Quoran Medley: Creationism and Other Roman Catholic

All of below

are from six years ago, answers and comment exchange.

Q I

How do people know Adam and Eve were the first people on Earth?
https://www.quora.com/How-do-people-know-Adam-and-Eve-were-the-first-people-on-Earth-1/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Self Employed at Writer and Composer

1. We have God's word for it.
2. We also have a fairly good reasoning from purely historic (not archaeologic, but historic) facts.

Here it is.

In Eden, Adam was told by God that God had created him. God then gave Adam half and half of an occasion to know He had created Eve, even if Adam had to trust God's word on this.

Suppose Adam had not been the first man. Suppose "God" had been a "trickster" who deceived Adam.

Well, sooner or later Adam's descendants would come across someone not descended from Adam but from the pre-Adamites.

Same, if Flood had not been world wide, sooner or later Noah's descendants would have come across someone with no memory of the Flood.

This never conclusively happened.

As for Adam and Eve, Noah and the Ark not being just characters in a story book, we have the fact it was a story taken as historic, and not as made up, from the first and as far as we can follow it.

As for rival tales also taken for history, they never seem to match the historic detail of Genesis.

Q II

Who is Saint Lucy, and what did she do to become a Saint?
https://www.quora.com/Who-is-Saint-Lucy-and-what-did-she-do-to-become-a-Saint/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Converted to Roman Catholic Church, Novus Ordo version, then to Trad.

I think you refer to St Lucy of Sicily.

She died for her faith, rejecting a pagan suitor because preferring Jesus Christ and she was executed - as a teen.

Martyrs are fairly obvious saints. Her feast was 13th of December.

Q III

Was Martin Luther (the one in the Protestant reformation) a fundamentalist?
https://www.quora.com/Was-Martin-Luther-the-one-in-the-Protestant-reformation-a-fundamentalist/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Self Employed at Writer and Composer

Neither more nor less than the Catholics condemning him, or perhaps a bit less, since he was willing to fidget about Epistle of St James.

So, yes, Martin Luther from Eisleben or Wittenberg was basically about as Fundamentalist as Cardinal Cajetan who debated him or as Pope Leo X who first condemned him (one bull of warning, Exsurge Domine, and, after Cajetan’s mission was in vain, another bull of actual condemnation, Decet Romanum Pontificem).

The guys who were NOT Fundamentalists back then, in religion, were the Socinian reformers, Lelio and Fausto Sozzini. They were equally condemned by Catholics and by Lutherans.

Q IV

With regards to creationism and earth's age, why do many Christians not amend their interpretation of biblical text to realistically stay within the confines of what modern science has proven, or make bold claims without proper research or evidence?
https://www.quora.com/With-regards-to-creationism-and-earths-age-why-do-many-Christians-not-amend-their-interpretation-of-biblical-text-to-realistically-stay-within-the-confines-of-what-modern-science-has-proven-or-make-bold-claims-without-proper-research-or-evidence/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl

Answer requested by

Joseph Holliday

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Blog : "http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com". Debating evolutionists for 15 years +.

"With regards to creationism and earth's age,"

Yes, a nice topic.

"why do many Christians not amend their interpretation of biblical text"

There are two text versions in the main, for Christians. LXX and Masoretic (the latter includes KJV but also Vulgate, as far as chronology is concerned).

Of the LXX, there seems to be some more wiggle room, the more so as "the second Cainan" is not in all LXX manuscripts.

But for "day age" and for "gap theory" as in a long gap between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2, Mark 10:6 and even Exodus 20:11 leaves no wiggle room.

This means, with any given version, we are really and truyly stuck with the "Ussher methodology" - the one used way before Ussher by Syncellus and St Jerome on LXX texts.

No other method of interpretation is really Christian, since no other one can be reconciled with God speaking to Moses in Exodus 20 and no other one can be reconciled to Jesus being God in the Flesh, when He spoke in Mark 10:6.

"to realistically stay within the confines of what modern science has proven,"

Modern science has proven strictly nothing against LXX ages, and as to carbon buildup presumed as explanation for "long carbon dated ages" (a carbon date for before 5500 BC is carbon 14 both decaying AND starting out as lower than modern atmospheric content : the percentage it was lower is as much a part of the modern expert's carbon date as the percentage it actually lowered over actual years). As to this, well, I am confident the carbon buildup cannot be proven as too drastic for LXX dates, and awaiting whether it be so for Masoretic dates.

"or make bold claims without proper research or evidence?"

The Bible as such, to a Christian, is proper evidence. If you do not believe the Bible is inerrant (or at least believe in errors of such marginal type which would finally not be able to account for errors here), it is evidence.

If you don't believe it, too bad for you, you are missing out on the most important piece of evidence.

That said, we certainly do "proper research" - as I am doing about carbon dates and especially how the carbon buildup can be explained in the post-Flood world, as also on other things.

Your ignoring what we do is not tantamount to our not doing it.

Joseph Holliday

I didn't mean all Christians, I meant many of the ones that I've encountered. I grew up in a Christian household in an area that many call the "bible belt". I personally identify as a Christian myself, but I have a lot of interest in science and scientific research. The main reason I ask the question is my entire family and most people I know locally who are Christian are against my interests in science and expect me to accept everything that they tell me as fact without doing any research myself. They think it's wrong for me to even question anything regarding our beliefs. I'm trying to understand why they are so against my interests in science and why they think I must blindly accept everything without asking questions. Normally, I would explain these sorts of things in the "question details" section of my questions, but Quora removed the "question details" feature, making it difficult to get what I'm actually trying to ask across.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

How about combining the interests by doing some research in creation science?

As to why your family act as they do, well most people in any culture or environment don’t do any research at all.

Do you like palaeontology?

You might enjoy my attempts (so far not too stymied) to refute the “geological column”, like here:

Question for Madagascar ...

Or, if you like carbon date questions, you might like this:

Tas Walker and Myself on C14 : Glacial Maximum and End

And this:

How Fast was Carbon 14 Forming During Babel Event?

There is a lot more material, of course, on CMI:

Creation | Creation Ministries International

Sorry for mentioning my much more successful rivals after myself, but you will not overlook them that way either.

As to your family’s reaction, they might be unduly worried that the evidence you examine must bring you away from the faith, as they have not seen how much their position (which on this question is correct) is backed up by good research.

“Normally, I would explain these sorts of things in the "question details" section of my questions, but Quora removed the "question details" feature, making it difficult to get what I'm actually trying to ask across.”

Now question details are given in obligatorily non-anonymous comments on question. The question details previously given still exist, there, with “quora question details bot” or sth as “user name”.

Q V

Is it a sin for Catholics to watch movies online for free?
https://www.quora.com/Is-it-a-sin-for-Catholics-to-watch-movies-online-for-free/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Been going to movies most of my childhood and teens.

It is a sin for Catholics to watch bad movies, like porn, or like Last Temptation for Christ.

Watching a movie for free online, watching it online after paying, or watching it offline (television or cinema) after paying or being invited is not relevant.

If you shoplift a video in order to watch the movie, the shoplifting is a sin, watching the movie does not add to the sin, but not giving the video back (perhaps in a way not tracking your to the shoplifting) does add to the sin.

Sharing

BREAKING: Second Trump Assassination Attempt - Suspect in Custody
Reason & Theology | 15.IX.2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omep8Pf-rWU

See also:

New blog on the kid: Tolkien's Politics · I Thought That Decree Was by Franco · Why I am Not Capitalist or for Unrestricted Free Market · Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Tolkien Supported Franco's Side in the 36—39 War · Prince Caspian · Lord of the Rings: Motivations for Fandom · Tolkienophobes, Buzz Off! · Tolkienophobe Identified? · J D Vance-Phobes? · Crooks' (or Yearick's?) Body Gone · Sharing On The Shooting

And, for that matter:

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Three Takes on Morality · Pro-Death: Misreporting the Kate Cox Case and Misjudging the Ohio Girl of Ten Case · Harris Spoke a Lie, Trump Spoke the Truth · New blog on the kid: Best wishes for your recovery, Mr. Trump! · Yearick or Crooks?

