Methodology on God : Matt Dillahunty is Bad

Methodology on God : Matt Dillahunty is Bad · Others Commented under Matt's Video · More answering other comments · Methodology on God : Lynne Atwater is Worse

In this video, that is:

Matt Dillahunty - A believer calls in and get destroyed - Atheist Experience
Atheist favorites | 15.III.2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy7zl-MrUCg

Note : the video is here from 2017, but I think the show was on air in 2013.

I

If you believe in Heliocentrism, Millions of Years, for that matter Evolution (most atheists do), I consider you as unduly gullible:

Creation vs. Evolution : Does an Extraordinary Claim Require Extraordinary Evidence?
https://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2019/03/does-extraordinary-claim-require.html

2:34 If you consider Christianity is not based on evidence that is demonstrable, you are ignorant.

3:04 You demonstrated some kind of gravity, not necessarily that it was the Newtonian one.

And by appealing to reason about what you demonstrated, you also demonstrate you believe in universal validity of reason and that this applies even to the reason of men. Who are not eternal and sometimes foolish (even pretty often).

This validity is only explicable if reality is not ultimately based on impersonal forces.

But the alternative is a person or a set of persons (three to be precise) is the foundation of every other reality there is, including atoms and (if any) electrons and quarks.

And how would such a person or rather set of three persons not be God?

Ergo, some kind of God (in fact the Christian one) exists.

Thank you for demonstrating that, or at least that that is what you are ultimately implying when you reason to prove gravitation.

Oh, you took offense at my saying the God thus proven is precisely three persons, and the Christian one?

Well, how do you prove the gravitation your pen showed is the Newtonian or Einsteinian rather than the Aristotelic one?

3:14 If faith in watching a pen drop is not equivalent to faith in God, faith in dropping pen proving there is natural law is.

II

3:54 No, you describe a phenomenon when you say an object finding itself with no support above ground level (like fingers let go) or above other intervening level (like your table), will accelerate at c. 10 m/s:s or 10 m/s². Towards a direction intuitively called down.

You are then leaving out the behaviour of objects offering air resistance. If parachutes behaved like that, nothing else to them, they wouldn't save lives.

So, you say it is because of air resistance parachutes don't behave like that. Now you have no longer just described a behaviour, but suddenly reasoned about an actual cause.

But this reason about an actual cause in one case implies some actual cause in the other case too, so you have proven there has to be some kind of gravitation.

A N D by the fact that you are appealing to universally valid reason, you are demonstrating that you are not considering your thought to be based ultimately on non-rational particles (this is not CSL's original wording before Anscombe debate, it is his revised wording after it).

This in turns means the non-rational particles are based on sth which can sense reason, i e on a person.

And it can't be you or me, we weren't here long enough and we are not reasonable 24/24, 7/7, etc, we sometimes sleep and we sometimes are drunk or sth other.

4:02 Your claim on not using gravity as causal agent but only as a description while eluding some points if true, is not true.

It is verbiage meant to camouflage an inconsistency in your position.

4:05 oh, you have stated "attraction" of items, but that is not a behaviour, it is not always borne out (at least to our observations), and you have also stated "mass", now you are chosing Newtonian or Einsteinian causality over Aristotelic ... no, you are very definitely beyond a mere description of what can be observed when watching falling objects.

The acceleration pattern as such can be so observed, if you tie a long paper strip and let it drop with strip going through a fast whatever it is called that makes holes at set time intervals.

But when you say "attraction" or "mass" or even "item" you are going beyond mere observation, you are reasoning about causality.

4:23 Again, bodies falling at a certain acceleration is a phenomenon, but once you state "mass" or "attraction" you are beyond phenomenon and into causality.

4:35 "I don't say it is the mass" (even of earth?) "that is attracting the pen"

Physicists often do say that, don't you trust your scientists?

Plus, you contradicted what you just said:

4:17 "I believe that bodies of mass attract each other"

If you say the mass of the pen is also attracting the earth, though very much less so, you are, once again, saying that mass, per se invisible, is doing an attraction act, per se invisible, of which the result is, however, visible : the pen that is dropped accelerates towards the table.

So, you have in fact, even if you denied it later on at 4:35, stated you believe in invisible things because of visible phenomena - which you only do because you are causally analysing the visible phenomenon by an invisible cause.

Good job, we Theists do that too ...

4:39 "demonstrating a phenomenon for your God"

You reasoned. This is a phenomenon to show reality is based on personal rather than impersonal bases, ultimately.

Plus miracles, attested.

You could not reason in a way to prove them wrong or even "highly improbable" without making assumptions (in this case negative ones) about causality. If you are really agnostic about causalities, you must take miracle reports at face value.

If there is anything beyond appearances or phenomena you are not agnostic about, you must admit there is reason, which argues there is a God ... which could with some further analysis, or based on the miracles, be the kind of God who sometimes does miracles.

III

4:45 "has there been a conformed demonstrable miracle"

Check Lourdes.

If St Bernadette hallucinated, how do you account for the highly peculiar pattern of the hallucinations? No fever or excited pulse, as the doctor could verify, started on a certain date involved rendez-vous, ended on a certain date. No difference in her physical health status or mental capacities before, during or after, she was a peasant girl, but clearly not mad.

If St Bernadette hallucinated, how do you account for her finding a well when following orders of the "hallucination"?

If St Bernadette hallucinated, how do you account for the healings that happened after this?

If you cry out "the whole story is a Jesuit fabrication" you are not describing the evidence, the phenomena, you are describing residual Protestant prejudice.

4:50 "where, when"

From 11 February to 16 July 1858, she reported 18 apparitions of "a Lady".

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

Lourdes is in Hautes Pyrénées:

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hautes-Pyr%C3%A9n%C3%A9es

1858 France was under the régime of Napoléon III, which favoured freemasonry. Even if the Catholic Church was protected and had a status (like Anglican Church in England, except papacy is a foreign power involved), the state did not really favour miracles or the Church proclaiming there was actual proof for Her beliefs.

If the Catholic Church had wanted to pull off a fraud, She would not have been in a position too.

IV

5:14 "every time we"ve investigated miracles, we have failed to confirm them"

OK, you talk of investigating miracles, or you talk of investigating the paranatural?

Those are different things and different research teams are involved.

For medical miracles one of the research teams are doctors who have done medicine - and who know from med school how diseases can be cured.

And when they were cured in a way that they can't be cured. In other words, the phenomenon usually classified as miracle.

V

6:39 - 6:46 "because science is the single most consistently demonstrable reliable pathway to discerning what we most best understand about"

A vast claim about "science" and no phenomenon to back that one up.

6:52 "examining evidence in the light of critical thinking"

OK, and some other kind of thinking than the one you call critical, nay even some other application of same kind of thinking than the one you include is not providing light to examine evidence?

That is sectarian faith in science.

VI

7:46 "do you know what changed people's minds? evidence not faith! - yes, but had that evidence not come ..."

Are we supposed to change our minds all the time, to the least suggestion of sth being a piece of evidence?

Or can we have faith in what we reasonably consider we already have evidence for?

8:09 "science doesn't tell you about truth"

Nice verbal juggling, but not born out the least by your behaviour, since you behave as if you had and George lacked the truth about some matter.

8:16 without absolutes, how do you even temporarily, provisorily check out what is "best" about anything, including provisoric models?

VII

8:37 If your positions is really just tentative, why do you rule out the possibility in advance of finding a belief about truth ... true?

Faith being very much about what evidence we have for God becoming Man (and staying so after Resurrection) 2000 years ago, it is very much about evidence.

You misdefine faith in order to build up a difference you can construe as a "high ground".

VIII

9:15 Not believing but accepting (nice verbal juggling again) the scientific theories because they are "demonstrably the best models that fit the evidence"

• 1) With regards to us moving around in universe or on a ball that is over four billion years old, no, it is not demonstrable;
• 2) By invoking "demonstrably" (as well as by invoking best and by calling phenomena "evidence" - linguistically that tends to me "evidence for sth one is proving") you are again invoking the universal validity of reason, which is so damning to all forms of naturalism, including obsiously its most pronounced form, Western Atheism.

9:30 "Because you don't have the evidence to back up your beliefs"

Thanks for skipping the verbal juggling, and noted, again, you are very clearly not only overconfident in scientists but also over suspicious of whatever evidence Christians may have.

IX

10:00 I wonder why the lady (not knowing what Matt Dillahunty's "sidekick" is called, sorry) is taking up two sides in a jury and presenting the one as basing their conclusion on evidence and the other as pointing out one who looks guilty.

Obviously, no sane juror is considering some suspect looks guilty if he does not think evidence points to guilt.

Both sides in that jury are equally basing their conclusion on evidence.

As they are presented with same evidence, one of them is either looking at it the wrong way or they have different criteria on what evidence is sufficient for pronouncing guilt.

I'd like to have a known case (historic or even in pop culture) where the ones voting for innocence are saying more of "the evidence points to".

Have you read the excellent book Manalive, by Chesterton? Yes? No?

In it, there is a jury, and the ones most often invoking the "evidence" are those who want to pronounce someone criminally mad. In the end, it is a fairly happy comedy overall, it's a clear "not guilty" vote by nearly everyone except the plaintiff.

The ones claiming Innocent Smith is innocent are the ones not content to look at evidence, but who want to actually scrutinise the details of the evidence in order to see if the evidence was really pointing where it was supposed to point.

