Language By Evolution? No.

Q

How did humans communicate before the existence of language?
https://www.quora.com/How-did-humans-communicate-before-the-existence-of-language/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I speak two langs, Latin and Germanic. In a few dialects.

5 years ago

Let’s define language, as linguistics understands the word.

A bird can express one emotion or social positioning or whatever by “riririririririri” and another one by “riree, riree, riree” and as it is all about not just expressing but even emphasising “the statement”, repetition is often used.

OK, a threat may not be repeated if it is effective, so there for instance a harshly barking dog will wait before the next bark.

Now, man can make statements that are notional propositions, and those that parallel the above animal ones take a form very peculiar to notional statements as used among men, and very unlike above animal types.

1. It is about infinitely many notions, not about a finite number of emotions.
2. It involves no or very little and subtle mimicry of what is expressed, instead there is a double articulation:
   
   
   • a) the statement is articulated into morphemes, one or usually more than one, and often enough morphemes with independence to each other, different words (a Greenlandic sentence would often just be one, even if including many morphemes).
   • b) the morphemes are articulated into phonemes, one or very much most often more than one, each phoneme being usually a sound or a modification of a neighbouring sound or a combination of sounds (in Cyrillic alphabet of Russian, C is a sound, Ь is a modification of previous consonant, and Ц is a combination of sounds, each or at least first and last being phonemes).
   
   
   
3. Instead of repetivity for emphasis, you have infinite recursivity for added notions, so a genitive phrase can be added on like “this is the mouse of the cheese of the housewife of the house of John” or a more free phrasing can go to This is the dog that worried the cat “That killed the rat that ate the maltThat lay in the house that Jack built.”
4. By adding some kind of negation morpheme or morphemes, a morpheme may serve to denote the opposite or absence of what the morpheme normally denotes “milk” vs “no milk”, “white” vs “not white”.
5. Human language can speak about future, about past, about unrealised conditions and about the things that are remote. And about statements not here and now endorsed.

No animal signal system has these characteristics, and man did not exist even a day, probably not even an hour, before God had given him this.

This is one thing Evolutionists have a real hard time to explain, and gradualism is really not a good try. Each of the differences to animal language is atomic, each contributes to a human language and any human language lacking any of the five points would be a peace hasard. Imagine you had insulted someone inadvertedly, he misunderstands it and is aggressive, you can’t say things like “I didn’t say, I actually said, because I thought” and you had to use as only excuse possible the animal gestures of capitulation, I think that would make you resentful. And perhaps unwilling to make an excuse at all.

So, half a human language is worse than no human language at all.

That is why there is no such a thing as half a human language.

That is why gradually acquiring human language is one of the major impossibilities for evolution.

Milos Markovic

5 years ago

lol, impossible… sure. You’re making up an irreducible complexity argument on the linguistic front and you made a strawman by implying that the only way we communicate is via words (no emotions, no gestures, no anything) and by implying that “half a human language is worse than no human language”. Your entire argument can be debunked by anyone with a fair grasp of how evolution works, similarly to how the “eye is irreducibly complex” argument was debunked ages ago.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

27.VIII.2033

“You’re making up an irreducible complexity argument on the linguistic front”

Absolutely yes.

“you made a strawman by implying that the only way we communicate is via words”

No, I did not. I identified human specificity as the capacity of communicating notions.

“and by implying that “half a human language is worse than no human language”.”

I not only implied it, but reasoned it out:

// Imagine you had insulted someone inadvertedly, he misunderstands it and is aggressive, you can’t say things like “I didn’t say, I actually said, because I thought” and you had to use as only excuse possible the animal gestures of capitulation, I think that would make you resentful. And perhaps unwilling to make an excuse at all. //

“anyone with a fair grasp of how evolution works,”

At least if he has no notion at all of how language (the one communicating notions) works.

Ussher IV

James Ussher in Catholic Apologetics · Ussher II · Ussher III · Ussher IV

Q

I was in a class today, and one of my teachers cited the John Ussher estimation of the age of the Earth, according to what he found in the Bible, which places the age of the Earth at around 6,000 years. More so indirectly defying this, they said that the Earth was billions of years old, which I think I believe. Is there something I am missing? Was John Ussher incorrect in his assumption in any way? How should I have responded? FYI this is a throwaway account.
https://catholicapologetics.quora.com/I-was-in-a-class-today-and-one-of-my-teachers-cited-the-John-Ussher-estimation-of-the-age-of-the-Earth-according-to-wh-7

Submission accepted by

Theo Fessenden

Amoque Stipper

Apr 14 2023

The 6000 year figure comes from painstakingly calculating the generations and linage outlined in the bible. Counting the generations of Adam through the house of David, through on to Jesus… is roughly 6000 years. But we have no evidence that every generation is listed (I honestly don’t know, but I cannot recall any generations carried through the maternal line. It seems likely, but I am not sure). I do not doubt the authority or accuracy of the Bible, but I cannot KNOW the record is complete. The bible is not a genealogy text and there is no DNA proof. I believe that the names listed are in genealogical order, but is the list complete? Does the bible say, “These are ALL the generations?” I don’t know.

For myself, I set aside a determination and leave the issue open in my mind. I try to concentrate on those things that truly matter in my quest to walk more a more Christ-like life and take some comfort in the fact that if the Bible did not say explicitly, then I needn’t know for certain.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

26.VIII.2023

"But we have no evidence that every generation is listed (I honestly don’t know, but I cannot recall any generations carried through the maternal line. It seems likely, but I am not sure)."

You have, as I, as every one else, two parents. That means four grandparents, four in one and the same generation. Usually four different persons, except for the grandchildren of Adam and Eve and except for people made in incest. Third generation back behind you, that's eight ancestors, the greatgrandparents.

The Bible usually gives the single patrilinear genealogy : one father, one paternal grandfather, one twice paternal great-grandfather. One in each generation.

"The bible is not a genealogy text"

It certainly contains genealogy textS. 1 Paralipomenon starts with 9 chapters mostly genealogies.

