Incredulity on Literal Adam and Eve, a Tracing Problem (Quora)

Incredulity on Literal Adam and Eve, a Tracing Problem (Quora) · Tracing Efforts Continue : Given that Trent Session V treats Adam as an individual man, when did modernist Catholics start treating him as just an allegory? · Continuing Sci Debate with Marc Robidoux · Marc and Alex between them · My answer to Marc Robidoux' long comment · Answering Pismenny, More Than One Comment

This begins with someone else answering a question. And me then interacting with him and also with the one posing the question. Michael Anglemyer and Eric Luxner, here we go:

Submission accepted by

Alex Pismenny:

Michael Anglemyer

Mon

Former Intelligence Analyst at 3rd Infantry Division

answered

Which scriptures confirm that Adam and Eve were or will be thrown in hell because they were the first humans to disobey God?
https://catholicapologetics.quora.com/Which-scriptures-confirm-that-Adam-and-Eve-were-or-will-be-thrown-in-hell-because-they-were-the-first-humans-to-disobey-1

Adam and Eve are generally understood as allegorical, but even if Genesis is to be interpreted in a strictly literal sense, scriptures indicate they were remorseful for their disobedience. There would be no reason to presume God’s punishment. In fact, we don’t know that anyone is in Hell, with the exception of Judas Iscariot, whom Jesus said it would have been better if he had not been born. He betrayed the trust of his friends, he knew Jesus first hand, but still rejected Him and despaired of God’s forgiveness.

I

Hans-Georg Lundahl

18h ago

“Adam and Eve are generally understood as allegorical,”

Since when?

Michael Anglemyer

12h ago

Possibly since the Renaissance and Counter Reformation. Definitely since the Enlightenment. When I attended the seminary 35 years ago, we were taught that Genesis was Hebrew literature — inspired literature. It was not a history book. It used allegory and near eastern tropes to impart certain important truths. The narrative of events is not meant to be interpreted literally; however, it is not a mere fable. There are doctrinal truths contained in the text, such as God created man, creation is inherently good, and sin entered the world as a result of man’s failings.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

6m ago

“Possibly since the Renaissance and Counter Reformation.”

Definitely not.

“Definitely since the Enlightenment.”

Not among Roman Catholic actual believers.

“When I attended the seminary 35 years ago, we were taught that Genesis was Hebrew literature — inspired literature. It was not a history book.”

35 years ago sounds reasonable. Especially in the territory of USCCB or whatever your bishops’ conference is abbreviated.

Thank you for answer, anyway.

II

Eric Luxner

Mon

I’m interested in the idea that Hell will be the end of those who do not follow Jesus. I mean that they will cease to exist. John 3:16 says, For God so Loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son that those who believe in Him will not perish (cease to exist being my interpretation), but have eternal Life. This not a Roman Catholic idea, as I understand, but there are plenty of Scriptures that support it.

That being said, my answer does not directly answer the question, as obviously Adam and Eve were not aware of Jesus. Yet, Jesus was present at the creation and eternally before. In the beginning (of creation, being my interpretation) was the Word.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

John‬ 1:1‬ KJV‬‬

https://www.bible.com/1/jhn.1.1.kjv

Hans-Georg Lundahl

3m ago

In fact, Adam and Eve were very much aware of Jesus as God, it was He who talked to them, and since hearing Him adress the serpent, also of the upcoming Saviour.

And they had 930 years after that to make penance for their disobedience.

However, if they hadn’t repented, they would have been damned, but on the contrary, Catholic and Orthodox iconography portrays them as first of the saved when Jesus descends to Sheol, as He greets His ultimate parents, 72 generations back.

Responding to "Creation Myths" on Neanderthals

5 Minute Myth: Neanderthals Descended from Homo sapiens
12th of August 2020 | Creation Myths
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSkbul-U3d0

1:23 You are presuming here on the genetic clock.

Or on dating methods.

This debunk of common ancestor being older than YEC timeline is therefore highly moot.

1:49 On some levels I think Neanderthals and Denisovans may have been hypermutating : due to nephilim ancestry.

I do not think a normal Neanderthal was a pure Neph, though.

Nephs are described in Baruch 3 and the vegetarian Neanderthals (just people were veggies before the Flood) in El Sidrón (dental calculus) seems to confirm more normal and salvation compatible humanity.

For pure Denisovans I don't know, I think they are synonym for Antecessor (who were cannibals in Atapuerca, see test of ancient genomes by Pääbo and similar) and for Heidelbergians (who are morphologically close to Antecessor).

2:00 Less genetic diversity - compatible with hypermutation in one ancestral generation only (the nephelim generation).

4:21

• Sister group to Homo sapiens - acceptable, since Homo sapiens = post-Noah humanity. While Noah was tenth from Adam on one line (Adam was 2⁹ in Sosa-Stradonitz in that one, Eve 2⁹+1) this does not preclude his being further off from Adam on other lines (what was the maternal relation to Adam for instance? 3*2^?). Obviously Neanderthals - including those half breeds or quarter breeds who came on the Ark - could have been even further off from Adam. 2242 years is quite a while.
• Inbred, little diversity - compatible with being spread by the violence of at least possible Nephelim ancestry.
• Violation of timeline is in fact not a scientific fact but a hypothetic and disputable conclusion.
• The main evidence for hypermutation would be the divergence from Homo sapiens, one must presume Noah was at least physically rather closeish to Adam.

See also my self introduction to him, under this video:

Welcome to Creation Myths
14th of June 2020 | Creation Myths
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZcQh_-_t7I


[after the video] 42. Matthew 1 and HHGG vibes. I have been arguing with Evolutionists over the internet, sometimes commenting under their youtubes (I don't upload any of my own, as yet at least) since 2001.

Another Video with Paulogia, Up to &t=634s

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : Another Video with Paulogia, Up to &t=634s · Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : The Answer I Tried to Add

Final Nail to Apostle Martyrs? (Sean McDowell vs Paulogia)
4th June 2020 | Paulogia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CHV6dXZRUc

As usually, commenting after noting time signatures to where in the video the comments fit.

