclaves in a city I was in where the traffic is far less "LA" than in Rome.

43°57′00″N 04°48′27″E

1305 it was not there, but Perugia.
1316
1334
1342
1352
1362 (looks like one was saying "get elected, live ten more years!")
1370.

19:30 Kevin Symonds is pretending Bergoglio was, presumably in 2013, "validly elected" ...

In 1378 there were two options on who was validly elected. One of them was wrong.

Pretending it is always clear who is Pope, apart from delay in communications, as it "belongs to the visibility of the Church" or pretending it is always a "dogmatic fact" (a fact connected to valid dogma, like Trent being valid is connected to valid condemnations of Calvin's and Luther's and similar heresies) is a bit overdone.

19:58 Kevin, thank you very much for saying only the Holy See can declare formal schism.

Did the ones you recognise as Holy See ever declare Pope Michael as a schismatic?

22:11 Disagreeing with the caller.

Oct 28 2014*

// "When we read about Creation in Genesis, we run the risk of imagining God was a magician, with a magic wand able to do everything. But that is not so," Francis told the gathering, where he also dedicated a statue of his predecessor, Benedict XVI. God, Francis said, "created human beings and let them develop according to the internal laws that he gave to each one so they would reach their fulfillment." //


24:10 Just supposing Vatican in Exile wanted to elect Odermatt - no, St. Felix II was first antipope against Pope Liberius who had signed a Sirmian declaration under duress, and stepped back when Pope Liberius was back in Rome and cleared himself ... and became the next Pope after Liberius.

Obviously supposing it is correct as stated in Liber Papalis and in Roman Martyrology:

// At Rome, on the Aurelian Way, St. Felix II, pope and martyr. Being expelled from his See by the Arian emperor Constantius for defending the Catholic faith, and being put to the sword privately at Cera in Tuscany, he died gloriously. His body was taken away from that place by clerics and buried on the Aurelian Way. It was afterwards brought to the Church of the Saints Cosmas and Damian where, under the Sovereign Pontiff Gregory XIII, it was found beneath the altar with the relics of the holy martyrs Mark, Marcellian, and Tranquillinus and, with the latter, was put back in the same place on 31 July. In the same altar were also found the bodies of the holy martyrs Abundius, a priest, and Abundantius, a deacon, which were shortly after solemnly transferred to the church of the Society of Jesus, on the eve of their feast. //


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

26:13 This is obviously a spoof on Taylor Marshall. The real guy pronounces an L nearly as a Frenchman or Northumbrian pronounces R ...

27:56 Yes, I do know William Tapley.

I also know he was Beneplenist.

I also think it would be more interesting to get the real opinion of William Tapley, Vatican in Exile, Dimond Brothers, than to get several scoffers interrupt that research by calling in live ...

* Pope says evolution, Big Bang are real
Josephine McKenna | Religion News Service
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/10/28/pope-francis-evolution-big-bang/18053509/


** Other factor of Pope Michael's conclave was disputed, only six persons were present. Check out Pope Innocent II:

On the evening of 13 February 1130, Pope Honorius II died,[4] Gregorio was hastily elected as Pope Innocent II by a commission of six cardinals led by papal chancellor Haimeric.[5] He was consecrated on 14 February, the day after Honorius' death.[5] The other cardinals announced that Innocent had not been canonically elected and chose Anacletus II, a Roman whose family were the enemy of Haimeric's supporters, the Frangipani.[6] Anacletus' mixed group of supporters were powerful enough to take control of Rome while Innocent was forced to flee north.[6]


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

Monday, January 30, 2023

James Martin is Wrong


Evidence of bad faith: Not Very Credible · Someones Attacked Pope Michael · Someone Played Foul · Possibly here too: James Martin is Wrong

Possibly, this one is to be included in "evidence of bad faith" too - two people interact in nonsensical ways with comments that are not on the main topic of the video.

It is possible that this was some kind of "demonstration" to me that I don't like silly quibbles. Either. In that case, it would be bad faith. The first comment so interacted with is an agreement with Trent Horn's remark, the second so interacted with is also an agreement, the main point where I give another point of view he didn't give is not commented on, this is the first one, at 2:03.

Pushing me to block could also ne a "lesson" about not resenting the deletion on Pints with Aquinas, where John Salza spread disinformation about the IV Council of Constantinople. That would also be bad faith.

Fr. James Martin's Gaslighting on Marriage
The Counsel of Trent, 30 Jan. 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qrg4Nl86cr4


2:03 To correct James Martin.

Pete Buttigieg could be married if he got a legal divorce and married a woman.

So could Chasten James Glezman.

Would you forward them a suggestion to go and date lesbian couples so that two legal divorces could be followed up with two actual marriages?

Btw, I just looked up more on Chasten Glezman ... he has two children.

A priority would be to marry ... the mother. Seems, however, they kind of paid a woman to carry children they would adopt ...?

Obviously, if the mother is involved in another lesbian couple, like the mother of Amos Gardell ... and they had kind of a deal, next pregnancy for the lesbians, the deal should be changed for actual father marrying actual mother, and the other two marry.

Meaning, if marriage is what Buggigieg and Glezman want ...

11:23 Both are possible.

I saw you and Chris Check between you pretend St. Robert Bellarmine had pretended Galileo's observations were not proven.

I saw a friend of Alex Pismenny on quora pretend that the Babylonian or Sumerian version of Noah was Gilgamesh, and refusing my correction that no, the name those people gave to a rough equivalent of Noah was Utnapishtim (in the Epic of Gilgamesh, tablet XI has Gilgamesh asking Utanapishtim about the Flood).

If intellectual ineptness is a thing among more or less faithful Catholics, what shall we expect from James Martin?

Deliberate misrepresentation is also a thing.

I'd opt between them, some people have a favourite cause and tend to misrepresent a very obvious objection even to themselves, blinding them to what basically everyone else can see, and they too before they started fiddling with their knowledge to suit their agenda ...

CanIBeZeroun
What is the contradiction here? Trent is saying only a man and woman can be married.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@CanIBeZeroun I was commenting on exactly one time stamp. The words that he was saying up to 11:23.

And I was commenting on intellectual ineptitude, ignorance, unfortunately coming even from moderately faithful, like himself, so one can certainly believe a heretic like James Martin could be ignorant too.


13:31 First thing that came to my mind is, they actually went to bed together, not just become the two parties to a test tube baby, or rather insemination.

That would also seem implied in "in a human fashion" ... [Can 1061, §1, Code of 1983 - in this case arguably agreeing with the real one]

13:49 A Protestant couple would in fact be having a valid sacramental marriage when it's ratum et consummatum.

As neither is Catholic, the only requirement for the sacramental marriage is both being baptised, both consenting (to a real marriage).

Normally, the Church could not annul such a marriage.

In some cases there could be special reasons.

Tyler B
@Hans-Georg Lundahl This makes no sense. The Church doesnt "annul" a marriage in the same way as some protestant churches may divorce a couple, as annulment is just acknowledging a marriage never occurred. This does not require permission from anyone as a marriage occurring/ not occurring is a historical fact. Maybe there are pastoral/ecumenical reasons the Church may hesitate to declare annulments. But that has no bearing on the validity of a marriage.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@Tyler B Excuse me, what exactly were you reading where I was supposed to say anything like that about annulment?

I said "normally the Church could not annul such a marriage" - precisely for the reason you state.

"In some cases there could be special reasons."

I meant like one of them being previously married to another baptised protestant who wasn't dead or other actual reasons for annulment.

Tyler B
@Hans-Georg Lundahl The Church only needs one reason to declare a "marriage" void. If it was never valid in the first place. You're obfuscating basic facts here unnecessarily.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@Tyler B The one obfuscating is you.

One reason is indeed sufficient for one case, but "in some caseS" plural "there could be special reasonS" also plural obviously refers to different reasons for different cases.

Either way, it is a real basic fact that the cases are not all Protestants marrying outside the Church, but that such a marriage is normally valid.

Tyler B
@Hans-Georg Lundahl Youre obfuscating because youre misrepresenting what annulment is. The Church doesnt need permission to make a marriage valid or not. It just is or it isnt.

Youre making annulment sound like divorce which is wrong. Its not the same process at all. Also, no one is disagreeing with the fact that (heterosexual) Protestant marriages are valid unless proven otherwise. Youre arguing a strawman.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@Tyler B Did you finish elementary school and then go your own self teaching across intellectual stuff without even homeschooling?

The Church has God's permission or authority to annul a marriage which first of all isn't one and second is not desired or possible to become one.

The Church doesn't have any kind of authority or permission from God to make annulment a kind of divorce by consent if the original marriage was valid.

And the Church obviously in all She does needs the in principle authorisation of the divine legislator. Mediated by Bible, tradition, magisterium, canon law.

It is bad faith or incompetence on your part to pretend that I make annulment sound like divorce, I simply do not do that.

And the strawman is on your side - not on mine.


[After which I blocked him]

16:40 I am glad you agree that whatever crimes Clinton was guilty of, it was not perjury.

"That is not sex" - probably one of the truer things he said in his life, and the truest I happen to know of.

Someone Played Foul


Evidence of bad faith: Not Very Credible · Someones Attacked Pope Michael · Someone Played Foul · Possibly here too: James Martin is Wrong

In this clip, Salza pretends that what a layman did to Nestorius, people could never do again after Constantinople IV. I made the comment, and gave quotes from the English translation to prove it, and the comment somehow got deleted, which I discovered when I tried to add a response comment under it.

Has Pope Francis Lost His Office? w/ John Salza
Pints With Aquinas, 30 Jan. 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7cD0pOF2a8


0:44 Salza is here reusing a point I already had heard from Fr Paul Natterer SSPX, with his presentation "wie müssen wir zum Pabst stehen"

St. Robert is on this point simply using the positive canon law.

Note, positive and more precisely human, since it was not in place in Pope St. Celestine I's day.