"and there is no DNA proof."

Does orally transmitted genealogy actually need that?

"but is the list complete? Does the bible say, “These are ALL the generations?” I don’t know."

For the one in Genesis 11, there is at least one possible omission in the Masoretic and Vulgate, namely a second man named Cainan between Arphaxad and Shela. Because the most manuscripts and standard text of the LXX Genesis 11 and most manuscripts and standard text for Luke 3 include him.

But this one makes a difference of 128 years. Not tens of thousands.

However, before we got tens of thousands of years by calculating omissions, we would be dealing with "Swiss cheese genealogies" - you know some cheeses are per volume more hole than cheese, and if a genealogy is like that, it is very ill preserved. In contrast, omitting four people in Matthew 1 or one man in Genesis 11 could be deliberate damnatio memoriae.

If a genealogy is very ill preserved, so could the other history be from times near when it started. It would make Genesis 3 untrustworthy as history.

In other words, now you are getting close to opening up to attacks against the privileges of the Blessed Virgin, in case it was badly transmitted from Adam and Eve what God said to the snake.

Ussher III

James Ussher in Catholic Apologetics · Ussher II · Ussher III · Ussher IV

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Ussher III · Φιλολoγικά / Philologica: Numeric Symbolism in Genesis 5 Patriarchs? · HGL'S F.B. WRITINGS: Number Symbolism in Genesis 5? · Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Ages or Names Symbolic?

Q

I was in a class today, and one of my teachers cited the John Ussher estimation of the age of the Earth, according to what he found in the Bible, which places the age of the Earth at around 6,000 years. More so indirectly defying this, they said that the Earth was billions of years old, which I think I believe. Is there something I am missing? Was John Ussher incorrect in his assumption in any way? How should I have responded? FYI this is a throwaway account.
https://catholicapologetics.quora.com/I-was-in-a-class-today-and-one-of-my-teachers-cited-the-John-Ussher-estimation-of-the-age-of-the-Earth-according-to-wh-21

T Michael Lutas

Can do basic arithmetic

Jun 14 2023

Ussher was the primate of all Ireland for the Anglican Church. He was one of a number of people working on this problem and they all came to about the same result, give or take a few years. Ussher never claimed, nor does anyone assert that he has any sort of theological infallibility to his pronouncement. It was a good-faith effort at a time of much lower levels of knowledge about the world that illustrates the problem of groupthink more than anything else.

The community of scholars trying to nail down the date of creation based on biblical genealogical accounts suffers from several difficulties. The first is that the Bible makes no claims that it is dictated by God. The entire time period prior to the appearance of man has no direct observer that is making claims. To even undergo such a project, you have to accept that the days of creation are literal days, not metaphorical days.

This literalist interpretation is not warranted by all evidence we have gathered in the scientific age. Metaphor is a common literary technique used in the Bible so this presents no theological issues with Christianity but is fatal to anyone seeking to get to the age of the Earth from the Biblical accounts of creation.

So, yes, Bishop Ussher erred. He had multiple errors, in fact but since you can fit many millennia of time unaccounted for in Ussher’s chronology into that first one, I’ll limit the critique to that error.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

26.VIII.2023

“The entire time period prior to the appearance of man has no direct observer that is making claims.”

Not even God?

“To even undergo such a project, you have to accept that the days of creation are literal days, not metaphorical days.”

If they are metaphors for, for instance, six mements in which angels looked around and saw all other things God had created, but had created in a single moment, this actually shortens the timeline very insignificantly, by six days.

Revisiting : “The entire time period prior to the appearance of man has no direct observer that is making claims.”

Wait - you are admitting Biblical history to be historical from chapter 2 of Genesis, are you? Because from “appearance of man” to Abraham visiting Pharaonic Egypt, we get 2084 years in Ussher and with the timeline of the Roman Martyrology, it would be 3260 years.

“anyone seeking to get to the age of the Earth from the Biblical accounts of creation.”

Genesis 5 and 11,12 are actually after the creation account of Genesis 1 and 2.

“Metaphor is a common literary technique used in the Bible”

What metaphors do you detect in this text in Genesis 11? Here:
10 These are the generations of Sem:* Sem was a hundred years old when he begot Arphaxad, two years after the flood. 11 And Sem lived after he begot Arphaxad, five hundred years, and begot sons and daughters. 12 And Arphaxad lived thirty-five years, and begot Sale. 13 And Arphaxad lived after he begot Sale, three hundred and three years, and begot sons and daughters. 14 Sale also lived thirty years, and begot Heber. 15 And Sale lived after he begot Heber, four hundred and three years: and begot sons and daughters. 16 And Heber lived thirty-four years, and begot Phaleg.

Come on! An important theological discovery may be lying in wait for me, once I decipher the metaphor here! Don’t be shy!

T Michael Lutas

26.VIII.2023

God is a direct observer. God’s not making claims on this particular issue. God isn’t allowing lies in the Bible. The Bible explicitly says that not everything is in the Bible. Thus, metaphorical vs literal 24-hour days is not definitively answered.

Usher assumes that nothing relevant to the task is omitted. God isn’t saying that. Usher is not qualified because he wasn’t there. Usher also does not claim divine revelation. Usher is just toting up time periods mentioned in the Bible.

I know that there is an entire discipline of Jewish numerology. I know I’m not anywhere near qualified or interested enough to get qualified in such an esoteric discipline. Wikipedia has an article that might help you get started though:

Significance of numbers in Judaism - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Significance_of_numbers_in_Judaism

The idea that this topic is anything other than a well-chewed bone that has been covered by generations of theologians is laughable. Go find a Jewish mystic if you would like to discuss details.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

26.VIII.2023

"God’s not making claims on this particular issue"

But He is. He revealed it to Moses on Sinai. The six days, that is. He also excluded Day Age Theory and Gap Theory to the Apostles in Mark 10:6

"God isn’t allowing lies in the Bible."