Do they imagine Harris could be better off trying to beat Vance?/HGL

Dimond Brothers Bungle Latin and Theology

The Most Misunderstood Catholic Decree - Council Of Trent, Sess. 6, Chap. 4
vaticancatholic.com | 14 sept. 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BaMNH1sBTw

I happen to be a Latinist. I also happen to know that my comments tend to get deleted, so, I put this in response to their pinned comment. But first the quote:

vaticancatholic.com

@vaticancatholic-dimond

This new video covers an extremely important matter with new points. It contains crucial information that’s relevant to understanding the faith and the Magisterium.

To see future videos, sign up for our e-mail list here: https://mhfm.email

The permanent page for this video is here: https://endtimes.video/catholic-decree-council-of-trent/

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@hglundahl

I think "aut eius voto" is pretty plain ...

1:48 Even if "sine" applies to both lavacro and voto, the Latin has the same phrase type as English

"without the laver, or the wish thereof"

It does not have the same idiomatic meaning as

"without the laver or without the wish thereof"

as that would imply that if either is lacking one is not justified. That would be heretical as it involves newly baptised infants going to Limbus infantum instead of heaven if they die.

The "without" actually applies to the whole of "the laver or the wish thereof" which, whether in nominative or ablative or accusative would suggest and does suggest, that "the wish thereof" is a standin.

If you dispute this, please tell me, if you have a phrase "the laver, or the wish thereof" in any case whatsoever, would you put "votum" in the same case as "lavacrum" or would you not.

St Emerentiana can be presumed to be saved "with the laver, or the wish thereof" ... also the ablative. Would you have put "or the wish thereof" in the nominative?

2:21 Yes, you have just stated that a newly baptised infant who dies in a car accident can't go to Heaven, since he didn't wish to be baptised.

An Orthodox Who Believes the Infidel Lesch

Since Nicholas Aggelopoulos lives in Germany, and might very well be familiar with Lesch, here is my series in German against that kind of unhistorical infidel: Contra Lesch · Dialoge unter dem Lesch-Video · Ein Geschichtler hat Lesch auch angeprangert · Andrej hat noch mehr zu TerraX zu sagen!

But, to the video and then my comments:

Why was there no Inquisition in the Orthodox Church
Nicholas Aggelopoulos | 8 Sept. 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbbOEnWULEQ

1:12 "the Inquisition had deemed the use of reason in the advancement of science as a threat to Christianity"

Do you get this from the Soviet Academy of Sciences, or from some Greek Bishop who had it from some Russian Bishop who had it from the Soviet Academy of Sciences?

Scientists are not good historians of science, usually, Soviet biassed ones even less so, so ...

1:12—1:36
"perhaps influenced by Tertullian a third century Christian Layman who wrote in Latin and who considered the Old Testament the only source of Truth the Inquisition used [s]purious passages from the Old Testament whenever the deemed it convenient to stifle and condemn scientific discourse"

Did you have enough sleep? Do you need a coffee? Do you have a hangover?

The Inquisition used very genuine passages from the Old Testament, not spurious ones, to refute and condemn, not "scientific discourse" but the heresy of Heliocentrism.

Why is it a heresy?

a) It counteracts Geocentrism as proof for God, which is probably what St. Paul meant in Romans 1; so it helped in the ensuing 50 years or 100 years to bolster atheism.
b) It involves Joshua saying his miraculous words in Joshua 10:12 to the wrong entities, not the one that needed to miraculously change behaviour under God's authority. Was His namesake Jesus also speaking of the wrong thing when driving out demons?
c) It involves in our days a visible universe 13.8 light years in globe radius, which is contrary to any view of Biblical chronology, whether Ussher or Syncellus or the chronology of St. Jerome which we find in the Roman Martyrology for Christmas Day.
d) For the same reason, it also makes the idea of Heaven as a place above the fix stars moot.
e) And even in their day, Galileo and St. Robert, Galileo and his later judges in 1633, knew that Galileo's position involved NOT taking Scripture as the final word in science, only in matters pertaining to personal salvation — an attitude which the Inquisitors found, rightly, condemnable.

2:33 Your comments on "the great divide" make simply no sense, you are attributing to the Roman Catholics a position like that attributed to Calvinists and Judaising Fundamentalists (perhaps spuriously) by their opponents.

This is not our position now, it has no place in St. Thomas Aquinas and would have made St. Robert Bellarmine snicker if he had heard you attribute such a position to him.

Christ's miracles are fully rational. That doesn't make them non-miraculous. The thing is not that "laws of nature are broken" but that God adds an agency which is not described by them. Remember, the laws only describe what causes in physics need to get as results, if nothing interferes. They do not say that all causes are physical, nor that nothing will interfere with the results. A physicist can calculate with physics at what speed and impetus a pen will fall to the ground if I drop it, but he cannot calculate whether I'll prefer to catch it before it touches the ground.

The Orthodox Church at least locally did find cause against Galileo. While the "sigillion of 1583" may be a forgery, it would go back to real decisions by patriarch Jeremias II Tranos in 1583, 1587 and 1593.

Here is a quote from the more mediatised text printed on Mt Athos in 1858, New Skete, considered as a forgery and perhaps better considered as a conflation:

"and wishes to follow the newly-invented Paschalion and the New Menologion of the atheist astronomers of the Pope"

Why the phrase "atheist astronomers"? Was it a reference to Galileo?

If this phrase is lacking in all three decisions by Jeremias II Tranos, could it be that Father Iakovos from New Skete in 1858 had a beef with Heliocentrism?

Nicholas Aggelopoulos

@NicholasAggelopoulos

There was an inquiry by monks in a Russian monastery that found no objections to the theory of Copernicus and the observations of Galileo. They cited that the geocentric view is not supported by scripture and attributed it to Thomas Indicopleustes, a Byzantine writer of fantastical stories.

On your other point, I understand that the position of the Roman Catholic Church on the Inquisition has changed. Some Orthodox writers have written in the same vein. I imagine there is no exact consensus in the Orthodox Church about the degree to which reason and logic overlap. Knowledge is based on the association of a cause with its outcome. However, Orthodox scholars and Saints do not take a clear position on whether logic and reason are the same thing.

From a scientific viewpoint, my personal viewpoint not the Church's, it would seem impossible that life, which is tied up with knowledge, would have evolved to detect relationships that are not causal. If so, which seems to stand to reason, such non-causal events are outside the capacities of living organisms to know them. Let's say there would have not evolved such a sensibility, a part of our organism responsible for detecting non-burning fires. A "burning" bush that was not burning away and was not showing any changes related to entropy would provide no physical stimuli that the brain would detect as a fire. A bush not burning would not be detectable as burning. On the other hand, other phenomena can be rationaly explained, but only when they do not violate the laws of physics: I have been told so in our theology lectures at school over a generation ago, for example regarding the curing of the lame as possibly the lame not being physically incapable of walking only psychologically hindered in some way because of psychiatric disability. Such incidents of psychiatric patients believing that they cannot walk or cannot see abound in the modern medical literature. The lame who were cured by Christ were never missing their legs and the blind were not actually missing their eyes, Lazarus had only been thought to have passed away some time prior to the arrival of Christ on the same day.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@hglundahl

@NicholasAggelopoulos "There was an inquiry by monks in a Russian monastery that found no objections to the theory of Copernicus and the observations of Galileo. They cited that the geocentric view is not supported by scripture and attributed it to Thomas Indicopleustes, a Byzantine writer of fantastical stories."

[Cosmas] Indicopleustes was a Flat Earther and not simply a Geocentric.

A Russian monastery that makes an equation between Flat Earth and Geocentrism sounds like one put under pressure by Communists — unless it was by Peter the Great or his successors in the time of Lomosonov. Even under the Czars, monasteries did frauds of the type we think of as Communist. The story of "St. Peter teh Aleut, Neomartyr" is one such fraud.

Whether it was the time of Lomosonov or the time of the Commies, you did not tell what time the Russian monks made this blunder or direct fraud.

"On your other point, I understand that the position of the Roman Catholic Church on the Inquisition has changed."

No, the Roman Catholic Church and the Inquisition N E V E R held or judged that "reason is the enemy of faith" ... it's not a question of my projecting the modern position back, it's a question of my knowing a thing or two about Roman Catholicism in the time of the Inquisition that judged Galileo.

"Some Orthodox writers have written in the same vein. I imagine there is no exact consensus in the Orthodox Church about the degree to which reason and logic overlap. Knowledge is based on the association of a cause with its outcome."

No, scientific knowledge is. And by the way, the natural laws do not determine the outcome, they can only say what outcome that particular cause or that particular combination of causes will give. If there is a cause the scientists habitually do not reckon with or have not reckoned with in such and such a case, the outcome will not be the one that they predicted from the causes they did study.

