Friday, July 14, 2023

Dimond Brothers and Palamas


Greek "Orthodox" Gregory Palamas Is Not A Saint & He Was Condemned Before Vatican II
vaticancatholic.com, 8 Febr. 2020
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTQbU1kqxFM


5:42 Are you aware that the French Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique has two articles on Palamas - one on Palamism, which is about as rejecting as your position, one on the rest about Palamas, which is fairly appreciative?

According to it he supported:
  • the Petrine office as superior to other Apostles
  • the Immaculate Conception
  • the procession of the Holy Ghost "ab utroque" - coming as close to expressing it as the Photian ban on the exact formula allowed him to.


Certainly, it is not a fault free source, since it was an "early bird" in supporting Evolution, I think Theilhard himself was entrusted with an article on Adam, but still ...

As for Palamism being a heresy, it may objectively be one, but seems to have not yet been condemned on the level of the universal Church.

Toledo I in c. 400 condemned "uncreated virtues" other than the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, and "virtus" and "energeia" would seem to correspond, but if Palamas had known this condemnation of Priscillianism, he would also have known the same council professed "qui a Patre Filioque procedit" ...

6:33 "Around 1336, Gregory Palamas received copies of treatises written by Barlaam against the Latins, condemning their insertion of the Filioque into the Nicene Creed. Palamas took issue with Barlaam's argument in support of it, since Barlaam declared efforts at demonstrating the nature of God (specifically, the nature of the Holy Spirit) should be abandoned, because God is ultimately unknowable and undemonstrable to humans. Thus, Barlaam asserted that it was impossible to determine from whom the Holy Spirit proceeds. According to Sara J. Denning-Bolle, Palamas viewed Barlaam's argument as "dangerously agnostic". In his response titled "Apodictic Treatises", Palamas insisted that it was indeed demonstrable that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father but not from the Son.[8] A series of letters ensued between the two but they were unable to resolve their differences amicably"

So, was Catholic Encyclopedia honouring an agnostic?

As for Palamas' demonstrations of "from the Father, not from the Son" the analysis of DThC already referred to goes to the direction that Palamas except for direct verbal affirmation came close to "from the Father and from the Son" ... (I think Palamas used every preposition about the Son except "from" ...)

9:07 As a Thomist, I believe that God's acts circa creata are not really distinct from His essence.

But while they are eternal in so far as they proceed from God as His acts, they are still temporal.

Grace is an example insofar as someone in a specific moment ceases to be in original or mortal sin or both, and begins to have sanctifying grace. Therefore, seen from the view of creation, grace has a beginning. Nevertheless, it is essentially God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the infinite and the eternal, living in a soul. Who lives in the soul by grace has no beginning, but that He lives there in that soul has.

I think Palamas erroneously would have argued that, if the acts of God circa creata were not really distinct from His essence, they would not be His free acts. Hence the rest of his errors on this matter. And, yes, I believe these are errors.

10:26 Your view is not identic to the council of Zamość.

By stating "he is a heretic" you are mentioning him.

The council was however forbidding to mention him. From your resumé, it would appear, not just liturgically. It was a decision to hush up an apparently difficult question.

Michael Lofton has Sth Substantial to Say on some LGBTQ Perverted Theologies


Correcting a Priest on the Sin of Sodom | The Michael Lofton Show
Reason & Theology | 13.VII.2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYt71ziVa2g


1:20 I think you need to reflect on Ezechiel giving a full definition of the sin of Sodom.

Chapter 16 has 49 Behold this was the iniquity of Sodom thy sister, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance, and the idleness of her, and of her daughters: and they did not put forth their hand to the needy, and to the poor 50 And they were lifted up, and committed abominations before me: and I took them away as thou hast seen.

1) pride, fulness of bread, and abundance, and the idleness of her, and of her daughters = leads to lust
2) and they did not put forth their hand to the needy, and to the poor = inhospitality, which leads to an unwillingness to receive even one's own children
3) And they were lifted up, and committed abominations before me = if you try to combine lust with infertility, you get perversion, here cited as "abominations before me" because perversions really are abominations before God.