I also wonder, why she (sorry Maam, don't know your name), is taking up the parallel of a criminal case, since :

• "innocent unless proven guilty" only applies there, not on disputes (like contractual lawsuits), where both sides are required to provide evidence
• "innocent unless proven guilty" is not the universal, but only a very civilised way of looing at criminal courts.

Also, "innocent" is not always a prely negative claim, as we saw from a recent criminal procedure in Australia. Cardinal Pell was required to prove he could not have done sth with two choir boys. First he seemed to have a case, then someone testified if two sneaked back into the sacristy after all had been on parade and in civil clothes, they might not have been noticed. So, he was condemned partly because of that and partly because his lawyer (an atheist of Jewish faimly background) changed his mind and started to believe his client guilty and started to plead that instead of what his client was actually pleading.

New blog on the kid : Is Pell Innocent and Betrayed by Lawyer?
https://nov9blogg9.blogspot.com/2019/03/is-pell-innocent-and-betrayed-by-lawyer.html

X

10:20 Oh, the point was to compare Christians to very dishonest or criminally insane jurors who are prepared to hang a man because he looks guilty, with no regard at all to the evidence.

Nice push, rhetorically, but it only works with very uneducated people who know very little of Christianity.

Plus, it might reflect some kind of "paranoia" (not sure what to call that kind of historic prejudice, but it's about as absurd as the psychiatric diagnosis paranoia, not that I am making one) about Inquisitors and Pogroms.

I mean, that kind of very emotional pleading about what side to take in an argument about facts, not about suspects and their guilt, is not very well calculated to keep the debate on a sane level.

10:25 You are also comparing the Christian to someone who's very alone, someone who is up against "everybody else".

One day, Christians may be that, in places we already are, but overall, no, we historically aren't. It's you atheists who are a historic clear minority and oddity who are up against how everybody else sees the evidence.

XI

Back to Dillahunty:

11:29 "we could both be mistaken"

You mean either of us could be. Supposing "God" means the same in both sentences "you believe there is" and "I believe there isn't" the relation is a contradictory one, where not only only one can be right, but also only one could be wrong.

"how do we determine which of us is most likely correct"

Well, by looking at the evidence and seeing in good logic what it proves.

Wait, you don't believe in God, so maybe you don't believe logic proves anything?

Well, if so, you have shown some capacity so far of disregarding that belief and on occasion arguing as if you believe in logic.

Why not do that instead of assuring the caller he has no evidence?

XII

12:03 Here Matt goes ugly.

• 1) First how do we determine whether your truthclaim is correct - as in Matt and George together are .... judging George. Sounds somewhat lightly or even heavily suggestive of psychiatry.
• 2) George gives a an answer which might be helpful in such a context, you need to see at the evidence and see what it means to you.
• 3) Matt declares that as tantamount to opinion.

No, not really. You see, Christians and Atheists do not form a jury together with Christians in the dock.

Therefore, while there are universal rules about logic, there is no need in practise that Christians and Atheists apply them like, or that they apply them together with each other in such a manner as to apply them alike.

If George is politely intimating that Atheists could be using their logic wrong, he is not wrong and he is also not invoking opinion.

XIII

12:38 "He arguably determined whether or not we should believe your claim."

It can indeed happen that some Atheist is refused any grace he would need to convert to Theism. But this is not simply because he happened to be an Atheist. It is a special punishment.

The argument is from a Calvinistic view of God, in which grace cannot be resisted and in which an unbeliever is presumed predestined to unbelief and to Hell. This view is as false as Atheism, if not worse.

So, one more, it is not as if George were making a claim and Matt Dillahunty with the lady at his side weren't. Matt & Co. have been making several wild claims, directly or by implication of their comparisons throughout the video so far, and it isn't even over yet.

I am one not believing their claims to be calmly judging after the evidence, I did quite a lot of answers already yesterday, and instead of seeing any of them responded to, so far, I have seen some sectarian supporters of Matt hide my comments with more recent ones. Arguably a bit like when he was pastor and an atheist arguing was interrupted by pastor Dillahunty's flock's Halleluiah's ... if that's not how he did it back then, I have seen the tendency.

12:57 "[not] preaching that there is no God."

Well, you have been somewhat preachy more than once, so far.

If you just argued there is no God, that need not be preachy, but you have been that.

13:11 "[Theists] assert that a God exists, atheists do not believe [that]"

Western Atheism does believe more than one other thing instead of God existing. In common, between all or near all atheists.

How many believe earth is 4.5 billion years old, without any historic evidence for that?

Again, if you believe in Heliocentrism, Millions of Years, for that matter Evolution (most atheists do), I consider you as unduly gullible:

Creation vs. Evolution : Does an Extraordinary Claim Require Extraordinary Evidence?
https://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2019/03/does-extraordinary-claim-require.html

XIV

13:29 "first they have to define their God and say where they believe he exists before we can have a discussion"

In that case, you have never had such a discussion, you have systematically interrupted callers well before they could even get that far.

And you are again taking the somewhat impolite show of telling the opponent how you want him to conduct his side of the debate.

The Atheists involved in Socratic Club back in the day of C. S. Lewis must be blushing, if any is alive and seeing you.

14:10 "I have asked you repeatedly"

I have responded repeatedly. Wait, what did I say one or two comments ago?

I am one not believing their claims to be calmly judging after the evidence, I did quite a lot of answers already yesterday, and instead of seeing any of them responded to, so far, I have seen some sectarian supporters of Matt hide my comments with more recent ones.

Hmmm, this video channel is not Dillahunty's. It's a fan of his.

Dillahunty is perhaps less sectarian.

14:30 I think the caller did give a reason why he was not the Christian best qualified to take a debate with Dillahunty.

Not quite sorry he did finally.

• 1) I can get into a written debate (I have no qualms about telling an opponent sth he will arguably consider laughable, or no qualms is over the top, but less qualms than many);
• 2) after seeing Matt's oral performance, I am wise enough to avoid an oral debate.

So, here is my written comment, and we'll see if he responds in written debate.

XV

14:52 "[does your methodology have any] demonstrable accuracy, is there a way to measure his good your method attested can we determine how accurate your method is"

First, Matt was very impolite in first verifying George's methodology was one Matt would reject and then go on and ask George why he wants to use it himself, not why he'd want Matt to use it, but why George is using one Matt wouldn't use. George has no reason to take Matt as either his Pope or his Bible.

Second, depends. Depends on how reasonable someone (Matt or other reader) is in determining it.

I suspect, to the satisfaction of Matt's opinion, I wouldn't.

I could say "logic has a good record" (Pascal was fairly logical and invented the wheelbarrow, another fairly logical person, Roger Bacon, invented the corrective glasses).

But on one hand, Matt could pretend, it was not "logic" but "science" which helped Pascal and Bacon to their inventions.

But even more, there is no logical way to determine whether logic (per se) is accurate or not. You can logically consider someone's logic inaccurate, because it is illogic. Like, you detect a quaternio terminorum, an undistributed middle, and some more like that. But this already presupposes that logic (as such) is accurate.

Which brings us to, logic can be supposed as accurate, not because it can be logically proven so, but because everyone is so using it.

One can of course point to all results, but the problem is, I could claim Pascal and Bacon invented because of what was logic in their outlook, Matt could hijack their success as a proof of the modern "scientific method". And at the same time pretend it is the same scientific method which also gives us 4.5 billions of years, Earth rotating around axis, orbitting around Sun and orbitting with Sun around the galaxy's centre.

These don't logically belong together.

Explicit

I may add more later, but for now I think I'll stop the video at 14:52, or, more logically, have stopped it there, and publish the so far comments.

Update

did some more next day, after coming into debates (see link to next one above or here).

XVI

15:08 "that is either that you can't even determine if it's accurate"

I think determining accuracy of your method is fairly usually one of the last concerns one has.

One is not an idiot because one uses a method which so far has not been shown to one's own satisfaction to be inaccurate.

Plus, if it has, one usually doesn't throw it away, one refines it. It wasn't inaccurate because it was the wrong method, it was inaccurate because one used it carelessly.

If your determination that what you call science is accurate is, it gave us lots of functioning and some of it fairly useful things, let me tell you two things at once:

• 1) the inventors were not wasting their time in determining if their method was accurate : some wanted to know how accurate their method was and how it could be made more accurate, fine, that's another kettle of fish, none wasted their time determining if their method was accurate;
• 2) the inventors were using theorems much more testable than some assumptions behind what you would call the scientific world view.

In order to invent sth, knowing that at typical height above centre of earth the typical acceleration of free fall is c. 1 m/s² is much more useful than to know whether it happens because:

• heavy things want to get to centre of universe (as per Aristotle)
• masses attract each other proportionately to magnitude of mass attracting, without regard to magnitude of mass being attracted, and inversely to square of distance (as per Newton)
• mass bends space and "attraction" really is only "a geodesic in space" (as per Einstein, as far as I got him).

Plus, the question actually does open up to a wider one : is reason reasonable?

If it is, what is a universe like in which reason can exist?

If it isn't, why do you make claims about the universe at all (and yes, atheism both is and involves further ones)?

15:16 "it's like using a ruler where the numbers are all over the place and you have no idea if this ruler is accurate or not"

There is really no ruler that looks like that, all numbers being over the place.

There are however rulers in different measures.

• metre system
• English feet
• French pied du roi (previous to metre system)
• any number of different Medieval foot measures other than British and named French, also out of use.

You cannot say one ruler is more accurate than the other, since they do not refer to same measurement systems.

However, if you measured things with whatever ruler was available, as long as you measured things with same ruler, you would have accuracy within the system of your measurements.

