Are National Geographic conspiring with de Grasse Tyson and NASA to not mention Geocentrics?

... on Geocentrism and Heliocentrism · ... against Another Attempt to Make History of Astronomy Proof for "Heliocentrism" of Some Sort (Beyond Tychonic) · Are National Geographic conspiring with de Grasse Tyson and NASA to not mention Geocentrics?

Flat Earth vs. Round Earth | Explorer
National Geographic | 16.I.2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06bvdFK3vVU

I

OK, you go from Flat Earthers to James Bullock, conveniently skipping Geocentrics who believe the Earth is a globe ... or is that for another programme?

(And that the Universe was created some few thousand years ago, less than 10 000)

II

• 1) Neat work with stripes.
• 2) "back into the Dark Ages" - exactly what "Dark Ages"? How about NG and the journalist getting a clue on history?
• 3) "you're essentially perpetuating ignorance" - ignorance is perpetual, omniscience is not on the human palette in human history ever up to Doomsday.
• 4) "by denying science" - making other "science deniers" equivalents of flat earthers.

There is no neat proof like the stripes against Geocentrism (unless you constrain the concept artificially to span only Ptolemaic), and there is no neat proof like the stripes for Evolution (in the larger sense when beings evolve eyes from not having eyes, often considered as a follow up on abiogenesis, which can fairly neatly be disproven scientifically).

I think the danger is people thinking thought is dangerous "for all of us".

I think the danger is seeing science as a sort of salvation, and "science history" as an absolute key to science.

III

I noted "neil tyson debunks geocentrism" gives a lot of hits of him debunking flat earth, but none specifically on geocentrism as such.

I noted another search (on youtube) "national geographic geocentrism" gave nothing specifically on geocentrism either.

So NG and NdGT are countering flat earth and not countering geocentrism.

And "NASA geocentrism" gave some geocentrics debunking NASA (some of whom flat earth) but no NASA debunking geocentrism.

I think I did see parodic ones from NASA on flat earth though.

NG, NdGT and NASA are big players in popularising science, so, why are all three targetting flat earth and ignoring geocentrism?

Unlike Eratosthenes' and Magellan's arguments for a Round Earth, unlike even Galileo's (bad) arguments against Geocentrism, this looks a bit like a modern conspiracy.

... against Another Attempt to Make History of Astronomy Proof for "Heliocentrism" of Some Sort (Beyond Tychonic)

... on Geocentrism and Heliocentrism · ... against Another Attempt to Make History of Astronomy Proof for "Heliocentrism" of Some Sort (Beyond Tychonic) · Are National Geographic conspiring with de Grasse Tyson and NASA to not mention Geocentrics?

How We Figured Out That Earth Goes Around the Sun
SciShow Space | 20.X.2015
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khIzr6610cQ

I

Pretty accurate sum of Geocentrism, up to here:

0:52 "orbitted in perfect circles"

Inessential to geocentrism per se, plus approximate truth about daily rotation.

While the concrete path of Sun around Earth is a spiral where each day get it further out or further in, further south or further north, or turning at exteremes, this is largely marginal to the movement the sun is making along with the sky around earth each day.

II

1:31 Muslim scholars were more probably Tychonian than Heliocentric.

So, they too were not questioning Geocentrism per se, but more like the exact Ptolemaic model.

As to "messy" diagrams, the "mess" is called a spirograph pattern, after a certain toy, and more technically by geometers as hypotrochoids and epitrochoids.

III

2:31 "it was just as bad as the geocentric model for predicting how the planets would move."

Thanks for admitting that.

I had a somewhat different picture, unless you add "overall".

Copernicus did make more accurate predictions than Ptolemy. But after that Geocentric Tycho Brahe made more accurate ones than Copernicus. And after that, Kepler made even more accurate ones. And he was Heliocentric, so different systems had nothing to do with it except marginally.

IV

2:39 - 2:41 "and if he assumed they were ellipses, the math fit the motion of the planets, Sun, and Moon a lot better using the Heliocentric model."

Than with ellipses using the Tychonian, no.

Than with Tychonian using perfect circles, but also than with Copernican using perfect circles. Yes.

You see, Riccioli built further on Kepler and introduced ellipses into an otherwise Tychonian system. He didn't get worse off than Kepler in maths, arguably.

V

3:01 In Tychonian terms also everything in the sky is not directly orbitting Earth. Only three things are, at different speeds : fix stars at 23 h 55 min per circle, Sun at 24 h per round, Moon at 24 h 50 or 24 h 55 min per round.

All other bodies circle the Sun - and for Riccioli you just add that Io, Ganymede and so on circle Jupiter. He wrote this after the two Galileo processes.

VI

3:18 How would a Geocentric model predict Venus being different distances from Earth at different fulls, or different phases at same distance?

If you mean a purely Ptolemaic one, probably so.

But a purely Ptolemaic one can be refuted by the fact that Venus sometimes passes in front of Sun, sometimes goes behind it.

You have three options from Venus observation.

• 1) Heliocentrism (either universally or locally for solar system)
• 2) Tychonian model
• 3) a model called "Egyptian model" in which Sun, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, precisely as Moon and Fix stars go around Earth, but Venus and Mercury go in a secondary orbit around the Sun.

You do not need to pick Heliocentrism from this one.

VII

3:57 In the Newtonian model, which cannot be proven by observations, how would centre of mass not be moving as planets move and how would that not disrupt orbits?