"If so, which seems to stand to reason, such non-causal events are outside the capacities of living organisms to know them."

It doesn't stand to reason, the very idea of reason or logic being a product of evolution is contrary to the validity of them.

"I have been told so in our theology lectures at school over a generation ago, for example regarding the curing of the lame as possibly the lame not being physically incapable of walking only psychologically hindered in some way because of psychiatric disability."

Psychiatric disabilities are not naturally healed with normal created causalities in one moment.

"The lame who were cured by Christ were never missing their legs"

Neither was Mr. Roosevelt, though poliomyelitis does not usually strike at birth. (As far as I know, I might be wrong.)

"and the blind were not actually missing their eyes,"

Neither is Stevie Wonder, even if the type of artificial oxygenation that deprived him of eye-sight would not have existed in Jesus' day.

"Lazarus had only been thought to have passed away some time prior to the arrival of Christ on the same day."

If you read the actual Gospel text, he had been dead four days. The Orthodox liturgy actually calls him "St. Lazarus the Four-Days-Dead" ... ditch the theologians you have consulted, flee them like the plague. Whether you go to Seraphim Rose or Mgr Lefebvre or Pope Michael II, don't remain with those guys.

2:37—2:43
"it had decided that the Miracles of Christ do not have a rational explanation"

Quis, quid, ubi? Quibus auxiliis? Cur, quomodo, quando?

Or what inquisitor decided on what affair, in what city? By what proof texts? Why (on his view, not on yours)? How did he argue? What is that decision dated to?

It was certainly NOT either of the two affairs of Galileo.

I call your bluff. Either you are lying, or you are repeating a lie. Precisely as Paul Balester, Gk Orthodox Bishop in Mexico, pretended (by some) martyr, lied or repeated a lie about what St. Robert had said about the papacy.

[Mystagogy posts certainly false allegation on St Robert Bellarmine · Pseudoquote identified. What De Romano Pontifice, book IV, chapter V really says (quote) · Further faults of fact in the Mystagogy post]

3:20—3:34
"hence the World created by reason according to the Greek text was created against reason according to the view eventually developed by the Roman Inquisition"

Is Rome situated on the North Pole too? Does the Pope have three legs?

In other words, are you stark raving mad?

Nicholas Aggelopoulos

The Inquisition disagreed with Galileo's observations not because they found some fault with his telescope, that is clear.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@NicholasAggelopoulos The Inquisition never disagreed with Galileo's observations at all.

Jupiter has four moons, observed. Fine.

Venus is sometimes behind and sometimes in front of the Sun. Fine.

The Milky Way involves lots of small stars. Fine. One Inquisitor who was also an astronomer (Clavius, I think) noted that not all the fudgy white could be found resolving into small stars and modern astronomy actually accepts there is interstellar matter, confirmed the Inquisition against a minor point in Galileo.

Earth revolves around the Sun, not fine. Also not observed.

Earth revolves around itself, not fine. Also not observed.

To this day it has not been conclusively observed, since, even if it was observed from the Moon, we Geocentrics would answer it was the Moon that was moving.

4:05—4:15
"Western Scholars are so accustomed to the enmity to science among Western fundamentalists that they do not seem ever to consider"

Do YOU ever consider that what you say about Western Fundamentalists is a lie, or at best a cry of hysteria, totally devoid of reason in judging the other person or party?

What you make of Westerners is what Hitler made of Jews ... or what Fritz Hippler and Goebbels made of them.

4:41 Mikhail Lomosonov may be as little representative of Orthodox in his time, as Galileo was of Catholics in his. He was a layman who wrote in Russian, not in pure Slavonic.

Discovering the atmosphere of Venus would not have been what Galileo had to answer for.

Discovering the Venus passage was not what Galileo had to answer for.

But perhaps Lomosonov had to do with far less circumspect Orthodox priests than the Catholic ones Galileo had to deal with.

He did not have his discourse from Orthodox priests, or you would have cited them. He did get lots of his education in Germany and had it from the German Enlightenment, which was addicted to Galileo, and also to his views on Scripture.

5:20 "energeia" is typically translated "operatio" in Latin.

Ephesians 3:7 for instance:

οὗ ἐγενήθην διάκονος κατὰ τὴν δωρεὰν τῆς χάριτος τοῦ Θεοῦ τῆς δοθείσης μοι κατὰ τὴν ἐνέργειαν τῆς δυνάμεως αὐτοῦ
cujus factus sum minister secundum donum gratiae Dei, quae data est mihi secundum operationem virtutis ejus.
Of which I am made a minister, according to the gift of the grace of God, which is given to me according to the operation of his power:

Nicholas Aggelopoulos

Thank you for this very helpful response, especially with the quotes. It is, indeed, helpful that the Latin translation is close to the Greek meaning. There is still the question of how operatio is translated into English. I have come across English translations of energy being translated as grace of God or power of God. Some of these translations may give to the layman the wrong impression. I have the feeling that in the early centuries, during the Synods, the Latin and Greek-speaking branches of the Church sought to retain a consensus on theological points but that the consensus was not seamless especially after the Great Schism. My argument is that some practices in the West were caused by a belief in the Old Testament as God's unalterable truth, irrespective of how the Apostles, Evangelists and patrisitc tradition had qualified the position of the Old Testament in the Church, something that has come to haunts us again with religious fundamentalism in America.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@NicholasAggelopoulos "grace of God or power of God"

I think you are somewhat badly equipped to read texts.

The grace and the power of God are also mentioned in the verse, namely by Greek charis and dynamis.

"My argument is that some practices in the West were caused by a belief in the Old Testament as God's unalterable truth, irrespective of how the Apostles, Evangelists and patrisitc tradition had qualified the position of the Old Testament in the Church,"

That's not lacking in the East.

Apostolic Tradition accepts two truths in the Old Testament:

• the one that even unbelieving Jews know, the one known by St. Timothy even before he heard of Christ by St. Paul;
• the one that Jesus revealed to the Disciples on the Road to Emmaus, the Christological truth.

They do not contradict. The second does not alter, but confirm the former. You cannot pretend the OT has been abrogated as to its truths. Commandments, yes, since the priesthood is changed, but truths, no. Including historic ones.

[Below comments have been hidden or deleted under the video]

7:04—7:13
"that view would imply that the created world is perhaps a freerunning no longer Divine end result something partly separated from logos"

It is actually the view shared by scientists that is implying that.

Geocentrism involves God being the one Who day and night turns the universe around Earth, because obviously nothing else can effect that.

8:08—8:23
"this approach could lead to the eventuality that if scientific observations suggested that the Earth revolved around the Sun but some statement from the Bible could be construed as indicating that the sun revolves around the earth"

1) Scientific observation is not in itself of a different order than everyday observation. God is not granting someone senses six or seven just because he gets a PhD. The scientist meets the exterior world by five senses, like everyone else.
2) Observation does not suggest or even less show that the Earth revolves around the Sun, in and of itself it shows the Universe, including the Sun, revolving each day around the Earth, and furthermore the heavenly bodies known as planets as revolving in longer periods (a year for the Sun) around the Zodiac.
3) Joshua 10:12 cannot be construed as anything other than Sun and Moon normally revolving around Earth, unless you want miracles to be made by people adressing the wrong things when it comes to what to give orders to.

9:05—9:29
"because it is a belief in reason and in reality the Orthodox belief has always been that the created world around us the physical law causality inference our human reason our empirical knowledge and our capacity for free will are the energies of God"

Are inferences never our own bad choices?

9:29—9:38
"that means that everything is the energies of God except for actions of our own individual human free will"

What about collective uses of the individual human free will? Obeying Nimrod and trying to reach heaven by a tower, was that an energy of God?

If you admit that bad choices are not the energies of God (actually, good choices that are so are also acts of human free will!), why would Galileo not have made a bad choice about how to interpret his observations?

9:38—9:50
"on the other hand, in the view of the Roman Inquisition, presumably, causality and reason are unfortunate accidents of God's creation"

Causality didn't enter the Galileo debate or the Copernicus debate.

Copernicus' mathematical argument was not about causation, but he couldn't do the math for Spirograph patterns, so presumably God couldn't create things or wouldn't create things that couldn't be described mathematically.