Indeed not. That’s why I accept its chronological statements.

"The Bible explicitly says that not everything is in the Bible."

Sure - in a context where we are well advised to take the time span as exactly 40 days after the Resurrection, and not to take these as admitting ten more years of Jesus walking on the ground with His disciples.

So, you’d better not change it into a claim the Bible omits time periods.

"Thus, metaphorical vs literal 24-hour days is not definitively answered."

Not the point. A metaphorical day doesn't automatically equal a longer day, like an age.

"Usher assumes that nothing relevant to the task is omitted."

When it comes to time spans (more extensive than six days), Ussher is actually finding that.

A) Creation (of Adam) to God's promise to Abraham = Genesis 5 + 11.
B) God's promise to Abraham to Exodus = 430 years.
C) Exodus to Temple > 480 years. Ussher actually did a blunder in assuming the Exodus was exactly 480 years, the Israelites had been sloppy in keeping count of years from the Exodus up to then, so, already 390 years after it, you find Jephtha speaking of "300 years" = "at least 300 years" ...

480 Years From Exodus to Temple?
https://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2023/01/480-years-from-exodus-to-temple.html

BUT Exodus to Temple can't be very many decades beyond 480 years either, since:

• my add up from Judges doesn't need it
• genealogies like the descent from Israelite spies in Joshua's time won't allow for it.

D) Temple to Babylonian captivity = very detailed chronological information about the regnal times of each Davidic king. To double check, take the kings of North Kingdom who weren't Davidic.

"Usher is just toting up time periods mentioned in the Bible."

Very properly so. It's not as if there were gaps between them.

"I know that there is an entire discipline of Jewish numerology"

Sure. That doesn't anything like giving a clue on why we get the years mentioned in Genesis 5 or 11 genealogies, none of those numbers are there in the Jewish numerology article.

"Go find a Jewish mystic if you would like to discuss details."

YOU find a Jewish mystic who is willing to state symbolic significances for the ages of the patriarchs, you are the one making the claim. I refuse to go on a wild goose chase.

"The idea that this topic is anything other than a well-chewed bone that has been covered by generations of theologians is laughable."

If you mean generations of YEC theologians, you are right, but that claim doesn't fit the context in which you make it.

T Michael Lutas

27.VIII.2023

You claim that you accept its chronological statements but reject the idea that you might have misinterpreted those statements. Not even the Pope’s charism of infallibility covers private beliefs.

You might have a pride problem.

Usher had some priors which are not biblical, one of them being the metaphorical vs literal issue. I’m content living my life out without an exact answer to how old the world is. I am more concerned with the stumbling blocks to the salvation of others that you and other YEC fanatics are placing in front of your brothers and sisters who have a scientific bent.

So no, I’m not making claims as to the age of the Earth. I’m uncovering issues that you haven’t addressed and need to before you make definitive pronouncements as to the age of the Earth as established by the Bible.

I am confident that there’s some way to square the circle on this question that I am not that invested in and would like the fewest people possible kept out of Heaven because of this triviality.

But you insist on making it harder for people to get into Heaven for a point that ultimately doesn’t matter. Shame on you.

Me pointing out that there is a mystical numerological tradition in Judaism that might be the source of particular numbers taken literally by Usher doesn’t manufacture an obligation for me to nail down what they say. It means that there’s an entire biblical tradition that you’re closing your eyes to that is very relevant to your subject of research. It’s evidence that you’re sloppy and should not be taken seriously.

In that spirit, I will ignore your offensive “you better not” threat.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

27.VIII.2023

"You claim that you accept its chronological statements but reject the idea that you might have misinterpreted those statements"

Did you read my link about the 480 years?

480 Years From Exodus to Temple?
https://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2023/01/480-years-from-exodus-to-temple.html

I am making it glaringly obvious that anyone could be excused for not exactly getting the chronological statements about the period from Exodus to Temple.

I am not venturing any opinion of my own, was just gliding onto this issue in a scientific way by seeing an opposition between statements:

• Christ is born 1510 after Exodus and 1032 after ANOINTING OF KING DAVID
• the temple was built c. 51 years after the anointing (40 years of rule + 11 years into King Solomon's reign
• the temple is said to be completed 480 years after the Exodus

"Not even the Pope’s charism of infallibility covers private beliefs."

I don't know whose private beliefs you mean, but if you mean the subject matter is one of private belief, no.

• Traditionally, Christ is born 5199 after the Creation of Heaven and Earth
• CCC §283 to modernists defines acceptance of new "scientific" discoveries about the age of the earth and the universe.

Both trads and mods have Church authority to appeal to, in two different and clearly opposed directions.

"Usher had some priors which are not biblical, one of them being the metaphorical vs literal issue."

As said, it only concerns 6 days. PLUS in order to keep Adam created 7000 years ago, all men descending from him, and no anatomical men being degraded to subhuman despite evidence they were human, you need to discard carbon dates, for one.

I, as YEC, can recalibrate them, as there may have been no C14 in the atmosphere at all on day 4. You can't even do that, you need to discard them.

If on the other hand you accept there were human creatures 40 000 years ago, you have issues with dogma far beyond literality of the six days.

"I am more concerned with the stumbling blocks to the salvation of others that you and other YEC fanatics are placing in front of your brothers and sisters who have a scientific bent."

In other words, a scientific bent = acceptance of Deep Time?

In other words, accepting the Roman Martyrology, Historia Scholastica and a few more as chronologically correct is ... fanaticism?

In other words, no one can remove the possible stumbling block by making a good case (with scientific backing to it) that Earth is actually about as old scientifically as the Bible says it is exactly?

Come on.

The FANATIC here is YOU, and YOUR priest. He is not Catholic, you are wrong to believe he keeps you Catholic, he's leading you to uncharitable judgements against the neighbour, and pretending to do so for the greater good of souls. Yes, I said pretending.

Probably, the Pharisees pretended the early Christian community posed a hazard for the proselytisation of Roman occupants too ...