So, while it is wrong to pinpoint inhospitality as the main thing, for which God took them away, it certainly was a contributing factor.

5:10 Wait, you mean the guys actually misconstrue Ezechiel 16:50 as referring to the same sin as previous verse?

Like the nincompoops who take Genesis 38:10 as having "detestable thing" refer to the mentioned intention rather than the mentioned act in verse 9?

If they are that incompetent with Ezechiel and with Genesis - can even Jude help them? W a i t - he's the patron of lost causes, so, yes, you may have a point!

13:06 "Homosexuality" is unclear, since it stands for anything from even resisted same sex attraction to repeated acts of sodomy.

13:24 I used to interpret the term "homophobe" as really meaning (other than what it is currently used to), someone irrationally afraid of the other guy being homosexual ... I have since learned there actually is a current term for that, "homohysteria" ...

14:42 Yeah, there are reasons why I left the Lutherans ... you know Lutherans and Anglicans by now have intercommunion with each other and with Methodists, the Porvoo Communion?

To me, the Porvoo Communion is a good candidate for the power represented by a Babylonic lion.

Ryan Foley is more like leopard head n. 3, but Porvoo + Dalai Lama seem a very good fit for Babylonic lion ...

Michael Lofton had some Good Things to Say on Ryan Foley, but some Nonsense Too


Protestant Evangelist Ryan Foley DESTROYS Himself on Social Media
Reason & Theology | 13.VII.2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wISQwov42b4


1:38 Has he tried storming a Masonic lodge and finding a Bible?*

W a i t ... Masonic lodges are a bit less easy to storm, of course. That might be daunting even to Ryan Foley.

2:51 If and when he gets arrested, can one hope - charitably - this happens when he enters an abortion clinic to save a baby from a mother's black despair and the guys willing to exploit it?

4:22 I'm reminded of a Swedish pastor who on a blog post about his visit to the Vatican claimed "Jesus was probably hidden there somewhere, between all the statues of Mary with the child" ....

I wonder if he even thought about what child Mary was carrying into the Temple for circumcision or for purification ... or if he ever read Apocalypse 12.

5:00 The inaccuracy matches that of John Todd claiming to have on behalf of Illuminati personally made payments in cash to C. S. Lewis.

John Todd was born 1949. C. S. Lewis died 1963. So, by 14, he was an Illuminoid who was entrusted to hand over money to the important secret agents of that organisation?

S o u n d s somewhat s u s.

8:17 Given his age, I don't think he has a house-church.

He has some kind of ambition to become a pastor, probably, or apologist ... his much nicer sister (or relative?) Avery Foley is doing a great show on Answers in Genesis, as lay apologist for YEC and Pro-Life stuff, but I think he goes to someone else's either Church or House-Church.

There would be a very big difference.

Ryan walked into a Church which was open to visitors, both Catholics and tourists, where this openness was only conditioned on rules like showing respect and being quiet when services or prayers were going on. He didn't trespass. When he broke the rules and was shown out, he went out.

10:33 I think I sense a kind of Protestant misinterpretation of James 5:16.

12:50 There is a difference between sins and heresies.

Read up on it in Chesterton. Even a sinning right-believer has advantages over a wrong-believer.

On that issue, Ryan has a Catholic view, even if he's wrong on who's a right-believer and who's a wrong-believer.

13:26 So, in 2020 he was in high school.

Does not sound like he's actually heading any kind of Church, house or other.

13:50 When:
a) you don't have the sacrament of confession
b) you think the introduction of auricular confession to one person as opposed to a whole congregation [was the wrong move]**
c) you still think James 5:16 is Scripture ... Word of God
THEN you are likely to improvise obedience to James 5:16 the wrong way.

14:10 Is apologetics "ministry"?