5:15 Actually, Acts 6 through 7. The Deacon and Proto-Martyr Stephen. Acts 8, but not 9 deals with another of the seven first Deacons, who is actually already briefly mention in chapter 6.

Now, that kind of momentary "my brain just fucked up and this is all I remember" is by one who has read the things pretty accurately.

I'll not question your credentials bc you confused two James'.

5:44 I think there may have been some debate on whether James the Son of Alphaeus was in fact the cousin, hence "brother" of Jesus.

7:07 "the person who makes the claim on any side, bears the burden of proof to see if we should trust this testimony"

Disagree. It is dismissing a testimony that takes a burden of proof, not accepting it.

Now, we should be aware testimonies have different dignities, like whether one has seen it oneself or speaks from a "vulgate" (I think the word is so used) but even a vulgate from back then beats a dismissing of that vulgate done now without good proof counter to it.

Otherwise, one could never establish any history, since the credibility of a testimony would be established by other testimonies which equally we cannot cross examine orally, but have to take as a text from back then with a credibility yet to be established.

I know this approach will get results that seem counterintuitive to some, like accepting lots of stories from the corpus globally referred to as "pagan myth". This the Church Fathers also did, like the one who dismissed Perseus and Andromeda being taken up to the stars as a lie of the devil, but left the rest of their story untouched, I think it was St. Justin Martyr, or St. Augustine opening De Civitate by giving what appears to be complete credence to Aeneas picking up the statue of Athena to save it from burning Troy. His point thereon being, Athena didn't really help her devotees in Troy that much. Or someone (not sure whether St. Justin or Lactantius or some) who said "Hercules was a strong man, but not a god" (last words also readable as "but not God" since Latin lacks definite article).

8:43 Yes, a very good point. I take the Bible as a historical source for Resurrection happening. I also take the Mahabharata as historical source for Krishna dying. However, for Krishna being received as supreme god by spirits up in heaven, Mahabharata is not a historical source, since Mahabharata put this "fact" into the dream of a poet, perhaps Vyasa.

Nevertheless, let's not forget the Mahabharata can't have been written down until sth like 5th C BC, and unlikely even then. And its action, according to Kali Yuga, is set in a time span including 3102 BC. So, I don't quite as much accept Mahabharata as historical as I do it with the Gospels. Nevertheless, the parts where I dismiss it as unhistorical are not its theophanies - the devil could do that, for that matter God could have done some and the memory of it could have been distorted among non-Hebrews. Where I dismiss it as unhistorical is where it conflicts with what I take as a better source, for theological reasons, namely early chapters of Genesis.

Kauru and Pandu had an ancestor "Bharat" who was both a city founder and received into heaven ...? Ah, wait, one Henoch was city namer when his father Cain founded a city, and another Henoch was received into heaven.

Pandavas were wood hermits, living a hunter-gatherer life? Wait, Jabal was father of such as rear livestock and live in tents ... as we know from Abel, he didn't invent pastoralism, but it seems he or his sons, presumably identifiable as Pandavas, invented the combination of pastoralism with nomadism.

If I were a Hindoo, I would arguably instead try to fit Genesis 4 and 5 into Mahabharata frame. But from what is supposed to have happened in Mahabharata, one can argue this fits very nicely with Genesis 6:5. And God seeing that the wickedness of men was great on the earth, and that all the thought of their heart was bent upon evil at all times - sound pretty close to a war in which "finally the deeds of the good men could no longer be distinguished from those of the bad men" (as I recall a recounting of Mahabharata / Peter Brook).

Now, obviously, Acts and Gospels are way closer to their events than either Mahabharata or even Moses to 3102 BC. It would take even stronger reasons to dismiss even partially their historicity.

9:19 Historians want to match up claims in one source with external sources.

Want to is ambiguous. If you mean would like, I agree. If you mean need to, no, that is not consistently applied. We have no external source for Julius Caesar "building" (i e ordering his men to build) a bridge of wood over Lake Geneva (Bellum Gallicum, book I). Yet no one doubts it.

9:37 "a discreet claim in the Bible, that doesn't correspond to any external source"

The problem is, most claims in most books that most agree to take as historical aren't, when we go this far back. Partly, because the culture was less written than ours is, partly because much more of the writings from then are lost.

10:17 [Sean] "I am not sure at all we can tell where history ends and where legend begins"

The test is not Thomas Gospel being later, though that is part of its problem. The test is, the Gospels are part of the auto-documentation of a community we later came to call the Catholic Church, which credibly traces its origins back to Jesus (in much more detail than one could trace re-tellings of the Mahabharata story). The Thomas Gospel simply doesn't fit that community, cannot be attached to any community with better claims, was rejected very explicitly by that community.

The problem isn't "legend" but forgery by a momentary rival sect to Catholicism.

10:21 Yes, I have seen this diagram.

It doesn't correspond to any historical testimony about when the books in question were written, it corresponds to a reconstruction, made with the actual purpose of assigning as much of the historical visible facts as would imply the supernatural to sources as late as possible and as contaminated as possible with "later legendary accretions".

Historical testimony says Matthew wrote the first Gospel and at first in "Hebrew" (which may have meant Aramaic).

It also says, St. John wrote the Gospel as last survivor of Apostles, c. AD 100, while St. Peter had written his letters before he died under Nero. Those who accept the Infancy Gospel of St. James as genuine assign it to being a common source both to Matthew and to Luke, each of which cite different parts of it, therefore very early.

(at 11:30, sth)
I tried to answer a very pertinent question, and my answer was taken down for some reason ... ?

I am not sure I'd attribute to you same kind of intellectual integrity you do to Sean McDowell.

[next day: I actually did manage to copy from the post and then post the comment, and am now commenting on, from 15:11 on, which will make a new post.]

Apostolic Succession: How Much Evidence Do You Want?