For instance, you want to build a house with proportions 7 m to 5 m.

Your ruler is a foot measure, but you know 3 feet are a yard which is approximately a meter.

So, you use it to measure 21 by 15 feet. That the house will be somewhat smaller han 7 * 5 in the metre system is not important, it still has the exact proportion you intended.

You want its height to accomodate the tallest person in the company? Fine, if you measure him in that ruler, add appropriate space in that ruler and then also measure the vertical space in that ruler, you'll be fine. Figuring out whether the ruler is accurate or there is a more accurate ruler is waste of time.

ANY method used consistently is autocorrective of some practically relevant initial errors.

I think, even the most naive atheist method would be so, but atheists manage to remain so by being inconsistent about method.

Like Dillahunty was when one moment claiming he was "describing a phenomenon" and making no causal claim and other moment precisely making causal claims involved in Newtonian gravity.

But start with certain wrong assumptions that override any method you could have, which atheism often does, neglect consistency of method, and your method won't autocorrect.

15:22 "six inches" is a phrase.

It is different between :

• six inches in British system,
• six inches in former French system
• six inches in decimal feet from Prussia (where half a foot would be five inches)
• six inches in some abandoned Medieval foot measure.

But six inches here or there is often only important in relation to other measures, and as long as it is by same ruler, you will usually be fine.

A little advisory here : not quite so on the market place, if you try to sell an object in US and claim it is six inches on one side, it had better be six inches in the American system.

But if you are on the market place, you also have access to standardised rulers.

Another advisory here : ideas are NOT just a market place. Insofar as they are, atheists are notorious sinners, fraudsters, in redefining ideas so it suits their agenda.

XVII

15:48 Matt uses the word "admit" of not having a "demonstrably reliable method" ...

Earlier on he has said he considers "science" such.

In other words, the caller fairly correctly asked how he could be so certain science was a "demonstrably reliable method" or (alternative interpretation) how he could be sure the science truths he believes in are good science.

Either way, this is perfectly in line with his initial question, and Matt is dishonest to consider it as caller trying to deflect on him.

So, x has not done each and every intellectual exercise y considers essential, y concludes x has no right to ask anything about y, or challenge y about anything .... everything becomes a question of y imposing that intellectual exercise on x.

And "you're the one who claims God exists" and adding "no I didn't claim God doesn't exist, I only don't believe the claim he does" is not doing it. Not with me and should not do it with anyone else.

16:08 Especially, as Matt has tried to push burden of proof on Christians, refuse them opportunity to coherently argue their proofs and use this "burden of proof thing" to - as here - deny them the right to give him a taste of his own medicine.

Not every argument a Theist makes is directly a claim God exists, there are related subjects where atheists do have a legitimate burden of proof.

The "why is this so hard for you" line is so dishonest, the sidekick definitely smirks at humiliating someone over it, at 16:38.

Oh, Tracy was the name .... [Tracie Harris]

The Silver Chair

Joe Johnston Directing The Silver Chair! Good Choice? | Narnia Nerd
Glumpuddle | 13.V.2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziJnY_ol9Bo

I

How long ago was this announcement made?

06.III.2019
13.V.2017

34.II.2019
13.V.2017

34.XIV.2018
13.V.2017
21.IX.1

I make it 1 year, nine months and 21 days, close on 22 months.

Is there a release date set yet?

12:43 "at the end of next year" you said?

We are already beginning of the one after that!

II

Other point. Joe Johnston's wiki does not specify Christian belief.

Knowing sth about C. S. Lewis' view on acting, an actor lacking that might not be too bad, on his view, as long as he could validly interpret the Christian play in acting, under directors etc. But for a director?

Here is one Joe Johnston who is:

CT : The Village Genius
Katelyn Beaty | September 20, 2012
https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2012/september/the-village-genius.html

"This Eden is called Agritopia, and the man who calls it very good is Joe Johnston. A Stanford-trained engineer, Johnston has turned his family's decades-old farm into a thriving mixed-use community at the center of Gilbert, a southeast suburb of Phoenix."

How does a director do a scene like the Lady of the Green kirtle trying to convince Rilian and Puddleglum and the two children "there is no sun, there is no Aslan" etc without a good inside understanding of Christianity and how in it belief and evidence relate?

Could there have been some kind of conflict of interest leading to delays?

I mean, for a film like Thor, we don't require Asatrú, but then Marvel franchise Thor never was very involved with Asatrú.

Is someone figuring, one can do the same about Christian references in Narnia?

Wait, one great use for a man who made Honey I Shrunk the Kids!

Harfang!

III

Ah, here is some gleam of hope (if you will call it that)

Express : The Chronicles of Narnia on Netflix release date, cast, trailer, plot
By Samuel Spencer | PUBLISHED: 17:29, Thu, Oct 4, 2018 | UPDATED: 17:50, Thu, Oct 4, 2018
https://www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv-radio/1026962/the-chronicles-of-narnia-netflix-film-movie-tv-series-release-date-cast-trailer-plot

"In late 2017, director Joe Johnston said that he intended to start shooting a film version of Narnia book The Silver Chair in winter 2018, which would mean a release in late 2019 or 2020.

"However, it is not known whether Netflix is involved in this production, or whether it will be scrapped.

"Netflix declined to comment about whether The Silver Chair film was still going ahead."

They are the guys who were doing the fairly explicitly Satanist version of Sabrina Spellman, right?

I'm getting kind of vibes of And that no man might buy or sell, but he that hath the character, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

Is a correct rendering of The Silver Chair too little "character of the beast" for allowing commercial production?

IV

9:20 OK, Gresham wanted to protect Narnia.

All seven chronicles have their rights handed over to Netflix.

Figures. Or not?

V

10:10 Blockbuster ... there is a clear element of that, if you see how the city of the Netherworld starts breaking down.

That will take some special effects.

VI

12:03 Knowing Gresham a bit and Silver Chair a lot, obviously there is a lot of humour in it!

Trumpkin being the guy they have to go behind the back of, Puddleglum's continuous use (it must have been fatiguing to live around it) of black humour and dire predictions, Rilian being the cheesy kind of romantic comedy type about Lady of the Green Kirtle, Harfang, specifically the cookbook featuring mallet, man, marshwiggle, Jill being obviously a teen and due to a certain very small and old giantess being so much larger being treated like a baby (also hard to live with, but definitely humorous watching), not to mention "no, they are not aiming at us, we'd be a lot safer if they were" when crossing a plain where giants are playing cockshies.

Gresham is a humorous preacher and debater, so he is obviously in for making the most of it.

If he can "control" Joe Johnston (I hate the phrase, but you know what I mean) ... but will Netflix let it happen?

...

Yes, but Puddleglum does quite a few silly oneliners.

"Obviously, human children probably can't stand eel"

Right time (especially for anyone involved in London back then) for some "canned laughter", if one has it.

VII

[I posted previous comments prior to seeing the next video, here]

Narnia Reboot to Start New "Trilogy"? | Narnia Nerd Glumpuddle | 22.V.2017 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62-m_Yjeb8Q

Are Non-Catholics Christians?

The following dialogues are from under a video, where I thought I had made a long running comment, and only had to collect the comments to give my refutation of the video. I only found one comment of mine on it. Too little to publish here. But I looked around for debates and here they are:

I

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I'm sorry, but the title should have been "are non-Catholics Christians?"

Since I saw you were "Baptist", where was your church in VIIth C. AD?

NZ Bro Trev

We were at home in a house church praying you lot don't find us.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@NZ Bro Trev I'm very sorry, but that can't be true, because God did not set up a light to just put a bushel over it.

House Churches definitely existed in Rome in persecution times, and some (perhaps all) cardinal titles (they are titles for Churches in Rome) go back to those house Churches.

BUT, that was not all the presence. Popes were making sure the Church was visible.

For Nero killing Christians (including the then Pope, St Peter) we do have testimony in Tacitus he did so. For people being martyred in Lyons next century, we do have court procedures. For third century we have a famous author like Origen and we have St Paul the First Hermit founding Hermitism (fleeing to Egyptian desert) during Decian persecution. And both are documented by people surviving next century past Constantinian peace.

I think even St Paul the First Hermit did so. He was visited by St Anthony the great who had himself fled the persecution by Diocletian and who knew St Athanasius of Alexandria who wrote about him.

Not to mention we have a very detailed martyrology for at first many martyrs in these centuries of persecution:

MARTYROLOGIUM ROMANUM
GREGORII XIII JUSSU EDITUM, URBANI VIII ET CLEMENTIS X AUCTORITATE RECOGNITUM AC DEINDE ANNO MDCCXLIX BENEDICTI XIV LABORE ET STUDIO AUCTUM ET CASTIGATUM
http://www.liturgialatina.org/martyrologium/35.htm

on it, the essay by me says a bit on how it was made at the end:

Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : Feet and Martyrologies
https://filolohika.blogspot.com/2019/02/feet-and-martyrologies.html

II

Charles Whitmill

The problem I have with the Catholic Church many people died by the hand of the Catholic Church

Matt

they like to brush that under the rug

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Matt Saying no to the fake martyrologies in Foxe and in Thielemann is not brushing sth under the rug.

As to documented works of the historic inquisition, not all of us do so.

Some are in fact saying the Inquisition was right, and so do I (right most of the time, not every time).