When a bishop is heretical and normally would lose office, the principle behind what he says is "supplet ecclesia" - what is objectively lacking in his still holding office is supplemented by the Church, so there can be a clear cut at which point his decisions cease to hold legal power over his up to then inferiors.

There is a reason why St. Robert doesn't make use of exactly the same principle in the same way when it comes to Popes falling into heresy.

a) supplet ecclesia means, ultimately, supplet superior;
b) the ordinary or auxiliary bishop of a see other than Rome actually has a superior who can diligently judge him - the legal fiction that the bishop still holds office, backed by the reality of supplet ecclesia, is not harmful, because it does not cause an unreasonable delay in which heresies can destroy souls.

The difference when it comes to a Pope are:

a) superior non supplet quia non est (there is no superior who can supply)
b) when it comes to judging a pope, there is no regular procedure, therefore using the same principle in the same way will inevitably cause unreasonable delay.

So much for that oblique reference to St. Robert. There are more direct ones to when he deals with a pope falling into heresy or a heretic getting pseudo-elected Pope. For the former I am sure, for the latter not.

1:12 "what Bellarmine meant by that is after his pertinacity is established by the Church"

I don't think so.

Paul Natterer didn't think so.

He admitted, that for the position that "John Paul II" was Pope (that's how long since it is I heard him), the FSSPX couldn't appeal to Robert Bellarmine. He appealed to Cajetan.

However, in defending Cajetan's position, he referred to the canon law stating a bishop holds office as long as he isn't condemned for heresy, and may have referred (I think he did) at least in passing to St. Robert saying so.

Now, the format of a question in Bellarmine is, first you ask the question, then you give the positions you reject, then you give the position you favour.

A less serious example is in astrophysics and theology. Riccioli asked why the heavenly bodies move. He first outright admitted no cogent reason could be given for one of the positions or against one of the positions, so that it was necessary or impossible, but then he enumerated the positions: 1) God created a mechanical cause (like magnetism) which moves them; no; 2) God moves them by His own sole act of will; no; 3) the heavenly bodies are alive and move as being alive; no; 4) the fourth and most common one : angels move them. The last one he mentions is the one he favours. And he says so.

That the pope loses office (if falling into heresy, which St. Robert thought a validly elected Pope couldn't) only after getting judged is in fact one of the positions he rejected. For a very obvious reason - if he retained office until judged a heretic, he could never be judged, as the pope has no superior.

St. Robert finally (according to my memory of Paul Natterer) settled for the opinion that the Pope is neither losing office as soon as he commits interior heresy, nor as soon as judged, nor does he retain office despite being a heretic, but he loses office as soon as the material fact of heretical teaching is apparent.

It would for instance not be heretical for someone to say "a Hindu might be in good faith, and might right now be in a state of grace, even if he's still a Hindu", but when you go to "this Hindu is pronably in good faith, probably in a state of grace" that implies practising Hindus generally usually are so, a bit like practising Catholics generally usually are so. Which is heretical.

Or, in a certain private context, it could be a momentary so to speak charismatic hope about him, but that kind of judgements on the spot cannot be made with long preparation and for several participants.

This obviously has a bearing on Assisi 86.

For anyone defending the idea his idea behind inviting Hindus was after all an inspiration of the Holy Ghost (like Samson's suicide), the San Egidio prayer during the Balkan war was basically punished by God allowing Srebrenica, the worst massacre of the war, to happen after that prayer.

And same thing for Buddhists, Muslims, Jews, non-Catholic Christians. Animists and Shamanists.

It was not taken from an inspiration by the Holy Ghost, it was rather a literary inspiration from Und Friede auf Erden by Karl May, which I presume he had read. And Karl May was a liberal Protestant (for back then, even if some of his positions would be Fundie compared to ... the late John Shelby Spong). In other words, the gesture can reasonably be presumed to be heretical. To be in action expressing heresy.

When I converted, I was desensitised by Karl May, whom I was still a great fan of in 1986.

1:19 St. Paul is teaching St. Titus to deal with heretics in his own see, not how to deal with fellow bishops or superiors falling into heresy.

A man that is a heretic, after the first and second admonition, avoid:
Titus 3:10]

An "admonition" is not just any reproach, it is a formal reproach by a superior.

As those cannot be given to popes, and could not by laymen be given to Nestorius, this is no wise contrary to a Pope losing office directly, or to Nestorius (who had no superior within reasonable "within days action" around where he was) doing so as soon as he taught heresy, as per the words of Pope St. Celestine I. And please note, the words are not about the guilt of heresy, but about the teaching of it.

1:32 When it comes to "De Conciliis" and "a Pope is deposed for heresy when he is formally judged by the Church" I am grateful for the context.

This means, in probability, he is not dealing with the theoretical case, but with Honorius and the Vth Ecumenical Council.

The vote claimed (fifty years after his death) he was a heretic. However, Pope St. Leo II only conformed his judgement as for fomenting heresy by non-action.

Indeed, it would be hard to pinpoint Honorius as directly saying Christ had only precisely one willpower, the divine one, so to speak replacing or totally reducing the human one normally there in a man.

So, my best guess (as long as I have no occasion to read St. Robert) is, this is not about what to do immediately if the man seeming to be pope also very clearly seems to fall into heresy.

1:51 The reason why he is not referring to loss of office after the Church judges him as a heretic, is, that position is one of the four opinions he has already rejected.

So far my memory of Paul Natterer. Back then FSSPX priest, I think he may have left the priesthood. The Vortrag series "Wie müssen wir zum Pabst stehen" - and I trust both Paul Natterer and my memory more than Mr. Salza on this point.

3:12 If I had never heard Paul Natterer, I might agree.

But as I have, if this is the correct interpretation, why didn't Paul Natterer cite that Dominican position for declaration?

Also, I do not consider it possible that the Dimond Brothers would be so sloppy as scholars about St. Bellarmine as to miss that kind of thing.

But it is also St. Francis of Sales - on their very shortest video.

"Now when he is explicitly a heretic, he falls ipso facto from his dignity and out of the Church"

Unlike St. Robert Bellarmine he seems to have thought it actually could happen.

There are longer 3 hours and 13 hours videos about the subject.

[Here is the comment that got deleted]

4:11 The IV Council of Constantinople declared "Catholics can not separate from their bishops" ...

Did it? Absolutely not in those words in the official English translation on papal encyclicals dot net.*

I searched "from their" and with 8 hits, none of them was what Salza said.

I have heard this claim earlier, and it was perhaps a bit more precise - naming a canon.

Was it 12? Doesn't say what Salza says:

12 The apostolic and conciliar canons clearly forbid the nomination and consecration of bishops which have come about as a result of the power and intrigues of the civil authorities. Therefore we declare and proclaim, in full agreement with them, that if any bishop has received his consecration through the manipulation and constraint of such persons, he should be deposed absolutely as one who has desired and consented to have the gift of God not from the will of God and ecclesiastical law and decree, but from human beings and through their machinations as a result of the prompting of carnal desire.

Sounds more like a condemnation of someone usurping Siri's papacy, if that happened, than one of six persons meeting for an emergency conclave.

[I tried to extend above comment with a response, this happened:



... which means that the original comment was deleted.]

[not able to add following]

I also find in the beginning of canon 2 this:

Obey your leaders and submit to them; for they are keeping watch over your souls, as persons who will have to give account, commands Paul, the great apostle.

Far from stating that a layman could never in any case ever conclude his bishop was a heretic, the canon applies it to obedience to the council at hand and to papal decions.

* Fourth Council of Constantinople : 869-870
Council Fathers - 869-870 A.D.
https://www.papalencyclicals.net/councils/ecum08.htm

Someones Attacked Pope Michael


Evidence of bad faith: Not Very Credible · Someones Attacked Pope Michael · Someone Played Foul · Possibly here too: James Martin is Wrong

Historical Development of the Liturgy Part 1 - Fr. Keith Kenney
St. Anne Roman Catholic Parish, 15 Sept. 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3UXR3aUyjw


Hans-Georg Lundahl
This video had a clip mirrored on Reason and Theology. I commented there, but it concerns you too:

Just mentioning, while Pope Michael was against the Novus Ordo, he was not against the vernacular.

You recall those missals where you have Latin text on one side and English on the other side?

Well, Pope Michael authorised priests to say Mass from the English page. And presumably the Spanish page too.

Gerald
Who is that??

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@Gerald He died Aug. 2nd.

He was elected in an emergency conclave 1990. He was ordained and consecrated bishop on the Gaudete weekend 2011.

a comment invisible
by a J Stevo, content deduceable from my responses.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@J Stevo By then, six people, including the one who voted for someone else, recognised him as Pope.

Before he died last year, quite a few more did.

The podcast Pontifacts, by a deacon's daughter, interviewed him, and the interview is also on the youtube channel Vatican in Exile.

a comment invisible
by a J Stevo, content deduceable from my responses.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@J Stevo "six people in secret are not the church."

I dispute "in secret" - at least the five voting for him were rationally assured that he had sent invitations, and if he defrauded them on that point, it doesn't invalidate their intention.

Now, it is a pretty heavy accusation against a man who died, how about wondering whether some of those he invited were lying about not having received any such invitation.

"they werent cardinals,"

Election by cardinals is by a positive Church law of human prudential origin.

Emergency dispensations in moral theology set aside things that aren't of divine law, the election was claimed as an emergency one.

"we already had a pope,"

After Synagogue visit and Assisi prayer meeting that is highly disputable. Even improbable. I would say impossible.

"the faithful didnt even know about it,"

All of the faithful being aware of a conclave is not a requirement of its validity.

In older times people could go on praying "una cum papa nostro Gregorio" when Sabinian was already elected (not really, the interregnum lasted many months, but I take this as an example).

"those deceived by him"

I dispute "deceived"

"entered schism from the already reigning pontiff,"

I dispute "already reigning pontiff"

"theres no way to elect a new pope now that hes died."