"Me pointing out that there is a mystical numerological tradition in Judaism that might be the source of particular numbers taken literally by Usher"

Means you need to be able to make some kind of case. OR direct me to a Jewish numerologist who does that.

"It means that there’s an entire biblical tradition that you’re closing your eyes to that is very relevant to your subject of research."

Are you aware that most of Jewish numerology is actually post-Christian speculation?

In other words, it cannot realistically be taken as back-drop for how the text was formed.

The sloppy guy is actually you.

“I will ignore your offensive “you better not” threat.”

Taking it as a threat, and taking offense at it, is your problem. I was warning you against actual sloppiness.

T Michael Lutas

27.VIII.2023

You are making things clear that you wish to be disagreeable and pick a fight.

Go with God.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

27.VIII.2023

I think the one picking a fight was you, but I’m OK with it.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

27.VIII.2023

Btw, read with God, here is our debate and a few more ones:

James Ussher in Catholic Apologetics · Ussher II · Ussher III · Ussher IV

PS - see also:
Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : Numeric Symbolism in Genesis 5 Patriarchs?
https://filolohika.blogspot.com/2023/08/numeric-symbolism-in-genesis-5.html

AND

HGL'S F.B. WRITINGS : Number Symbolism in Genesis 5?
https://hglsfbwritings.blogspot.com/2023/08/number-symbolism-in-genesis-5.html

AND

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : Ages or Names Symbolic?
https://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/2023/09/ages-or-names-symbolic.html

Ussher II

James Ussher in Catholic Apologetics · Ussher II · Ussher III · Ussher IV

Q

I was in a class today, and one of my teachers cited the John Ussher estimation of the age of the Earth, according to what he found in the Bible, which places the age of the Earth at around 6,000 years. More so indirectly defying this, they said that the Earth was billions of years old, which I think I believe. Is there something I am missing? Was John Ussher incorrect in his assumption in any way? How should I have responded? FYI this is a throwaway account.
https://catholicapologetics.quora.com/I-was-in-a-class-today-and-one-of-my-teachers-cited-the-John-Ussher-estimation-of-the-age-of-the-Earth-according-to-wh-17

Hamp F

Sojourner

Jun 12 2023

Here’s how I have responded in the past.

Ussher used the best information he had. He was wrong, but he acted in good faith.

He didn’t have access to the fossil record as we have it. While it’s impossible to say what he would have concluded if he did, it’s at least plausible that he’d accept the scientific estimates for what they are.

Given the scientific evidence we have a, young earth theory is only plausible if you assume that God created new stuff and made it appear to be billions of years old. That creates an ethical quandary for the nature of God (i.e., why does God create something that appears to be one thing, but is actually another—if I did that, you’d call it deceptive).

There’s also the issue that the science we use to make estimates of the age of the universe and our planet comes out of quantum physics. Quantum physics also tells you how to make a computer out of dirt (silicon). So the young earth theories have to explain why the quantum theory works to make computers, but doesn’t let you estimate the age of rocks using radioactive decay.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

26.VIII.2023

“So the young earth theories have to explain why the quantum theory works to make computers, but doesn’t let you estimate the age of rocks using radioactive decay.”

In order to explain it, how about stating there is a difference between what physics can tell us about decay and the dating methods, namely, the physical facts about decay don’t (usually) provide information (as in any at all) about the original quantities of parent and daughter elements of any given sample.

Your faith in dating methods is like someone saying “we know how Luke got the facts about Jesus’ life, so we can of course trust Ussher’s facts about the universe!”

Both leave out too many intermediates.

But in fact, Moses getting most of Genesis (beyond the 6-day account) from the ones observing the events via traditions they left is very much more like Luke giving us the road to Emmaus than K-Ar dates are related to computers.

Hamp F

26.VIII.2023

Not at all. The quantum theory also predicts that a photon just left the surface of the sun opposite the earth. That’s also not a claim that can be measured directly. The quantum theory does make experimentally verifiable claims, and that increases everyone’s confidence in it.

Young earth theories don’t make unique claims that can be experimentally verified. Their proponents seem to have the need to make a non-scientific understanding of the world around us to reconcile with a scientific one.

If you’d like to argue against the theory of radioactive decay and propose a new model, please do.

I

Hans-Georg Lundahl

26.VIII.2023

You are STILL conflating the theory of radioactive decay with the radiometric dates.

“The quantum theory also predicts that a photon just left the surface of the sun opposite the earth. That’s also not a claim that can be measured directly.”

But whatever may be true about the existence of photons, we do know light comes from the visible light source (note I didn’t say “body”) which is referred to as the Sun. That is observed directly.

Hence, your “parallel” really isn’t one. We do not have any parallel certitudes for original amounts in K-Ar, at all, and if we do have it for C-14, very indirectly, it is because the carbon of the atmosphere can be considered one giant sample, which can change or preserve C-14 content by usually very slow processes:

• radioactive production of new C-14 (in the high atmosphere or by contamination)
• decay of already existing C-14.

However, while this gives us some relative info about the C14 content (it doesn’t go from 0 to 200 pmC in one day, nor the reverse, hence a carbon dated and historically dated object can serve as valid calibration), this is nowhere sufficient to get beyond the Biblical chronology, except perhaps for the post-Flood era in Ussher’s chronology.

For K-Ar, consider as elementary a circumstance as this one, totally outside the laws of decay, but very relevant for whether they can be applied for dating purpuses:

• the method presumes no argon from the air or from decay prior to eruption is trapped in the sample, because all argon present in the lava is expelled by heat before it solidifies
• the facts show it can sometimes solidify well before such expulsion, so that the argon measured for the method is nowhere near mainly from decay from the potassium. AND the more the lava is cooled by water, the likelier this is to happen. A rule of thumb : if a lava flow says “millions of years” think “Flood cooled lava quickly”

The famous meteorites used to date earth, prove that no Pb-206 was present before the U-238 started to decay, if you can.

II

Hans-Georg Lundahl

26.VIII.2023

“Young earth theories don’t make unique claims that can be experimentally verified.”