In his case, he's clearly also preaching, which I am not, i e exhorting morally to repentance, to conversion, which I am not, but much of what he does is apologetics, directed the wrong way, sure, but even so, apologetics need not be a "ministry" ... Catholic Answers, as apologists, do not have any Church offices, do not work for the Church, unlike a priest or a man tending graveyards on hallowed ground, i e are not in what Catholics would normally considere the equivalent of a "ministry" - a word which by the way is not Catholic. See Catholic Encyclopedia:

Mind - Explores the term in relation to consciousness, matter, and mechanism
Minister - Even before the Reformation the word minister was occasionally used in English to describe those of the clergy actually taking part in a function, or the celebrant as distinguished from the assistants, but it was not then used sine addito to designate an ecclesiastic. This employment of the term dates from Calvin
Minor Orders - The lower degrees of the hierarchy are designated by the name of minor orders, in opposition to the 'major' or 'sacred' orders


Dialogue:

Ineedtruth1
I was just received into the Church at Easter Vigil 2023 after 26 years of being Protestant. The Sacrament of confession has truly become my favorite thing. Before, I had such a hard time letting go and accepting that I have a sinful nature. I lived in constant shame and hatred of myself. The first time a priest, acting in persona Christi, told me “I absolve you of your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” it changed my life. I can’t imagine life without the Sacraments.

I used to think “Why would I want to confess to a man when I can confess to God?” And now I understand that God gave us the gift of Reconciliation to cultivate humility, combat shame and self-hatred, and to get the spiritual guidance we need and I love Him all the more for it.

atrifle8364
Confession is such a huge gift from God.

IzakD8
Jordan Peterson, who is one of the most cited clinical psychologists of all time, even though he is not Catholic, he himself has praised the Sacrament of Confession. He talked about something along the lines of how you just admitting your sin is good enough in the eyes of God, and just like that because the slate is clean, you get to move forward, and even though you will most likely go out and act foolish again, you get to come back and try again. That accountability of knowing you have to confess your sins to a priest is a massive motivation to adjust your behavior. It is a blow to your pride and God knows this, and that is in part why he commands it, because he demands humility. On top of that we are visual creatures. Simply praying to God in our room is something we can do, but it will never give us the assurance of forgiveness like the visible sign of confession provides. Once you leave confession there is no doubt, you know your sins are behind you and you are once more in friendship with God.

julieelizabeth4856
@IzakD8 The devil also knows that confession is a blow to pride, and that's why it is so often attacked.

hglundahl
"and to get the spiritual guidance we need and I love Him all the more for it."

Good for you.

I was received in 1988. I had committed a serious sin in 1985 and asked a priest if I could confess. That he didn't allow me the sacrament of confession before I was received and when I was not yet catechised is one thing. But I also was not offered any chance of simply having a talk with him about how I should reconcile with God while waiting for Conversion to get on.

hglundahl
@julieelizabeth4856 "that's why it is so often attacked."

If I haven't confessed in quite a few years, it's not about being against the sacrament.

I dread being abused about me and the priest interpreting the absolution differently about my future walk ... there was a priest who told me "you need to make a good resolution, I am not saying which one" ... I find it somewhat hard to confess with confidence to priests who seem to gamble my absolution and therefore my salvation.


* He stormed a witchcraft shop and found a statue of the Blessed Virgin ... ** I was tired and didn't complete the sentence, sorry!

Thursday, July 13, 2023

Online Essay Writers - Trust and Cheating for School


There are two answers to the question "Can I trust online essay writers?" on Quora. One is mine, and I answer "can the reader trust the contents of an essay I put online" ... the other guy took the question to mean something very different, as in people cheating for school. On the other one, I commented to express my surprise at this kind of cheating even existing. Not that it is surprising per se, but it's still a surprise to one whose last dealings with school assigned essays were before the internet was a big thing.