When Galileo ventured into causation, he gave a wrong explanation of tides and one of the Inquisitors was from Portugal and had seen them with his own eyes. Galileo might not even have seen the Mediterranean. If you live in Quito and your view of causality tells you that water boils at 90° C at the Ocean coast, and someone from the Ocean coast has seen it boil at 100°, will he be interested in your views of causality?

10:11—10:30
"to the Inquisition Copernicus and Galileo had reached that conclusion by the unfortunate accident of using rational thinking and empirical observation from what we know there was no effort to oppose a theory with a rational counter argument"

From what you know? Then you don't know much.

There was an ample chance given to Galileo in 1616 if he could rationally prove Heliocentrism. When he couldn't, his book was condemned.

What he had proven was that Ptolemy was wrong on some detail, therefore Copernicus had to be right.

St. Robert Bellarmine and his men mentioned Tycho Brahe, a man who did believe the Spirograph patterns we observe, for instance in Venus or Jupiter, if Earth is taken as completely stationary and orbits are taken as how they look from Earth.

Galileo had an a priori prejudice against Spirograph patterns. This doesn't seem more rational thinking or more empirical observation to me than it did to St. Robert Bellarmine.

In 1633, when he was on trial, the scientific debate was already over and the question was posed did he believe the Bible?

10:50 Thank you very much for analysing Joshua 10:13, and the character was Joshua.

Verse 13 taken by itself can be considered as only saying how things looked to people, not the physical realities behind it.

Verse 12 involves the citation of words of Joshua, not the ones in his prayer, but the ones that made the miracle.

If you believe Earth stood still when Sun and Moon were adressed, do you also believe psychological processes were adjusted in miraculous hyperspeed when Jesus adressed demons and told them to get out?

11:06 When exactly had reason been "deemed the enemy of faith"?

Galileo process 1633? No. Galileo process 1616? No.

W H E N ?

It hadn't. If it had, you would have cited the decision.

In St. Thomas Aquinas, reason is the subject of faith. Like will is the subject of virtue and of vice, as well as of lots of less important choices, reason is the subject of faith and of infidelity, as well as of lots of less important intellectual positions.

11:21 "some seeing the Earth as only about 7,000 years old"

Were you in Liturgy on September 1st?

As I recall, that is Orthodox liturgical New Year and therefore when you state what year after Creation you are.

Liturgy, Church Fathers, Bible, everything should tell you that the world is only about 7,000 years old.

11:57—12:10
"to our fellow fundamentalists Christians he may be pointed out that Stories being told at a time before literacy let alone before science cannot be held as proof of reality"

Your priest tells you this, then he's a harlot of Soviet Communism.

The idea of "before literacy" is moot, we do not know when exactly writing was invented.

The lack of science does not mean someone cannot observe what happens, accurately, and therefore not that his stories are "not proof of reality" ... but if it could, you would just have cut off the credibility of the New Testament, since the Apostles also lived before Newton and Galileo.

Your view of what counts as proof and what doesn't isn't rooted in Palamas, but in Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev.

13:00 Well, I don't ignore them.

Perhaps you do.

E V E R Y event in the Old Testament was interpreted as saying something prophetically about Jesus or His Mother or His Church or the enemies thereof.

But N O N E of these interpretations involve the idea that the events didn't happen as described.

13:17 "scientific and encyclopedic knowledge of their time"

They couldn't have, since such an entity did not exist.

There was no knowledge (real or falsely so called) that a specific institution of scientists was spreading to all of the world in their time, there were just different schools of philosophy.

There were no encyclopedias, so knowledge couldn't be encyclopedic.

The word encyclopedia (encyclo|pedia) comes from the Koine Greek ἐγκύκλιος παιδεία,[13] transliterated enkyklios paideia, meaning 'general education' from enkyklios (ἐγκύκλιος), meaning 'circular, recurrent, required regularly, general'[6][14] and paideia (παιδεία), meaning 'education, rearing of a child'; together, the phrase literally translates as 'complete instruction' or 'complete knowledge'.[15] However, the two separate words were reduced to a single word due to a scribal error[16] by copyists of a Latin manuscript edition of Quintillian in 1470.[17] The copyists took this phrase to be a single Greek word, enkyklopaedia, with the same meaning, and this spurious Greek word became the Neo-Latin word encyclopaedia, which in turn came into English. Because of this compounded word, fifteenth-century readers since have often, and incorrectly, thought that the Roman authors Quintillian and Pliny described an ancient genre.[18]

If you mean knowledge transferred in general education within the Greco-Roman world, that was a knowledge very different from what we would call "encyclopedic" ... it was knowledge of law, institutions, plus such items as happened to fall within the scope of Homer, Virgil or other poets.

Virgil mentioned figs? General education involved people around the Roman empire knowing of figs. Homer didn't mention customs in Germania? They weren't part of general education. They were known to readers of Caesar, or Tacitus, but it's anyone's guess how much that influenced general education.

As a certain type of "institutionalised knowledge" didn't even exist, it is obviously false to say that Church Fathers referred to their time's version of it, and would admire our update.

When it comes to Earth being round, St. Augustine and St. Basil agree that this is what the philosophers say, but only St. Augustine makes a point of believing it and taking it into account in his teaching. That's why his work on Genesis involves 12 books, while that of Basil involves some sermons. In one of them St. Basil enumerates philosophical opinions and finishes off "but who cares really?"

13:32—13:43
"unfortunately with their attacks on science they achieve little other than embarrass themselves and also embarrass pollute and harm the church"

First, conflating "attacks on science" (i e against Heliocentrism and Evolutionism) with seeing logic and reason as the enemy (see your previous words), is an ad hominem.

Second, "embarass ourselves" ... before whom? We may not consider scientists the ultimate judges of human worth. Unlike some who conducted experiments on handicapped peoples in certain camps.

And when it comes to "embarass, pollute and harm the Church" I think you and your priest, or if you are a priest (which I doubt) your bishop are actually harming the Church, but the Church, unlike Pharisees, is not harmed by being embarrassed.

13:43—13:52
"atheists will misunderstand their ignorance as being representative of the Christian church as a whole"

Poor sensitive atheist, who can't read history correctly, unless informed by your misinformation, and unless it includes malevolent attacks on the Roman Inquisition and on US Fundamentalists!

And poor you, who cannot clear up someone else's mess (if such) other than by a prolonged attack!

Are you the Church? No, people like you are NOT the Church.

1493 = "doctrine of discovery" ? Not really

The pope's document from the 1500s blows me away
NYTN | 15 Sept. 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyxBf2FppPE

2:14 I have now perused the transscript after perusing an English translation of the Bull.

You do not appear to be citing it.

Now, the wording "terra nullius" doesn't actually appear.

If you are familiar with Lord of the Rings, the Pope doesn't ignore the existence of Indians, nor equate them to Orcs, he's more like equating them to hobbits who need some solid protection. There is a huge difference between a police officer being told by the local pastor "that hippie camp doesn't belong here, take it over and if you find some things, like fuel or cars or trinkets, taking them isn't stealing" and a Catholic priest telling the police officer "that hippie camp has some naive people, make sure they get due protection, that they don't get bothered by Hell's Angels, that they don't get exploited by the Coke mafia" (Coke as in snort, not as in famous drink from Pennsylvania).

And what the pope was saying was the latter. He did not say one word about taking over land as real estate property from the inhabitants, he was making the King of Spain police officer and judge in the areas. Not land owner.

Go and check the actual document.* And by the way, any Conquistador rhetoric from later on saying things about human sacrifice, homosexual practises, cannibalism was totally absent from the document. The inhabitants are described as:

wherein dwell very many peoples living in peace, and, as reported, going unclothed, and not eating flesh. Moreover, as your aforesaid envoys are of opinion, these very peoples living in the said islands and countries believe in one God, the Creator in heaven, and seem sufficiently disposed to embrace the Catholic faith and be trained in good morals. And it is hoped that, were they instructed, the name of the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, would easily be introduced into the said countries and islands. Also, on one of the chief of these aforesaid islands the said Christopher has already caused to be put together and built a fortress fairly equipped, wherein he has stationed as garrison certain Christians, companions of his, who are to make search for other remote and unknown islands and mainlands. In the islands and countries already discovered are found gold, spices, and very many other precious things of divers kinds and qualities.

Obviously, building garrisons would be involved in taking political control over an area, but taking all of the land as property for new settlers equally wouldn't.