A bit before, the Church banned Heliocentrism even as a mathematical model up to 1758 - change due to "aberration" seeming to fulfil Galileo's prophecy on sooner or later finding "parallax", but even then you could not say Heliocentrism was physically true, you needed to say it was mathematically helpful in constructing a more complex Geocentric (Tychonian type Geocentric) reality. Which arguably it is.

VIII

4:10 "But one thing that we know one hundred percent for sure is that the geocentric model is wrong."

Depending on which one either "no you don't" or "that's a geocentric model, not the geocentric model".

IX

4:14 "We've sent telescopes, probes and people up there and seen it for ourselves."

Most of us have seen from here for ourselves Geocentrism is right, if you meant visual observation from how the Earth looks from the Moon. The relativism of observation doesn't suddenly become absolute framework just because you shift the angle to an abnormal one.

If you meant geometric matchup of probes, for one there is a possibility they could be frauds, not saying as if factual that they are so, and if not, the matchup would work also in a Tychonian universe.

At the very least if the Sun has a gravitational field capable of messing with the orbit of a probe. Not sure even that is necessary.

Suspecting Soviet Imperialism ...

Why Isn’t Intelligent Design Science?
Tomorrow's World Viewpoint | 3.V.2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyI04QpdF4g

4:59 In a sociological sense, I find this ideological bigotry very scientific ... that is, very typical of today's scientific community.

I don't find it a very philosophical criterium for excluding ID, though.

But along with the "why" comes a "when"?

To Newton and to Riccioli alike, ascribing actions to God (and angels, in Riccioli's case) was clearly not unscientific.

Newton was asked what would happen if the gravitations of orbits came in an imbalance and answered God would set them on balance again.

To Riccioli, angels moving (under God's orders) celestial bodies through the void was the celestial mechanics he found astronomically correct (while admitting he could not empirically exclude 1) God doing it Himself, 2) God creating them with automatic tendencies, like Kepler's magnetism, by extension Newton's gravitation, 3) celestial bodies being alive and moving).

Yet no one doubts Newton was a great physicist and Riccioli a great astronomer.

So, this rule "no supernatural causation allowed" is as absent from them as the offside rule to Medieval football.

B U T with the offside rule, we have public acts by football associations and similar stating when they introduced it.

"Offside is one of the laws of association football, codified in Law 11 of the Laws of the Game."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offside_(association_football)

Now, "The extant Laws date back to 1863 where a ruleset was formally adopted by the newly formed Football Association." and "Some notable differences between the 1863 laws and the modern game are listed below: ... There was a strict offside rule, under which any player ahead of the kicker was in an offside position (similar to today's offside rule in rugby union). The only exception was when the ball was kicked from behind the goal line."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_the_Game_(association_football)

In other words, we can date the offside rule (in a stricter form than today) to the 1863 Laws of the Game by the then Football Association.

Would anyone mind trying to trace "no supernatural causation allowed" to when that became the rule of any scientific institution at all, and if so, which one?

I have a suspicion we are dealing with some kind of Sovietic imperialism within the scientific community (similarily the inadequate Miller Urey experiments are in response to an even less adequate theory by the Soviet scientist Oparin).

... on Baptist Version of Church History, Some Agreements and More Disagreements

The History of Baptists
File001 | 27.II.2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xQFHBJ-R5s

The History Sermon was by one Pastor Roger Jimenez from Verity Baptist Church, Sacramento, California. Here are my answers:

I

3:37 For the years 30 AD to 64 AD we agree on the external fates of the Church Our Lord started.

We are however in disagreement of its present day identity, you say Baptist, I say Catholic.

I'd disagree on completion of NT.

St John's Apocalyse, Patmos under Domitian, 20 years later. St John's Gospel, after Patmos, even later.

Perhaps St John's Epistles are also post-Temple.

And obviously, we are speaking of single books making up the canon, not of the canon.

5:28 While Christ predicted it, the Church in AD 70 knew the prediction was fulfilled, and needed no extra writing of a canonic book to write that down.

II

"I wonder that you are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ, unto another gospel."
[Galatians 1:6]

• 1) they were called into the grace of Christ.
• 2) they were removed, unto another Gospel

Thanks for a verse that very clearly refutes OSAS, these Galatians needed to get grace back, needed to get their salvation back.

III

8:02 "the Jews basically quit persecuting believers"

Not true, Jews had a role in Diocletian's time too.

"a new persecution which came from the Roman Empire"

Sts Peter and Paul were already killed under Nero - bc of the half Jewish Poppaea asking him to blame fire of Rome on Christians rather than on Jews.

So, Roman persecution was neither completely new, nor completely divorced from the Jewish one.

OK, 64 AD would indeed be the date for when Nero started persecuting.

And I agree on dates 64 - 313. Into 313, but peace coming that year, after Ponte Milvio battle.

IV

9:58 Here our major divergence on history starts.

Vision before Ponte Milvio, I think it came from God.

"and he didn't, but he said he did"

How would you prove him ... insincere?

He did some evil things in the family, like executing his wife? Perhaps there was a seemingly good accusation against her. And perhaps it was a sin on his part, but he can have recovered. St Paul was hoping Galatians recover after turning to "another Gospel" which is a very damning thing, right?

V

10:33 "and he held a council in which he invited believers to meet with him, because he wanted to create a state church"

Not quite the case no.

By 325, the Church was already privileged. The council was held to get peace back into the Church after a quarrel.

The council also seems to have been a confrontation between two parties only : Arians and Orthodoxy.