III

Asaph Vapor

No matter how smug and arrogant Catholics are and how many times they claim they are believers of Christ, they are not. Catholicism came from Pagan Rome and its pagan emperors in AD313-380. Catholicism is completely man made and 95% of catholic teachings are not from the Bible, neither from the apostles or Jesus. Catholic Church was not the original church, neither were early apostles Catholics. All it’s pagan doctrines come from Rome. Catholic Church is the apostate church described in Revelations 17-18. To be destroyed in the last days. God says come out of it!

( Modified Cynthia X's quote)

Hans-Georg Lundahl

You know, there was another time when God said to come out of Babylon.

It came after some 70 years of Babylonian captivity, not after centuries of it.

Asaph Vapor

@Hans-Georg Lundahl
So?

[saw above by Asaph Vapor after posting next]

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"Catholic Church is the apostate church described in Revelations 17-18. To be destroyed in the last days."

To be founded and destroyed in the last days, more likely.

Though I have seen Catholics saying the harlot is actually Judaism.

So, in that sense "come out of her" would refer to faithful trapped in Judaism.

B u t ... doesn't this contradict what I just said? Not if there were very few Jews who were faithful and these always or mostly became Catholics before they died, between when they rejected Christ and the endtimes.

This situation cannot apply to normal Christians from Constantine to Reformation or Theodeosius to Reformation. That contradicts Matthew 28:20, and if you claim "hiding in house Churches" (all of them, so none were documented), that contradicts Matthew 5:15-16.

[after seeing above by Asaph Vapor I added next]

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Asaph Vapor You are aware Christians have been in the Catholic Church for centuries, not for 70 years, right?

Asaph Vapor

@Hans-Georg Lundahl
YOU:
To be founded and destroyed in the last days, more likely. Though I have seen Catholics saying the harlot is actually Judaism. So, in that sense "come out of her" would refer to faithful trapped in Judaism.

ME:
Nay not Judaism. Nowhere indicate its Judaism.
Read Rev 17-18 for yourself. It's RCC the mother harlot.

@Hans-Georg Lundahl
YOU:
B u t ... doesn't this contradict what I just said? Not if there were very few Jews who were faithful and these always or mostly became Catholics before they died, between when they rejected Christ and the endtimes.

ME:
Not sure what you are talking about.
But the nation of Israel will come back to God and Jesus.
Romans 11, Zech 12.

@Hans-Georg Lundahl
YOU:
This situation cannot apply to normal Christians from Constantine to Reformation or Theodeosius to Reformation. That contradicts Matthew 28:20, and if you claim "hiding in house Churches" (all of them, so none were documented), that contradicts Matthew 5:15-16.

ME:
How does it contradict Mat 28:20? Even when Christians were martyred, Jesus was with them.

Neither does it contradict Mat 5. House churches were documented in the Bible.
Read Acts.

@Hans-Georg Lundahl
YOU:
You are aware Christians have been in the Catholic Church for centuries, not for 70 years, right?

ME:
Since when Christians were in Catholic church?

Since when i said 70 years?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I am taking the dialogues again, but adding to them, but instead of "You" and "Me" I am taking HGL where it is me, you can use HGL to, and Asaph where it is you as the dialogues build up.

I'll number them.

I

HGL:
To be founded and destroyed in the last days, more likely. Though I have seen Catholics saying the harlot is actually Judaism. So, in that sense "come out of her" would refer to faithful trapped in Judaism.

Asaph:
Nay not Judaism. Nowhere indicate its Judaism.
Read Rev 17-18 for yourself. It's RCC the mother harlot.

HGL:
Can't be RCC, since Christians in it can't be a recent thing, and for other reasons. Can be Judaism or can be Vatican II, "RC" being too ecumenic with Judaism.

What indicates RCC and what excludes Judaism to you?

Asaph:
Simple. Read for yourself. Next comment.
@Hans-Georg Lundahl
RC church is the woman on the scarlet beast. Rev 17
CHeck out this description from the Bible that fits RC church perfectly:

• RCC (woman)
• Rome ( sits on 7 hills)
• Beast ( spirit of Anti-Christ)
• Woman on a scarlet beast : RCC rides on the spirit of Anti X.

• 1. RC church priests like to wear scarlet and purple. Verse 17:4.
• 2. RC church loves to use golden cups. Verse 17:4.
• 3. RC church persecuted the real Christians (saints) in history from Roman times to modern history. Verse 17:6.
• 4. Seven mountains where the woman sits. Rome is called the city on 7 hills. Verse 17:9 THat's basically talking about RC church.
• 5. Kings have whoredom with her. Only RC church rules over kings. Verse 18:3

The Great Prostitute and the Beast
Rev 17:1 Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and talked with me, saying to me, "Come, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters,
Rev 17:2 with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth were made drunk with the wine of her fornication."
Rev 17:3 So he carried me away in the Spirit into the wilderness. And I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast which was full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.
Rev 17:4 The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the filthiness of her fornication.
Rev 17:5 And on her forehead a name was written: MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.
Rev 17:6 I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. And when I saw her, I marveled with great amazement.
Rev 17:7 But the angel said to me, "Why did you marvel? I will tell you the mystery of the woman and of the beast that carries her, which has the seven heads and the ten horns.
Rev 17:8 The beast that you saw was, and is not, and will ascend out of the bottomless pit and go to perdition. And those who dwell on the earth will marvel, whose names are not written in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world, when they see the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.
Rev 17:9 "Here is the mind which has wisdom: The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits. .
Rev 18:2 And he cried with a strong voice, saying: Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great: and hath become a cavern of demons, and the home of every unclean spirit, and the home of every unclean and hateful bird and the home of every unclean and hateful beast of prey.
Rev 18:3 For all the nations have drunken of the wine of her wrath; and the kings of the earth have practised whoredom with her; and the merchants of the earth have been enriched by the abundance of her luxuries.
Rev 18:4 And I heard another voice from heaven, saying: Come ye out of her, my people; that ye may not participate in her sins, and may not partake of her plagues.

HGL:
Text stands. Now to your fits.

• RCC (woman) - Judaism is also a woman. So is Vatican II sect.
• Rome ( sits on 7 hills) - Jerusalem also has seven hills and Vatican II sect occupies Rome.
• Beast ( spirit of Anti-Christ) - much better fit to Zionism (for Judaism) or Communism (for Vatican II sect)
• Woman on a scarlet beast : RCC rides on the spirit of Anti X. - Or Judaism rides Zionism and Communism, or Vatican II sect can start riding Communism.

1. RC church priests like to wear scarlet and purple. Verse 17:4.

It so happens, white and green and blue are more popular. Black also happens, and the harlot says sth about not wearing colours of mourning:

As much as she hath glorified herself, and lived in delicacies, so much torment and sorrow give ye to her; because she saith in her heart: I sit a queen, and am no widow; and sorrow I shall not see. Apocalypse (Revelation) 18:7

Church is born on Good Friday, as a widow. RCC wears black on Good Friday, Vatican II sect wears purple instead, and Judaism doesn't have one.

By the way, this verse is another indication that the endtimes Babylon very much has to do with Babylonian captivity, since we find a near perfect match in Isaiah:

And now hear these things, thou that art delicate, and dwellest confidently, that sayest in thy heart: I am, and there is none else besides me: I shall not sit as a widow, and I shall not know barrenness. Isaias (Isaiah) 47:8

2. RC church loves to use golden cups. Verse 17:4.

So do both Judaism and Vatican II sect.

"3. RC church persecuted the real Christians (saints) in history from Roman times to modern history. Verse 17:6."

Judaism has both itself persecuted and also incited persecutions, from the one where St Paul was on the road to Damascus to the one under Communism.

Vatican II sect could also soon be considered as too oppressive to true Catholics. Also, there is another kind of drunkenness with blood of saints than the murdering of them oneself : getting so excited the Church is getting martyrs that one forgets Christian nations need protection and Christians need protection against enemies of Christendom.

4. Seven mountains where the woman sits. Rome is called the city on 7 hills. Verse 17:9
THat's basically talking about RC church. - Or Vatican II sect or seven hills of Jerusalem.

5. Kings have whoredom with her. Only RC church rules over kings. Verse 18:3

Unless presidents also counts. Plus how much are Christian royalty now indebted to Judaism? Plus how many Catholic Kings prefer Catholicism over Vatican II sect?

II

HGL:
B u t ... doesn't this contradict what I just said? Not if there were very few Jews who were faithful and these always or mostly became Catholics before they died, between when they rejected Christ and the endtimes.

Asaph:
Not sure what you are talking about.
But the nation of Israel will come back to God and Jesus.
Romans 11, Zech 12.

HGL:
Not contradicting the conversion of Jews, we Catholics believe that.

I was talking of faithful only having a short term stay in Babylon before getting told to get out. Majority of the 2000 years, the faithful either were Catholics from beginning or converted to Catholicism from Judaism, meaning there weren't all that many faithful in Babylon as per Judaism. And the faithful in Catholic Church were not in a Babylonic captivity.

Asaph:
Rev 17-18 has nothing to do with Babylonian captivity. It has to do with RCC being destroyed in the last days in the future time during the 7 years Tribulation of the nation of Israel.

HGL: And THAT is a parallel to the end of the Babylonian captivity.

Isaiah 13:19-22 And that Babylon, glorious among kingdoms, the famous pride of the Chaldeans, shall be even as the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrha. It shall no more be inhabited for ever, and it shall not be founded unto generation and generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch his tents there, nor shall shepherds rest there. But wild beasts shall rest there, and their houses shall be filled with serpents, and ostriches shall dwell there, and the hairy ones shall dance there: And owls shall answer one another there, in the houses thereof, and sirens in the temples of pleasure.