Relations between Spaniards and Indians soured quite a lot compared to this in the time when Cortez witnessed human sacrifice in Tenochtitlan. And even so it never (as long as Spanish Kings had governors rather than ex-colonial lands had independent presidents) soured as much as it did in US in the trail of tears.

I suspect you know Spanish, so, how about reading the article** "Encomienda" in the Spanish Wikipedia?

* I don't mean the intro, I mean lower down on this page:

Inter caetera by Pope Alexander VI (May 4, 1493)
https://encyclopediavirginia.org/primary-documents/inter-caetera-by-pope-alexander-vi-may-4-1493/

** Spanish, not English, wikipedia articles vary from language to language, and this subject highest quality would be in Spanish:

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encomienda

Babel's Confusion was Not a Curse

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Babel's Confusion was Not a Curse · Creation vs. Evolution: Three Questions on Quora

The Curse of the Charismatic 'Gift of Tongues,' the Tower of Babel and the New Mass
Mere Tradition with Kennedy Hall | 7 Aug 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7vg8ddWhiE

I checked St. Augustine.

Or started to. He did not state that the confusion of languages was a curse on mankind. Here are the words in Book 16, chapter 4, basically final sentence of the chapter:

But what was the nature of the punishment? As the tongue is the instrument of domination, in it pride was punished; so that man, who would not understand God when He issued His commands, should be misunderstood when he himself gave orders. Thus was that conspiracy disbanded, for each man retired from those he could not understand, and associated with those whose speech was intelligible; and the nations were divided according to their languages, and scattered over the earth as seemed good to God, who accomplished this in ways hidden from and incomprehensible to us.

So, a punishment on the bosses, the ringleaders, the commanders. But not a curse on each and all. I would say, it was a blessing for most.

[tried to add]

In chapter 6, book 16 finishes the discussion.

St. Augustine has so far not said, the confusion of languages was a curse.

[the comment had disappeared, I reposted and added in the repost]

In all of book 16, the syllable "curse" with or without an added -d occurs 12 times, and it's uniformly either about the curse of Canaan, which he considers a curse against Ham, or the curse against those who curse Abraham (and Christ).

[I then tried to add]

Book 18 has no mention even of Babel or Nimrod.

I checked Josephus too:

When God saw that they acted so madly, he did not resolve to destroy them utterly, since they were not grown wiser by the destruction of the former sinners; but he caused a tumult among them, by producing in them divers languages, and causing that, through the multitude of those languages, they should not be able to understand one another.

CHAPTER 4. Concerning The Tower Of Babylon, And The Confusion Of Tongues.
BOOK I. Containing The Interval Of Three Thousand Eight Hundred And Thirty-Three Years. — From The Creation To The Death Of Isaac.
Antiquities
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2848/2848-h/2848-h.htm#link2HCH0004

And, I did not just check with St. Augustine and Josephus but also with St. Thomas (or at least one Dominican close enough to him to have his work mistaken, but I think Postilla in Libros Geneseos is genuine), here we go:

Et dixit: ecce unus est populus et cetera. Hoc intellectualiter dixit Deus intra se et etiam ad Angelos suos. Notatur autem in his verbis caussa rationabilis et condigna perturbandi conatus et intentiones istorum. Erant enim sic affectuosi et irrevocabiliter intenti ad perficiendum opus incoeptum, et ad obtinendum id quod ex ipso opere finaliter intendebant, quod per fortes manus obstaculum a praedictis revocari non possent. Et quia ex unitate linguae et ex concordia voluntatum ad malum, robur vehemens assumebant, idcirco dixit Deus: ecce unus est populus et cetera. Et ex his subinfert poenam confusionis linguarum esse optimam ad turbandum eorum intentum et conatum. Et ad Angelos loquens subdit, venite igitur. Confusio enim linguarum potuit saltem quo ad aliquid fieri ministerio angelico. Vult autem Scriptura per hos vel consimiles modos loquendi ostendere quod Deus facit per Angelos ea quae per ipsos fieri possunt. Dicitur autem Deus hic descendere per efficaciam aut effectum potentiae suae in illa in quae agit. Loquitur autem sic ut sensibilius et terribilius hominibus ingerat Dei praesentiam et justitiam punitivam. Ut non audiat unusquisque, idest ut non intelligat, nec audiendo discernat. Vocem proximi sui, quicquid intendit significare per eam. Et idcirco vocatum est nomen ejus Babel, quia ibi confusum est et cetera. Babel enim interpretatur confusio. Divisio autem linguarum confusio linguarum dicitur, quia ex hoc lingua unius fiebat alteri confusa et inintelligibilis. Nota circa hoc, quod judicium est unum de universalibus judiciis Dei super genus humanum; et est tertium illorum universalium quae in super genus humanum; et est tertium illorum universalium quae in Scriptura sacra leguntur. Nam primum est inflictio mortalitatis. Secundum est diluvii exterminium. Nota, inquam, primo rectam correspondentiam ejus ad culpam pro qua est datum. Erat enim in illis perversa pax et unitas Deo valde contumeliosa, ipsisque damnosa, et electis onerosa et periculosa. Sicut enim nihil melius quam omnes insimul fortissime uniri in Deo et in omni bono: sic nihil pejus quam omnes fortissima conspiratione uniri ad malum. Sicut etiam Deo nihil magis honorificum quam quod omnia sibi soli ut summo capiti cohaereant et subjiciantur, nihilque aliud defendere aut magnificare appetant, nisi Dei imperium ac principatum. Et e contra nihil Deo contumeliosius ac intolerabilius, quam quod omnes Deo et ejus regno neglecto, aliquod caput et regnum sibi statuant toto posse. Erat ne [eratne!] ergo tolerandum quod homines paulo post tantum diluvium de novo propagati, unum vilem tyrannum, scilicet Nemroth, quasi unum caput omnium statuerent, et intra unam urbem, pro uno totius mundani regni capite conarentur quasi in aeternum fundare? Sicut autem superbis ad omnem machinationem semper intentis, magnitudo potestatis aderat valde nociva: sic quam plurimum expedit eis quod talis potestas aut omnino tollatur eisdem, aut saltem confringatur, et dividatur et impediatur. Scimus autem quod humanae dominationis potestas ex unica et concordi hominum multitudine consurgit et corroboratur; et ideo, quando superbe et pertinaciter conspirant ad malum, multum eis expedit quod dividantur. Sicut etiam electis plurimum prodest habere multos inductores et quasi compulsores ad bonum, sic eis est periculosissimum et multum onerosum, cum verbo et facto, doctrina et exemplo ab omnibus instigantur et compelluntur ad malum. Et sicut jucundum est electis potentiam et gloriam reproborum videre humiliatam et annullatam: sic valde est onerosum quando contrarium vident; et praecipue si in aeternum aut in tempus nimis longum semper excresceret aut perduraret. Quid autem aptius et pulchrius ad praedictorum impiam unitatem et potestatem dissecandam et confringendam, quam linguarum divisio et confusio? Per hanc enim fit ut ampliorem societatem homo habeat cum sua carne, quam cum hominibus, quorum linguae sunt sibi mutuo barbarae et ignotae. Per hanc etiam factum est ut his qui Deo non obediebant, et subditi non solum eis non obedirent, imo nec eorum monita vel praecepta intelligere possent. Praedicta autem non solum pro illo tempore docuerunt et profuerunt: sed etiam pro toto tempore quo superbia mundi regnat. Secundo nota ejus poenalitatem tam quoad malos, quam quoad bonos. Bonis enim est valde poenale quod non possunt communicare cum sanctis vel doctis universi orbis, saltem per literas et per scripta, nec docere se mutuo possunt, nec ad invicem consolari, nisi communicent in una aliqua lingua. Unde et ultra hoc est eis valde poenale, quod doctrinam salutarem fidei non possunt in omnes nationes cito disseminare, nec jam disseminatam, prout expedit, irrigare. Communiter autem quantum ad malos et bonos est valde poenosa res; quia ex diversitate linguarum oritur facilitas discordiarum atque bellorum, et difficultas stabilis nexus diversarum nationum in unum. Si autem quaeritur, quomodo a principio unus intellexit alium sine notitia linguae? Unde enim scivit quod per eamdem vocem intenderet significare illud quod ipse? Potest dici quod hoc, sicut et alia, factum est miraculose et forte etiam per quamdam rationalem conspirationem, per quam ex conformitate locutionis aliorum ejusque linguae ad suam, advertebat quod idipsum significare volebant. Si autem ultra quaeratur, an per hoc miraculum sit solum facta variatio in vi motiva linguae, aut etiam ultra hoc in imaginatione et intellectu? Dicendum quod in omnibus simul; quia ex habitibus illarum trium partium integratur una perfecta habituatio ad loquendum hanc vel illam linguam. Oportet enim quod sciat significata propria vocum illius linguae formandae et seriose connectendae. Tertio nota pro mysteriis, quod divisio linguarum moraliter designat divisionem et contrarietatem vitiorum et vitiosorum, qui quantumcumque videantur uniti, impossibile est quin concordialiter discordent, quia pravus alios non diligit nisi solum propter seipsum. Allegorice autem signant divisionem schismatum et haeresum, et culturam diversorum idolorum: in quibus unitas fidei in varias linguas errorum fuit multipliciter scissa. Sicut autem urbs et turris Babylonica significat omnes sedes superbiae, sic Nemroth omnia capita ejus: et secundum hoc potest multiplicare mysteria tam moralia quam allegorica juxta numerum et processum principalium sedium et capitum superborum.