Q, A1
Can I trust online essay writers?
https://www.quora.com/Can-I-trust-online-essay-writers/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1


Hans-Georg Lundahl
none/ apprx Masters in Latin (language) & Greek (language), Lund University
13.VII.2023
An essay writer is not asking for your trust, but for your attention to his argument.

I suppose you are referring to the type of essays that make an argument, like C. S. Lewis Fernseeds and Elephants or my own …

Sects, Historical Critical Method, Post-Confessional Christianity
https://filolohika.blogspot.com/2011/02/sects-historical-critical-method-post.html


If you want sth you either can trust or are supposed to be able to trust, go to manuals and official sites.

The problem - one I try to highlight with some of my essays - is this: a lot of things you are supposed to be able to trust are really NOT that worthy of anyone’s trust.

Q, A2
Can I trust online essay writers?
https://www.quora.com/Can-I-trust-online-essay-writers/answer/M-Moore-162


M Moore
International Award-Winning Technical Writer
13.VII.2023
Do your own work.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
13.VII.2023
Wait, you take “essay writers” that are “online” as meaning guys who offer to write someone’s school assignment essays against payment?

Sure, I agree on that one, the pupils should be doing their own work - OR not be in that school where they have to write that assigned essay!

M Moore
13.VII.2023
Uh, yeah, I did! I guess that I have seen too many articles about Craig’s list ads for people who write essays for students, and in particular, for students who want to hire someone to write essays for college applications. I’ve actually seen ads selling essays and term papers, even for specific classes at specific schools. Some even brag about the grade that the essay/paper got. 😕

Hans-Georg Lundahl
14.VII.2023
Ouch.

Gross. People who need that usually would be living their life better at that age outside schools.

M Moore
14.VII.2023
Well, remember that there are people who pay other people to take college entrance exams like the SAT for them. I would slightly amend your statement to say that good schools would be better off with such people not being admitted to them. Unfortunately I suspect that in most cases the cheaters go undetected, the recent scandals involving people like the actress Lori Loughlin being the rare exception. I often wonder, when a student purchases a paper that someone else already wrote for a specific class — one of those advertised like “Received an A in Dr. Smith’s Psych 201 class” — how that gets by undetected. I guess that at huge schools, maybe teaching assistants do the grading, and there are 100s of students, so nobody notices? (I was lucky enough to go to a small school on an academic scholarship, and something like that never would have slipped by there.)

Hans-Georg Lundahl
14.VII.2023
I am not saying such cheaters have no advantages. I am saying it’s not overall advantageous for an honest and productive life.

M Moore
14.VII.2023
Oh, I didn’t think that that was what you meant. I agree with your last statement, but I wonder if cheaters really care about an honest and productive life — or at least the “honest” part — or if they are just willing to use any available (selfish) means to achieve what they want.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
14.VII.2023
You have a point.

M Moore
14.VII.2023
Sad, isn’t it?

Wednesday, July 12, 2023

Whose Guilt was Worse? Gerson Fuentes' or his Murdered Child's Grandparents?


Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: No, no one should be taking a birth control pill at all · Whose Guilt was Worse? Gerson Fuentes' or his Murdered Child's Grandparents? · New blog on the kid: I signed

Man who raped, impregnated 9-year-old girl pleads guilty, sentenced to life in prison
WSYX ABC 6, 6 July 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40KObi9heUk


I think the parents who pushed for an abortion should be held in graver accountability than the rapist.

I am noting, the Italian law of 1996 would have made the act punishable between 3 and 10 years.

Not sure how the codice Rocco from 1930 assessed it.

Codice Rocco would have put parents and doctors in gaol for 6 to 12 years, for forcing the nine year old girl to abort (if the person aborting is under 14, her consent to abort is never presumed).

Sorry, what I read was actually a text from 1930, and 1996 was when it was abrogated, so the text about 3 to 10 years is precisely codice Rocco.

(I'm capable to read Italian with some effort, but far from fluent).