His remaining clergy is preparing a conclave for this year ... perhaps they were waiting to get the possible adhesion of Beneplenists after Ratzinger died. He approved of the at least idea of "hermeneutics of continuity" and was therefore probably less strict on Ratzinger and Beneplenists than on Wojtyla and Bergoglio.

J Stevo
@Hans-Georg Lundahl i dispute emergency, the lack of current pope due to assissi and the synagogue meeting, and the idea that we again have no pope. you dont get to call his little group the church while he rest of the catholics of the world already recognise the current pope. and the emergency wouldnt qualify because even if the pope needed to be deposed it would need to be done publicly by the bishops and they would elect a new pope. i say in secret because the church didnt know that we needed a new pope or that the current one wasnt the pope or that there was a election for one. in fact majority of the church still hasnt heard of this guy.

William Avitt
Michael was not the Pope. He was an Antipope. He wasn't even a legitimate priest. He was a dude elected "Pope" by his parents and a few others. Please don't refer to that man as "Pope Michael." He was no such thing

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@William Avitt "He was an Antipope."

As in the perpetrator of Assisi 86 having been the real one? Na ...

"He wasn't even a legitimate priest."

He was a valid priest and bishop from 2011 - ordained a Saturday in Advent and consecreated the ensuing Gaudete Lord's Day.

"Please don't refer to that man as 'Pope Michael.' He was no such thing"

What is your claim of knowing that better?

Ignorance of his circumstances of priesthood?

Acceptance of Antipope "Francis" with his bias for abortionists and Evolution theory? His having buried as a "Catholic bishop" an invalidly "consecrated" and on top of that modernist Anglican "bishop" named Tony Palmer?

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@J Stevo "i dispute emergency, the lack of current pope due to assissi and the synagogue meeting,"

Whereby you advocate Syncretism or Communicatio in sacris with infidels.

"you dont get to call his little group the church while he rest of the catholics of the world already recognise the current pope."

There were arguably already thousands, perhaps already ten thousand sedevacantists who didn't.

His difference was drawing the correct practical conclusion from it.

"and the emergency wouldnt qualify because even if the pope needed to be deposed"

It was not based on a deposition of someone up to then recognised as Pope, but recognition he never was Pope and those who accepted him were at least materially schismatic and at least materially accomplices of heresy and apostasy.

"it would need to be done publicly by the bishops and they would elect a new pope."

Supposing there were faithful bishops left (those later consecrating Pope Michael were then schismatic, didn't participate in the conclave, didn't recognise him until 21 years later).

"i say in secret because the church didnt know that we needed a new pope"

You call "the Church" people who reasonably could have known "JP-II" wasn't pope, if they had looked closely and trusted their eyes.

"or that there was a election for one."

As said, he at least claimed to have sent invitations to lost of bishops.

" in fact majority of the church still hasnt heard of this guy."

In fact, due to the hierarchy you consider legitimate doing moves of pretending to be protective and therefore discrete.

People were prevented of speaking of him, and those who spoke of him were marginalised, like he ...

William Avitt
@Hans-Georg Lundahl the Pope is the person elected by the College of Cardinals to be the Bishop of Rome. Stop spreading heresy. You're endangering your eternal soul by buying into nonsense. And that's all I'm going to say on the matter because I don't argue with people who refuse to listen to reason. Go to confession and repent of Pope Michael and his nonsense

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@William Avitt "the Pope is the person elected by the College of Cardinals to be the Bishop of Rome."

That is a usual canonic requirement. It is not of divine law and did not take place during at least most of the first millennium (not sure if the change was in 900's or 1000's).

You are missing out on some requirements for election:
  • being male
  • being Catholic.


"Stop spreading heresy."

The usual definition of epikeia in moral theology involves that human laws can be set aside in an emergency, in order to remove it.

"John Paul II" - emergency verified
"elected by college of cardinals" - of human ecclesiastic law, verified.

"You're endangering your eternal soul by buying into nonsense."

Same to you. Same to you.

"And that's all I'm going to say on the matter because I don't argue with people who refuse to listen to reason."

Your opinion is REASON and mine is not? Who made you pope of rationality?

"Go to confession and repent of Pope Michael and his nonsense"

I tend to avoid confessions I'd fear would be invalid.

William Avitt
@Hans-Georg Lundahl you're on your way to avoiding salvation as well

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@William Avitt An invalid confession to an invalid priest with invalid jurisdiction is not likely to provide salvation.

Dito if the priest is valid (SSPX, Duarte-Costa lineage, Thuc lineage, some Old Catholic lineages as per Leo XIII and Pope Michel), but schismatic, or would require adhesion to heresy.

William Avitt
@Hans-Georg Lundahl the only thing invalid is your claim to be Catholic. SSPX is in schism, their priests aren't valid

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@William Avitt Their priests are valid priests, as are Orthodox priests, also in schism.

Neither schism nor heresy abolishes priesthood, unless the heresy is directly against the intention of the sacrament.

It is clear that the Protestant Deformation involved an intention to not celebrate the sacrifice of the Mass, it is at least disputedly alleged, and Pope Michael accepted that, that the adaptation of liturgy after Vatican II to Protestantism went far enough to delete true sacrifice of the Mass, and dito for the new episcopal consecration.

J Stevo
@Hans-Georg Lundahl and most of those sedes still didnt recognize michael.

saying he never was pope is simply false. i would say that for michael though anyway and his supporters.

you dont become schismatic by accident though and recognising a person as pope who isnt when no one actually is simply isnt schismatic (especially when all the bishops recognise him as pope and he went through a valid election) unless you reject the other bishops which no catholics did. the sedes did though.

jp 2 was pope and its reasonable to need the bishops to confirm him not being one because as laity your judgement of the matter is not authoritative or universal etc etc.

its very reasonable also to not speak of him and to marginalise those who do due to them causing confusion in the church and sowing dissent.

no one gets to privately decide who is or isnt pope. we turn to the visible church to show us through authoritative statements like the bishops election and their communion

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@J Stevo "and most of those sedes still didnt recognize michael."

Which is when they became schismatic after previously being Catholic.

"you dont become schismatic by accident though and recognising a person as pope who isnt when no one actually is simply isnt schismatic (especially when all the bishops recognise him as pope and he went through a valid election) unless you reject the other bishops which no catholics did."

Doesn't apply if the "Pope" is visibly heretic and supporting him becomes support for heresy. Then it is schism if you don't share the heresies, and heresy if you do. Including for the bishops.

"jp 2 was pope"

Fairly obviously not, though.

"and its reasonable to need the bishops to confirm him not being one because as laity your judgement of the matter is not authoritative or universal etc etc."

Authoritative and universal is less important than true.

"its very reasonable also to not speak of him and to marginalise those who do due to them causing confusion in the church and sowing dissent."

If your assessment were true, the Catholic tactic would be condemnation - which involves speaking of him.

What you think of as a reasonable response is the tactic by which Rabbis have for centuries avoided their "parishioners" looking fairly and squarely at Isaiah 53.

How do you say "parishioner" if the "parish" is a synagogue? Synagogitioner? Minyanitioner?

So, your choice of tactics shows you non-Catholic. It's a very different thing from how Leo XII dealt with La Petite Église or Pius XI with the Mariavites.

@J Stevo "no one gets to privately decide who is or isnt pope. we turn to the visible church "

How far do you push that?

In Protestant countries for centuries Anglican and Lutheran establishments could have said that to Catholic converts, they were privately deciding and going "against the visible Church" ...

It was my responsibility, in order to become a Catholic, received 1988, to make a decision in the privacy of my conscience before showing it up in public. It was equally so when it came to recognise Pope Michael.

J Stevo
@Hans-Georg Lundahl "Doesn't apply if the "Pope" is visibly heretic and supporting him becomes support for heresy. Then it is schism if you don't share the heresies, and heresy if you do. Including for the bishops."

yes it does. a "visible" heretic is literally meaningless if its not formal heresy. if its material heresy then he cannot possibly lose office because he is not culpable for it. he requires 2 corrections from the bishops before its considered formal.

and jp2 fairly obviously was a pope. just like all the others after him and before. he wasnt even a notorious heretic since the church didnt ever consider him one during his pontificate. (again even if he was it wouldnt depose him automatically he needs to be deposed by a council).

with the case of pontifical office authoritative and universal are required for it to be true. you dont need to privately discern whether every new pope is validly elected or still validly pope.

"So, your choice of tactics shows you non-Catholic. It's a very different thing from how Leo XII dealt with La Petite Église or Pius XI with the Mariavites. "

completely irrelevant. theres not a "true catholic way" of dealing with problems in the church.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@J Stevo "if its material heresy then he cannot possibly lose office because he is not culpable for it"

Sed contra est casus Nestorii, secundum verba papae sancti Caelestini ...

A layman in the pew stood up and shouted "heresy" or "heretic" after Nestorius had said "not Mother of God, but rather Mother of Christ" - and Pope St. Celestine I confirmed that Nestorius lost office immediately on starting to teach heresy.

Note, for it to be heretical, there was no need for formal heresy rather than just material. This was before Ephesus (I) formally defined Mother of God as dogma.

@J Stevo "theres not a "true catholic way" of dealing with problems in the church."

You just contradicted what you are pushing against sedes and us Conclavists.

J Stevo
@Hans-Georg Lundahl we have no confirmation that it works the same for a pope (since it would be considered a canonical penalty rather than some Tradition), and the people werent at fault for believing nestorious was a priest until he was publicly deposed. as for nestorious teaching he certainly was a formal heretic. so this isnt really comparable in any sense to this case and especially not to an invalid election.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@J Stevo "protestants have no visible church due to their lack of sacraments, authority, and lack of head."

Are you speaking from experience of non-conformists, non-denominationals etc?

Lutherans and Anglicans have apparent Churches, with apparent Sacraments, apparent authority, apparent head (King + archbishop sharing the authority, a bit like King and Prime Minister in politics).