No "independents" who "didn't want to join a state church".

Nothing in the invitation or proceedings witness of any ambition of "creating" a Church.

It was already there, and the Council was there to pronounce on what it was already teaching. Whether Arius or Athanasius had better doctrinal roots in Bible and in previous centuries of Church history.

"no, you can't legislate Christianity"

The sentiment is not in the Bible.

"and they're against the government being in control of the Church"

That party cannot be documented from Church history, in 325. Constantine was not pushing control so as to attack a teaching of the Church (unlike Henry VIII with papal supremacy) he was just allowing government protection of the Church's own proceedings in sorting things out.

11:00 "so guess what? these people didn't show up to that meeting"

How do you document a party that neither shows up at Nicaea nor anywhere else?

"but guess who did? a bunch of false doctrine, a bunch of false Gospels, a bunch of false Scriptures"

Guess what I believe on this?

You have not done your homework with historic sources, unlike the then still Anglican John Henry Newman, who wrote an excellent "History of the Arians of the IV Century".

The one false doctrine showing up is Arius. He does not support his false doctrine on false Gospels or false Scriptures, but on false exegesis.

11:18 "this meeting basically created the first universal Church in history"

No, you have Universal Church in Gospels and in Acts.

11:51 Several mistakes on your facts. I am not citing it all. I'll give the correct ones:

• 1) Rome did not rule literally all the world
• 2) Churches outside Roman Empire as in Armenia and Ethiopia also acknowledged Nicaea
• 3) The Latin for universal is universal, the Greek for universal is Catholic
• 4) Rome spoke both Latin and Greek
• 5) "Catholic Church" is recorded from the Church persecuted by Roman Paganism.

St Irenaeus of Lyons and St Ignatius of Antioch both were considering themselves as Catholic, by that very name, both showed a special respect for the Church of Rome and both died martyrs under Roman Empire officials.

VI

Starting a bit before 12:08 "bunch of false doctrines" ...

Salvation by works ... Epistle of James and Our Lord Himself:

"And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on his left."
[Matthew 25:33]

Salvation by baptism ... John 3:5.

"they teach that Jesus is not the head of the Church, the Pope is"

This is simply a lie.

We teach that Jesus is the head in Heaven and invisibly on earth, Pope is the visible head on earth, as His vicar.

"there is no Biblical authority, their authority comes from the Pope and traditions"

Lie again, the two sources of the Deposit of Faith are Bible and Tradition, and Pope is only there to voice this.

VII

12:32 "during* 1517 AD"

Know what, this is 1200 years after Pont Milvio and some more ...

Where were on your view the true believers in the meantime?

Ah, I suppose you might be coming to that, since you draw "Protestant Reformation" as a separate line from both Catholic and "original Christians".

* It's actually "in 1517", but the pastor is a Hispanic.

VIII

14:13 "during this time which was known in history as the Dark Ages, the Catholic Church persecuted Christians"

I have heard that before .... where is the beef in your version of this lie?

First a technicality, when you say "time which was known in history as the Dark Ages" you are basically pretending the designation is as uncontroversial as ... Middle Kingdom in Pharaonic Egypt. If you want actually uncontroversial designations of the time, agreed by all or most historians, there is still about a century and a half of Late Antiquity in 325 and after 476 you get Middle Ages.

And you can get several selections of its centuries labelled as "Dark Ages" for several different reasons.

• 1) 9th C was the "dark century" for papacy (why? bc popes were more immoral than ever before or after).
• 2) Latin writers after Church Fathers Saints Augustine and Jerome and up to when Petrarca discovered Cicero were called "dark centuries" or "dark ages" bc they wrote Latin "badly" (as he thought).
• 3) Belloc considers 476 to 1066 as Dark Ages from a military point of view : the West was suffering losses to diverse Germanic peoples ranging from Goths to Vikings and the East was suffering first losses to Muslim expansion.

15:03 "they believed .... that the Bible was their authority and that therefore no Pope or government should be their authority"

This one seems to be a rip off from Luther, projected backwards.

Albigensians, whom I imagine you would consider as one of the names, had a governement of bishops and councils and did not have all of your 66 books, they ditched all of the OT.

"they believed in the autonomy of the local Church"

Cannot be documented and for several of the "names" you consider "persecuting Catholics gave Christians" the opposite can be documented.

Donatists showed up to a council in Carthage to try to have the central Church authority in what is now Tunisia for them, and Albigensians were already mentioned.

Also, it is a rip off from ... Calvin. Again, projected backwards.

15:15 "they believed in the priesthood of the believer" 15:18 "[that the] Bible says there was one mediator between God and men"

If taken against special priesthood, again, a rip off from Luther, projected backward. Donatists started out with a hierarchy, and Albigensians made sure to get one too.

15:25 "that I could have access to God on my own"

Albigensians by contrast believed that the Perfecti were giving sacraments on from Apostolic ages - a fraud, certainly, but they did not admit to providing no sacramental link to Apostles.

16:00 "they believed in soul winning, they were evangelistic"

How come if so, that the soul winners recorded in fairly well documented history were Catholics?

St Francis, Catholic, St Dominic, Catholic, St Thomas Aquinas, Catholic, these also believed in inspiration and preservation of Scripture and had more to say on them than any recorded word of any Albigensians or Donatist.

IX

17:32 "fifty million believers were by you ever heard of Bloody Mary"

It so happens, a few hundred, and these Protestants, not Baptists, do not equal 50 000 000 Baptists.