Q

Is there reliable evidence of apostolic succession in the Catholic Church?
https://www.quora.com/Is-there-reliable-evidence-of-apostolic-succession-in-the-Catholic-Church/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1

Answer requested by

Carolyn Barratt

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Catholic convert, reading many Catechisms

Answered just now

I do not know what your criteria of reliable evidence are.

If you want the claim “our bishops descend from the apostles” proven by newspaper articles from New York Times ranging from ordination of Matthias just before Pentecost in AD 33 to Pope St. Sylvester getting ordained, you won’t get it. New York Times was not yet being printed.

If you are an atheist, you have certain objectives in denying continuity of the Church anyway,like, the less continuity there is, the more wiggle room you get to pretend miracles are latter accretions. Dito for a Jew who would prefer Christianity to have been founded by a wayward Pharisaic disciple of Joshua Ben Pekharia (a wayward disciple whom I rather take to be Odin).

But if you are a Christian, if you believe the Bible, if you believe historic sources from after the Bible was written, there is plenty.

• Christ promised continuity of the Church up to Doomsday
• Christ made this promise to the eleven
• Acts 7 or 8 describes Apostolic succession going on
• Paul and Barnabas receive it
• Paul has handed it on to Titus and Timothy and instructs them to hand it on.

The only conclusion possible is, Christ meant apostolic succession to continue to the end of times, and He meant “with you and your successors” when He said “with you”.

After that, you see some years where it is not directly documented all that much, but when Roman Empire converts, you get conflicts with sects like Arians, Novatians, Donatists and some of the points of the conflict is how Apostolic succession functions (like, if a Donatist bishop converts after being consecrated by a Donatist bishop who had been a Catholic bishop, would the convert have to be reordained or not?) and you get lots of detail.

Even before that, you get hints most notably in St. Irenaeus Adversus Haereses, where he speaks, not so much of Apostolic succession as of the series pastorum in Rome.

So, your choice would be, either Christ meant Apostolic succession to go on as we find it functioning in post-Nicene fathers, or something went wrong, you have no alternative place where it went right and Christ broke or never made the promise in Matthew 28:20.

A somewhat different question is where the pure and unadulterated and perfectly licit apostolic succession resides, you have basically the options:

• Roman Catholics
• Eastern Orthodox
• Copts
• Armenians
• Nestorians / Assyrians.

Paulogia Starting Christianity Without Resurrection (OR trying To)

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Paulogia Starting Christianity Without Resurrection (OR trying To) · Debates under That Video · Φιλολoγικά / Philologica: Is Vyasa Proof Anonymous Works Can Easily Get Authors? · back to Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Paulogia Attacked Tradition

How Christianity (Probably) Began... No Resurrection Required
Jan. 28th 2019 | Paulogia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUCI3cMJCvU

I

2:32 neighbours talking to neighbours, merchants talking to customers ...

• 1) contradicted by actual Christian self documentation of its beginnings (yes, I believe self documentations of other religions too, I believe what Muslims say about Mohammed and what Mormons say about Joseph Smith, except that their revelations came from God, which is more a theological than per se a historic proposal);
• 2) involves a type of Evangelism very clearly not invented back then, but coming from clergy-less sects pretending laymen are the proper missionaries since no clergy is needed anyway. These sects are a branch of Protestantism, and arose after 1517. Possibly they had predecessors in some Medieval sects (Albigensians, Waldensians, Lollards), but nothing reaching back to the early days of Christianity.

II

2:44 "as the movement began a life of its own, Peter the Fisherman was not around to personally affirm or correct the tales being told."

As a solution to Christianity arising without an actual Resurrection, you have painted yourself into a corner.

How did after this the self documentation screw up sufficiently to affirm what you are denying and pretend Peter was preaching in Jerusalem on Pentecost day (49 days after events at least purported as resurrection) and personally heading the "movement" (more correctly termed Church) along with clergy still around from when Jesus named them?

III

3:21 "Saul changed his name to Paul, and began recruiting for Christianity and writing letters to Churches"

Again, a blatant contradiction against the even social and personal events recorded, as in Saul retired to Arabia and was vetted by a "movement" (or better called Church) that was already very much solid enough to see if he was in line with what was already being taught or not.

3:30 You take Galatians 2 as Paul once meeting Peter and John but not seeing eye to eye on things ...

Actually, if we suppose Cephas and James and John are identic to apostles Peter, James and John (which has been disputed), there were more than one meeting, and the one where they didn't see eye to eye was concerning only Peter and concerning a kind of taqqiya he did to please Jews.

If we suppose they weren't so identic, we see St. Paul had to deal with "false brethren" masquerading as clergy, and unmasking them bc of a doctrine which real "pillars" at Apostle Council in Jerusalem, had dismissed.

Note, there Sts Paul and Barnabas certainly met the real Peter.

IV

3:32 "after several decades, a variety of Greek speaking people, who had never met Jesus or even Peter, took it upon themselves to begin to write down some of the stories that had circulated"

Key to your point is Gospellers:

• all coming after several decades
• all coming without having seen either Jesus nor Peter
• all being concerned with stories circulating, none with eyewitness testimony.

With such a scenario, why would any Christians who were still around from the time of the Crucifixion have accepted it, or if none were, why would anyone have accepted things they knew were written with no bigger authority than their own hearsay?

Crucial to your point is, original followers of Jesus being totally gone, leaving a void, and actually another group filling in the gap.

It may work for Pentecostal sects, but we are dealing with a "movement" (better called Church) that actually required attendance on Sundays. And got it. No trace of any break, other than local, when having to flee.

V

4:10 No, Mark doesn't show a very low profile about the supernatural. Healing of the paralytic with power to forgive sins. I'll give the due credit to Karlo Broussard, even if he's a Vatican II-er. Here's his essay:

https://catholicexchange.com/the-divinity-of-jesus-according-to-mark

VI

5:31 It is in fact not consistent with the spread of all other world religions.

Would you pretend for a moment an equally central claim to Islam, namely God speaking to Mohammed, was one he never actually made and arose only decades later?