So, your point was you have an apparent Church with apparent Sacraments, apparent authority and apparent head?

"im very sad to hear that you have been stuck in the same error for the last 40 years."

This is a side note on me. 1988 I converted to Novus Ordo, believing then that "John Paul II" was Pope. From Lutheranism, precisely.

I recognised Pope Michael when finally rejecting Bergoglio within a year of his "election" - to Ratzinger I had been often Recognise and Resist (c/o SSPX).

"we have no confirmation that it works the same for a pope"

From Sts Robert Bellarmine and Francis of Sales you do, see the documentation of Dimond brothers rather than trust people like Salza trying to tell you "IV Council of Constantinople condemned laymen deciding for themselves whom they recognise as bishop" when in fact it condemned the imposition of a bishop by a lay ruler on the legitimate bishop who was thrown into prison.

"the people werent at fault for believing nestorious was a priest until he was publicly deposed."

He remained a priest, even ontologically bishop - what he wasn't was bishop of Constantinople.

It is highly clear that those who refused to recognise him from the words against Mother of God and on were not at fault, it is less clear for those who continued to go to Sunday Mass in his Cathedral.

"as for nestorious teaching he certainly was a formal heretic."

Not yet at that time. We speak of things leading up to Ephesus 431. It didn't become formally heretic until 431. Materially heretic plus openly against previous and well known tradition was sufficient.

Shawn M
Pope Michael?

Tell us you are not in communion with the Catholic Church without telling us you are not in communion with the Church.

🙄

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@Shawn M Fun fact - a Novus Ordo priest tried to give him the sacraments.

Fun fact too - he seems to have never been excommunicated.

There was a rumour he had withdrawn his position, then the rumour was withdrawn. As he was severely brain damaged from a cardiovascular accident, as I heard from Vatican in Exile, he was not in a position to do such a thing validly. Fr Francis Dominic gave him the last rites for real.

Shawn M
@Hans-Georg Lundahl

So?

I would hope any priest would try to help in that situation

As for excommunication, there are those imposed by ecclesiastical authority and those incurred by someone for grave actions performed. "Pope Michael" would have incurred the latter.

If he had damaged faculties as you claim, that is good as it mitigates to some extent his full culpability in his crimes. Only God knows to what extent of course and it is in His hands now. I pray the Lord is merciful to Michael.

Fun fact: when in danger of death, any priest can validly give sacraments so in that rare circumstance, even Last Rites administered by a schismatic heretic priest would be efficacious.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@Shawn M "If he had damaged faculties as you claim, that is good as it mitigates to some extent his full culpability in his crimes"

He was not a criminal.

His brain damage was a cardiovascular accident one month or so before he died, and prior to that his capacity was normal.

Your last fun fact is to be recalled if I need to die in the vicinity of SSPX priests and far absence of priests from Vatican in Exile.

Shawn M
@Hans-Georg Lundahl

May your administering priest be both Novus Ordo and a liberal 🙂

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@Shawn M If he's Novus Ordo, I may doubt his orders.

Pope Michael on the one hand stated NO ordinations are probably invalid (at least indirectly, by defining as valid successions Old Catholic, Duarte Costa, Lefebvre, Thuc) and on the other hand stated he preferred the people who took at least some kind of misguided care to have valid jurisdiction, not just orders with a permanently prolonged emergency state jurisdiction.

I proposed I could go to confess to an EO priest who had SSPX ordination, and who was in Paris, and go to the Eucharist with Sedes who weren't saying "una cum papa nostro Francisco" - he told me, no, they could think me mad.

Avoiding a pastoral which seeks to discredit one's mental capacities is a valid reason to avoid confessing. I stepped out of an SSPX "chapel" that was actually a Church, three consecrations done, for that reason.

Now, as for a liberal, I'd doubt the goodness of his advice, or what he's ask me to make resolutions for, should I survive.

@Shawn M When I converted in 1988, being a Novus Ordo didn't mean being formally in schism against Pope Michael, not yet elected, and I had a chaplain who was validly ordained in 1958 as my first Father Confessor.

Thank God for that!

Sunday, January 29, 2023

Not Very Credible


Evidence of bad faith: Not Very Credible · Someones Attacked Pope Michael · Someone Played Foul · Possibly here too: James Martin is Wrong

From Quora:



So, he claimed I was wrong, the Sumerian Noah was Gilgamesh and not Utnapishtim. But he allowed me no chance to answer ...

Unfortunately, his quote from the Gilgamesh poem doesn't prove it was Gilgamesh who was speaking.

The words are from a dialogue between Gilgamesh and Utnapishtim, which is here in the Gilgamesh poem:

THE EPIC OF GILGAMESH
Translated by Maureen Gallery Kovacs, Electronic Edition by Wolf Carnahan, I998
TABLET XI THE STORY OF THE FLOOD
https://www.ancienttexts.org/library/mesopotamian/gilgamesh/tab11.htm


The first line of tablet XI is:

Gilgamesh spoke to Utanapishtim, the Faraway:


And Utanapishtim (I had Utnapishtim) is the Sumerian or Akkadian version of Noah./HGL

Why include this in the series of "evidence of bad faith" as I did?

While it could have fitted with the other series, Writing of the Bible - I, Theological Principle · Papal Divisions · Galileo Revisited, since David Emiley denied traditional teaching, Noah being a real person and not a Sumerian fiction, his mode of action, to contradict me when I was right, and then block comments to prevent me from showing how his contradiction (deliberately imprecise) was without bearing on my point, and in so doing trying to paint me as some ignorant bloke, easy to refute for any competent person, is an example of cancel culture and of bad faith./HGL

Paulogia Not Defeating Theist Arguments


Does God Exist? 4 New Arguments (@PragerU response)
Paulogia, 18 Jan. 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wENcmpsFgOc


5:07 So, if scientists don't use their words in certain ways that might suggest otherwise they are wrong, making that suggestion is:
  • misunderstanding at the best
  • deliberate misrepresentation at the worst?


Is "Science" above critique, and especially above critique from outsiders? I mean science in the sense that would believe or "accept" stellar evolution whatever name you would give that concept ....

5:46 I always wondered where some Creationists (including Kent Hovind) got the idea according to Big Bang cosmology "everything came from nothing" ...

I usually don't use that as an argument.

But you mentioned Quantum Vaccum. Kraus and Carrier love the idea that "everything came from nothing" ... so, I can't dismiss it as a complete strawman either.

7:38 It doesn't, his view of the binary flip obviously refers to up to H, He, Li. Or even just up to H.

[Meaning Frank Pastore by matter means atoms. That's a fairly usual definition among chemists.]

8:18 Reducing both life and mind to chemical processes, as you explicitly do, undercuts any claims of any mind or any number of minds to know anything, especially beyond immediate surroundings necessary for survival and social interaction - which the state of things billions or millions of years ago obviously don't enter into.

mundanely gradual also doesn't make much sense.

1) There cannot be an improvement of reactions as long as they don't compete by procreating some way or other;
2) and there also cannot be an immediate step from non-life to self-replicating life, because the differences to bridge are too many.

Deadlock.

10:43 The Miller-Urey experiment certainly enters into my (and Frank Pastore's and CMI's and AiG's and ... nostalgia ... Edgar Andrews') debunking of the possibility of abiogenesis.

Check out with CMI for chirility problem. Information problem.

Check out with Edgar Andrews for triple or quadruple initial need:

  • amino-acids
  • information (DNA / RNA type code)
  • membrane
  • self replication


along with the speed that prohibits delay : same conditions that create amino acids also tend to dissolve them.

I think you find a similar but longer list on CMI.

Check out with an ice-cream and mayo addict like me that membranes tend to be phospholipids (lecitine is one of them!) and phospholipids are not a product of Miller-Urey conditions.

11:00 "There is no reason to suspect the process took place within a single human lifetime"

Or, in that case, even at all. Why? Because the Miller Urey products won't stay around for millions or billions of years. They will disintegrate very quickly, indeed within hours, unless taken away from the conditions that produced them. Both the electric discharges and the base chemicals are very good at ripping amino-acids of the Miller-Urey standard apart. Especially when they have no phosopholipid membrane to protect them.

This makes abiogenesis one thing radically different from evolution by speciation.

Hemiechinus auritus and Atelerix algirus didn't get different in one human generation. This is sth Creationists and Evolutionists agree on. It took very many different steps for each to come into existence from the common ancestor. BUT - each is fully functional, the common ancestor was fully functional, the stages between common ancestor and Atelerix auritus and the stages between common ancestor and Hemiechinus auritus were also fully functional.

Miller-Urey chemicals floating in Miller-Urey conditions are not that. They resolve back into the original ingredients very quickly, thereby foreclosing the very possibility of ever becoming fully functional in a biological way.

12:21 I dont accept that that earth orbits the sun either.

No evidence for it, and with God and angels, no need for it.

12:28 Natural selection, mutation, genetic drift are very adequate for coming from a common ancestor that was also a hedgehog to a Hemiechinus auritus or a Atelerix algirus.

They are not adequate to explain:

  • new cell types
  • new genes
  • new chromosome pairs (with both older fewer and younger more numerous pairs being diploid).


12:40 Perhaps he meant "man and beasts" or "Menschen und Tiere" ... no, having reason and lacking reason are not the same, so, "animal" is diversified into "animal rationale" (man) and "animal irrationale" (beast) by that exact difference.

13:26 Reason vs not having reason is not about biodiversity only.

It's about, if I exist with a beginning in time, and if I have reason, where did my reason come from?

I predict chat bots are soon going to show their incapacity to advance into actual consciousness or understanding, which will jar with the idea that reason is a by-product of brains "wired a certain way" not radically different from AI.

And whatever the reason be for passing the mirror test in some non-humans, it is not reason as it has no expression like unto language.

15:52 If you don't accept that humans have free will, you don't accept that human have sufficient freedom to circumspect a question either.