History records Mary Tudor, a k a "Bloody Mary" by her adversaries, had a few hundred Protestants executed.

ALSO this is after Luther, so now you are already opting out of detailing what happened during the so called Dark Ages.

It seems, Mary Tudor is not exactly singled out when it comes to persecuting Anabaptists:

"Roman Catholics and Protestants alike persecuted the Anabaptists, resorting to torture and execution in attempts to curb the growth of the movement. The Protestants under Zwingli were the first to persecute the Anabaptists, with Felix Manz becoming the first martyr in 1527. On May 20 or 21, 1527, Roman Catholic authorities executed Michael Sattler.[43] King Ferdinand declared drowning (called the third baptism) "the best antidote to Anabaptism". The Tudor regime, even the Protestant monarchs (Edward VI of England and Elizabeth I of England), persecuted Anabaptists as they were deemed too radical and therefore a danger to religious stability. The persecution of Anabaptists was condoned by ancient laws of Theodosius I and Justinian I that were passed against the Donatists, which decreed the death penalty for any who practised rebaptism. Martyrs Mirror, by Thieleman J. van Braght, describes the persecution and execution of thousands of Anabaptists in various parts of Europe between 1525 and 1660."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anabaptism#Persecutions_and_migrations

X

18:49 "in fact, they rejected it back when Constantine the Great ..."

What were the guys called in the time of Constantine the Great ...?

19:35 You are very right that whether you are saved or not - that is not how you expressed it - what you take as salvation would eventually lead you to Apostles.

BUT indirectly, through the Catholic Church which is the real Apostolic Church.

19:49 "there's always been a group of people that believed in"

Catholic doctrines.

Preservation of Scripture is one of them, Salvation before Baptism is not.

XI

20:48 Is the sermon taking over from the history lesson?

If so, you have shown an outline of Church history which is wrong as an outline on top of being wrong in many details.

21:24 And no, the Antichrist is not going to be a faithful Catholic.

He is not going to be in continuity with the Church that Constantine legalised before Roman authorities after Christ founded it.

XII

23:09 "[not all Churches are created equal and there are Biblical doctrines, Biblical] characteristics, that make us a Biblical Church"

I definitely agree not all Churches are equal. There are Biblical doctrines and characteristics that make Catholic Church THE Biblical Church.

The four most common ones to be cited are:

1) one, 2) holy, 3) catholic, and 4) apostolic

As to the first, the Church is one both to its government and to its doctrine. Song of Songs says "one is my dove" and Christ founded one Church with one doctrine, not several with differences of opinion.

As to the second, the Church is not holy in all its members (remember Judas Ischariot who was part of the disciples) but in many, and its doctrine promotes holiness (like exclusion of divorce and remarriage).

It is catholic or universal:

• a) in time, all centuries (Baptist historians make same claim for their community, but for Late Antiquity and Middle Ages, which they prefer calling "Dark Ages", they cannot point to any one group with a single coherent name, and what's worse, when different names are cited, some of them turn out to be not really Christian, like 5th C Donatists or like Albigensians, and also not really Baptist : this pastor refrained from citing them, and worst of all, they cannot point to Churches refusing to get to Nicaea);
• b) in geography, all nations
• c) in society, all dignities and modesties of position, men and women, free and servant, rich and poor, high and low (there is an upcoming parody of this, but for the longer period, this belongs to the real Church of Christ, the Catholic Church)
• d) all degrees of the Church, lay and cleric, and all degrees of clergy, but also all degrees of holiness, what is referred to as thirty-fold, sixty-fold and hundred-fold fruit : marriage, widowhood, virginity.

It is Apostolic in showing forth unbroken continuity since Apostles (the Baptist Historian is as bad at documenting a break at Nicaea starting it as at documenting a parallel Church refusing to come, except Donatists, already condemned before the Council, in 313 or 314, by Pope Miltiades).

It is also Apostolic in hierarchy, claiming succession from Apostles in the sacrament of orders (and actually having it, unlike Anglicans and Swedish Lutherans).

It is Apostolic in doctrine, I could cite completeness of truth in catholicity, but also I can cite it here : a Church believing only part of what the Apostles believed would not be a Church that was really Apostolic in doctrine, since it would be Antiapostolic in some doctrines. This means believing all of the Bible (73 books at least) and all of the things the Church Fathers agreed on. Unlike the morality of its diverse persons, including clergy, unapostolic doctrine not just marginally tolerated but actually condemning the apostolic one, would be an "imperfection" that the Church absolutely cannot have.

Why is oneness Biblical? Already dealt with.

Why is all centuries, all lands and all societal positions Biblical? Matthew 28. Why is Apostolicity Biblical? See acts.

Why is it Biblical that the Church must both be Holy and be able to include people who are not Holy?

The promise of miracles "these signs shall follow you" can only pertain to a Holy Church and usually only to Holy People (some are given miracles bc of what they preach too, like Jonah).

But Christ elected Judas as one of the main twelve disciples, one of his highest clergy, and St Peter told Ananias and Sapphira they would have been free to pursue a less holy course than the one they fraudlently pretended to pursue.

Oh, one more, oneness in discipline, I should have added that Acts 15 shows that Jerusalem was a central authority in the first decades, and obviously, Rome claims to have taken over this role, since St Peter who had been in Jerusalem from the first went to and died in Rome.

Acts 15 shows "autonomy of local Church" is a lie. Unbiblical.