Apocalypse 18:1-2 And after these things, I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power: and the earth was enlightened with his glory. And he cried out with a strong voice, saying: Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen; and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every unclean spirit, and the hold of every unclean and hateful bird:

Isaiah 48:20 Come forth out of Babylon, flee ye from the Chaldeans, declare it with the voice of joy: make this to be heard, and speak it out even to the ends of the earth. Say: The Lord hath redeemed his servant Jacob.

Apocalypse 18:4-5 And I heard another voice from heaven, saying: Go out from her, my people; that you be not partakers of her sins, and that you receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and the Lord hath remembered her iniquities.

III

HGL:
This situation cannot apply to normal Christians from Constantine to Reformation or Theodeosius to Reformation. That contradicts Matthew 28:20, and if you claim "hiding in house Churches" (all of them, so none were documented), that contradicts Matthew 5:15-16.

Asaph:
How does it contradict Mat 28:20? Even when Christians were martyred, Jesus was with them.

Neither does it contradict Mat 5. House churches were documented in the Bible.
Read Acts.

HGL:
I am not denying house churches. I am denying, for the Church, a situation where no one of it is known over the world because all house churches are successfully hiding and avoiding martyrdom while the world is un-Christian. THAT situation cannot happen. Not to the real Church. Bc Matthew 5.

IV

HGL:
You are aware Christians have been in the Catholic Church for centuries, not for 70 years, right?

IV a

Asaph:
Since when Christians were in Catholic church?

HGL:
If you claim there never were, why would God tell any Christian in it to get our of her?

If there were lots of Christians over many centuries between 313 and now, and not all hiding in house churches, the ones that weren't, that were visible, would have been Christians in the Catholic Church. BUT if 70 years is possible, 1700 years is impossible for a Babylonian captivity of the faithful.

Asaph:
Rev 17-18 has nothing to do with Babylonian captivity in 586 BC. It has to do with destruction of Babylon (Rome with RCC) in the last days.

HGL:
They are very perfect parallels and therefore have to do with each other.

IV b

Asaph:
Since when i said 70 years?

HGL:
You don't need to say it, 70 years is a Biblical requisite, or a comparable, not a much larger time is a Biblical requisite for the Babylon harlot from which faithful must come out.

If you take Vatican II sect, it has existed since fewer decades as per that council, or perhaps about that time if its infiltration of Catholicism started before the council.

If you take Judaism, it is only recently that lots of faithful souls are in it who haven't yet become Catholics.

What you can't take is however historic Catholicism. It's been there and had Christians for too long.

Asaph:
You are misreading Revelations altogether.
Rev 1-3, 19-21 : church
Rev 4-19: Israel .

Revelations 4-19 happens during the 7 years Tribulation of Israel (in future).
Same account in Daniel 9 and Mat 24.

HGL:
Israel does not replace the Church. The Church IS the true Israel.

Either way, Apocalypse 18 clearly parallels Isaiah 47 and 48 and Isaiah 13 in details, so 70 years, as in the situation Isaiah was talking of, is a prerequisite.

"Rev 4-19: Israel" - this would definitely imply Judaism, since it's what Israelites must get out of.

IV

Asaph Vapor

Papal infallibility is such a hoax.

• 1. Some popes were kids, can kids decide what teachings are infallible?
• 2. Some popes were murderers and crooks, can you trust these to decide on what doctrines are infallible?
• 3. Some popes bought their titles. Can you really trust such people to give you doctrines?
• 4. If Popes are fallible, so are their doctrines. So its absolutely silly to believe fallible pope to give you infallible doctrines.
• 5. Some periods, there were more than one pope at the same time. SO which pope is infallible? One or all?
  
  There are multiple popes at one time during certain period , who is right?
  
  Pope 1 says A is right
  Pope 2 says B is right.
  
  Who is right?

THis is one silly doctrine of RCC . Same applied to Partriachs of Ortho faith.

I cant believe Catholics are so gullible!!!
My toes are laughing!!!

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"Papal infallibility is such a hoax."

Church infallibility is not a hoax, as per I Thessalonians 3:15.

Papal supremacy is not a hoax, as per Matthew 16:19 (keys of the kingdom = how King David named his "prime minister").

Papal supremacy and Church infallibility would however contradict if Popes were fallible in ruling the Church on God's behalf.

"1. Some popes were kids, can kids decide what teachings are infallible?"

Name one who was a child and who tried to make an infallible pronouncement on teaching?

"2. Some popes were murderers and crooks, can you trust these to decide on what doctrines are infallible?"

As long as Judas Ischariot was among the Apostles, he could work miracles, same as the other ones.

"3. Some popes bought their titles. Can you really trust such people to give you doctrines?"

Name one pope guilty of Simony who also made a doctrinal pronouncement upheld by the Catholic Church?

"4. If Popes are fallible, so are their doctrines. So its absolutely silly to believe fallible pope to give you infallible doctrines."

No, if St Peter was fallible as a person (as per your reading of a passage in Galatians or as per some verses in the Gospels, however these refer to before he became Pope), this doesn't change he was infallible in I and II Peter.

"5. Some periods, there were more than one pope at the same time. SO which pope is infallible? One or all?"

The one who was the true Pope, not the one who was the fake Pope.

Difficult to decide? Sometimes yes, many Catholics now believe "Pope Francis" is and "Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI" was a true Pope. Does it invalidate the doctrine? No.

"Pope 1 says A is right"
"Pope 2 says B is right."

Examples of for instance a Rome Pope and an Avignon Pope contradicting each other on doctrine?

I can name one discrepancy. Blessed Charlemagne was canonised by an Avignon Pope and now he counts only as blessed, not saint, because he was canonised by the wrong Pope. The one who wasn't Pope.

"THis is one silly doctrine of RCC . Same applied to Partriachs of Ortho faith. I cant believe Catholics are so gullible!!! My toes are laughing!!!"

Were you finding as much comedy gold in Christian doctrines you accept before you became a Christian?

Asaph Vapor

@Hans-Georg Lundahl
What has it got to do with 1 Th 3:15?
2 Thessalonians 3:15 New International Version (NIV). 15 Yet do not regard them as an enemy, but warn them as you would a fellow believer.

@Hans-Georg Lundahl
YOU:
Papal supremacy is not a hoax, as per Matthew 16:19 (keys of the kingdom = how King David named his "prime minister"). Papal supremacy and Church infallibility would however contradict if Popes were fallible in ruling the Church on God's behalf.

ME:
Papacy infallibility is in the teaching ministry, nothing to do with papal S and church I.

But Papal Supremacy is a hoax too. Nowhere in Mat 16 mentions about pope, or concept of pope, or Peter as pope. Neither RCC.

Church infallibility is based on the Body of Christ consisting of all believers. Nothing to do with RCC.

@Hans-Georg Lundahl
YOU:
"1. Some popes were kids, can kids decide what teachings are infallible?" Name one who was a child and who tried to make an infallible pronouncement on teaching?

ME:
I do not need to cite any example. Papal infallibility doctrine says that whatever the pope says from the ex cathedra (seat of Peter) is infallible; which is false.

Kid popes cannot give you infallible teachings.

@Hans-Georg Lundahl
YOU:
"2. Some popes were murderers and crooks, can you trust these to decide on what doctrines are infallible?" As long as Judas Ischariot was among the Apostles, he could work miracles, same as the other ones.

ME:
YEs except this is not miracles. It's teachings. Dont misquote.

@Hans-Georg Lundahl
YOU:
"3. Some popes bought their titles. Can you really trust such people to give you doctrines?" Name one pope guilty of Simony who also made a doctrinal pronouncement upheld by the Catholic Church?

ME:
No need to cite an example .
No matter what nobody can trust non believers who bought titles to come up with right doctrines.

@Hans-Georg Lundahl
YOU:
4. If Popes are fallible, so are their doctrines. So its absolutely silly to believe fallible pope to give you infallible doctrines." No, if St Peter was fallible as a person (as per your reading of a passage in Galatians or as per some verses in the Gospels, however these refer to before he became Pope), this doesn't change he was infallible in I and II Peter.

ME:
Scripture is inspired by God. Canon is closed by now (AD 100s). Scripture ofc is infallible.