Not once in this passage do I find any "maledictio" or "maledixit" or whatever.

[Adding a translation]

And he said: Behold, it is one people, and so on. This God said intellectually within Himself and also to His Angels. So, in these words the reasonable and worthy cause is noted for perturbing their attempts and their intentions. For they were so affectuous and irrevocably intent on fulfilling the begun work, and to obtain that which from the work itself they intended, that they could not have been revoked from foresaid things by strong hands (or by) an obstacle. And since they took their vehement strength from the unity of language and concord of wills into evil, for that God said: behold, it is one people and so on. And from these things He infers that the punishment of language confusion is the best to perturb their intent and attempt. And speaking to the Angels, he added Come ye, therefore. For the confusion of tongues could at least in respect to something be done by angelic ministry. So, the Scripture wants by these or similar modes of speech show that God does by Angels that which can be done by them. But God is here said to descend by the efficacy or effect of His power in that in which it acts. And it speaks this way in order to more sensually and more terribly for men insert God's presence and punitive justice. That each may not understand [Latin, literally may not hear], that is, that they may not understand or discern while hearing. one another's speech [Latin, literally voice], whatever he intend to signify by it. And therefore the name thereof was called Babel, because there was confounded and so on. Since Babel is translated as confusion. And the division of languages is called the confusion of languages, because from it the language of the one became confused and unintelligible for the other. Note about this, that the judgement is one of the universal judgements of God over mankind; and is the third of those universals which is over mankind; and is third of those universals which are read in sacred Scripture. Because the first is the infliction of mortality. The second is the extermination of the Flood. Note, I say, first the right correspondence of it to the guilt for which it was given. For there was in those a perverse peace and a unity very insulting to God, and damning on themselves, and burdening and dangerous on the elect. For as nothing is better than that all together be most strongly united in God and in all good: so nothing is worse than that all be united by a most strong conspiracy to evil. As also nothing is more honouring to God than that everything be subjected to Him only and cohere as with its supreme head, and want to defend or magnify nothing other than God's Empire and Principality. And on the other hand, nothing is more insulting and intolerable to God, than that all, neglecting God and His Kingdom, they statuate a head and the kingdom of it to be all powerful. Was it, then, to be tolerated that men, re-propagated shortly after such a great Flood should statuate one vile tyrant, namely Nimrod, as the sole head of all and within one city should try to found, for the head of a single world reign like into eternity? But as the magnitude of power, very harmful, was there for the haughty who were always intent to every machination, so, it is very much usefulf for them that such power either be taken totally from them, or at least broken, divided and impeded. So, we know that the power to dominate men both surges forth and is strengthened uniquely from a concordant multitude of people, and therefore, when they are haughtily and stubbornly conspiring to evil, it is very useful for them to be divided. Also, as for the elect it is highly useful to have many people induce and kind of force them to good, so it is for them very dangerous and highly burdensome when in word and deed, doctrine and example, by all they are instigated and forced to evil. And like it is delightful for the elect to see the power and glory of the reprobates humiliated and annulled, so it is very burdensome when they see the contrary; and especially if eternally or in too long time it always were to grow and perdure. But what is more apt or beautiful to cut asunder and break down the impious unity and power of the forementioned, than the division and confusion of tongues? For by this it happens that man have a more ample society with his flesh, than with men, whose languages are mutually uncouth and unknown. Also is thereby done so that those who were not obeying God, on the one hand their subjects not only were not obeying them, but also weren't able to even understand their admonitions or orders. These things were not only teaching and being useful for that time: but also for all or any time when the pride of the world be ruling. Second, note its punishment nature (penality) both as to the evil as to the good. For it is for the good highly a punishment that they cannot communicate with holy and learned of all the world, at least by letters and by writings, nor are they able to teach each other, nor to console each other, unless they communicate in some same language. Wherefore this is furthermore very penal for them, that they cannot quickly disseminate the salvific doctrine into all nations, nor once it has been sown, water as it is useful. But in common between bad and good it is a very penal thing; since from the diversity of languages there arises an ease of discords and of wars and difficulty for a stable tying of diverse nations into one. But if you ask, how from the beginning one was comprehending the other without language knowledge? For whence did he know that by the same word the other wanted to signify the same as he himself? It can be said that this, like other things, happened miraculously and perhaps also by some rational conspiracy, by which from the conformity of speech of the others and his own language to his, was hinting what that thing was intended to signify. But if you further ask, whether by this miracle there was only made a variation in the articulation, or also beyond this in imagination and intellect (as to language competence)? It must be said, in all of these at once; since from the habits of these three parts the perfect mastery of speeking this or that language is integrated. For one should know the signifieds proper of that language to be formed and seriously connected. Third, note for the mysteries, that the division of languages morally designates the division and contrariety of vices and of the vicious, who, howeversomuch they may be seen as united, it's impossible that they be not concordially discordant, since the wicked does not love other otherwise then for his own sake alone. But allegorically it signifies the division of schismas and heresies, and the worship of diverse idols: in which the unity of faith was in multiple ways torn into various languages of errors. So, as the city and the tower of Babylon signify all seats of pride, so also Nimrod all its heads; and, according to this, can multiply the mysteries both moral and allegorical according to the numbers and processes of the principal seats and heads of the haughty.

Two YEC Happy about Testable and Confirmed Predictions

In the video, it's Nathaniel Jeanson:

This REVOLUTIONARY New Research CONFIRMS the Bible
Zero Compromise | 10 Sept. 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkyLNXel7RE

In the comments, it's me:

3:10 sth ... testable predictions.

You might know, I believe the Neanderthals were a pre-Flood population. The Neanderthal genome we residually still have would have been on the Ark through a minority of the ancestry of Noah, his wife, his three daughters in law. Noah didn't have a Neanderthal father; the daughters in law didn't have Neanderthal mothers, so the Y-chromosome and mitochondriae of Neanderthals are no longer there.

You might also know, I consider it highly probable, that the year of the Flood is carbon dated to 39 000 BP or 37 000 BC.

How was this confirmed just a little while ago?

Well, a newly found* Neanderthal skeleton is:

• called "Thorin"
• called "the last Neanderthal"
• carbon dated to 42 000 BP (40 000 BC).

This means, up to this date, no pure Neanderthal individuals have been found that had a carbon date younger than 37 000 BC. You ask yourself how many Neanderthal individuals have been found, how many of them have been carbon dated and then how often my implied prediction has been confirmed.

* DNA of 'Thorin,' one of the last Neanderthals, finally sequenced, revealing inbreeding and 50,000 years of genetic isolation
By Kristina Killgrove published 2 days ago
https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/dna-of-thorin-one-of-the-last-neanderthals-finally-sequenced-revealing-inbreeding-and-50-000-years-of-genetic-isolation

Lord of the Rings: Motivations for Fandom

New blog on the kid: Tolkien's Politics · I Thought That Decree Was by Franco · Why I am Not Capitalist or for Unrestricted Free Market · Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Tolkien Supported Franco's Side in the 36—39 War · Prince Caspian · Lord of the Rings: Motivations for Fandom · Tolkienophobes, Buzz Off! · Tolkienophobe Identified? · J D Vance-Phobes? · Crooks' (or Yearick's?) Body Gone · Sharing On The Shooting

Question: How many times have you watched all three Lord of the Rings movies? What is the reason for watching them multiple times?
https://www.quora.com/How-many-times-have-you-watched-all-three-Lord-of-the-Rings-movies-What-is-the-reason-for-watching-them-multiple-times/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1

Hans-Georg Lundahl

avid reader back when I had better sleep than now

13.IX.2024

I’m a fan of the books, far less of the films.