Would you pretend that Islam was not organised on June 8th 632, and that the Caliphate only later developed sayings into Surats, and only later claimed the Surats were direct revelations from God?

On the contrary, you admit very readily that the Ummah was sufficiently organised on June 8th 632 to already get a Caliph within days or weeks and to clearly remember very well what Mohammed's life was all about.

So, why don't you admit the same about the Church? Well, because the self documentation given by it involves facts which your philosophy won't accept as even possible.

It is not consistent with human nature that a very loose movement reinvents its historic origin making it look as a very well established and organised one from day 1.

Abandoned Void

Islam did indeed likely exist prior to Mohammad, and much of the Quranic texts and hadiths were written long after he supposedly lived. So your point here is moot, but it doesn't really matter for the sake of the video, anyway

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Abandoned Void Written down is one thing.

Oral tradition can more or less faithfully take a text from oral redaction to later writing down even centuries later (like from Homer to Peisistratus) and therefore obviously also decades later (like from Mohammed to Omar, or whoever it was who made the writing down from seven copies).

A group like Islam is actually not known from pre-Islamic Arabian peninsular history. Your "likely" is simply a likelihood of pure ignorance.

VII

5:38 No, a hallucinating fisherman making it to rally a totally new crowd while making it believe they are just the old crowd plus newcomers, and that new crowd disappearing or nearly enough so to when someone else hallucinates and resets it totally on new bases, thereby founding a third crowd which even so has the impression to be the first crowd plus newcomers ... that is neither mundane, nor boring, and least of all exactly what you would expect.

It doesn't rhyme with human nature and is not consistent with how other world religions arose and spread either.

VIII

5:55 You are making the word "legend" a magical, cover all, explanation.

Real texts actually marked out as actual "legends", ecclesiastic or popular, seem to have a far firmer grasp on factual realities than what you are proposing for the rise of Christian Story. But your problem would partly be, you have a very loose grasp on what legend is supposed to mean outside the contexts when you find it useful.

6:06 I suppose the lives of the apostles are also in the genre you dismiss as "legend" (and they are in a book called "legenda aurea").

The thing is, what the actual use of that word is, most of history is in fact legend more than your pretended requirements of proven historicity.

IX

6:17 "Gospels are anonymous"

No, the fact remains, the Church has accepted them as coming from:

• Matthew, one of the twelve
• Mark, a disciple of Peter who was one of the twelve
• Luke, a disciple of Paul and a researcher among eyewitnesses
• John, a disciple, often identified with one of the twelve, certainly either way some eyewitness.

How many other anonymous works on your view have acquired full authorship status?

Mahabharata's Vyasa would be a case in point, but that's a totally other culture, less good on documentation.

Abandoned Void

The Church is, and this might shock you, completely wrong and at odds with history. The gospels don't even claim to be written by those figures, and they were written long after these people would have been alive. They're absolutely anonymous accounts. And they're competing accounts of different traditions within early Christianity, no less, with gospels like Luke outright claiming to be the only true gospel. That isn't getting into how our oldest copies of each show some quite extreme textual variances, implying that they were being constantly rewritten in earlier traditions and likely the composed work of several different authors building on the original stories.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Abandoned Void "The Church is, and this might shock you,"

A fact if I accepted it like that might shock me, but a claim I do not accept ... I've heard it since I was 1/4 of my now age.

"completely wrong and at odds with history."

Where do you claim to get your historic knowledge from? I claim to get it from a community called Church, what community back then do you get yours from?

Reconstructions from now don't arbitrarily trump knowledge from back in the relevant days, even if a host of academic institutions were to give them more creedence.

"The gospels don't even claim to be written by those figures,"

No, but Papias, an early Church Father, claims it for them.

"and they were written long after these people would have been alive."

That amounts to an alternative claim about authorship. Did you live closer to the relevant people's lifetime than Papias did? He wrote the claim c. 150 AD.

"They're absolutely anonymous accounts."

This is however incompatible with any alternative claim of authorship.

"with gospels like Luke outright claiming to be the only true gospel."

It actually doesn't. Here is the relevant text, Luke 1:

[1] Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a narration of the things that have been accomplished among us; [2] According as they have delivered them unto us, who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word: [3] It seemed good to me also, having diligently attained to all things from the beginning, to write to thee in order, most excellent Theophilus, [4] That thou mayest know the verity of those words in which thou hast been instructed.

• It doesn't state that these "many" were doing a bad job, Luke doesn't claim to do an "I'm better" just a "me too";
• He doesn't mention who the other ones were, and the tradition by Clement the Stromatist implies he was ignorant of Matthew, while both Mark and John were later than he.

"That isn't getting into how our oldest copies of each show some quite extreme textual variances,"

The oldest copies aren't necessarily the best ones. Sinaiticus (probably not what you meant, but one of the earlier codices of whole Bible) is one of the older ones, uniquely or nearly preserved from back then - but probably so because it was rejected for reading and yet not burnt as an Arian pseudo-copy. You forgot to mention what you count as "quite extreme" textual variances ...

Casey Cole and AronRa (Start of Video)

Answering a letter from a priest
1st of May 2021 | AronRa
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjLZgX4W_pM

I

Ah, thanks for telling me that Breaking in the Habit = Fr Casey Cole.
Didn't know.

II

5:10 It is true that there is no Catholic dogma stating St. Eustace would have been saved even if remaining pagan.

But there is a very definite Catholic legend that Christ told him - from the cross between the antlers of a stag he had been hunting - that he had pleased Him, and this referring to his habit of almsgiving.

III

5:24 "all sins may be forgiven if you but believe"

Do you consider the Council of Trent was held by Sankey and Moodey?

It clearly says, while faith is necessary, it is not sufficient. It says you also need hope and charity and the latter virtue means living a life of love to God and to neighbour. Not only sins against the faith, nor those and those against hope, and in the case of charity, not just sins against charity to God can damn you. Charity against the neighbour is so important, if you don't have it, you lose grace. You are in for Hell.