But after the close of canon, fallible popes cannot give infallible doctrines (canon is closed). Nobody can add or subtract from the Bible to give new doctrines.

~~~~~~~~~~~

In any way there is no such thing as pope in the Bible.
This discussion is vain since Catholics cannot even prove there is pope in the Bible.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

If Catholics are honest and have read the New Testament, you would notice the Bible mentions nothing about RCC and catholics.

No mention of RCC
No mention of catholics
No mention of pope
No mention of RCC typed priests, altar and sacrifice
No mention of sinless Mary
No mention of Mary's ascension
No mention of anyone praying to Mary or saints
No mention of Holy Water
No mention of keeping relics of dead saints
No mention of canonised saints
No mention of purgatory
No mention of peter as pope
No mention of peter in Rome
No mention of anyone kissing statues or kneeling before statues
No mention of rosary
No mention of anyone lighting candles to pray

.....

Don’t you find it strange. RCC claimed to be there during apostles’ time, but Bible has totally no mention of RCC and its practices?

History tells us otherwise.
RCC was only founded in AD313-380 by Rome, that’s why there was totally no evidence of RCC present in AD33-100.

@Hans-Georg Lundahl
YOU:
5. Some periods, there were more than one pope at the same time. SO which pope is infallible? One or all?" The one who was the true Pope, not the one who was the fake Pope. Difficult to decide? Sometimes yes, many Catholics now believe "Pope Francis" is and "Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI" was a true Pope. Does it invalidate the doctrine? No. "Pope 1 says A is right" "Pope 2 says B is right." Examples of for instance a Rome Pope and an Avignon Pope contradicting each other on doctrine? I can name one discrepancy. Blessed Charlemagne was canonised by an Avignon Pope and now he counts only as blessed, not saint, because he was canonised by the wrong Pope. The one who wasn't Pope.

ME:
you are just proving papal infallibility is a hoax.

@Hans-Georg Lundahl
YOU:
THis is one silly doctrine of RCC . Same applied to Partriachs of Ortho faith. I cant believe Catholics are so gullible!!! My toes are laughing!!!" Were you finding as much comedy gold in Christian doctrines you accept before you became a Christian?

ME:
Only 5% of RCC doctrines are from the Bible.
But 90-100% of Protestant doctrines are from the Bible.

Hans Georg Lundahl

Numbering the points A, B and finally C for what was not already numbered, and the numbered threads are then given same numbers as before.

A

Asaph:
What has it got to do with 1 Th 3:15?
2 Thessalonians 3:15 New International Version (NIV). 15 Yet do not regard them as an enemy, but warn them as you would a fellow believer.

HGL:
Sorry, meant I Timothy 3:15!

B

HGL:
Papal supremacy is not a hoax, as per Matthew 16:19 (keys of the kingdom = how King David named his "prime minister"). Papal supremacy and Church infallibility would however contradict if Popes were fallible in ruling the Church on God's behalf.

Asaph:
Papacy infallibility is in the teaching ministry, nothing to do with papal S and church I.

But Papal Supremacy is a hoax too.
Nowhere in Mat 16 mentions about pope, or concept of pope, or Peter as pope. Neither RCC.

Church infallibility is based on the Body of Christ consisting of all believers. Nothing to do with RCC.

HGL:
16:19 clearly says supremacy, since the OT parallels show Christ was intending to make St Peter his prime minister as one would say now.

St Peter being the first pope, this means popes are so after him. St Peter being the only one, as you might prefer, would imply God didn't understand His business, since a vicar for unity of charity is more needed the further away we get from the Apostles.

I

HGL:
"1. Some popes were kids, can kids decide what teachings are infallible?" Name one who was a child and who tried to make an infallible pronouncement on teaching?

Asaph:
I do not need to cite any example.
Papal infallibility doctrine says that whatever the pope says from the ex cathedra (seat of Peter) is infallible; which is false.

Kid popes cannot give you infallible teachings.

HGL:
Human qualifications are not important for God. Also, you have not cited one kid Pope trying to. Yes, you do need to give examples. Otherwise this is no problem for papacy.

II

HGL:
"2. Some popes were murderers and crooks, can you trust these to decide on what doctrines are infallible?" As long as Judas Ischariot was among the Apostles, he could work miracles, same as the other ones.

Asaph:
YEs except this is not miracles. It's teachings.
Dont misquote.

HGL:
I'm not misquoting. I am giving a parallel. Also, Judas was sent out with Jesus' teachings too, and therefore his teachings were infallible up to his open betrayal - except when he was not teaching the people, but suggesting in private, when the woman had anointed Christ's feet : where Christ contradicted him and the Gospeller says he was already evil.

III

HGL:
"3. Some popes bought their titles. Can you really trust such people to give you doctrines?" Name one pope guilty of Simony who also made a doctrinal pronouncement upheld by the Catholic Church?

Asaph:
No need to cite an example .
No matter what nobody can trust non believers who bought titles to come up with right doctrines.

HGL:
First, you would need to prove that a pope was not just a simoniac, but an unbeliever. Unbelievers indeed cannot come up with right doctrines, which means that unbelievers cannot validly hold office in the Catholic Church. Not as Popes, and actually not even as bishops, except when a superior one, the Pope, upholds them temporarily while their unbelief is unknown or before it is judged.

you definitely DO need to cite examples, if you don't have any, you are just making up a point for a point, no need to answer it.

IV

HGL:
4. If Popes are fallible, so are their doctrines. So its absolutely silly to believe fallible pope to give you infallible doctrines." No, if St Peter was fallible as a person (as per your reading of a passage in Galatians or as per some verses in the Gospels, however these refer to before he became Pope), this doesn't change he was infallible in I and II Peter.

IV a

Asaph:
Scripture is inspired by God. Canon is closed by now (AD 100s).
Scripture ofc is infallible.

But after the close of canon, fallible popes cannot give infallible doctrines (canon is closed). Nobody can add or subtract from the Bible to give new doctrines.

HGL:
What God could do to reveal doctrine, He can continue to do to preserve it. Doctrines formulated after 100 or whenever St John was raised to Heaven only reformulate what was given before then.

IV b Asaph:
In any way there is no such thing as pope in the Bible.
This discussion is vain since Catholics cannot even prove there is pope in the Bible.

HGL:
Except, as I showed, there is.

IV c Asaph:
If Catholics are honest ...

HGL:
Answered elsewhere, don't spam one thread with points I answered in another one.

V

HGL:
5. Some periods, there were more than one pope at the same time. SO which pope is infallible? One or all?" The one who was the true Pope, not the one who was the fake Pope. Difficult to decide? Sometimes yes, many Catholics now believe "Pope Francis" is and "Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI" was a true Pope. Does it invalidate the doctrine? No. "Pope 1 says A is right" "Pope 2 says B is right." Examples of for instance a Rome Pope and an Avignon Pope contradicting each other on doctrine? I can name one discrepancy. Blessed Charlemagne was canonised by an Avignon Pope and now he counts only as blessed, not saint, because he was canonised by the wrong Pope. The one who wasn't Pope.

Asaph:
you are just proving papal infallibility is a hoax.

HGL:
No, that there have been hoax popes does not prove papal infallibility a hoax. That there is forged money does not prove money a forgery.

C

Asaph:
THis is one silly doctrine of RCC . Same applied to Partriachs of Ortho faith. I cant believe Catholics are so gullible!!! My toes are laughing!!!

HGL:
Were you finding as much comedy gold in Christian doctrines you accept before you became a Christian?

Asaph:
Only 5% of RCC doctrines are from the Bible.
But 90-100% of Protestant doctrines are from the Bible.

HGL:
I disagree on percentages. I am making a point about the fact you could be making fun of things you don't understand until they are explained to you, and if you once were not a Christian (at all), I think you may have been in the same situation before.

V

danbuter

Both the Catholic and Protestant Bibles leave out the Book of Enoch. Jesus quoted from Enoch, but that wasn't good enough for it to be included.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

St Paul quoted a pagan poet, should a Stoic poem about Zeus be in the canon, just because its philosophical statements about Zeus were in one passage good enough for St Paul?

danbuter

Paul was not Jesus. @Hans-Georg Lundahl

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@danbuter I think it was St Jude who quoted book of Henoch, if that even was the case, he said sth which is found in it, and so did St Peter.

St Paul was an apostle like they.

Also, St Paul was preaching on behalf of Jesus inspired by the Holy Spirit.

VI

Matt

Can you talk about all the killing the RCC did and how they took the second commandment out of the bible and split the tenth into two

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"Can you talk about all the killing the RCC did"

As per faked Protestant martyrologies centuries after the facts?

"and how they took the second commandment out of the bible and split the tenth into two"

Every verse in Exodus 20 is in a Catholic Bible as much as in a Protestant one.

The verse where you think a new commandment begins is verse 4.

In verse 5 it says "do not serve them" - does this refer only to images in verse 4 or does it rather refer to "strange gods" in verse 3?

Also, while the ten commandments are referred to as ten, they take up 16 verses, verse 2 to verse 17. Neither Roman Numerals counting numbers of commandments (in Protestant Bibles) nor verse numbers (in both Bibles) were there in the Exodus text of Moses.

VII

Asaph Vapor

If Catholics are honest and have read the New Testament, you would notice the Bible mentions nothing about RCC and catholics.
No mention of RCC
No mention of catholics
No mention of pope
No mention of RCC typed priests, altar and sacrifice
No mention of sinless Mary
No mention of Mary's ascension
No mention of anyone praying to Mary or saints
No mention of Holy Water
No mention of keeping relics of dead saints
No mention of canonised saints
No mention of purgatory
No mention of peter as pope
No mention of peter in Rome
No mention of anyone kissing statues or kneeling before statues
No mention of rosary
No mention of anyone lighting candles to pray

.....

Don’t you find it strange. RCC claimed to be there during apostles’ time, but Bible has no mention of RCC and its practices?

History tells us otherwise.
RCC was only founded in AD313-380 by Rome, that’s why there was totally no evidence of RCC present in AD33-100.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"If Catholics are honest and have read the New Testament, you would notice the Bible mentions nothing about RCC and catholics."

If Baptists were honest and had read the New Testament, you would notice it doesn't mention anything about Baptists or Congregations.

Oh, you meant Baptists weren't called exactly that in the time when the NT was being written? Fine, we can say Catholics weren't so ... so, let's see if we kind Catholics under another name ...

"No mention of RCC"

Matthew 16:18. Second half says: I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

In other words, Christ was going to build His Church exactly once.

"No mention of catholics"

Ephesians 1:1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God, to all the saints who are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus.