I haven’t seen The Two Towers at all.
I have seen The Fellowship and The Return once each, in someone’s home (and I missed parts when going to the toilet) and then on cinema, when it was released in Sweden.

Now, what is the reason for reading the books multiple times?

As with the Seven Chronicles of Narnia, they (and prequels) basically embody my ideal of the literature called Fantasy. While I like Lloyd Alexander too, I have felt less urge to reread him.

To the question, more directly, beauty. Beauty of landscapes, of morals, of outcomes (unexpectedly good outcomes when hope seemed lost). The opposites, ugliness of each, is there too, as a contrast.

And wisdom. Someone else has quoted “He deserved death? I dare say he did. Many who are dead deserved to live, can you give them back their lives? If not, do not be eager to deal out death” …

Or “right and wrong are not one thing yesteryear and one this year, nor are they one thing among men and one among elves” … (or, from the same dialogue, the pointing out that real things, like earth, are the matter of legends, “legendary” doesn’t automatically mean fictional).

Or, with my hatred of certain modern crooks, the words of Gimli to Saruman “in Orthanc, help means ruin and friendship means slavery” … fancy words and ideologies of “care” don’t change the grim realities of certain interferences.

Moscow in Alexandria

Orthodox Bishops SILENT on Patriarch of Moscow's Power Grab
Reason & Theology | 11.IX.2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klSE-2A-kPI

["What does this sound like to you?" I answer]

2:15 I'm reminded of what Moscow is accusing Rome of when it comes to Uniates in Kiev.

Harris Spoke a Lie, Trump Spoke the Truth

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Harris Spoke a Lie, Trump Spoke the Truth · New blog on the kid: Correction Request Sent to ABC

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Three Takes on Morality · Pro-Death: Misreporting the Kate Cox Case and Misjudging the Ohio Girl of Ten Case · Harris Spoke a Lie, Trump Spoke the Truth · New blog on the kid: Best wishes for your recovery, Mr. Trump! · Yearick or Crooks?

Abortion & Infanticide LIES (Trump-Harris Debate REBUTTED)
The Counsel of Trent | 11.IX.2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgRDXfgfXus

4:45 The girl of twelve, even if raped by her stepfather, shouldn't abort, even by "day after pills".

However, the fact that she is very often banned from marrying, increases both the push for abortion, and the risk of getting abused.

9:54 "severe deformities"

Sounds like the pagan Greco-Roman view on infanticide.

Update:

I Fact-Checked Kamala Since ABC Wouldn’t
The Comments Section with Brett Cooper | 12 Sept. 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdeFZZg0spw

Censored Again

Woman Tells Patrick Why She REALLY Hates the Catholic Church
The Patrick Madrid Show on Relevant Radio | 30 July 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5ulZs7DJ-U

9:22 I have a similar experience with a priest, and of all a Jesuit priest.

And "that priest personified the Church" is not totally bad as theology.

My reaction has involved Mgr Lefebvre, and I am now into Pope Michael II.

Nothing further away from the Catholic Church than the Orthodox whom "John Paul II" and "Benedict XVI" considered "another lung the Church has to breath with" ...

You see, the priest, if he is in communion with a bishop who is in communion with the real Pope, has what is called "la grâce d'état" -- the grace of his state. God is in that case giving him the grace he needs to save souls. If such and such a father confessor had not been in a false church involved in modernism and therefore outside the Catholic Church, how do you explain the failure?

Note:

• I was willing to sacrifice far more back then to save my soul than I am now;
• even so, there were sacrifices I ultimately didn't want to make, but which have been foisted on me backhandedly afterwards, more specifically, I have never actually promised solemnly and eternally to be celibate, but been treated as if I were engaged for celibacy, as if any attempt on my part to marry were the equivalent of Luther breaking his and Catherine of Bora's vows;
• I realised back than I was not communicating my actual problem very well, but was pretty actively stopped by more than one priest from so communicating, to wit, they
  • a) refused to talk to me outside confession (apart from saying hello or speaking of non-personal things)
  • b) or turned my attempts to talk this through into "conversation with confession" thereby turning all they had heard from me into something to treat sub rosa.

Neither a) nor b) were this Jesuit, who had acted in a similar fashion, therefore starting my clumsy attempts to get God's forgiveness before getting to confession years later, which started my story as converting with "already a vocation" ...

All three, the Jesuit, the father confessor a, the father confessor b, were in communion with the (supposed) Bishop of Stockholm. Hubertus Brandenburg. A man in communion and good standing with "John Paul II" whom he called "my colleague in Rome" ...

A man I was visiting pretty often the last years before he died, was involved in ecumenic conversations with a Methodist pastor, whose son ceased to visit him, perhaps because he thought the man homosexual. More like his diet made him somewhat pansexual, he hated his gums, and could eat cheese very well without them, which is obviously not the best fasting food to avoid temptation with, I did not cease to visit him because of some a bit uncomfy vibes. He definitely never tried anything vicious with me. However, what was the Church doing for his soul? Well, he was left a bit too alone with this Methodist, started to accept some of the Protestant arguments, I tried to keep back against that ... but he asked, if I was right, why was he encouraged to talk with the Methodist? Well, perhaps Hubertus is a bit in cahoots with Protestantism. OK, but why doesn't the Pope fix that? OK, perhaps the Pope (as I still called him) etc ...

When years later I got out of Sweden, bishop after bishop in communion with "John Paul II" / "Benedict XVI" were continuing a horrible pastoral which had already been too much for me back in my country. I can see no other conclusion than that these people lacked and lack the grace of the state, and therefore either are not validly ordained, or not in communion with the true Pope.

dmm312

@dmm3124

I can understand priests not wanting to talk to just by reading your comment. You seem like someone who talks too much and cannot listen, and interrupting anyone who tries to talk to you.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@hglundahl

@dmm3124 In writing, I am perfectly capable of dividing someones words into fine slices and answer each without really interrupting him, since after each answer I offer the next slice of his words.

I don't know what you mean by "talking too much" whether you say that ub relation to monastic ideals or the task of a writer.

Face to face, I am more easy to interrupt than I have ease in interrupting.

Perhaps your conclusion is based on people having tried to "correct me" when they had in fact very little reason.

Also, I'm 56, and that priest would have been when I was much younger and proportionally shyer. I checked, it must have been when I was not yet eighteen.

[So, my reply was censored. I would say that the hatred or disgust is mutual. As you can see below, I wrote my answer 37 minutes after the other guy, and it was lacking 45 minutes after, as you can see above.]

Anthony Stine Has a Point About Poland. Someone Hasn't About Me.

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Anthony Stine Has a Point About Poland. Someone Hasn't About Me. · New blog on the kid: Russia Still Aborting Worse than the United States ?

Be Ready: Satan Is Coming For Poland
Return To Tradition | 9 Sept. 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QE0nQ6qqAA

[Below has been censored too, I checked, all comments chronological order, mine two were no longer visible.]

3:03 So far, Poland has been more moral than Russia, thanks to the ban.

I don't think Lech Kaczyński would have been willing to take that crap, but he died in 2010 under somewhat suspicious circumstances.

[later on]

"It is necessary to underline that the development of such medical guidelines ..."

They are NOT purely medical, but about the ethical limits on medical interventions.

"... should be left to scientific societies."

Not the least.

If Cryonics had happened to get wide support among doctors, obviously the scientific societies would abolish laws forbidden people to deepe freeze themselves before they die.

When scientists in the US, in Sweden, in Germany, thought the human race or national part thereof could be improved by preventing some from reproducing, the absolutely worst thing that any government did (and one that AH did) was to greenlight these guys.

In Germany you also had doctors saying some people are better off dead, and yes, AH greenlighted those scientists too.

Scientists are among the least fit to debate about the ethical limits that should be put to science or scientific practises.

It's a somewhat different case when it comes to saying "sorry, the cancer is still spreading after three chemotherapies, we cannot save your life anyway, so, try to live your last months as well as you can" ...