That is why confession exists. You get a chance to repent. However, confession also means, a thief (if he can) needs to restore the stolen goods and if not at least tell those he stole from he's sorry. Unless he's risking death penalty, or something degrading to the faith, confession means usually he has to give himself in to authorities.

But even more, at least in theory, if you have been guilty of calumniating someone, in ways no court will judge you for, you still need to reverse your ways. E.g. if you have contributed to putting someone into mental hospital by lying about how he was acting when you met him, you'd have to own up, so he could get out, even if you got to gaol.

IV

5:33 Three Bible passages noted:

Matthew 12
[30] He that is not with me, is against me: and he that gathereth not with me, scattereth. [31] Therefore I say to you: Every sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven men, but the blasphemy of the Spirit shall not be forgiven. [32] And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but he that shall speak against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in the world to come.

[31] "The blasphemy of the Spirit": The sin here spoken of is that blasphemy, by which the Pharisees attributed the miracles of Christ, wrought by the Spirit of God, to Beelzebub the prince of devils. Now this kind of sin is usually accompanied with so much obstinacy, and such wilful opposing the Spirit of God, and the known truth, that men who are guilty of it, are seldom or never converted: and therefore are never forgiven, because they will not repent. Otherwise there is no sin, which God cannot or will not forgive to such as sincerely repent, and have recourse to the keys of the church.

[32] "Nor in the world to come": From these words St. Augustine (De Civ. Dei, lib. 21, c. 13) and St. Gregory (Dialog., 4, c. 39) gather, that some sins may be remitted in the world to come; and, consequently, that there is a purgatory or a middle place.

Mark 8
[28] Amen I say to you, that all sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and the blasphemies wherewith they shall blaspheme: [29] But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost, shall never have forgiveness, but shall be guilty of an everlasting sin. [30] Because they said: He hath an unclean spirit.

If someone levitates, you can claim he did so by an unclean spirit. If someone breaks bars of iron, you can also claim that. But if someone before your eyes makes people you know to be blind see, people you know to be lame walk, people afflicted with leprosy clean, and later on a man dead for four days live again, you are not entitled to say it's by an unclean spirit.

It's not a question of all and any disbelief.

The third passage is about something else:

Luke 12
[8] And I say to you, Whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of man also confess before the angels of God. [9] But he that shall deny me before men, shall be denied before the angels of God. [10] And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but to him that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven.

Denying Christ and speaking against Him are two different things. The people who deny Him are those who have already admitted Him, but who refuse to say so when the alternative is martyrdom. It specifically says, there is some kind of understanding for those who mistook Him for only just a man, if for instance they were not seeing His miracles. But there are also ways of being very hardened in disbelief - comparable to a Pharisee seing Him give eyesight to a blind. [and still refusing to believe]

[He seems to have deleted or youtube seems to have deleted reference to Italic quoted comments as being from Challoner. In DR revised by Challoner.]

V

7:30 "the entire history of the Catholic Church"

Is your historiography of that history indebted to Sankey and Moody?

"Science Side Up" Defends Old Age on Carbon Dates and on Distant Starlight

Two videos, the longer one only skimmed up to and away from a discussion about Russell Humphreys.

Answers in Genesis Doesn't Understand Radiocarbon Dating
18th March 2021 | ScienceSideUp
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cujGr1Du0M

I

10:56 Yes, you said so.

But the traditional reason is, after 10 halvings, the remainder becomes not reliably detectable. That reason still contradicts the result of detectable carbon in items over 100 000 years old (or reliably detectable beyond 50 000 years), and therefore still has the test implication of "millions of years -> no detectable carbon".

11:47 Yeah, there are people these days, after Creationists started, getting un-curious enough to be content to say "it's the wrong tool".

Well, first of all, if it's less than 60 000 years old, it actually isn't an absurd tool. When saying "it's the wrong tool" you are being arbitrarily dogmatic about the ages geologists assign to that coal as "set in stone".

II

12:22 No, you get it wrong here.

With NO detectable radiocarbon left, a lab would give limit of reliable carbon dating as limit age and this being misunderstand as actual age.

Snelling is not falling in the trap, Ma'am. He stated there was detectable carbon. This is very much not what you would expect. Not after millions of years.

12:31 No, you are not getting answers "in the range that it is ok to use the method for," you are getting answers that are not readily compatible with the actual age being outside the range. You are guilty of gobbledigook and technoblabla - a bit like how Marvel comics explain superpowers with mutations from radioactive exposure. It doesn't make sense if you understand what is being talked about.

III

13:03 some process had to happen to form new radiocarbon in those

Yes, this would be possible, now we are talking, but it is ad hoc and it's an answer that in and of itself tends to make radiocarbon dating unreliable.

Think of it. How do you rule out that things you consider reliably dated to 30 000 years old got new radiocarbon by such a process? What if Lascaux and Altamira are really 5 million years old?

You date Lascaux and Altamira by radiocarbon? Well, that is what Dr. Snelling's team did with things you consider as millions of years old.

14:03 "he's using the wrong tool and got a weird answer"

Again, how many different places were there where this process you mentioned was at work?

IV

14:22 "If we have a problem with the methodology"

I have one with yours : instead of proving the coal samples and shells really are millions of years old, so that he would have been using the wrong method, you presume that is the case and pretend you can't debate the results.

"... we can't even touch the results"

On the contrary. Even if a wrong result comes from a wrong method, you need to show why a wrong method yielded that wrong result and why this result is not reliable, not just make blanket statements of the method being wrong and the result being therefore irrelevant to even discuss.

That's the kind of dealing with the opponent that we engaged in creation science (Drs. Snelling and Humphreys as professional scientists, myself as amateur) have to do and actually do do.

V

15:15 Let's correct the statement he made.

Radiocarbon is used on the assumption that within the reliable time spectrum the amount of radiocarbon has been maintained by same decay rate of "atmospheric sample" and roughly same rate of production.

This qualification doesn't quite change what he stated.

You are making a 27 minute plus video, he was making a 3 minute one.