"No mention of pope"

Next verse after Matthew 16:18 is verse 19: And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven.

"No mention of RCC typed priests, altar and sacrifice"

Hebrews 13:10 We have an altar, whereof they have no power to eat who serve the tabernacle.

Hebrews 6:20 Where the forerunner Jesus is entered for us, made a high priest for ever according to the order of Melchisedech.

Genesis 14:18 But Melchisedech the king of Salem, bringing forth bread and wine, for he was the priest of the most high God

Malachias 1:11 For from the rising of the sun even to the going down, my name is great among the Gentiles, and in every place there is sacrifice, and there is offered to my name a clean oblation: for my name is great among the Gentiles, saith the Lord of hosts.

"No mention of sinless Mary"

Genesis 3:15 I will put enmities between thee and the woman,
2 Peter 2:19 Promising them liberty, whereas they themselves are the slaves of corruption. For by whom a man is overcome, of the same also he is the slave.

Was the woman enemy or slave of Satan? God said He would put enmities, that is total enmity.

"No mention of Mary's ascension"

It happened after Acts, and is probably alluded to in Apocalypse 12.

"No mention of anyone praying to Mary or saints"

To Mary?

And in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God into a city of Galilee, called Nazareth, To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary. And the angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.

And a bit further on:

And it came to pass, that when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the infant leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost: And she cried out with a loud voice, and said: Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.

And the Blessed Virgin Herself:

Because he hath regarded the humility of his handmaid; for behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.

Luke 1:26-28, 41-42, 48

When we "pray to Mary" we call Her blessed, as She predicted and use the same words that St Gabriel and St Elisabeth used.

"No mention of Holy Water"

John 9:7 And said to him: Go, wash in the pool of Siloe, which is interpreted, Sent. He went therefore, and washed, and he came seeing.

"No mention of keeping relics of dead saints"

IV Kings (II Kings) 13:20-21

And Eliseus died, and they buried him. And the rovers from Moab came into the land the same year. And some that were burying a man, saw the rovers, and cast the body into the sepulchre of Eliseus. And when it had touched the bones of Eliseus, the man came to life, and stood upon his feet.

Apocalypse (Revelation) 6:9

And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held.

The most noble place of keeping martyrs' relics is under an altar, and St John tells us their souls have a similar position up there.

"No mention of canonised saints"

Our Lady was canonised by Gabriel and Elisabeth and canonised Herself, as shown.

Canonisations by Our Lord:

Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are the meek: for they shall possess the land. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have their fill. Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the clean of heart: for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called children of God. Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for my sake: Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets that were before you. Matthew 5:3-12

And one of those robbers who were hanged, blasphemed him, saying: If thou be Christ, save thyself and us. But the other answering, rebuked him, saying: Neither dost thou fear God, seeing thou art condemned under the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this man hath done no evil. And he said to Jesus: Lord, remember me when thou shalt come into thy kingdom. And Jesus said to him: Amen I say to thee, this day thou shalt be with me in paradise. Luke 23:39-43

"No mention of purgatory"

For other foundation no man can lay, but that which is laid; which is Christ Jesus. Now if any man build upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble: Every man's work shall be manifest; for the day of the Lord shall declare it, because it shall be revealed in fire; and the fire shall try every man's work, of what sort it is. If any man's work abide, which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work burn, he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire.

I Corinthians 3:11-15

"No mention of peter as pope"

Already answered, Matthew 16:19.

"No mention of peter in Rome"

1 Peter 5:13 The church that is in Babylon, elected together with you, saluteth you: and so doth my son Mark.

Babylon being Rome.

"No mention of anyone kissing statues or kneeling before statues"

Genesis 37:6-10

And he said to them: Hear my dream which I dreamed. I thought we were binding sheaves in the field: and my sheaf arose as it were, and stood, and your sheaves standing about, bowed down before my sheaf. His brethren answered: Shalt thou be our king? or shall we be subject to thy dominion? Therefore this matter of his dreams and words ministered nourishment to their envy and hatred. He dreamed also another dream, which he told his brethren, saying: I saw in a dream, as it were the sun, and the moon, and eleven stars worshipping me. And when he had told this to his father and brethren, his father rebuked him, and said: What meaneth this dream that thou hast dreamed? shall I and thy mother, and thy brethren worship thee upon the earth?

Note (by bishop Challoner) : [10] "Worship": This word is not used here to signify divine worship, but an inferior veneration, expressed by the bowing of the body, and that, according to the manner of the eastern nations, down to the ground. "Kissing / kneeling."

Note (by me) if kneeling before Joseph in second dream was before the saint himself, in first dream it was before sheave he had bound that is, before a material object representing him.

"No mention of rosary"

Sign of the Cross "in the Name of + the Father + and of the Son + and of the Holy Ghost" mentioned in Matthew 28:19, since we sign ourselves in the name we are baptised in.
Apostles' Creed not given the text in Bible.
Our Father - see Matthew 6.
Hail Mary - see Luke 1.
Glory - see Isaias (Isaiah) 6:3 combined with Matthew 28:19.

Repeating the prayers is mentioned in Pray without ceasing. [1 Thessalonians 5:17] Counting Hail Mary's (with fingers on beads, not with numbering) allows one to do that for 15 - 45 minutes.

Oh, by the way, if you intended to counter with Matthew 6:7, no, the Greek, the Latin and the correct English of Douay Rheims do not contain any word known to mean repeat, nor does next verse.

"No mention of anyone lighting candles to pray"

They had candlesticks in the Temple, this is repeated in NT:

The mystery of the seven stars, which thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches. And the seven candlesticks are the seven churches. Apocalypse (Revelation) 1:20

I think I have fairly and squarely shown Catholicism, if under another name, is there in the New Testament.

"History tells us otherwise."

In whose historiography?

"RCC was only founded in AD313-380 by Rome,"

Normal historiography said 313 and 380 gave privileges in Roman society, not previously enjoyed, after abolishing an anti-privilege of persecution.

I e, the RCC was there before.

"that’s why there was totally no evidence of RCC present in AD33-100."

Sure there is, but you were ignorantly denying the existence of what you weren't looking for.

Also, doesn't your date "AD100" somewhat contradict your previous date 313?

It is at least an admission that from AD100 on in Early Church Fathers you do find evidence of practises not endorsed by Baptist Congregationalism.

One more:

"kissing of pope's feet,"

The Pope is vicar of Christ.

(And Mary was she that anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair: whose brother Lazarus was sick.) John 11:2

Editorial minutiae:

The reason why articles here

are usually not signed. On this blog and this type of blogs by me:

• If they contain dialogue, I can not sign what my opponent said.
• If dialogue continues, sometimes for other reasons, I need to reedit an already published post.

This typ of reedit, I could also do on signed articles, but it can serve as an example:

Romans and Scandinavia

Q

Did the Romans ever encounter the Vikings?

Answer requested

by Mehmet Yılmaz

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Answered just now

There were certainly traders outside the … wait, you didn’t say Swedes or Danes in Augustus’ time, you said Vikings.

Sure.

“The complicity of Björn in all this is unclear. However, a number of Frankish, Arab and Irish sources mention a large Viking raid into the Mediterranean in 859-861 where he was supposedly involved. After raiding down the Iberian coast and fighting their way through Gibraltar, the Norsemen pillaged the south of France, where the fleet stayed over winter, before landing in Italy where they captured the city of Pisa.”

Björn Ironside - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%C3%B6rn_Ironside

But Pisa was inhabited by Romans, ergo … yes.

Now, if you meant Ancient Romans, and meant Vikings specifically as Scandinavians of the Viking age, no, since the Viking age is in the Middle Ages, after Antiquity.

On the other hand, if you meant Ancient Romans and Scandinavians of the people later represented by Vikings in the later Viking age, again, yes, at least indirectly.

It is very clear that the Danish King Peace-Froda is supposed to be contemporary of Caesar Augustus. Snorre and Saxo differ on whether he is identic to Froda Halfdansson or they differ as Froda I and Froda II. However, I’ll take Snorre’s word they were the same. Either way, the grandson (or second successor) of the false god Frey who was stepson to the false god Odin (both were men pretending to be gods by false miracles, probably done by hypnosis), was a guest with Froda Halfdansson and drowned in a vat of hydromel after getting drunk there.

If the people involved had not known at all about Romans, they would not have known Froda was contemporary to Caesar Augustus. We do know that Roman coins have been found in places from there dated to 1 C …

"After a brief episode under Augustus 4, mass export of coins from the Empire to the North resumed during the reign of Marcus Aurelius and continued — with varying intensity and many interruptions — until the late 5th, in some regions, even into A.D. 6th century."

Circulation of Roman Coinage in Northern Europe in Late Antiquity
https://journals.openedition.org/histoiremesure/886

We also know that about hundred years later, the Roman writer Tacitus mentioned the south of Scandinavia. In “Germanica” or “Germania”.

However, it would be historically incorrect to call Scandinavians back then "Vikings". But the Vikings knew about them, because Scandinavians cherished history.

And, this is an edit, there were Swedish Vikings at the court of Constantinople, which considered itself heir of Rome, so, as Romans. But, again, this is not Ancient Romans, and I consider the inhabitants of Pisa as equally Roman.

Two More QQ Specifically on Proto-Indo-European

Two More QQ Specifically on Proto-Indo-European · Three QQ on Comparative Linguistics (quora)

Q I

How do we know that a Proto-Indo-European language really existed? What is the evidence?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

amateur linguist

Answered 21h ago

The language group is a clear group with common traits observable in all supposed “branches” of Indo-European.

For a language group, the options are, as far as I can see:

• Common superstrate (Latin was that for West European languages)
• bilingualism in vicinity (Balkan model)
• language family, descending from a single language (Romance group descends from Latin, hence Romance family).

Now, the IE group definitely is a group, has commonalities beyond what pure chance could cause.