Chemotherapy is a pretty invasive treatment, not always successful in saving lives, and denying it in some circumstances cannot be seen as any kind of equivalent to murder.

Some Corrections About Medieval History

Medieval Historian Answers The Most Asked Questions About Medieval Life
History Hit | 19 Aug. 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5S5m_LpTS0

0:56 In the Middle Ages, children in cities were generally going to at least elementary school, since the literacy revolution in the 1200's.

Grammar schools are actually a step beyond that, it implies you were learning Latin, here is what wiki had to say:

Although the term scolae grammaticales was not widely used until the 14th century, the earliest such schools appeared from the sixth century, e.g. the King's School, Canterbury (founded 597), the King's School, Rochester (604) and St Peter's School, York (627)[1][2] The schools were attached to cathedrals and monasteries, teaching Latin – the language of the church – to future priests and monks.

Parts of the future clerics were certainly younger sons to richer parents. But parts were also people from poorer classes whom the already extant clergy considered fit.

Obviously, the nobility shared the education.

7:32 No, the hairline is further to the front.

Your arrow was where there was a limit between tightly held down hair and a big bulge of it all coming out ... (hairdressers will probably kill me if they read this comment, given my apparently unappreciative and certainly inaccurate terminology).

The big bulge is actually a head covering.

8:54 "If you could afford to waste cloth"

When pieces of cloth are sewn, some pieces that are left over are simply too small to use in sewing.

Dito when cloth gets worn.

Giving linen to paper mills or using left over cloth for sanitary purposes isn't really waste ... however, the man who could afford cloth in this situation was probably using cloth bought from several people ...

10:50 Poorly recorded ... not really. Both melodies and performance style are on the contrary very well recorded.

According to the reading of Farya Faraji, it was up to c. 1400 a bit closer to Near Eastern music than one might expect:

Bardcore & Neo-Medieval vs Actual Medieval Music
Farya Faraji | 28 June 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6_8ZEhmaGE

11:04 We have both liturgical and secular music written down.

You may have thought of Goliards:

The Goliards were itinerant poet-musicians of Europe from the tenth to the middle of the thirteenth century. Most were scholars or ecclesiastics, and they wrote and sang in Latin. Although many of the poems have survived, very little of the music has. They were possibly influential—even decisively so—on the troubadour-trouvère tradition which was to follow. Most of their poetry is secular and, while some of the songs celebrate religious ideals, others are frankly profane, dealing with drunkenness, debauchery and lechery. One of the most important extant sources of Goliards chansons is the Carmina Burana.

But compare the Trouvères:

The trouvères and troubadours shared similar musical styles, but the trouvères were generally noblemen.[52] The music of the trouvères was similar to that of the troubadours, but was able to survive into the thirteenth century unaffected by the Albigensian Crusade. Most of the more than two thousand surviving trouvère songs include music, and show a sophistication as great as that of the poetry it accompanies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_music
(my emphases in each quote)

13:41 Which capital was best, I would say Paris was lots better than London.

London had a few fires in Anglo-Saxon times and yet one in the time of John Lackland (who had permitted the reckless habit of building wooden shacks on London Bridge), and I think even one more before the turn of Modern Ages (when you have another fire in London in 1666).

Paris had no city fires in the Middle Ages. Toulouse had one, very late, houses were lost but lives weren't.

Grenfell Tower is also London, not Paris.

Un incendie dans un immeuble d'habitation a fait sept morts dans la nuit du mercredi 17 au jeudi 18 juillet 2024 à Nice (Alpes-Maritimes), ont annoncé les pompiers de la ville. C'est le plus grave incendie en France depuis celui du 9 août 2023 dans un gîte près de Colmar (Haut-Rhin), qui avait fait onze morts.

Grenfell, I think it was 77 ...

16:22 "but for a time, the Anglo-Saxons were Pagans before they were re-christianised"

You mean before England was rechristianised?

The Anglo-Saxons were Pagans when they arrived.

Possibly Mercia had a Pagan revival under Penda, but that was possible because they hadn't been thoroughly Christianised that far West yet.

Despite these apparent instances of warfare, relations between Penda and Oswiu were probably not entirely hostile during this period, since Penda's daughter Cyneburh married Alhfrith, Oswiu's son and Penda's son Peada married Alhflaed, Oswiu's daughter. According to Bede, who dates the events to 653, the latter marriage was made contingent upon the baptism and conversion to Christianity of Peada; Peada accepted this, and the preaching of Christianity began among the Middle Angles, whom he ruled. Bede wrote that Penda tolerated the preaching of Christianity in Mercia itself, despite his own beliefs:

Nor did King Penda obstruct the preaching of the word among his people, the Mercians, if any were willing to hear it; but, on the contrary, he hated and despised those whom he perceived not to perform the works of faith, when they had once received the faith, saying, "They were contemptible and wretched who did not obey their God, in whom they believed." This was begun two years before the death of King Penda.[62]

So, Mercian Anglo-Saxons only began to be Christianised in the time of Penda. You could of course argue they descended largely from Celts who had been Christians in Subroman times, before the Anglo-Saxons.

Penda was the last great pagan warrior-king among the Anglo-Saxons. Higham wrote that "his destruction sounded the death-knell of English paganism as a political ideology and public religion."

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

He died in 655. The reference to Higham goes:

Higham, The Convert Kings, pp. 218–219.9 Higham accepts that Penda acknowledged Oswald's supremacy, but points to what he calls "the apparent failure of Bernician Christianity to penetrate the central Midlands" as evidence against assuming a great deal of authority exercised by Oswald over the Mercians during this period.

19:08 Not just monks, but also people going to Mass (the bells would tell) or academic lectures (the bells would tell c. a quarter of an hour in advance).

Mechanic clocks are a late Medieval invention.

In 1283, a large clock was installed at Dunstable Priory in Bedfordshire in southern England; its location above the rood screen suggests that it was not a water clock.[36] In 1292, Canterbury Cathedral installed a 'great horloge'. Over the next 30 years, there were mentions of clocks at a number of ecclesiastical institutions in England, Italy, and France. In 1322, a new clock was installed in Norwich, an expensive replacement for an earlier clock installed in 1273. This had a large (2 metre) astronomical dial with automata and bells. The costs of the installation included the full-time employment of two clockkeepers for two years.[36]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clock#Fully_mechanical

1283? Sorry, High Medieval. But I think the oldest survivng one is in Prague, and that one is Late MedievaL

Sorry again, Salisbury Cathedral:

The Salisbury Cathedral clock, built in 1386, is considered to be the world's oldest surviving mechanical clock that strikes the hours. [see above]

Prague is only third oldest, and it's the town hall, not the cathedral:

The clock was first installed in 1410, making it the third-oldest astronomical clock in the world and the oldest clock still in operation.

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

22:26 Statistics on childbirth, check wikipedian entries for royalties.

I did find a few queens of France and related who died after their first or second child had been born or after a stillbirth. Not many, but even so.

A factor making it I think overall less risky was marrying earlier.

When a woman has her first child at 30, she depends a lot on modern hospitals. Maria Theresia was married at 18 going on 19, had her first child next year and went on to have a total of 16 children, of whom 10 survived her.

Another Holy Roman Empress, Mary of Spain, married just after her twentieth birthday, had her first child next year, had a total of ... also 16 children. The last daughter was born 1568 and she herself died 1603, 23 years after this daughter.

The wife of Lewis the Bavarian, also a Roman Emperor, married at 13 to 16 depending on the date of her birth, and had her first child next year, a total of ten children.

29:42 I wouldn't call an amount of wine obscene, unless it's at the consumption end in relation to too few persons.

Remember that monasteries sold wine and still do.

In Scotland or Scandinavia, you couldn't grow wine.

For Mass, you had to import it. Wine was (among other reasons for this one) one of the things that the Middle Ages actually did mass produce.

The infamous monk who's sipping the wine may simply have been doing his normal job of quality testing.

Or he may also have been a person who was portrayed as "an exemple not to follow" ...

Forbidden to Say I Refuse to Deconstruct, Refuse LGBTQ?

@AllieBethStuckey
The truth about deconstruction
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/_J5BlbW7t3s

I'm so thankful I'm not even tempted to change my views on sexual morality.

Act contrary to them (though heterosexually!) yes, I would sometimes be tempted. But change them? Nope and noper!

[saw it was deleted, when I tried to add]

If anyone claims I'm "deconstructing" it's their (probably very interested) analysis, not my actual words.