[It's the former paragraph 519, as I recall]

A Mother who could have related to mine, had they met


You don’t have to be boring to be a good mom | Episode 164 - Make Memories
Jen Fulwiler, 12 July 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUqdHqXgAUU


0:42 Elks' horns are not good to make drinking horns from.

Try a longhorn cattle that's been butchered instead.

Btw, the things you have said so far read a bit like an homage to my late mother. Feel free to chose between RIP or OPN, it's Birgitta Margareta.

9:19 If you want to start an uprising in Monaco, try spreading my blog Creation vs Evolution there.

The grand or great grand of the present prince funded a palaeoanthropic museum in Paris, and they are heads and heels into Terra Amata people living 100 000 years ago or so. I e contrary to Biblical chronology.

21:45 What? "Ten thousand years or more"?

You are not the right person to get involved in an uprising of Monegasques going Young Earth Creationist!

24:11 I am a blogger, and I don't think I ever said such criticisms to you?

43:03 Lucy? Saint of Sicily, Saint of Narni or fictional saint of Narnia?

1:02:14 My mother very much made sure this was not going to happen.

Summer vacations 9 - 12 often spent hitchhiking and couchsurfing (before there were sites for that), home life 9 y 6 m - 11 y 6 m spent doing old style survival skills.

You have to find out what you are good at in situations like that.

1:12:30 Up to a point.

Acting as a substitute for a Roman Rota to a ma who kind of reminded of a woman at Sychar is not my cup of tea.

Now she doesn't need one.

Tuesday, July 11, 2023

No, no one should be taking a birth control pill at all


Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: No, no one should be taking a birth control pill at all · Whose Guilt was Worse? Gerson Fuentes' or his Murdered Child's Grandparents? · New blog on the kid: I signed

Should You Really Be Taking Birth Control?
Candace Owens Podcast, 7 July 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SKp3IRoa_Y


11:24 It may be mentioned, in the 1200's and up to 1917, a girl of 12 was considered adult enough to marry. AND. A mother aborting was most of Europe (not some quirky part of Hussite Bohemia in the 1400's) punished by death penalty.



12:12 They look ethnically Indian - could they be Hindu heritage?

Was the baby female?

You recall how the affair which turned poor old Ireland around to vote for an "amendment" legalising abortion were Hindus?

Now, there is narcissism and there is narcissism - and then there are cultural narcissisms. To some traditions, parents literally have power of life and death over their children.

Like IV commandment (you might be referring to it as V) gets a place basically above I.

12:41 How much of the apparently liberal culture of pro-abortion is secretly very "parents can decide everything about their children" ... including, obviously, a service to Moloch.

13:28 I am not advicing anyone to have sex before marriage or in non-fertile intentions.

I am however very much advicing for society to get back to the older or younger age limits. Older, as from older times, prior to progressive era, younger as in, people could marry younger.

You know:
  • marry
  • make babies
  • raise their babies (and make more of them).


There are some obstacles to this:
  • too high legal minima for marriage
  • de facto (legal or societal) school compulsion
  • bans on child labour place those age limits too high.


The last of these items are probably where I go least well with syndicalism ... such things have often enough been promoted by precisely trade unions.

13:32 [you're telling them] "when they get pregnant, the responsible thing is having an abortion"

That one, as well as contraception, is heavily taught in Sweden.

I tend to analyse certain uses of the word "responsible" (and of its antonym "irresponsible") as pertaining to an evil ideology. I call it, for lack of any better name I know of, "responsabilism" ... the idea that, the thing to do is not to do the right and avoid the wrong acts, but "take responsibility for your actions" ... I hate it both when it means the freedom to do ill, and the taking away of freedoms from those trying to do the right things but in ways deemed "irresponsible" ...

I bet Hiram of Tyre was more "responsible" in this sense than King David.

14:04 You have had sex ed by PP since the 70's? No longer?

Sweden has had them since 1955.