And in that case, you cannot accept that humans can solve questions either, including the ones you presume solved in this video and including the ones involved in denying free will (or human exceptionalism).

Your position becomes self refuting.

16:12 "if each step in the process [of deliberation] can be broken down into ..."

Exact same thing for the deliberations behind such breaking down, and therefore of your own position. Which doesn't contradict it, but contradicts it being rationally known.

16:33 So far it sounds as if he isn't even going to bring up language ...

16:47 "wetness is an emergent property of water"

Not entirely. Wetness means molecules easily glide past each other. But each water molecule is built so that it easily glides past other molecules, especially water molecules.

By contrast, "consciousness" as "emergement property of brains" is a property which cannot be traced to smaller parts having aspects of it.

16:59 The damage and affect argument bypasses that this is not just true of two things where one emerges from the other, but also of things where two different things influence each other (motor movement and gear are an example I have seen used on CMI).

17:30 Concepts are uniquely exclusive to man.

Empathy, vanity and other things involving social interaction obviously exist in the animal kingdom outside man, because we are not the only social being.

But we are the only being producing concepts of which we can talk in absence of physical presence of the conceptualised things.

18:08 A full spectrum of complexity does not mean you can get from less complex to more or especially from zero to least complex.

The one thing Darwin didn't even reflect on in the reflection on the eye is how there is a light sensitive spot in the first place.

The retina of cichlid fish has 10 genes working in interchange with each other during fetal development to form cones and taps and whatever else is needed on a retina. Two of the genes have a mutation each, and that is why cichlids in certain caves in Mexico are blind.

18:53 By now it is obvious, Frank Pastore and you are not bringing up human language and its uniqueness.

20:17 That Northern Irish Protestant is wrong.

"once we discover how lightning works, the god disappears"

Well, no. You cannot check that the only reason why a lightning strikes precisely when the cloud is here and not five minutes later when it is there is pure physical necessity.

There obviously is a point of electric tension at which the cloud can no longer hold back a lightning. There also is a lack of it where it has no lightning potential even. But for the physical necessity to be all there is to lightning is to imagine there is a binary switch between the two. If you have a bladder, you know there is a similar tension in some ways that can usually be held back until you get to a toilet, and even get pushed on if you get to a toilet before it's really, really, really urgent.

No man is doing that to any cloud and lightning, but some demons very well might be doing so.

So, the god doesn't disappear when Benjamin Franklin comes around - he just gets classified as a demon when the Christian missionary gets around.

But for at least part of the matters in this video and what it's answering, you are very far from a "Benjamin Franklin or James Clerk Maxwell understanding of the lightning" ... so the gap isn't in your knowledge, but in the naturalistic explanation.

Galileo Revisited


Writing of the Bible - I, Theological Principle · Papal Divisions · Galileo Revisited

The Galileo Affair (with Chris Check)
The Counsel of Trent, 25 Jan. 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjLUoIhEoLQ


3:59 "...from the very beginning of time, man's view of cosmos was geocentric"

Interesting admission, in the light of Mark 10:6 "from the beginning of creation" - are you saying that Adam and Eve were geocentrics?

That might make geocentrism part of the "Uroffenbarung" (the parts of revelation in Genesis 1 - 11 prior to Abraham's vocation) ... and therefore directly part of God's revelation.

"This just accords with natural observation."

Once again, a highly pro-geocentric statement.

John Fisher
I don't follow? Why would early humans believing something make it part of Genesis 1-11?

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@John Fisher I said "the parts of revelation in Genesis 1 - 11 prior to Abraham's vocation" - and not "the text of Genesis 1 - 11" ...

Example "there is one God" would be part of it, and it is not in that text portion, and "there are many angels" would also be part of it and it is also not in that text portion.

The Uroffenbarung defines what Pagans had access to prior to becoming Pagans, and it sometimes leaves traces in the Paganisms.

I and Chris Check also didn't exactly say "early humans" but he said and I caught on to "from the very beginning of time, man" .... that would involve what Adam was thinking in paradise prior to the fall.

John Fisher
@Hans-Georg Lundahl I'm still not clear on your meaning. What does it mean to be part of Genesis 1-11 but not in the text of Genesis 1-11?

From your first example, "there is one God", I thought that maybe are discussing what is accessible to human reason and common experience and therefore would be available to humans prior to Abraham's vocation - not actually having to do with Genesis 1-11 itself. But the second example doesn't seem to be something that is necessarily accessible to human reason, so I don't think I am right about that.

Night Yew
@John Fisher It sounds like he's talking about Genesis 1-11 as a period of time in human history. Adam and Eve may have learned certain things in Eden that weren't necessarily written down but taught orally until the time period in Genesis 11 when humanity started to adopt other beliefs. I have never heard this idea before, but this is what I think he means based on his comments so far.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@John Fisher In my original comment "in Genesis 1 - 11" refers to a section of the history of mankind, not to just or even primarily the (main) Bible text dealing with it. That's the exact reason why I further clarified "prior to Abraham's vocation" and in responses also clarified "what pagans would have had access to" (meaning as revelation) ...

There is one God was certainly in theory accessible to Adam through his reson, but he never needed to philosophise.

I am not saying a people cut off from that Uroffenbarung on that point cannot recover the truth by reason, or at least persons in it can, that would be against Church teaching, but I am saying when Amerindians speak of Manitu and Chinese of Heaven in ways that sound monotheistic, it is not because they figured it out by their reason, it is because they inherited from Adam and from Noah.

So, do Pagans descend from Adam? Yes. Do they descend from Henoch? Yes. Do they descend from people in the Cainite dynasty of Genesis 4? Probably yes, they were inlaws to someone on the Ark, but at the minimum, those on the Ark knew about them. Do pagans descend from Noah? Yes. Do pagans descend from people who clustered around and admired Nimrod? Usually yes. So, the pagans have access through their paganism to exactly as much revelation as was accessible to all of these taken together, minus what was deleted by forgetfulness and error, some of which come from the devil, some from the flesh and some from the world.

But the Biblical texts that deal with those eras, are the parts of Genesis 1 to 11 that start with Adam's creation.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@Night Yew "as a period of time in human history."

Exactly.

"Adam and Eve may have learned certain things in Eden"

And later people may have learned more later on.

"that weren't necessarily written down but taught orally"

Basically yes. I am not excluding pre-Flood books like Henoch (which is pre-Flood if genuine), but Abraham had access via great-grand-pa Sarug teaching him orally, as with the history we have in Genesis 1 to 11.

"until the time period in Genesis 11 when humanity started to adopt other beliefs."

In German speaking countries, Uroffenbarung is a concept, and while most of humanity added other beliefs onto it, they did not necessarily lose all of it.

The one reason one can speak of paganisms as incorporating some truth is that pagans descend from people who had this Original Revelation if I dare so translate Uroffenbarung.


4:35 I think you have just mentioned Aristarchus or some other Pythagorean ... the Inquisition is going to speak of it as Pythagorean error.

5:15 "the Church adopted it as a model"

Going from mode "model" to mode "basically dogma" was actually in the Galileo-Foscarini affairs ... because they were investigating the Scriptural consequences of Heliocentrism.

And a Dominican in Florence blew the whistle about that.

5:18 "never taught it as doctrine"

whoa! 1633!

7:31 "it makes more sense"

Well, Copernicus was not advanced enough as a Mathematician to describe and appreciate the beauty of spirograph patterns.

It can be added, Copernicus did not write in the mid fifteenth century, he was born in the second half of it, 1473, and he started getting a really good foundation in astronomy, both as subject of the Quadrivium and by observations around the turn of the century.

So, Chris Check might do well to check his sources a bit ...

David Plummer
Maybe he meant 16th century?

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@davidplummer2619 yeah, exactly

check his sources or his wording ...

my main point stands : he didn't appreciate spirograph patterns


7:46 Good pronunciation. And yes,[Tycho Brahe] was a Dane.

He was born in Scania, which after his time became Sweden, but was still Denmark.

However, when speaking of hybrid, it must be recalled it perfectly respects the two points of geocentrism that the Church upheld in the Galileo case, and it perfectly respects the priority of natural observation (including with a telescope).

The first pronunciation was the correct one. Later tries weren't.

8:38 Instead of describing Tycho's system, you have just described the Neo-Tychonian system used by Sungenis.

"all of the cosmos revolves around the Sun, except the earth"

No. Earth and Empyrean Heaven stand still.

Fix stars, Sun, Moon, revolve around Earth and below Empyrean Heaven.

Other parts of cosmos, i e the planets and asteroids, revolve around the Sun.

I make this distinction, because I differ from Sungenis about the fix stars. Why?

A) they revolve around earth, as part of a cosmic movement of the aether (prior to Tycho one would have believed in crystalline spheres, typically) which goes down even to the ground and the sea currents, we see it in the North Equatorial and South Equatorial currents across the Atlantic, in the Eötvös effect, in the Pendulum of Foucault, in Geostationary Satellites (which are basically surfing on the movement of the aether);
B) the movements apparent classified as "aberration" and "parallax" aren't that, they are proper movements, performed by angelic movers (probably also part of "Uroffenbarung" and hence common to Paganism, Judaism and Christianity, with exceptions), and as such give no clue to stellar distances. No clue that alpha Centauri is 4 light years away. This is my answer to the Distant Starlight problem some pose against YEC.

8:52 I am not sure he hasn't wavered, but Sungenis has at least at times held to Neo-Tychonian, with fix stars ALSO revolving around the Sun.

I do not, I think they move in straight circles around the Earth each stellar day.

9:18 "we live in this giant universe, filled with galaxies, that are all moving"

A) If you mean we physically do so, whatever we think, you are wrong.
B) If you mean we mentally do so, well, I do not.

meow meow meow
What?

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@meow meow meow I said:
  • the universe we actually live in is not a giant universe with galaxies that all move
  • the world you mentally live in is not mine.


meow meow meow
@Hans-Georg Lundahl Have you published any arguments in this area?