My YET about carbon dates actually does.

Take a look at it:

New Tables

The closest calls at archaeological refutations of these claims (people dying too close to the then recent Flood) actually are from areas where the reservoir effect is plausible.

James Ussher in Catholic Apologetics

James Ussher in Catholic Apologetics · Ussher II · Ussher III · Ussher IV

Q

I was in a class today, and one of my teachers cited the John Ussher estimation of the age of the Earth, according to what he found in the Bible, which places the age of the Earth at around 6,000 years. More so indirectly defying this, they said that the Earth was billions of years old, which I think I believe. Is there something I am missing? Was "John" Ussher incorrect in his assumption in any way? How should I have responded? FYI this is a throwaway account.
https://catholicapologetics.quora.com/I-was-in-a-class-today-and-one-of-my-teachers-cited-the-John-Ussher-estimation-of-the-age-of-the-Earth-according-to-wh-9

Submission accepted by

John Thai

Hans-Georg Lundahl

none/ apprx Masters in Latin (language) & Greek (language), Lund University

Apr 16

"John" Ussher was probably incorrect and either St. Jerome or George Syncellus correct about what text to use.

In St. Jerome’s calculation, which is included in the Historia Scholastica and from there came to Usuardus (a martyrology used in Rome and lots of other places) and from Usuardus to Martyrologium Romanum, a LXX based chronology has no second Cainan for Genesis 11. The total is, Our Lord was born in 5199 from Creation. Not 4004.

In Syncellus a more normal version of the LXX is used, Genesis 11 does have the second Cainan, and the total is, the world was created between 5510 and 5500 BC. Not 4004. This one is used for the liturgic new year in Eastern Rite, or at least Eastern Orthodoxy, on September 1st.

But as to basic principle, Ussher is in agreement with the Fathers and Scholastics, and no exception noted.

For the idea that the world is billions of years old, that is Science Fiction. You know Star Trek allows a spaceship warp drive, which is faster than light, HHGG allows a supercomputer to consider (correctly, in the light of Matthew 1) that the meaning of life (not mentioned in HHGG, but immplied to be, Christ) is “42” (namely generations countable from Abraham). Similarily a Sci-Fi not sold in novels or televised as entertainment, but edutainment, presents certain methods, erroneously, of being able to calculate that kind of time.

I, a PS

Apr 17

It can be added, the name of the “archbishop” was actually James Ussher, not John.

II

John Thai

Apr 16

I am not clear on your answer but I accepted submission. Are you saying that the world is billions of years old is Science Fiction?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Apr 16

I am saying believing the methods by which one arrives at that is like believing science fiction gadgets like warp drive or super-intelligent computers.

John Thai

Apr 16

I suggest that you revise to elucidate your thought. Just a suggestion.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Apr 17

What exact part remained unclear?

First Half of Heschmeyers Video Against Mike Gendron

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: First Half of Heschmeyers Video Against Mike Gendron · Heschmeyer Refutes "Trail of Blood" · Great Bishop of Geneva! Could Anabaptists Be Right That Reformation was a Meiji Régime for the True Christians? · back to Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: I May Feel Like Exonerating Mike Gendron, But I Won't Admire Him

Does Ex-Catholic Expose TWISTED Teachings of the Catholic Church?
Shameless Popery Podcast | 8 June 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiBhQwdjxss

0:40 Just curious, is he considering the Rosary has 33 or 66 beads?

Like, looking at a real rosary and counting 5 * (1 big 10 small) + 1 * (1 big 3 small) and actually adding it to 53 small or contiguous and 6 big or "lonely" beads = 59 beads ... somehow doesn't seem to cross their minds ... like, quitting Catholicism was so traumatising that they forgot all the views they previously had of actual rosaries ...

4:08 The three anathemas against deniers of original sin, which involve an individual Adam, Session V, would that fact make someone denying Adam was an individual (like CSL did in a certain chapter in the Problem of Pain, hope he came to his senses later) a Protestant?

There is an Assumptionist in Paris who might need an answer on that, from another source than myself ideally ...

12:41 A certain type of Protestantism, a very Anticatholic one, was never my own brand of near Evangelical not yet baptised Church Hopper, it lost me even back then, some time between 9 and 11 and a half (I met them in Catholic Vienna, not in Lutheran Sweden), way before I converted.

The guys who make the Beast rule "1260 prophetic days, i e literal years" ... I was back then a pre-millennialist (St. Augustine in City of God does a good job of telling us why we should be post-millennialist, we are after most of the "thousand" years - between 0 and 1990 years evens out on 995 years that saints rule in Heaven since 33), but whereever you put the millennium, it is still problematic if the Bible says 1000 years for Christ, 3 and a half years for Antichrist, and someone makes this "mean" 1260 years for Antichrist.

Some of these guys seem like they are somehow influenced - not necessarily possessed, that's a different league, not necessarily not possessed, as in no one of them ever - by demons who see the real millennium, the Catholic Church, from the wrong side.

13:05 And Gamaliel seems to have lasted.

There is some Church tradition that, like his disciples Sts Paul and Barnabas, he died as a confessing Christian (wait, isn't it even somewhere in a martyrology reading?)

14:16 Speaking of which, criterium, Orthopapism is in a better position today than in 1998.

Pope Michael I recently got a successor, Pope Michael II.

The rivals Linus II and Pius XIII (von Pentz and Pulvermacher) are gone.

What looked like another rival claim in Argentina, "Alejandro IX" seems to have stepped totally out of the limelight, not sure if they are Vatican II-ers or Orthodox by now, they used to be Feeneyite and Latin rite only.

Orthopapism as in conclavism has one claimant : Michael II.

The other claimants in orthopapism are mysticalists, like Palmarians (who by now seem to think KIng Solomon was Bathsheba's FIRST son who DIDN'T die!) and successors of Jean-Grégoire XVII.

Back two decades ago, 1998 or even 2004, some people were joking that alternative popes are popping up like mushrooms from the ground ... no longer the case.