Bibliographic Appendix:

If you want to buy the work and turn the pages:

Amazon : The Arians of the Fourth Century
by John Henry Newman (Author)
https://www.amazon.com/Arians-Fourth-Century-Henry-Newman/dp/1230240667

If you want to read online for free:

Newman Reader : Arians of the Fourth Century
John Henry Newman
http://www.newmanreader.org/works/arians/index.html

It is correct that "Cardinal" is omitted from author name, since he wrote this while still an Anglican, a Puseyite parish "priest" at I presume Littlemore. It was partly his research into this historic matter which prompted his later conversion to Catholicism.

... against Two Videos by Alltime Conspiracies

It can be noted, first version of the article involved a postID with three consecutive sixes. Hence I made a new version.

How Dangerous Is The Vatican?
Alltime Conspiracies | 12.VII.2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfvtpSSVRsY

I

The assets of 8 billion dollars of the Vatican are peanuts to those of US : In fiscal year 2015, the federal budget is $3.8 trillion. These trillions of dollars make up about 21 percent of the U.S. economy (as measured by Gross Domestic Product, or GDP). It's also about $12,000 for every woman, man and child in the United States.

https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-budget-101/spending/

Considering what Sabina Guzzanti said, I would not have minded seeing her in prison.

In Italian law, insulting the Pope can give 5 years of prison.

II

As Crimen Sollicitationis was mentioned, it is a document by Antipope Roncalli:

"The 1962 document, approved by Pope John XXIII and signed by Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, Secretary of the Holy Office, was addressed to "all Patriarchs, Archbishops, Bishops and other Local Ordinaries, including those of Eastern Rite". It gave specific instructions on how to carry out the rules in the Code of Canon Law:[5] on dealing with such cases, and directed that the same procedures be used when dealing with denunciations of homosexual, paedophile or zoophile behaviour by clerics. Dioceses were to use the instruction for their own guidance and keep it in their archives for confidential documents;[6] they were not to publish the instruction nor produce commentaries on it.[7]"

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

This does not correspond to historic dealing with such cases, where since 1568 De horrendo scelere stated that a priest doing any homosexual act was to be defrocked.

Now, the defrocking was at least indirectly a hint that person might have committed such a crime, while other offenses could also lead to defrocking (notably doctrinal ones).

III

Apart from the fact that the Vatican is now occupied by Antipopes, I don't see any subtle "danger" ... except of the Antipopes NOT speaking up where reals Popes precisely should speak up.

Not having anti-Christian divorce laws is definitely not sth which is dangerous to a country, on the contrary.

The Jesus Conspiracy
Alltime Conspiracies | 31.V.2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ELuWaBamwk

I

"In 1999 Dorothy Murdock" (a k a Acharya Sanning, she was adept of some type of Hinduism) "argued that Jesus never existed. She and authors like Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy say the story is similar to older myths in Roman, Greek, Egyptian and other cultures."

For some reason Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy have no wiki articles, Peter none at all and Timothy redirects to the book. In other words, very difficult to verify qualifications and biasses outside that book.

However, here is the result of a google search, where google books reveals another of his works, "Soul Story":

"Tim Freke is an internationally respected authority on world spirituality and the bestselling author of more than 20 books, which have been translated into 15 languages. He is pioneering a new philosophy of awakening that has touched the lives of hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. He presents life-changing events internationally and online. He has often been featured in the international media including the BBC and The History Channel."

In other words, we are dealing with a New Age quack. The full title of this other book is "Soul Story: Evolution and the Purpose of Life" - which says sth about his bias.

And the resumé so far should make us wary of BBC and of The History Channel.

Here is in fact a little resumé from his own site:

philosopher deep awake guide vision and mission gnostic scholar newsletter		media emergent spirituality the deep awake life meditations gnosticism video testimonials
Books emergent spirituality the deep awake life gnostic christianity world spirituality		Events transformational talks the deep awakening retreat the deep awake training meditation massage training
ideas 21st century spirituality the deep awake state paralogical thinking soul-to-soul meditations emergent spirituality		Connect newsletter ONLINE WORLD TOUR forum deep awake advocates deep awake angels privacy policy

https://www.timfreke.com/

In other words, the man very definitely has an agenda, and not the historically best respected one here in the West.

"Jesus is just another folk hero" (or so these guys and gal said - Acharya has died since ...)

Doesn't argue lack of historicity.

II

"Professor George Wells observed"

You forgot to mention what he was professor in, German.

He was not a professor in history or even NT scholarship.

"that the New Testament gospels were written decades after Jesus' lifetime by people who, as far as we can prove, did not know him."

The last sentence is ambiguous, it could mean "we cannot prove they did know him" and it can mean "we can prove they didn't know him".

Either way, for two of them, the record of the Church in attributing authorship is proof at least presumptive that two of the Gospels were written by people who did know him (whether John was the Son of Zebedee or another John, St Irenaeus can have mixed up two people, he was the beloved disciple, as for Matthew no doubt he was the tax collector of Levite extraction). Two others (Luke and Mark) in diverse ways had access to people who did know Him.

III

"Christopher Hitchens noted that there is no Roman record of Jesus' crucifixion"

Of course there is, the four Gospellers are Romans, lived in Roman Empire!

They are the only Roman historians that survive between end of Velleius Paterculus' history and beginning of Agricola by Tacitus.

"and the Roman census that brought Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem never took place."

Christopher Hitchens seems to imagine 1st C AD Roman Empire is as well documented as 19th C. and if a thing happened, ample documentation would survive to us, like for ... assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

This is not so.