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@meow meow meow Yes, on my blogs.

If you meant in "peer reviewed publications" (like Nature) you overrate their Overton window.

Geocentrism and Angelic movers are outside their acceptance of even considering.

Ducky Momo
O gosh his scientific explanation are atrocious

meow meow meow
@Ducky Momo whose?

meow meow meow
@Hans-Georg Lundahl Genuinely curious: are you claiming that NASA is lying to us RE their data and space explorations?

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@meow meow meow By "data" - do you mean conclusions or direct observations?

I think they are wrong about lots of conclusions, including from space explorations, but right about observations.

If they are lying about anything, it's more like about Geocentrics, stamping all and sundry of us as conspiracy theorists. I hold it possible that NASA technically had the possibilities to fake moon landings, but it's absolutely not a priority, nor required by my positions. However, they have a kind of wizard of Oz like attitude "don't look behind the curtain" - which translates less unsubtly as "Geocentrics are conspiracy theorists who say we are lying about our data" ...

Is there no intellectual dishonesty conceivable to you other than direct lying, and if so, would my claim (if it had been such) be a lie? Or are you reserving error as a possibility only for less competent actors than NASA?

@meow meow meow plus you genuinely overlooked my previous comment, about Overton window. If you don't know the concept, look it up!

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@Ducky Momo What is an atrocious explanation to you?

meow meow meow
@Hans-Georg Lundahl I didn’t overlook it. We’re just on different wavelengths. Peace ✌️

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@meow meow meow Indeed.

On my wavelength it should be obvious, if I think they have the wrong Overton window, it kind of exonerates them from being liars.


9:43 Point taken. One part of Galileo's and Copernicus' Heliocentrism is not part of modern cosmology.

However, Newton was not the first with it, you had Bruno before him stating relative Heliocentrism - in a giant universe with thousands of solar systems.

10:34 Whether or not there are 70 that suggest a Geocentric model, there are two that basically tie it down.

1) Habacuc referring to Joshua 10 states the Sun and Moon stood still "in their orbits" - i e, not just phenomenologically.

2) In Joshua 10, before verse 13 which by itself could be phenomenological about what happened, you have verse 12, which says that Joshua's miracle working words were adressed to Sun and Moon, not to Earth. If what happened is that Earth ceased rotating, this would make Joshua 10:12 the only time in the Bible and even in Church history after the Bible that a miracle worker has been mistaken about what to adress and even so worked a miracle.

The first of these finds, I credit Sungenis, the second, I credit what I found.

Jack Daw
Yes this is an honest opinion that doesn't skirt around what the church claimed about Scripture

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@Jack Daw Thank you.

Some of us still claim it. I do.


11:16 "middle of the 19th C." ?

If you mean the Bessel observation of "parallax" in the 1830's, it is not the kind of parallax that St. Robert and Galileo were discussing in the 1616 trial of Galileo's Saggiatore (in which only the book, not the author was on trial).

IF the fix stars are a sphere, like inner side of the surface of a ball, then the Earth moving within that sphere would show as a pretty uniform parallax. All of Virgo would get smaller as we approached Pisces (Virgo would be hidden in the Sun as it is anyway when we are in Pisces) and all of Pisces would get smaller as we approach Virgo (while Pisces is hidden by the Sun when we are between Sun and Virgo).

With a very much non-uniform parallax:
a) either the parallax is not parallax, but some kind of proper movement
b) or the fix stars are not a sphere (with consequences against the Empyrean Heaven beyond it).

What happened is, the mindset was already prepared in 1830's to accept proofs for Heliocentrism, and they took it as that, forgetting Angelic movers ...

bandie9101
so did they observe any kind of parallax in the 17ths?

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@bandie9101 No, but they discussed what was clearly a different thing from what was eventually observed in for instance 1838.

I don't argue against "Galileo didn't have a proof" but against "we found a proof since his time."


11:37 No. Galileo gathers no evidence whatsoever for Earth orbitting Sun.

He does gather evidence against some positions held by Geocentric scientists, like Ptolemy having said there could only be epicycles of the first order, and Galileo showing Jupiter had moons, and if Jupiter had epicycles of the first order, Jupiter circling an epicentre circling Earth, then Jupiter's moons would obviously describe epicycles of the second order, which Ptolemy had held to be impossible. But showing one particular very famous Geocentric System or Model wrong, is different from showing Geocentrism wrong.

11:55 "not just because the Bible said so"

It becomes an affair for the Inquisition, with Saggiatore, and with a work by Foscarini, precisely because the Bible said so.

Copernicus personally incurred no censorship, because he left the Bible alone.

Galileo and Foscarini start getting books into trouble, and Galileo later himself, because it starts to involve exegesis.

So, St. Robert Bellarmine's beef with Il Saggiatore (The Assayer in English) starts precisely because the Bible says so, namely the opposite of what Galileo and Foscarini are saying.

12:32 "the Church has never been closed to new discoveries about the natural world"

Please note : when they really are discoveries, which involves them not contradicting the Bible.

You can't discover anything about the creation which contradicts the word of the Creator.

12:59 Chris Check doesn't actually quote, but refers to that ultra quote mined quote.*

Here is the actual quote:

"Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics;"


He actually never says "too literal" but he does say "for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics" - and what exact topics? Cosmological and calendar knowledge that he "holds to as being certain from reason and experience."

St. Augustine is speaking of Flat Earth or saying the year has 364 days precisely. In Ethiopia it may have looked likely a century or two, if this is how their text was for the Book of Henoch, in the Northern parts of the Roman Empire it would have shown very quickly in equinoxes shifting days around the year. In a specific date shifting shadows on a sundial.

So, it's not about too literal a reading, but about readings or exegeses actually not from Scripture that are just presumed to be Scriptural - something Chris Check already admitted is not the case here (70 passages confirming Geocentrism).

14:06 "The council of Trent has made it clear that exegesis is the job of the Church"

You are referring to the second decree of session IV. The relevant paragraph is:

"Furthermore, in order to restrain petulant spirits, It decrees, that no one, relying on his own skill, shall,--in matters of faith, and of morals pertaining to the edification of Christian doctrine, --wresting the sacred Scripture to his own senses, presume to interpret the said sacred Scripture contrary to that sense which holy mother Church,--whose it is to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the holy Scriptures,--hath held and doth hold; or even contrary to the unanimous consent of the Fathers; even though such interpretations were never (intended) to be at any time published. Contraveners shall be made known by their Ordinaries, and be punished with the penalties by law established."


It says that:
  • the Church is the sole judge on exegesis
  • and that it is forbidden to do exegesis contrary to the sense that the Church, note, it doesn't say simply "doth hold" but it says "hath held and doth hold" ...


The reliance on the own skill is a usual preliminary to presuming to interpret Scripture contrary to the sense that the Church traditionally still holds, but it is not a sufficient cause for condemnation according to this decree.

A layman may propose an exegesis, and then it is for the magisterium to judge whether it goes contrary to what the consensus was over the centuries.

14:24 If Galileo had had a less rhetoric and more logic education in the 13th or 14th C. he would presumably not have jumped to conclusions like he did.

If he had, though, at least Bishop Tempier is likely to have condemned him, and St. Thomas is likely to have argued against him, just as Tempier condemned and St. Thomas argued against Sorbonne Averroism.

15:18 Bellarmine supposedly saying "it is possible what you are observing in the night sky is the physical reality, but you haven't given us the proof of this"

I would like a good source (better than Chris Check is orally) for this being the exact quote.

None of what Galileo observed is condemned. None of what was condemned was other than Galileo jumping to conclusions from what he observed, but without his actually observing it.

For the observation, St. Robert had Clavius repeat the observations through a similar telescope to Galileo's or the same one.

It doesn't sit well with me to have St. Robert Bellarmine arguing against something directly observed. Unless he was ironic about Galileo "observing" Earth's supposed orbit around the Sun. Which obviously he hadn't.

15:29 "and until you do, the Church has a duty to be sensitive to the sensibilities of the faithful"

This is very probably spurious. I would really like a source for this.

It's clear that Chris Check is paraphrasing as to what he thinks St. Robert's words amount to.

Miguel Tavares
Bellarmine's quote and others are quoted and bibliographicaly referenced at Bellarmine's Wiki entry.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@Miguel Tavares Thank you.

In this case, I may suspect a wiki entry was redacted with a bias, so, I'll be careful to look up the references.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@Miguel Tavares I looked it up, and right now I cannot find this one:

"it is possible what you are observing in the night sky is the physical reality, but you haven't given us the proof of this"


Trent Horn and Chris Check seem less than fully credible, when one of them attributes a quote from Galileo to Cardinal Baronius. There was one deleted reddit reference figuring a meme for Baronius, and there were quite a few entries for the quote being from Galileo's letter to I think Christine of Pisa. One of them has been changed. But it still involves "Galileo's statement"

Miguel Tavares
@Hans-Georg Lundahl More credible than Thomas Kuhn, Karl Popper and Pierre Durham would be impossible and they all refer to "Galileo’s opponents" behaving "more rationally" and to "Bellarmine had shown himself a better scientist than Galileo by disallowing the possibility of a “strict proof”

**I think that you are aware that talk usually is not committed in writing, letters are

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@Miguel Tavares I was not the least disputing St. Robert was a better scientist.

But he wouldn't have been if he had referred to "what you have observed is not proven" ... which is a fair resumé of how the guy on the video (I forget who was talking at that point) resumed it. On the contrary, he did precisely the right thing and asked Clavius to repeat the observations.

And none of the actual observations were condemned in either case.

@Miguel Tavares "talk usually is not committed in writing, letters are"

Baronius is not around, we cannot ask what he said.

If he said it orally and we know it, it should be known through a source that wrote it down.

Miguel Tavares
@Hans-Georg Lundahl Thomas Kuhn's book explains everything in an easily understandable language. And since he was a Jew he had no incentive to be supportive to the cause. Dissimilarity it's called.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@Miguel Tavares I was not in the least disputing Thomas Kuhn's book.