16:06 Technically, St. Paul is not stating that these are two teachings.

Also, the Greek doesn't say "forbid marriage and enjoin abstinence" it is one and the same verb, so actually means "forbid marriage and abstinence" ...

What would a Catholic want to do if right now he can't marry? Well, perhaps fast a little more, to make the waiting time less unchaste.

Or, if for some reason he can't abstain? Well, marry, so the extra testosterone goes to acts that are more licit.

Going after someone in ways that both stop him from having a social position allowing him to marry and a chastity allowing him some normal semi-monklike dignity while not yet married, would that not also be fulfilling the criteria of St. Paul? And wouldn't the "seared conscience" and "doctrine of demons" in the case be things like thinking one is doing the guy a favour by so doing (like proving he needs to quit every drop of alcohol or proving he cannot save himself by works or proving he needs to become a Muslim or that not becoming a Jew is dishonouring his mother - who certainly actually intended to be Christian as to religion! or whatever).

17:07 Two reasons to not believe St. Paul spoke of the Gnostics.

1) Given we are now 19 and a half centuries after he wrote, and the Gnostics both arose a few decades later and disappeared a few centuries later, after which they have made sporadic comebacks. St. Paul says "in the last times" ... OK, ἐν ὑστέροις καιροῖς, I get a feeling ὑστέροις is a comparative, so, the translation could be "in later times" ... however, the very old translation to Latin, the Vulgate, actually has "in novissimis temporibus" which is a superlative.

2) κωλυόντων γαμεῖν, ἀπέχεσθαι βρωμάτων, - i e either they are most intuitively both enjoining marriage and abstinence, or both forbidding marriage and abstinence. Translating the one verb as two verbs with opposed meanings (though the actual meaning has, like "sanction" a range of usage involving those opposed meanings), with one single verb meaning two opposed things in relation to the infinitives "to marry" and "to abstain" is what the Gnostic identification would lead you to.

The situation I have described actually allows κωλυόντων to mean "forbid" in relation to both infinitives.

And by the way, St. Jerome has for κωλυόντων also the single participle prohibentium, here:

prohibentium nubere, abstinere a cibis, quod Deus creavit ad percipiendum cum gratiarum actione fidelibus, et iis qui cognoverunt veritatem.

While it is true eating meat should be done with thanksgiving, fasting should also be done with thanksgiving ... as should drinking wine (in due moderation) or beer (dito) or cider (dito) or distilled things (dito even more unless diluted).

That said, Challoner would agree with you:

"[3] "Forbidding to marry, to abstain from meats": He speaks of the Gnostics, the Marcionites, the Eneratites, the Manicheans, and other ancient heretics, who absolutely condemned marriage, and the use of all kind of meat; because they pretended that all flesh was from an evil principle. Whereas the church of God, so far from condemning marriage, holds it a holy sacrament; and forbids it to none but such as by vow have chosen the better part: and prohibits not the use of any meats whatsoever in proper times and seasons; though she does not judge all kind of diet proper for days of fasting and penance."

He doesn't explain how he deals with κωλυόντων / prohibentium ...

20:44 You are aware that some in those Anticatholic sects consider "myths" to involve things like:

• enjoying literary productions of Mythopoeic Society (JRRT, CSL, etc)
• believing Hercules and Romulus lived as men
• believing a spirit is moving the sun, even if one isn't worshipping that spirit ...

Agreeing with Aquinas and Riccioli that God confided the visible burning body we call the Sun to an angel to get it moved (over the sky each day and) around the Zodiac, and not worshipping that angel too obviously falls outside "worshipping the host of heaven" - but some people think they have a gotcha with St. Paul in 2 Tim ... 4? ... using the word "myth" since Riccioli's view is near identic to that of Greek mythology ...

23:23 Some in 1962 wanted the Church to actually condemn, certainly not just 1) polygenism, but even 2) Adam having biological ancestry, possibly even 3) day age theory and gap theory (Christine Pedotti and the Introibo blogger have apparently opposite takes on whether Ottaviani meant to condemn more than up to 2 in the preparatory schema, which I haven't read in integrity). But even if the opposite to strict YEC was not condemned, YEC remained clearly licit, and Dei Verbum § 3 is clearly incompatible with some of the alternatives, possibly all of them.

However, in the 1990's this changes. There is a new version of the Christmas proclamation, which an US Jesuit is defending because it's not into the Ussher method, while St. Jerome and Julius Africanus we have the text from (though the fall of Troy was censored between Usuardus and Martyrologium Romanum proper) actually did use the Ussher method, they just used it on a LXX based text, without the second Cainan.

The Congregation for the Faith issues a warning against Fundamentalism, not meaning people like Mike Gendron, but pretty obviously people like Ken Ham, which is a wholly different thing.

(It's a paragraph of the Exegesis of the Bible in the Church).

A new catechism is called Catechism of the Catholic Church. It's §283 is incompatible with the Roman martyrology for Dec 25 and with §3 of Dei Verbum.

The guy you consider as having been Pope that decade (just after Michael I was elected), makes declarations both in favour of Evolution and Heliocentrism.

Remember, I was received in 1988, before these things happened, and while Wojtyla was not yet formally schismatic against Michael I.

And when after some absence (FSSPX, village life, less pleasant situations than that) I come back to a Novus Ordo parish in 2000 and find this out, I am suddenly forbidden to believe what I was believing when converting - YEC is true and Catholic.

Meanwhile, I have found out that the flagship of a certain urban legend against YEC being Patristic, namely St. Augustine, actually very clearly was YEC.

You have just outlined a criterium by which the Evolution believers left the Church of Christ in the 1990s, without relinquishing mitres and buildings to do so.

25:53 According to Trent session IV, not every heretic in history can point to a consensus of the Church Fathers.