IV

"The Bible alone cannot prove Jesus' existence, because it is a theological text. The Bible's account needs to be corroborated by other, independent sources."

Brazen and unusually clear expression of a certain incompetence in history.

A text being theological doesn't mean it is fabulous.

Even a text being theological in a fabulous theology doesn't mean the text is fabulous as to the events supposed to take place on earth before human eyewitness.

Frauds can contain fables, but a text being theological doesn't make it any likelier than a text being political or satiric that events in it are fabulous because the text is fraudulent.

I have dealt with people who say historical texts need to be corroborated by other historic texts, independent of ideological context of first text. If that were so, there are a lot of purely secular history we would not have access to, since either it is known from one text, or from more than one, but the authors are dependent on same context.

Here it is expressed clearer than usual, insofar as the reason for the supposed need of "independent confirmation" lies in the fact that the text is theological.

Sure, it is, but theological does not mean ahistorical, if anything, with a theology like Christianity or even Judaism, it means the reverse. For each text, you can discuss likelihood of a fraud being perpetrated which, considering the Apostles died as martyrs is extremely low, unless they were victims rather than perpetrators of fraud, which is also extreme low probability since they were the leaders just after Jesus died and resurrected.

Here a very antitheological bias has been expressed in a very clear and brazen way.

V

"But in the 1840's, philosopher Bruno Bauer said, there are no other historical sources"

Yes, he was a Hegelian philosopher, and as erstwhile disciple of ex-Hegelian C. S. Lewis, I am not very impressed by Hegelian philosophers.

It so happens the wikipedian article on him calls him "philosopher and historian" but it also so happens, the biography says nothing of any specific qualifications in general history. ALL he did in "history" was deny historicity of Gospels and invent "histories" for how they came to be.

Check for yourselves:

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

VI

"They typically portrayed a much more human Jesus"

Citing on the best known of them:

Gospel of St. Thomas - What Is It?
The "Gospel of St. Thomas" is a collection of teachings that some attribute to Jesus of Nazareth. Portions of Greek versions of the text were found at Oxyrhynchus, Egypt in the late 1800's. A complete version in Coptic (an Egyptian language derived from the Greek alphabet) was found at Nag Hammadi, Egypt in 1945. The complete text has been dated to about 340 AD, while some of the Greek fragments have been dated as far back as 140 AD.

https://www.allaboutjesuschrist.org/gospel-of-st-thomas.htm

Same resource on second best known:

The Gospel of Judas begins with these words: "the secret account of the revelation that Jesus spoke in conversation with Judas Iscariot during a week three days before the celebrated Passover." Later, the text says that Jesus tells Judas, “you will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothed me.” (The Gospel of Judas, Published by the National Geographic Society, 2006.)

https://www.allaboutjesuschrist.org/gospel-of-judas.htm

A link which also gives St Irenaeus as author for an opinion (earliest traceable) on its authorship:

“They declare that Judas the traitor was thoroughly acquainted with these things, and that he alone, knowing the truth as no others did, accomplished the mystery of the betrayal; by him all things, both earthly and heavenly, were thus thrown into confusion. They produce a fictitious history of this kind, which they style the Gospel of Judas.” (Adversus Haereses I.31.1; Roberts-Donaldson translation.)

I would not claim that a man who could say “you will exceed all of them [f]or you will sacrifice the man that clothed me,” can be considered as more human than the Jesus of the canonical Gospels. I'd rather say, more diabolic.

VII

"People who followed Gnostic teachings were labelled heretics, because they did not support the teachings of the early Church"

More than not actively supporting them, they actively contradicted them.

"And when Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in the early 4th century, these heretics went against the authority of Rome, too."

Here one is supposing there were even Gnostics left by then.

"Valentinianism was one of the major Gnostic Christian movements. Founded by Valentinus in the second century AD, its influence spread extremely widely, not just within Rome, but also from Northwest Africa to Egypt through to Asia Minor and Syria in the east.[1]"

"Later in the movement's history it broke into an Eastern and a Western school. Disciples of Valentinus continued to be active into the 4th century AD, after the Roman Empire was declared to be Christian.[2]

"Valentinus and the Gnostic movement that bore his name were considered threats to proto-orthodox Christianity by church leaders and scholars, not only because of their influence, but also because of their doctrine, practices and beliefs. Gnostics were condemned as heretics, and prominent Church fathers such as Irenaeus of Lyons and Hippolytus of Rome wrote against Gnosticism. Most evidence for the Valentinian theory comes from its critics and detractors, most notably Irenaeus, since he was especially concerned with refuting Valentinianism."

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

Note, the affirmation that Valentinianism continued into 4th C rests on Green, Henry A. (1985). The Economic and Social Origins of Gnosticism. Atlanta: Scholars Press. p. 245. Unless that is misquoted. A paragraph on the history of the sect says:

"Notable Valentinians included Heracleon (fl. ca. 175), Ptolemy, Florinus, Axionicus and Theodotus."

Here is a paragraph on when Ptolemy lived:

"Ptolemy was probably still alive c. 180. No other certain details are known about his life; Harnack's suggestion that he was identical with the Ptolemy spoken of by St. Justin is as yet unproved.[1] It is not known when Ptolemy became a disciple of Valentinius, but Valentinius was active in the Egyptian city of Alexandria and in Rome. Ptolemy was, with Heracleon, the principal writer of the Italian or Western school of Valentinian Gnosticism, which was active in Rome, Italy, and Southern Gaul."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemy_(gnostic)

And here one on Theodotus:

"Theodotus of Byzantium (Ancient Greek: Θεoδoτoς; also known as Theodotus the Tanner, Theodotus the Shoemaker, and Theodotus the Fuller;[1] flourished late 2nd century) was an early Christian writer from Byzantium, one of several named Theodotus whose writings were condemned as heresy in the early church."