Possible reasons why C14 production could be faster now than pre-Flood:

• 1) Much of pre-Flood carbon cycle got buried. Same amount of C14 actually produced would count in units that register different rates depending on how much C12 there is. So, same absolute rate of C14 production would produce C14 half as fast if C12 was twice as common in the atmosphere. This is bc 100 pmC (present portion of C14 in atmosphere, corrected for pre-industrial values) is 100/100 of the proportion C14 has to C12, that being what the equipment can actually measure.
• 2) Much of pre-Flood oxygen is now buried in oceans, if the theory is correct that I proposed, that "waters above the firmament" mean "H2 above normal levels of atmosphere" and that H2 then combined with O2 of atmosphere in Brown's gas and then exploded to water at the Flood event - this would mean that O2 was richer and N2 less rich in the pre-Flood atmosphere. Cosmic radiation doesn't produce C14 automatically, but has to hit N atoms to do so. If the N atoms were less frequent per volume, less C14 was made.
• 3) Different levels of cosmic radiation and of force of magnetic field could also make differences.

None of these being what evolution believers or uniformitarians count on.

VI

17:34 Ah starting point for C14 .... it's called calibration.

If a raw carbon date states "11 000 years old" and you have tree rings you trust that instead say "12 000 years old" or "10 000 years old" you will perhaps trust the tree rings, and say the real age is 12 000 years old (meaning the sample started with more than 100 pmC, since it's dated too young) or 10 000 years old (meaning the sample started with less than 100 pmC, since it's dated too old).

The fact is, if one trusts the Bible more than tree rings, one can do exactly the same for Biblical chronology, once one figures out the equations between Biblical history and archaeology.

Now, the only problem is, whether tree rings or the Bible are in fact the more reliable calibrators.

For 1400 AD, we have no Biblical history, but we do have tree rings and C14 from Arizona confirming each other, and roughly also I suppose later confirmed with reference to European carbon dates from back then and historically dated objects.

For 1400 BC, by contrast, obviously the proportion of wood preserved, the number of samples, and also the thickness of samples, therefore amounts of tree rings compared between samples, is considerably lower - just as the other lignine based dating, namely narrative and cultural history is.

And the Japanese lake bottom recently used is a laughing stock among creationists.

VII

18:44 Yes, exactly, we take things that we know how old they are - how do you reliably get that for 50 000 years ago when carbon dating is precisely what you calibrate? The precise thing which isn't reliable enough?

The very brief and succinct answer is, you don't. For 600 years ago, perhaps even for the time when Rome started, no extra huge problem. Tree rings. But to chose between a date 2957 BC (during the Flood) and a date 30 000 years ago (the carbon date), the tree rings would be inadequate.

19:09 I do know of and am sure Dr. Snelling also knows of the variations of original carbon content varying 3 pmC points above and below 100 pmC. However, he was making a 3 minute video.

What we don't agree with you on is that scope of variation being all there is to changing carbon 14 levels.

The available calibration tables assume, not a constant, but very close on a constant.

20:00 I am fairly sure the standard calibration tables for 50 000 years ago do not take into account that the magnetic field has weakened. If that is what is the case.

21:17 "this is only a problem if we don't think of it"

How about checking whether the calibration curves were produced by scientists that did think about it?

VIII

21:34 you like data? from a 3 minute long video?

How about responding to an online text with footnotes that actually gives data?

"In any case, the mean of the 14C/C ratios in Dr Baumgardner’s diamonds was close to 0.12±0.01 pMC, well above that of the lab’s background of purified natural gas (0.08 pMC)."

Diamonds: a creationist’s best friend
by Jonathan Sarfati
Last updated 1 Apr 2020 | This article is from
Creation 28(4):26–27, September 2006
https://creation.com/diamonds-a-creationists-best-friend

IX

24:21 How high energy photons do you need to pierce through diamonds? And opaque materials surrounding them very thickly?

X

25:19 I have less in science than you do, Maddie.

And I can reason through how your view could be incorrect.

I don't use the argument "radiocarbon in diamonds/coal" whatever prove a young earth, because I know your answer.

But I do also know that this answer is a blanket licence for fidgeting with carbon dates.

Let's take my carbon date for the Flood : 40 000 BP - 38 000 BC. This would contradict lots of the findings making coal or dino bones younger than that and still being from the Flood (real date 2957 BC), but the thing you just said involves a possibility how this could be so.

XI

25:31 "/: /: really :/ :/ should know carbon dating is only good for things" ... under a certain age.

Nice, but the deception is on your side. That's a blanket licence for ignoring data that contradict your pov.

You don't measure kilometers with folding rules, fine, but if the folding rule measure is within the folding rule, you arguably have no kilometer to measure.

Young Earth Creationism and Distant Starlight
30th April 2021 | ScienceSideUp
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miGR8raBK_w

I

My take on that question:

• 1) Geocentrism (with Tychonian cum elliptic orbits) is true;
• 2) heavenly bodies are moved by angels;
• 3) angels do not only perform the tychonian orbits, but also a complex proper movement erroneously analysed by astronomers into three components, proper movement, aberration and parallax;
• 4) therefore the astronomic distances beyond "solar system" are based on wrong assumptions;
• 5) and the whole visible universe is probably just one light day from earth to periphery.

How would starlight emitted 24 hours ago conflict with Young Earth Creationism? Or even better, emitted 23 hours, 56 minutes, 4 seconds ago?

For the moment, I cannot assess either the original video nor your answer, since this cyber has no head phones and neither video has subtitles.

Angry Doggy

Angels? Really? Got any proof for that? Do you know how they’re doing all that? On their bikes perhaps?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Angry Doggy Well, accepting Tychonian orbits is fairly good proof, since it's hard to imagine these as purely products of vectors (though Sungenis with friends have a try at that too).

As you also asked for explanation, that not being same thing as proof, angels being spirits have dominion over matter. Our souls have it to some degree, like I can move the keys on the key-board via my body, but an angel would not need a body and its powers over matter not itself (one object at a time) does not depend on muscle power.