This means, if it is not a family, it needs to either have had a common superstrate or a common area of more than one language (representing later on more than one “branch of Indo-European”).

I consider, it could very well have had both, namely Hittite for common superstrate and Anatolian-Balcanic-Aegean area for original language vicinity.

Both Anatolian and Greek branch are here, if Germanic is a “desatemised Phrygian” or “pre-Satemised Phrygian” that would have been here too, someone considered Linear A Cretan as Aryan, which would add a third/fourth major group, one can at least add Armenian a bit east of Anatolia, you also have Aryan Mitanni in East part of Anatolia (if note on Crete).

Also, the Black Sea is very recent, and before there was the Black Sea, there was no major barrier between the said area and the one where majority of scholars consider Indo-European came from, where Aryans left for Persia and India, while Slavs remained and others moved West. To me, between Babel and the Black Sea flood (a minor regional Flood compared to that of Noah, and after it) this could be one reason why the language group developed by Sprachbund.

However, most scholars would disagree with me, especially on branches not documented near here, and they would disagree with my connecting Germanic to Phrygian. That is one reason they argue against other types of groups and for the family type, for the existence of a single Proto-Language. For my part, I think the area pointed at and the superstrate pointed at sufficiently answers this argument.

Another one is, common words are typically submitted to diverging sound laws after a proto-language diverges, but when they are borrowed between languages, they are taken over in the receiving language irrespective of the order of its previous sound laws and without much of its sound laws being relevant at all, except as to phoneme inventory and morphotactics.

I’d answer,

• partly, many of the sound laws actually existing per groups have played a part, but this could be because they came after borrowing,
• or as per “instant sound laws” (if Swedish were to borrow “pige” from modern Danish, it would definitely not borrow it as “pie” and it is possible that both Swedish “piga” and Norwegian “pike” is as per instant sound laws, like a feel from words where Norwegian has k and Danish g, like uge / uke, which in Swedish is vecka).
• Partly, the sound law history between any word pairs (involving obviously two different branches of IE) would be less complex than the sound law history reconstructed to account for very complex and seemingly irregular sound correspondences. The phonetic ugliness of PIE as if H1, H2 and H3 are taken as h, ach-laut and uvular labialised voiced fricative (which would be the usual guess) is an argument to me there is something wrong with the reconstruction.

So, I think I have both given the arguments of my opponents (as the question demanded) and inaddition also argued as to why these arguments are insufficient.

EDIT : at the same time, one other negative answer said it was shameful of one giving a positive answer to have as credential “knows proto-indo-european” since the reconstructed language, while it may be wrong about the actual remote past is at least a guess in the present about it which has been worked out in great detail and can therefore be learned as a fragmentary language.

I wonder which version he has learned, the Meillet-Saussure one or the more recent and much closer to Hittite one by Pyysala?

Q II

Is Sanskrit the "root" of Proto Indo European?

Quora Question Details Bot

Aug 8, 2017

Someone tried to tell me this, but it was my understanding that the reverse is the case.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

amateur linguist

Answered 21h ago

“but it was my understanding that the reverse is the case.”

Supposing Indo-European has a common root, which is not clearly proven, Sanskrit definitely cannot be that one, but has to be one of the branches.

• Because it is a Satem language, and it is more probable that Satemisation is derivative than de-Satemisation.
  
  
• This means concretely, it is more probable you started off with k q which went to k full qu/kw on one hand and ch q / ch k on the other than that ch k is the original difference.
  
  
• Because it merges e and o into a. These remain separate as such or in different (excuse me) “avatars” in several, indeed most other branches of IE.
  
  
• Because, like Greek, it has a rule where aspirated consonants if paired have first aspiration deleted. This rule cannot have been primitive, since it is non-extant in some other languages.
  
  A Greek example of the rule : thrix, trikhos. Originally *thrikhs, *thrikha, then khs > ks (x), so thrix has no second aspirate, but *thrikha has, and the first aspirate becomes a mute, *trikha.

And so on.

If however IE started out as a Balkan type group, a very early form of Aryan, spoken by the Mitanni people, could have been involved in receiving and giving such impulses as have become common to diverse branches of IE.

... on Conlangs

Q

Linguists: Could you tell the difference between a real language you don't speak and a conlang (constructed language), by listening to/reading it without being told whether or not it's a real language?

Two answers

and mine not there, since I am only an amateur linguist, and since the question was arguably about probing a well known positoion of mine, expressed yesterday latest time, conlangs are real languages, and God would be the perfect conlanger, therefore absolutely able to impose new linguistic settings on everyone He wanted to, and therefore no obstacle to his using this power at Babel.

However, comments of mine are involved under the two answers.

I

Enrique Ellem

I have spoken Esperanto in 25 countries with people from more than 100 countries

Answered 15h ago

Esperanto is a “real” language that started as a conlang. 131 years of use converted it into a language used every day in most countries of the world. If you don’t know Esperanto and you hear it, you will think the same that you think when you hear any language that you don’t know. It you try to hear it very well, maybe you will recognize a few words, but still you will be unable to tell what it is.

Maddock Emerson

15h ago

I was thinking more about entirely fictitious languages like Klingon, Elvish, etc.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Just now

They are NOT entirely fictitious, they are however primarily meant for a fictitious setting (in the case of certain Elvish languages, the fictitious setting is rather meant for Quenya, Sindarin, Telerin, or their precursors like Qenya and Noldorin).

They are conlangs of the artlang type as esperanto is a conlang of the auxlang type.

But they are both conlangs.

II

Answer requested

by Maddock Emerson

Jens Stengaard Larsen

perpetual student of linguistics

Answered 8h ago

The number of scripts is much lower than the number of spoken languages, so it’s not very difficult to recognize an historically attested kind of writing from a newly invented one if you’re into that kind of thing.

Determining what kind of language is written or heard, however, is tricky if you don’t happen to know it (or some related language). Language doesn’t exist outside of our heads, so the same string of sounds or characters can be natural when one person utters it, but artificial when somebody else does. It’s wholly artificial if a singer has no clue what he’s singing while being able to mimic the accent perfectly; it’s wholly natural only if you’re speaking your native dialect in a state of great excitement. Writing always is at least 50% artificial. We all have perfect knowledge about what could potentially count as natural language structures, but it’s hidden deep in our subconscious and is very tricky to access for examination— and when we reach puberty, the ability to use it subconsciously on new forms of speech has already significantly declined.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

3m ago

“an historically attested kind of writing”

Like orthography of Middle English, Old French etc?

What if the languages were shown in pairs, one a recently alphabetised native language and the other a conlang in similar orthographic convention?

“We all have perfect knowledge about what could potentially count as natural language structures,”

And so has a good conlanger.

“Writing always is at least 50% artificial.”

I don’t know what you mean by artificial. It’s an acquired synaesthesia between grapheme and phoneme. Any given spoken language is an acquired art, involving near synaesthesia (also acquired) between sound and meaning.

Jens Stengaard Larsen

1 upvote from Hans-Georg Lundahl

5h ago

> What if the languages were shown in pairs, one a recently
> alphabetised native language and the other a conlang in
> similar orthographic convention?

If the conlang is constructed along the lines of specific preexisting languages, then it would be easy for a specialtist of those languages to spot what features are unlikely to occur in those dialects that he or she might not be familiar with. But if you present a linguist with two phonologically transscribed texts in languages that he doesn’t recognize a word of, where one is a natlang and the other a conlang, then all bets are off — especially if that linguist isn’t handed a translation.

>> “We all have perfect knowledge about what could potentially count
>> as natural language structures,”

> And so has a good conlanger.

A bad one has too.

>> “Writing always is at least 50% artificial.”

> I don’t know what you mean by artificial. It’s an acquired
> synaesthesia between grapheme and phoneme.

Interesting way to look at it. But experienced readers most of the time read whole words at once (and probably sometimes whole phrases).

> Any given spoken language is an acquired art, involving near
> synaesthesia (also acquired) between sound and meaning.

You cannot acquire a new language without building on an older one. Our perfect knowledge about what could potentially count as natural language structures is innate, and that’s what we build our first language(s) on. If a conlang contains structures that cannot count as natural, its speakers will not be able to spontaneously remember those features when they need them and will have to make something up on the fly. Once a speech community is up and running, it will replace such features while hardly noticing it, unless there are so many that the speakers have to start from scratch. It’s not so different from having an accent, except that an accent comes from the constraints of a specific previously acquired linguistic habit rather than the constraints of all linguistic habits.

Answered twice

α and β

α

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Just now

“If a conlang contains structures that cannot count as natural, its speakers will not be able to spontaneously remember those features when they need them and will have to make something up on the fly.”

Can the structures of Sumerian count as natural?

I’d consider it is harder to learn Sumerian or Greenlandic, due to structure, than to learn Finnish.

But structurally, Quenya has notable similarities to Finnish, so, learning Quenya should be easier than learning Sumerian or Greenlandic.

Do you believe Sumerian is a conlang?

Jens Stengaard Larsen

Original Author · Mar 7

It’s not about easiness of learning, but the possibility for a child to adapt the internal, inborn language (the abstract I-language) to the spoken sounds he or she hears in the external environment (the E-language). E-languages are never natural or unnatural by themselves, but only in relation to a given person.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Just now

Isn’t “the abstract I-language” a philosophical construct by Chomsky?

β

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Just now

“You cannot acquire a new language without building on an older one.”

Or more than one older ones.