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

In other words, no known proponent after 200 ... there is of course the fact that Nag Hammadi manuscripts were from 4th C, but this need not prove there were still Valentinians around to make these copies, it seems that some more Orthodox Christians had been using the texts prior to a condemnation of them.

I don't know of any suppression of Valentinianism by Rome, any more than of "original Baptists" by Constantine's Rome.

It is implausible the Church would have overlooked such an event, and it was keeping fairly detailed records from 4th C.

We also have Marcosians:

"The Marcosians were a Gnostic sect founded by Marcus, active in Lyon, France and southern Europe from the second to the 4th century. Women held special status in the Marcosian communities; they were regarded as prophetesses and participated in administering the Eucharistic rites. Irenaeus accuses Marcus of seducing his followers, and scornfully writes (Adversus Haereses I. 13, 4) that the whole sect was an affair of "silly women.""

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

I'm suspicious about the "to the 4th century" part. Their founder is anyway earlier than that:

"Marcus was the founder of the Marcosian Gnostic sect in the 2nd century AD. He was a disciple of Valentinus, with whom his system mainly agrees. His doctrines are almost exclusively known to us through a long polemic (i. 13–21) in Adversus Haereses, in which Irenaeus gives an account of his teaching and his school. Clement of Alexandria clearly knew of Marcus and actually used his number system (Stromata, VI, xvi), though without acknowledgement."

And it seems to have lacked other notable people.

In 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia, John Peter Arendzen did claim that Marcosians "[i]n the district of Lyons, the Rhone Valley and Spain, [...] continued to exist till well into the fourth century."

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Catholic_Encyclopedia_(1913)/Marcosians

But in his main article, on Gnosticism, he says:

"In dealing with the origins of Gnosticism, one might be tempted to mention Manichaeism, as a number of Gnostic ideas seem to be borrowed from Manichaeism, where they are obviously at home. This, however, would hardly be correct. Manichaeism, as historically connected with Mani, its founder, could not have arisen much earlier than A.D. 250, when Gnosticism was already in rapid decline. Manichaeism, however, in many of its elements dates back far beyond its commonly accepted founder; but then it is a parallel development with the Gnosis, rather than one of its sources. Sometimes Manichaeism is even classed as a form of Gnosticism and styled Parsee Gnosis, as distinguished from Syrian and Egyptian Gnosis. This classification, however, ignores the fact that the two systems, though they have the doctrine of the evil of matter in common, start from different principles, Manichaeism from dualism, while Gnosticism, as an idealistic Pantheism, proceeds from the conception of matter as a gradual deterioration of the Godhead."

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Catholic_Encyclopedia_(1913)/Gnosticism

VIII

"According to Dorothy Murdock, these alternative Gospels were systematically destroyed in the 4th century upon the orders of Emperor Constantine."

What does she base this on?

IX

"In AD 325 he convened the First Council of Nicaea, where it was finally decreed that Jesus was both God and Man, part of the Holy Trinity."

And that this had been what the Church had taught back to the Apostles, it is not as if the decree was some kind of novum.

"Murdock says that with the Council of Nicea, Constantine was really establishing a new, standardised faith system that taught all other religions and denominations were heresy."

Er, no. Sts Irenaeus and Hippolytus had done so back when Gnostics were in their heyday.

(acc. to Murdock, Constantine invented) "a new form of control over the poor, and the world"

What about only known form of control over the rich?

"Christianity has determined the course of history"

For the better, as long as it was very determining ...

... on Freemasonry : Misdeeds and Generalities

Extreme content warning on video itself, that's where the misdeeds are, the comments I show here are family friendly.

Freemason SRA Survivor Masonic Abuse Whistleblower Karly Franz
Karly Noel | 14.X.2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNxbe_lQSeQ

I

You mentioned a two headed eagle.

If ever a Catholic Austrian power gets the upper hand that lodge must be crushed for dishonouring the two headed eagle.

II

11:28 "every president that ever been is part of" ...

If so, some have been so secretly.

In alphabetic order, the known Freemason United States Presidents are:

James Buchanan
Gerald Ford (38)
James A. Garfield
Warren G. Harding
Andrew Jackson
Andrew Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson (36)
William McKinley
James Monroe
James K. Polk
Franklin D. Roosevelt (32)
Theodore Roosevelt
William Howard Taft
Harry S. Truman (33)
George Washington

The most recent of them is Gerald Ford, In office August 9, 1974 – January 20, 1977.

If you are born in 1989, for all of your lifetime, United States Presidents are supposed to not have been freemasons.

Obviously, this doesn't tell how many vice presidents were masons.

And Bush was Skull and Bones, doesn't count as freemasons, maybe should ...

But Skull and Bones, that's perhaps two presidents, George W. Bush and Taft.

Forgot crediting wiki, here is a link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Freemason_United_States_Presidents

Etc.

III

12:13 My mother warned me or rather forbade me to join a secret society when I was 15 (probably De Molays, since 15 is too young for masonry). I have obeyed so far and intend to do so.

She respected Franco, since in his time Spain forbade abortions. I should say, she respects Franco ...