I was disputing Trent Horn's quote, or if it was Chris Check's quote.

I will believe your quote:

"Bellarmine had shown himself a better scientist than Galileo by disallowing the possibility of a “strict proof”

Indeed he did. That quote actually is in the wiki on Bellarmine. And he added, in absense of one, we stay with Bible and Church Fathers, and I could add, and with the prima facie witness of our senses.

That's precisely what I do. Heliocentrism has not been strictly proven, therefore I remain a Geocentric.


15:29 I wonder if it's a paraphrase of the letter to Foscarini. Here cited from a site** by Dr. Jeff Mirus:

"I say that if there were a true demonstration that the sun is at the center of the world and the earth in the third heaven, and that the sun does not circle the earth but the earth circles the sun, then one would have to proceed with great care in explaining the Scriptures that appear contrary, and say rather that we do not understand them than that what is demonstrated is false. But I will not believe that there is such a demonstration, until it is shown me.

"Nor is it the same to demonstrate that by assuming the sun to be at the center and the earth in heaven one can save the appearances [e.g., explain certain calculations, etc.], and to demonstrate that in truth the sun is at the center and the earth in heaven; for I believe the first demonstration may be available, but I have very great doubts about the second, and in case of doubt one must not abandon the Holy Scripture as interpreted by the Holy Fathers."


Here we are doing three things different from Chris Check's pseudo-quote.

A) St. Robert is not equating "demonstration that the earth is in the third heaven" (above the centre) with what Galileo (or possibly Foscarini) saw;
B) St. Robert speaks of no duty to "sensibilities of the faithful" but to "Holy Scripture as interpreted by the Holy Fathers" - please take note, modernists!
C) St. Robert distinguishes between Heliocentrism accounting for appearances and Geocentrism being radically incapable of it - please take note, Science believers!

16:01 Well, the concern is legitimate. To a point.

Some people do believe the Bible teaches a Flat Earth, reject the Bible and lose their souls.

But even with a legitimate concern, the concern that was on St. Robert's mind was not people thinking the Bible was wrong, but people interpreting the Bible wrongly, due to Galileo and Foscarini bypassing the Church Fathers.

So, is there a limit to the concern? Yes. We are not to reinterpret the Bible to suit a prejudice promoted by Scientists without any actual demonstration that is logically valid.

This is what St. Robert didn't want back then. This is also what I do not want now.

16:08 "it's easy to make these imprudent leaps, if you don't academically qualify your thesis"

The utterance is clearly over-reliant on what Academia is by now ....

16:54 St. Robert Bellarmine doesn't say "by your own methods you have not demonstrated it" - but he did say in essence "you have not demonstrated it" ...

He is not deferring to Galileo's supposed method as a supposed scientist. He is saying demonstration involves two ingredients:

A) observation
B) logical concluding

He is also saying that from neither does Galileo have a demonstration for Heliocentrism. And he is not the least deferring to "scientific method" or to "scientific community" on this point. He's stating it as a requirement over and above what academia or scientists may practise and over and above what academia or scientists may presume as epistemological strategy.

17:24 "probably the orbits are elliptical" (Check referring to Kepler's advice)

The condemnations by St. Robert of the book and by Inquisitors put in place by Pope Urban, of Galileo, neither of them show that circular vs elliptical orbits have any bearing on the case.

Chris Check is pushing what the somewhat dubious convert from Freemasonry, Joseph de Maistre, was suggesting ... that with more modern methods, Galileo could and would have demonstrated his case, and been exonerated, but was foolhardy enough to rely on his primitive methods.

He is also pushing what was suggested to Pope Pius VII in the Settele case - that the Church hadn't condemned any Heliocentrism involving elliptic orbits.***

17:39 "he wasn't a friendly guy, he liked to set people up"

  • Do you have any evidence to this external to this dispute?
  • Supposing he were what you describe, this is not a reason for lifelong house arrest, or for being forced to abjure two theses you have held dearly to.


In Catholicism, unlike modern psychiatry, rights and truth are objective. They are not to be tailored to the purpose of teaching one grumpy man a lesson!

Plus the verdict from 1633 was sent to Catholic Universities around the world.

18:33 The question is, what do we want to get the Church off the hook from?

From being wrong back then? Well, the way to go is, Galileo was wrong.

From being wrong in relation to what we know?

That's another kettle of fish, it presumes we know it. And makes it vital that the Church didn't put real doctrinal onus into the case.

What about from being evil back then? Or now? Are you on the right track?

21:35 "he's a great fundraiser"

Contrary to the theory stating he blew it by being a character whom one couldn't collaborate with or sth like that ....

23:21 One comment probably was from the future Pope Urban:

"It was in the power of God to create the world any way He wanted to, and to make it appear any way He wanted to"

Galileo makes this a comment of Simplicio.

It is kind of easy to make fun of if you put it in a certain context.

"Oh, you mean, God could make the world Geocentric and make the evidence look Heliocentric? Is that why we find so much evidence for Heliocentrism and you still think it's Geocentric?"

No. God is not dishonest.

It means, God could make the world look, prima facie, the way it was. The way it is.

God could make a Geocentric world so that it looked Geocentric at first glance.

The other options (related to this controversy) would be:
God could make the world Geocentric and look Heliocentric.
God could make the world Heliocentric and look Heliocentric.

Problem with these - the world doesn't look Heliocentric.

Or - the other real option - God could make the world Heliocentric and look Geocentric (at first glance).

Which one of these attributes more honesty to the Omnipotent God?

The one in which He created the universe that was what it looked like, namely the physically Geocentric universe.

24:09 Did St. Robert Bellarmine ever tell Galileo that his observational evidence suggested Heliocentrism?

I'd like, again, to have that quote, if it's there.

25:00 "the pope who had been Galileo's friend .... he is pushed beyond the limits of what he wants to endure personally"

A very succinct statement of the theory you are giving, and attributing a condemnation of two theses to that, (while we should not be forgetting the theses as such were already condemned by St. Robert Bellarmine, previous round) is to paint the manners of Pope Urban VIII in a very dark light. I mean, Rembrandt's chiaroscuro in Conjuration of the Batavi would arguably be too light and rosy for this ...

Also, the Pope could not see this as a public insult. The Catholic world at large didn't have more of Pope Urban than "his encyclicals" and any other papal acts, didn't have his conversations with Galileo, for example, so, there was no public insult to the person of the Pope, since Urban VIII had no twitter account, his private thoughts weren't put on display. For that reason, the work was also not an attack on the papacy.

The only things the world of Christendom could reasonably care about, which is what Pope Urban had a duty to care about is, these things:

  • is it true or false that "it was in the power of God to create the world any way He wanted to, and to make it appear any way He wanted to"?
  • is it true or false that the Sun is immobile centre of the world?
  • is it true that the Earth is in orbit (in the third heaven) around (above) the Sun?


25:15 Galileo could have shown more friendship and charity?

As in a gentleman of Rome was thinskinned like a sophomore before his professor, and Galileo should have seen that?

Have you thought through what you are saying about Pope Urban?

Are you trying to make Joseph Stalin look good, by putting him in Pope Urban's company?

26:56 Ah, now I get where you are heading with "Galileo gathered his best evidence after condemnation" ...

Galilean relativity, how does it feel to be aboard a plane ... but that is :

  • not evidence for Earth actually moving - it's just evidence for "things would look the same if the Earth were moving" which is a very different proposal
  • he arguably did not himself directly use it even that way
  • and it was not new, Oresme had already stated that not just the ocular evidence but also that for the inner ears (where we have the equilibrial sense - he may not have known about inner ears though, just about the sense!) could be the same if Earth were moving. But he had also stated that this possibility in and of itself is not evidence for earth moving.


In other words, of two models which both account for the sense data, the one that closest adhers to them is preferable, unless there is positive evidence for the other scenario, or against the sense data of that particular case.

"It was in the power of God to create the world any way He wanted to, and to make it appear any way He wanted to"

God could make a Geocentric world so that it looked Geocentric at first glance.
Or - the other real option - God could make the world Heliocentric and look Geocentric (at first glance).

We know all of us, the world doesn't look Heliocentric at first glance.

So, where is the evidence for the greater discrepancy between sense data and reality?

Neither flatly contradicts the sense data or says we should be seing sth else. But one of them has physical reality (what God chose to create) match our senses (what God wanted us to experience). The other has them at a kind of mismatch.

29:30 Freemasons obviously make both Bruno and Galileo "martyrs for science" in a sort of Martyrologium Anti-Romanum

They peddle it right and left. And some of their audience confuse the two.

Bruno did burn, and he burnt after being judged by St. Robert.

30:29 The late Pope Michael, and a booklet from before Vatican II he reedited disagrees with you.

Decrees against Heliocentrism by nine popes (including 1633 Pope Urban VIII).

Also, Sungenis argues when you make this argument, you are confused about exactly what to expect from an infallible statement.

One could argue it was the infallible ordinary magisterium. He sent out the judgement to all Catholic Universities, so interested bishops were able to consult it at a distance. None of them we know of disagreed and said "Galileo was right" ...

31:17 St. Augustine actually doesn't use the actual words* "let's not interpret Scripture too literally"

He was not that kind of diffident about literal exegesis (when good as such) being vindicated when tested against reason and experience.

Also, that passage was not made Church law. As far as I know it was not appealed to in the verdict, either of St. Robert's trial on The Assayer or of the Roman Inquisition 1633.

31:46 The state of the science at the time is not actually appealed to.
The "problem of scandal" is not appealed to in relation to unproven theories as simply unproven or exegeses as simply unpopular.

There would have been a different theological censure for that "piis auribus offensiva" .... the actual censures are formally heretical for one thesis and "at least erroneous" for another one.

What is appealed to is:
  • Scripture, which hasn't changed
  • Fathers, which also haven't changed.