This means, moving even the sun along the zodiac is no hard chore for the angel who does it.

Angry Doggy

@Hans-Georg Lundahl The Tychonian geocentric model has been disproven, it just doesn’t work, not even if it uses elliptical orbits. It just can’t explain our observations. If an idea doesn’t work, it should be dismissed or adapted until it fits reality. In the case of the Tychonian model, that adaptation involves placing the sun in the centre and have all the planets revolve around it. Having the earth at the centre and 2 planets orbiting the sun that’s orbiting earth just doesn’t work.

As for some supernatural being floating around, pushing stuff around. That’s just supernatural fantasy with nothing substantial to support the idea.

@Hans-Georg Lundahl That statement doesn’t make much sense. Tychonian orbits are hard to imagine as products of vectors? What’s that supposed to mean?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Angry Doggy "The Tychonian geocentric model has been disproven, it just doesn’t work, not even if it uses elliptical orbits."

Where does it contradict our senses?

"It just can’t explain our observations."

What observation can't it explain?

"If an idea doesn’t work, it should be dismissed or adapted until it fits reality."

Note well : observed reality. Presumed reality doesn't cut it, especially as Tychonian orbits with elliptic rather than perfectly circular movement is what we directly observe.

"In the case of the Tychonian model, that adaptation involves placing the sun in the centre and have all the planets revolve around it."

This is not an adaptation to any actual observation since Sun in centre is NOT observed.

"Having the earth at the centre and 2 planets orbiting the sun that’s orbiting earth just doesn’t work."

Actually, Tychonian means all planets except Sun and Moon. Or in more modern classifications, "all planets except Earth". Having just Mercury and Venus orbit the Sun is yet another model. I prefer the Tychonian one. I am not taking your word for it not working, you'll have to explain what is wrong with it.

"As for some supernatural being floating around, pushing stuff around. That’s just supernatural fantasy with nothing substantial to support the idea."

Except, it makes Tychonian orbits (with elliptic movement) work.

Except the supernatural seems fairly solidly anchored in the human experience (mind moving matter every time a man decides something).

Except it was the standard explanation for movement of celestial bodies back in Riccioli's time.

Except Newton and Einstein have not discussed it and therefore not disproven it.

"Tychonian orbits are hard to imagine as products of vectors?"

I said, hard to imagine as purely products of vectors. Namely with no will or intention directing them. Precisely as fingers moving on a keyboard and spell out intelligible language are not purely electrical twitches in soft electrodes.

Angry Doggy

@Hans-Georg Lundahl That’s an awful lot of words just to say that the Tychonian model doesn’t work without some magical fairy creatures involved. So no fairytale creatures, no working model, got it. All you have to do is find define proof for your magical sky creatures, once you found that, I’ll be happy to consider your ideas.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Angry Doggy "All you have to do is find define proof for your magical sky creatures, once you found that, I’ll be happy to consider your ideas."

One fact they explain is proof. Geocentrism is observed.

Angry Doggy

Hans-Georg Lundahl And that’s where your entire idea falls to pieces. Observations do not match any geocentric model ever created, it doesn’t have predictive capabilities. It’s correct sometimes, but a good model is correct all the time. A model that doesn’t work should be dismissed as being wrong and useless.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Angry Doggy "Observations do not match any geocentric model ever created, it doesn’t have predictive capabilities."

Apart from very minor corrfections since back then, observations match the model of Riccioli.

Geocentric.

Angry Doggy

@Hans-Georg Lundahl And that’s exactly why every geocentric model gets dismissed, it can’t explain or predict every observation. The heliocentric model can, ergo it is the better model and the inferior model can be dismissed. That’s how modelling works.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Angry Doggy If the Heliocentric model "can predict" every observation, why is it getting adjusted every once in a while when you observe sth which it hadn't predicted?

The Geocentric model can do so with equal accuracy, if you do the updates.

And giving Heliocentrics a social monopoly on doing the updates by how scientists are recruited is not refuting this point.

As for "explain" give me one phenomenon it can't explain, different thing from predict.

Angry Doggy

@Hans-Georg Lundahl Stars changing position over time for one.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Angry Doggy What change over what time?

It's very unspecific. As to changes supposed to take places over 10 000 years, we haven't observed them.

Also, since fix stars are moved by angels, no problem with actually explaining this.

II

43:33 And a few minutes back.

You said no object with mass could be at the speed of light, since mass would be infinite.

While I am not defending his theory - that of Dr. Humphreys - I think it would potentially be a problem for my own theory too. But first a detour.

According to Sabine Hossenfelder, this is not quite true of speed, but it is true of acceleration - anything accelerating up to the speed of light would acquire infinite mass while reaching it. But an object already in speed of light would not do so, it would keep the mass it had while starting to exist in a movement the speed of light.

I would perhaps need sth like that for my own theory, stars being one light day up, since a radius of one light day equals a diameter of two light days equals a perimeter of two pi lightdays (6.28 light days) all covered during the 6.28 times shorter time of one light day. In other words, through spatial coordinates, my stars are travelling 6.28 times the speed of light. Since circular movement means acceleration even with constant speed, I don't actually know what percentage of the speed of light the acceleration would be.

However, what if the "speed of light" and "acquire infinite mass" things apply, not in spatial coordinates, but in relation to the aether (luminiferous and vectorial) filling them? Bc on my view, aether has no mass at all, only nucleons have mass and aether is all the matter between nucleons, with ball shaped atoms seen in electronic microscopy being modifications of the aether, as well as the opposite qualities positive and negative, north and south being so. The aether moving at that high level 6.28 light days per day would not be affected, since zero mass times infinity is still zero mass, and the stars don't move in relation to the aether that much, only with it, on the level of each day. Annually, a fix star would typically move (with a proper movement, done by an angel) c. 20 arc seconds back and forth annually, so 20 arc seconds times circle 6.28 light days per 183 days would be a fairly moderate movement for the star within the aether.