And in his time, Spain forbade freemasonry too.

Not saying he had no associates who were masons, like his father and ... I just read that Gonzalo Queipo de Llano wasn't.

"Bien acogidos por españoles residentes en la capital francesa, allí viven un breve exilio, hasta la proclamación de la República el 14 de abril de1931. La masonería española envía socorros económicos a los exiliados. El comandante Ramón Franco, que desde un tiempo atrás está en tratos con la orden para su ingreso en ésta, se inicia en la parisina logia Plus Ultra, integrada por republicanos y anarquistas españoles. No lo hace Queipo, a pesar de estar muy ligado a algunos miembros de ésta. Sin embargo, a partir de entonces serán muchos en España, dentro y fuera de la masonería, los que crean a pies juntillas que el general es masón. No lo fue nunca."

Diario de Sevilla : Queipo de Llano, un general despechado
17 Julio, 2011 - 07:37h, por Juan Ortiz Villalba, Catedrático de IES y profesor asociado de la Universidad Pablo de Olavide
https://www.diariodesevilla.es/sevilla/Queipo-Llano-general-despechado_0_497350670.html

Long story short (as far as my Spanish reaches) when he was in exile, he received aids from Spanish freemasons, sent to all exiles, and then he got the reputation of being a freemason, even if he wasn't.

Not my favourite Franquista, since he's the guy who shot Llorca ...

Yeah, one more, Ramon Franco became a freemason in Paris, Queipo didn't but was close to him and others who did so (Ramon was cousin of Francisco Franco and fought on the Republican side, not "Franco's"). This obviously also contributed to him being stamped as a freemason.

Reviewing Lizzie's Convert's Guide to Catholic Lingo

Convert's Guide to CATHOLIC LINGO!!!
LizziesAnswers | 14.I.2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrI9q5Aj0Kg

I

3:17 Gospel ... did you know that the Latin used in France in 790 for the reading was fairly close to the spoken language on its way from Latin to French, since the prounciation was not after Classic rules, that this changed in Tours diocese in 800, when Alcuin from York arrived, in England Latin had been taught as a foreign language since Anglo-Saxons arrived and even earlier only relatively few spoke Latin compared to elsewhere in the Empire, so, the Anglo-Saxon Latin knowledge was fairly Classical, and this coming to effect in Tours in 800 led to no one (nearly, except clergy following the courses of Alcuin) understood Latin AND then 813, only 13 years later, a Gospel paraphrase or explanation in the local language of the parish was required

II

4:39 sth - wouldn't it be better if communion in the hand was strictly forbidden, as it used to be up to Vatican II and a few years on?

Actually it is not quite a laughing matter, since stolen hosts have been used for sacrilege, both some committed on youtubes now taken down and some for black mass.

III

6:08 Back in Time to the Last Supper.

AT the Last Supper they were forward in time to Calvary, so you are (with a valid Mass) back in time to Calvary.

IV

10:36 Actually, it used to be called Communion of the Saints.

You forgot one category of souls that Catholics on earth have communion with : those in Purgatory.

We usually pray for them, but they intercede on one point for us, namely, waking up in time. Since many of them are there because they "woke up" just in the nick of time to avoid Hell, they are collectively patrons saints of waking up in time.

Used to be = with Pope Michael still is, I suppose.

V

14:16 "the bishop was the priest"

I don't think that is true.

With house churches, you had one bishop heading all the priests in a city and several priests saying Mass in different houses same Sunday.

On week days they might more probably celebrate in the same place a their bishop, perhaps a catacomb.

I'll modify this, in real big cities the bishops arguably had priests under them, perhaps not in small towns (if there were Christians there).

VI

14:43 Becoming deacon, priest, bishop is indeed sacrament of orders, but becoming monk or nun is joining an order, sth different, it is not a sacrament.

You usually enumerate first the five sacraments "all" or most with very few exceptions Catholics receive, then the two which are made in relation to others of the communion:

1) Baptism; 2) Confirmation; 3) Eucharist; 4) Confession; 5) Extreme Unction (other parts of last rites are 4 and 3, or with someone unbaptised, 1 and 3);
6) Orders or 7) Matrimony.

You may wonder why Eucharist is enumerated before Confession or Penance ... well, if you were baptised half an hour ago and confirmed quarter of an hour ago, you can probably receive the Eucharist without going to Confession first, as was often the case with adult converts from Paganism. Also, when babies were given Confirmation and Eucharist directly after Baptism, as was the case, no Confession was required.

Other reason, the first three are building up your spiritual life of grace, the next two are repairing it, when lost or damaged. The last two are preparing it by providing a) ministers for sacrament and liturgy of the word and b) ministers for a Catholic education of their own children.

VII

15:17 RCIA - you taught me the acronym, in Sweden it is called "conversionsförberedelse" ...

I had quite a lot of RCIA, since starting twice over and that after quite a lot of other studies to convert. I decided at 16 after reading Umberto Eco's Name of the Rose, and I was received a few months before 20.

That was while Wojtyla was less directly schismatic than after election of Pope Michael and a few months before the consecration of four bishops by Lefebvre and Castro Mayer.

The priest who had done the last year of my "RCIA" and who was my confessor first year I practised was a Pole, ordained before the change in ordination rites, so a real priest, very conservative, mainly in sympathy with Monseigneur Lefebvre, but considered he was "exaggerating" by "disobeying" ... I sometimes observed he seemed to have a somewhat hard time obeying some things, especially when it came to understanding what he was supposed to obey.