I've actually seen "Catholics" ridiculing the idea of relying on CF consensus in "matters of science" (David Palm, possibly, Jimmy Akin, certainly on one occasion - ah, here is the reference:

"Understanding the “Unanimous Consent” of the Church Fathers, Jimmy Akin | August 13, 2018"
https://jimmyakin.com/2018/08/understanding-the-unanimous-consent-of-the-church-fathers.html

According to Trent Session IV, while it belongs only to the Church to judge on Scripture, we are obliged to what she "tenuit atque tenet" / "hath held and doeth hold" ... not to things which would be better described as "never held before, but holdeth now" ... (like, since 1990's ...)

27:00 They also all agreed God created it fairly recently compared to Sumerian or Egyptian chronologies.

In other words, CCC, §283 fails the test of Trent Session IV ...

Troll Patrol

Jack Chick tell you this?

Hans Georg Lundahl

@trollpatrol7215 No.

I am a Latinist and can read St. Augustine of Hippo without the help of Jack Chick.

I would also be very suspicious of a man able to compose a comic like The Death Cookie, or to promote Alberto Rivera. So, even if I weren't a Latinist, I would not take any help from Jack Chick when it came to the early Church.

@trollpatrol7215 I'm half joking about being a Latinist in this context, reading long swathes of St Augustine is sth I prefer doing in translation, but one more thing.

You give Jack Chick too much credit if you think he knows about Trent Session IV or about CCC §283, unless you can show that knowledge from his works.

And a question for you : when you put my words in doubt on this one, are you basing that on priests who are about as candid about the YEC of CF as Mike Gendron is about the Catholicism of the NT Church?

Could there be one Jesuit in the 60's who spread an urban legend in this context, which also became popular with the orthodox?

For if you aren't, I would expect you to actually show forth a Patristic quote that favours consderable gaps in the Genesis chronologies in chapters 5 and 11, or else a long time of earth being created before Adam. Good luck, but I will not be holding my breath ...

Troll Patrol

Wonderful. Are you infallible? @hglundahl

Hans Georg Lundahl

No, @trollpatrol7215.

But Trent Session IV is, and makes the consensus of the CCFF infallible.

If you want to defend CCC § 283 you simply show a CF who would be OK with accepting at least a Sumerian or Egyptian chronology over the Biblical one. Even these are far shorter than the millions and billions of years schmuck.

Troll Patrol

I can only take note of your peculiar viewpoint. @hglundahl

Hans Georg Lundahl

My dear @trollpatrol7215 ... how do you pronounce that?

// I can only take note of your peculiar viewpoint. //

Oh, please do.

// I can only take note of your peculiar viewpoint. //

What stops you from checking books 12 to 17 in City of God to check St. Augustine?

Perhaps you can't buy a Loeb or Budé edition with De Genesis ad Litteram Libri XII, but you might hitchhike to a library that has it, you could maybe spend an hour or two on books I, V and VI?

Or for that matter, to check Mark 10:6 to check that of Jesus, our Lord and Saviour, God in the flesh?

Troll Patrol

I have no idea if you are Pagan, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or??? You are speaking cryptically and euphemistically. From whom do you derive your doctrines? @hglundahl

Hans Georg Lundahl

I'm a Roman Catholic @trollpatrol7215.

One who sees a conflict between Council of Trent Session IV and Catechism "of the Catholic Church" §283 and in this conflict choses Trent over Antipope Wojtyla, as well as over certain Sedes.

Take a source of doctrine by a Pope or Council prior to Pius XII, I'll buy it.

31:09 Speaking of showing evidence.

St. Augustine very famously departs from 6 days = 144 hours, in Confessiones and in De Genesi ad Litteram libro XII. However, he does that in favour of one moment creation (a position which the Palmarians btw dogmatised, despite this being a minority position). St. Thomas Aquinas says two guys share this idea, Augustine and Origen. However, one can add Clement and Philo, even if it's perhaps less sure that Philo became a Christian.

I think everyone else in Migne will line up with six literal days (Graeca, Latina, Syriaca). Or at least the most well known ones.

But did you know that St. Augustine in Confessiones mentioned this bc six days sounded ridiculous to the not yet Catholic Augustine, and where he goes into detail, it's books V and VI of De Genesi ad Litteram Libro XII (available in Budé editions in George Pompidou Library), and in book I, he has given the technical solutions how 24 hour days worked before the Sun was created, and after the presentation of one moment creationism, he says basically "but taking the six days literally is OK for beginners and less subtle people"

More importantly, in City of God, he very strictly upholds timeline as well as other details for Genesis 4 - 11.

Oh, you believed some half god ruled Egypt 40 000 years ago? Too bad for you.
Or, you didn't think Noah literally was 950 when he died? Too bad for you.

When discussing Flood and Ark, he outlines the exegetical principles of Quadriga Cassiani, basically.

Origen and Clement were also not very keen on extending the Biblical timeline, even if Origen was lazy in adding up (less than 10 000 years, well, that's actually back then, like St. Augustine said with more precision, less than 6000 years).

Just in case you had the slightest doubt that CCC §283 is a clear novum.

On Evolutionism and Other Evils

Can Christians Be Evolutionists? | Guest: Ken Ham (Part Two) | Ep 862
Allie Beth Stuckey, 24.VIII.2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mt_IsyqhyAs

0:13 A shout out about how things started to go wrong among Catholics (btw, I don't count the Catechism of the Catholic Church with its § 283 as a Catholic writing or the "popes" endorsing it as actual popes).

In the 1860's, quite a lot of Catholic theologians would simply uphold young earth creationism, usually six day, but one moment is also an orthodox option. Dito for global flood. Dito for water being sufficient for covering mountains that existed before the flood and for mountains higher than what the water could have covered.

THEN two apparent problems whittled this away:

• how to fit all Linnean species onto the Ark
• Pyrenees are already too high, but much older than the Alps.

The solutions, before we go on, and Ken Ham would agree on them:

• Linnean species are not identic to Biblical kinds (my favourite example is, there was one pair of hedgehogs on the Ark, but now there are 17 species, no, that's not involving porcupines, I mean real hedgehogs)
• Pyrenees didn't first rise as Alps and then get worn down to their less edgy shape, they rose in a different way, also after the Flood.