I have watched the video, arguably citing Humphreys from another longer one, for a few minutes.

I am not convinced that Russell Humphreys is a better or worse physicist than Science Side Up, but I am sure he has made his task more difficult than mine by assuming there are real distances as far out as more than 50 000 light years away. Just in the Milky Way.

This is a conclusion depending on a series of assumptions going about like this:

• 1) Heliocentrism is locally true within the Solar System;
• 2) Sun has fairly fixed or rectilinearly moving distances to any other stars, so different star distances along the year would depend on earth moving;
• 3) Trigonometric triangulation over time (i e counting two positions of earth as two points, two angles of the triangle) gives distances in light years (units or decades) for some number of stars;
• 4) The main proportion of distances to apparent size is called "main series" and denotes roughly speaking solar diametered stars, so that apparent size for a star of same spectral type as sun can show it's distane;
• 5) Hence, the set constant proportion of stellar distance and apparent size gives stellar distances even further away, like 50 000 light years or more.

If we have instead the following set of assumptions, we get:

• A) Heliocentrism is not true for earth neither locally nor for distance to heavens;
• B) Sun is moving along the zodiac each year and stars are mirroring its movement on a level of c. 20 arc seconds, with the lesser variations being those mistaken for parallax;
• C) The phenomenon of parallax involves one known angle and no known distance, therefore gives no mai series clue, and no stars need be even one light year out.

Which makes my task somewhat easier.

Angry Doggy

Dude, let’s make one thing very clear. What you are describing is not a theory, it’s an idea. A theory is a proposition supported by observation and/or experimentation. I highly doubt you’ve got anything to support your idea.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Angry Doggy Geocentrism is the most directly observed theory of the universe.

A vectorial aether is demanded to make it work with rockets going up and being now above US, now again above USSR, if we don't accept "earth turns around itself" (as it isn't observed).

Angry Doggy

@Hans-Georg Lundahl Earth spinning isn’t directly observed, but it can and is measured. So Earth’s spin is a proven fact, there’s no way around that.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Angry Doggy If so, prove it.

Especially, prove it is not aether's spin around earth.

Angry Doggy

@Hans-Georg Lundahl That’s pretty easy. A gyroscope reacts to movement of the object its attached to. That’s it, earth spin proven.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Angry Doggy It would act on relative movement in relation to aether.

So, if aether is spinning around us, that explains it without earth spinning in the spatial coordinates.

Angry Doggy

Hans-Georg Lundahl Fix a gyro to a table, tilt the table, the gyro registers the movement of the table. That’s how a gyro works, it registers the movement from the object it’s fixed to. It does not react to some imaginary fairy dust floating around somewhere. But go ahead, get yourself some of that stuff move it around a gyro and see if it picks up that movement. Easy enough I would imagine. Don’t tell me you can’t get hold of some eather.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Angry Doggy I can't "get hold" of something that lacks mass.

God can. That's where capacities differ.*

Only aether I can move around is that trapped inside objects, between the baryons.

* Among very many other capacity differences between a creature and the omnipotent Creator.

Angry Doggy

@Hans-Georg Lundahl Once more you have to invoke a supernatural, unmeasurable thing to make your ideas work. Prove that magical being or prove that magical stuff floating around and I will consider your ideas.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Angry Doggy Unseen objects are proven by what observed phenomena they explain.

In other words, you are telling me, this specific unseen object, since classified as (correctly) supernatural, whatever vibes that may be giving you, "no, you don't prove it with this observation, and when you bring up the next one you won't prove it with that one, and when you bring up the third, I will ask you to bring up a fourth proof and so on" - this is not asking for proof, but showing bias against accepting proof.

Known things fall into two categories, observed and concluded, and the concluded ones are proven by what observed ones they explain. AND Geocentrism is directly observed (even if the latest model taking in the latest minor observations is lacking, since Heliocentrics do the models), AND since your take has been this several times over, you conclude, it would seem, Heliocentrism indirectly via Atheism / Naturalism / Denial of the Supernatural, since admission of it would make the directly observed Geocentrism acceptable.

Angry Doggy

@Hans-Georg Lundahl That doesn’t make sense. If you want to make a model, you take observation, you use known and proven physics and check if your model fits reality.

As for directly observing geocentrism. We don’t, that’s just it. Observations have shown us that model doesn’t work, that’s why it has been dismissed.

As for your supernatural forces. You seem to think that a flawed model is somehow proof for that. It most definitely isn’t. It used to be in the past when we didn’t know how to explain reality, but that time is long gone.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Angry Doggy "If you want to make a model,"

Within the paradigm you represent. I wasn't.

I am proposing a change, back, of philosophy.

"We don’t, that’s just it."

We just do, an observation "showing it doesn't work" is something other than an observation disproving it, until you reason why the observation is supposed to disprove it. It would still not be a direct observation of Heliocentrism, only one showing it through reinterpretation.

" It used to be in the past when we didn’t know how to explain reality,"

Well, you don't know how to explain reality. You don't know how to explain why mind in man rules matter, like body parts. You don't know how to explain why mind exists. You don't know how to explain why we descend, supposedly, from animals who can't speak and then developed speach. But thank you for admitting very candidly that you are not equipped with real proof for Heliocentrism, other than within your flawed philosophy of reality as a whole.

"but that time is long gone."

Someone just didn't give me the memo - or make it convincing.

III

45:27 Science Side Up, here you are not speaking from an understanding of physics, but from an Atheist "understanding" of the Bible. Including if you are a Liberal Christian.

To any traditionally Christian view, whatever Isaiah may have known himself, the words he received are from a God Who knows all the secrets of the universe.

45:36 Well, Einstein made a proposition about reality, and as long as it is not refuted, that's one option on what God could have meant when speaking through Isaiah.

IV

49:38 As said, I am not sure it is non-sense, but it seems a less economic explanation than mine.

[two fast forwards:]

1:07:54 Doesn't seem to be a similar discussion of actual physics ...

1:14:11 with some more physics, it seems still to be aside the distant starlight problem ...