33:01 If the affair had rested with only the tribunal and the punitive consequences for Galileo, the doctrinal statements would not have been infallible, it would just have been a verdict of the Church in a particular case.

NOTE HERE : Ephesus could be doctrinally infallible even if possibly wrong about the person of Nestorius. Chalcedon could be doctrinally infallible even is possibly wrong about the person of Eutyches (Ephesus II said "non haereticus, sed male locutus est" but it is usually considered a Robber Council in the West). Trent could be doctrinally infallible even if Calvin or Luther never held a single of the condemned doctrines.

So, even for a disciplinary affair, the doctrinal side is not negligible.

But, if it had only rested there, it would not have been infallible.

However, Pope Urban further ordered the condemnation sent out to Catholic scholars of all Christendom. All bishops who wanted had access to it. None what we know stood up and disagreed and said Heliocentrism or Geokinetism are OK to hold, or that phenomenological readings of Joshua 10:13 are OK as an exegesis.

That probably makes it infallible, the infallible ordinary magisterium, but at the very least puts it into the scope of infallibility.

33:44 Obviously, it is still not safe to teach that the Gospel of Mark was written first.

It is still in contradiction with the actual traditions about the text.

Again, Galileo's judges did not condemn him for a disciplinary offense against "teaching" (what as a layman he was anyway not doing) what "tute doceri non postest" ... they condemned the teachingS as for one of them formally heretical, for the other at least erroneous.

34:07 No. The analysis of similarities between Matthew, Mark and Luke do not amount to historical observations, the actual text history we have is Matthean priority from the Church Fathers.

So, no, there is no valid "historical" observation in teaching Markan priority, and it was not just condemned because some went too far.

Here we have the act from 1912, June 26.°

V. Utrum, quoad ordinem chronologicum Evangeliorum, ab ea sententia recedere fas sit, quae, antiquissimo aeque ac constanti traditionis testimonio roborata, post Matthaeum, qui omnium primus Evangelium suum patrio sermone conscripsit, Marcum ordine setundum et Lucam tertium scripsisse testatur; aut huic sententiae adversari vicissim censenda sit eorum opinio quae asserit Evangelium secundum et tertium ante graecam primi Evangelii versionem esse compositum?

R. Negative ad utramque partem.


It's not lawful (fas) to recede from the ancient and constant tradition saying after Matthew first, then Mark second, then Luke third are testified as having written.

The words are not "it is not safe to teach" but "utrum fas sit" and "negative" ...

34:43 Whether or not Caesar Baronius said that,
  • he probably did not do it in the context of a pastoral letter
  • since he was cardinal priest, not ever bishop.


I'd like to have the exact and full quote ...

And when I search it - it is from Galileo, who was condemned for precisely that attitude, not from Baronius.°°

35:01 Neither in respect to Markan priority, 1912, nor in the Galileo case 1633, can we assume the Church overreacted.

36:07 Newman pointed out, and Chesterton took up on it, that Galileo is the one stock argument.

But if you analyse the words of Cardinal Newman, it involves saying Galileo did not do science.

There is also a certain hint that new astronomy, in his time, like Bessel, might turn out not to be real science, at least as he presented his case.

36:51 In the case of Lyell, ("breakthrough in geology") there came to be three schools all of which were Catholic throughout the 19th C, and defended as such:

  • six days were six days, and the light of the first day was created soon after the beginning of time (Bosizio et al.)
  • there was a considerable gap between the beginning of time and the state in Genesis 1:2, but from then on, six days were done to re-create the earth
  • the days were long ages but from Adam on, the creation day 6 is finished and Biblical history goes on with at least approximately Biblical chronology from Adam to Abraham in Genesis 5, Flood, Genesis 11 (well known proponent : Fr. Fulcran Vigouroux).


As to Darwin's work, it was pretty instantly condemned in a local Council of Cologne, and Pope Pius IX did not rescind it.

It is very annoying when people who talk about "discoveries in science" talk about big world view questions like cosmology, evolution, deep time, as opposed to clear actual discoveries, like electromagnetism, blood circulation, spectrography, white light being breakable into a spectrum of coloured lights, these being what the musical spectrum would consider "one octave" (bluest blue has twice the frequency of reddest red), behaving like waves ...

37:01 Nicolas Steno first made dissections (including refuting Descartes' solution to the dualism problem), then founded modern geology and then became a convert and a clergyman, dying as bishop, as Apostolic Vicar, missionary bishop in Protestant regions where Catholics were oppressed minorities, I know Danes who want to see him canonised.

What you leave out, and Geologists on Creation Ministries International point out°°° is, he was actually a Flood Geologist.

He believed and taught as sound science that the bulk of the fossil bearing sediments had been deposited during Noah's Flood.

Exactly as John C. Whitcomb and Henry M. Morris.

37:04 Gregor Mendel - a man whose work Darwin could have accessed, and didn't.

My mother, a solid YEC, taught me Mendel's laws.

Rev. Bryan Houghton, a trad priest of the Ecclesia Dei persuasion, just before he died, considered Mendel and chromosomes were good refutations of Evolution theory.

37:12 who was an Augustinian friar

My bad, I had given him as Benedictine ... it says OSA on the wiki ...

My discord name is QSAnimazione#4236
Rev. Houghton was completely wrong.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@My discord name is QSAnimazione#4236 OK,
how do you explain the rising number of chromosomes in mammals?

You are aware that mammals have different chromosome numbers, that chromosomes can increase in number if telomere to telomere contact becomes a new centromere, replacing two centromeres, and that tetraploidy means certain death in mammals, while trisomies are aggravated and therefore more handicapping by becoming tetrasomies?


38:16 So, you are basically saying that "John Paul II" was beating the mea culpa on the breast of Urban VIII?

38:43 But Pope Urban VIII hadn't been publically humiliated by Galileo!

At the utmost, he had been privately humiliated by a public statement by Galileo (putting his argument into Simplicio's mouth).

Supposing I feel privately humiliated by you giving your view on the Galileo case, which you know I don't exactly share, and your doing so in a manner suggesting you thought I needed some schooling on the matter. This doesn't equate to me getting a right to a public apology even for the slight, because none of your viewers so far (5.6 k views) would normally be aware of my position or how you treated it. Even if you had lampooned a thing I had actually said, it wouldn't give me any right to a public apology (other than if you admitted the hint was at me), and even less could I revenge myself by charging you with a crime which could land you in deep trouble, and impose grave social disabilities on you for the rest of your life. And which were only due to some other factor, if correct, but would be monstruous if directed at the slight you had made me.

So, you are painting Pope Urban VIII as basically a brother in arms when it comes to extremely toxic narcissism to Joseph Stalin.

Even Hitler wouldn't have done such a thing to Charlie Chaplin, he actually enjoyed the barber chair scene of The Dictator.

39:51 While we are at "he's not a heretic either" - that is technically correct.

It's even morally correct. But not from how you presented this.

It's correct because:
  • he abjured when asked to
  • and finally accepted his abjuration as according to objective truth, as we know from a letter written c. one year before he died.


In it, he actually cited the argument put into Simplicio's mouth.

"It was in the power of God to create the world any way He wanted to, and to make it appear any way He wanted to"

It seems he finally grasped the implication : God being truthful created the world the same way as he created its appearance to us, and not the other way round.

_______________________________________

* Link to where I quoted it:

Creation vs. Evolution : Unanimity of Fathers - and Venerable Bede
https://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2020/08/unanimity-of-fathers-and-venerable-bede.html


Chris Check brings it up twice, so this footnote is to two of my comments.

** Link, and perhaps it's just the page and not the site which is by Jeff:

Catholic Culture : St. Robert Bellarmine, Galileo and Heliocentricity
By Dr. Jeff Mirus | Sep 17, 2015
https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/st-robert-bellarmine-galileo-and-heliocentricity/


*** Credits to Robert Sungenis for Pius VII having no access to the actual acts of the trial, since Napoleon had stolen them.

° DE AUCTORE, DE TEMPORE COMPOSITIONIS ET DE HISTORICA VERITATE EVANGELIORUM SECUNDUM MARCUM ET SECUNDUM LUCAM
https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/pcb_documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19120626_vangelo-marco_lt.html


°° More than one hit on Galileo, for instance:

The Bible shows the way to go to heaven, not the way the heavens go. I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. It is surely harmful to souls to make it a heresy to believe what is proved.


GALILEO GALILEI (by Norwegian Atheists on FB)
https://www.facebook.com/NorwegianAtheists/photos/galileo-galileithe-bible-shows-the-way-to-go-to-heaven-not-the-way-the-heavens-g/555867854834108/


The statement, “The Bible shows the way to go to heaven, not the way the heavens go”, was made by Galileo Galilei (1564- 1642 in his open letter to the Dowager ...


Quora : What does “The Bible shows the way to go to heaven, not the way the heavens go” mean?
https://www.quora.com/What-does-The-Bible-shows-the-way-to-go-to-heaven-not-the-way-the-heavens-go-mean


(Answer two years ago by William Bradshaw
I'm a longtime Christian and student of the Bible. Author has 1.1K answers and 139.8K answer views - he seems to have edited it since then, see following screenshot)



(It is still "Galileo's statement" and not Baronius')

A deleted reddit hit on Baronius:

"The Bible teaches us how to go to Heaven, not how the heavens go." -Cardinal Caesar Baronius [1872×1102 pixels]
https://www.reddit.com/r/QuotesPorn/comments/9iry1x/the_bible_teaches_us_how_to_go_to_heaven_not_how/


It was a meme [1872×1102 pixels], and the author deleted it:

Désolé, cette publication a été supprimée par son auteur.


°°° Geological pioneer Nicolaus Steno was a biblical creationist
by Tas Walker | This article is from
Journal of Creation 22(1):93–98, April 2008
https://creation.com/geological-pioneer-nicolaus-steno-was-a-biblical-creationist