What was the first thing one tried to do?

Same as some had been doing even before, namely Gap Theory and Day-Age theory.

Cardinal Wiseman in England was an adherent of Gap Theory.

Father Fulcran Vigouroux, a Sulpician, a congregation around the Paris Church of St. Sulpitius (the Pious, the III Sulpitius who was bishop of Bourges), was (as per an intro to the OT) an adherent of:

• Day Age
• limited (huge regional, not just local) Flood (universal for then human inhabited lands, but not for cangaroos in Oz or moose in Canada)
• possibly more omissions in Genesis 11 than just the second Cainan, but he didn't think that was needed yet.

In other words, while he was perfectly serious that earth had been there 100 000 or 1 000 000 years before man, he considered all archaeological men (not sure if he recognised Neanderthals as such) as descended from Adam, and Adam as created little more than 3000 years before Abraham was born.

He was obviously also, as everyone up to 1941, except perhaps creeps like Mivart, against Adam having any kind of ancestry between slime of earth and his own fashioning directly by God.

In 1909, he sat as judge in the Biblical Commission of the Popes, in this case of Pope St. Pius X. Whose catechism, by the way, is pure YEC. He had occasion to approve exactly one of his tenets, namely Day Age - not the other two.

The first pope (or possibly already not such) who came out on the side of Old Age compromise was Pius XII, in 1951, when he used a 5 billion year date of earth (same method he called "very exact" which now gives 4.5 billion years) as proof that earth was not eternal. Let's note, he never was very much into science, he was a lawyer and prior to papacy, diplomat. But the good side is, this was not in a bull, not in an encyclical, just in a papal allocution to the pontifical scientific academy.

What's worse is, in 1941 in a similar allocution and in 1950 in the encyclical Humani Generis, he refused to condemn, no, he did not declare licit, just that he was for now refusing to condemn, that Adam had biological ancestry.

In Humani Generis, he laid down as a rule that debaters on both sides (yes, according to his wording he was in fact putting up a debate forum, basically by experts behind closed doors) should be prepared to submit to the ruling of the Church. He did not specify the ruling had to be subsequent, and I'm submitting to Council of Trent, Session IV on general exegetics and Session V on specifically Adam as individual first sinner, which are rulings of the Church. Another rule specifically forbade polygenism, forbade saying Adam was not a single man and ancestor of all mankind.

Probably, he could still have been entertaining something similar to what Fulcran Vigouroux thought : lots of time before Adam, but ... not very many millennia since him.

When carbon dating came along, given that a very old age of earth basically forces C14 to already have reached stability, it became apparent that old age implied men as long ago as 20 000 or 40 000 years ago.

In 1962, one of the things Cardinal Ottaviani tried to do, the man who had been preparing Vatican II, was a schema which, according to the journalist Christine Pedotti, would have dogmatised the idea that creation happened as the Bible described it. This would have been a ruling one would have had to submit to, precisely as already Trent (Sessions IV and V, as mentioned) was. But the council became hijacked.

Even so, when I converted in 1988, YEC was still an option. Clearly not the favoured one, but an option.

Urban legends had it, Church Fathers weren't YEC. Famously, St. Augustine wasn't a six day literalist. It's just that his option was the inverse of that of Fulcran Vigouroux. It shortened the timeline by 144 hours. I later found out (1999 or 2000) that in City of God he clearly defended a YEC timeline and a perfectly global Flood. Since then I've been YEC, like up to my conversion. I had taken a break from it, but not into full blown deep time or evolutionism.

7:21 That sounds like tithing, good for them!

[https://sevenweekscoffee.com/]

9:54 I don't believe Nimrod was what one would normally categorise as an idolater, like a Hindoo or Fetishist or Shinto.

I believe he was totally secularist.

And while Babylon in Classic times, like when Daniel was captive there, was not Nimrod's Babel, locally, it was the same social community (much like Boston is the same community as Boston across the Atlantic, but at a much shorter distance). This means, while Babylon clearly was idolatrous in the normal sense, it should be secularist.

It was.

Enuma Elish says something about gods creating men to serve their needs, but nothing about a first man, and nothing about a couple.

Gilgamesh is so often quoted on tablet XI, for when Utnapishtim (more or less meant to be =Noah, except the situation is fake) tells of the Flood, but how about quoting the first words on tablet I for a change?

In those days · in those ancient days
In those nights · in those ancient nights
In those years · in those far off years
when the world had been established
when bread had been baken in the ovens
when mankind had been established

... OK, what's established is not a first man, not a first couple, but "mankind," and from the first in a city where bakers are about their work.

That's about as secularist as it gets.

Eric Thompson

@ericguner

Witchcraft came from Nimrod.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@hglundahl

@ericguner Possible it did so too, but the immediate Nimrodian thing at Babel was technocracy, possibly with pornocracy.

24:15 If the Bible says that more than the Bible was infallible or theopneust, the Reformation was in fact not ensuring to stick to the infallible word of God.

Matthew 16:19, note, I'm not saying verse 18, I know the debate about who or what the rock was, but 19, seems like a strong promise of papal infallibility insofar as Peter and successors hold the keys of the kingdom and their judgements are confirmed by heaven.

Tradition and magisterium as much as the NT books start with the Apostles, who were theopneust, very clearly, you read it in John 20:21 - 22. Unless you are Arians, of course.

26:13 In fact, there is more here against the Reformation.

The Catholic Church actually stuck to Mark 10 (the context of Mark 10:6), and Mt 5:32 and Mt 19:3 - 19.

Various Protestant sects didn't, like Anglicanism got started to grant Henry VIII a divorce.

Calvin basically pretended that "except for fornication" means "except for adultery" ... but apart from allowing a cuckold to divorce and remarry, he nearly was as strict as the Catholic Church.

However, this did not remain so. Divorce on demand came from Protestant countries.