There is no problem figuring out why the US has fewer abortions proportionally and more fertility than Sweden, and consequently, pension systems were ruined in Sweden 20 years earlier than in France, and the US has still something like 9 more years to go.

14:14 You made a point that the majority of High School students were graduating with virginity intact, up to 70's.

Let's examine this further.

school year 1969-70 2,889,000 graduates
1,430,000 male
1,459,000 female

My source is
Table 100. High school graduates, by sex and control of school: Selected years, 1869-70 through 2007-08
IES > NCES > Digest of Education Statistics.
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d07/tables/dt07_100.asp


Was this the whole population of the age of 12th graders? No. "The averaged freshman graduation rate provides an estimate of the percentage of students who receive a regular diploma within 4 years of entering ninth grade."

So, what was it in that school year? 78.7 %. LOTS didn't complete high school. That would include some who never entered 9th grade in the first place, and therefore don't count in this percentage.

And not too few of them were having sex, because they were married.

So, what PP was doing was most certainly not "sexualising children" but rather telling students (much like Cohn-Bendit in 1968) they could have sex already and still study.

It can be mentioned, some people have an interest in calling 9-11th grade age students or non-students "children" ...
  • teachers don't like to get cuts in their work forces (especially not junior ones who would be the first to get sacked)
  • groomers feed on the frustration of people, probably mainly girls, who have adult bodies and are socially qualified as "children"
  • sometimes these categories coincide
  • psychologists who give therapy for trauma and for neuroses also feed on this frustration
  • also sometimes coincides with groomers.


"Students are often 17–18 years old," [definition of 12th graders]

So, shall we take those 17 year old in 1969 with those 18 years old in 1970? Or those who were 17 in 1969?

12 to 17 = 20.1 millions. 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 = five different ages.

20.1 / 5 would be roughly FOUR million. Those graduating 12th grade in spring of 1970 (or school year 69-70) were less than THREE million.

So, half a million boys and half a million girls, very roughly, were not at all concerned with the statistic "the majority of High School students were graduating with virginity intact, up to 70's."

14:21 "13 years old"

You call that children? Read Juliet's dialogue with her mother!

14:57 No, as said, no one then would have normally referred to them as children.

They were promoting the combination of sex and studies. Previously, what was going on was not these persons being simply children and therefore not having sex, but chosing between an early start of normal adulthood (including perhaps sex) and on the other hand what was called an education.

This was obviously a big sell for teachers.

15:11 Much as I dislike the idea of identifying as non-binary or lgbtq, per se it does not stop one from actually getting married.

However, seeing marriage as a non-option for socially hyped "age reasons" of supposed immaturity, can push lots into these categories, as at least one way of living them out are diverse perversions (including the solitary one).

Like with pregnant 14 year olds, some of you would be saying "well, we can't help them by getting them married" and my answer would be, "yes, we certainly can, if we want to."

15:22 As you mentioned arithmetic, has it occurred to you that "high school" is past the age when basic arithmetic is what is being taught?

If Reading, Writing, Arithmetic is your educational goal, with no cultural tinge, why bother about High School at all?

That's Elementary School, perhaps Middle School for some of the slower ones. Even so, for Sweden there is a famous precisely Middle School Radio and TV Quiz. In 5th grade, you are supposed to answer about history, society, natural phenomena, Astrid Lindgren, JRRT ... not just getting the three R's right.

I perfectly get it, some people actually should have RRR and when they have mastered that, some training in their future profession or role as a mother. Not go to High School. But in that case, and a few other ones, they also shouldn't be taught of as "too young to have sex" just because they are the age of freshman (or let alone even older).

16:09 Actually, even waiting with the first child past 30 is lowering fertility.

You lose more good ova nine months non-pregnant than nine months pregnant (9 > 0).

[Other conversation]

26:28 Actually, she's 36.
She's also divorced and remarried, i e an adulteress.

pregnant at 13: my story *updated + details i've never told before*
Maddie Lambert, 23 Febr. 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tNdz5Id4M8