RFB on three subjects ... or four ...

Where Did Ancient Christians Meet?
ReligionForBreakfast | 17.XII.2014
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnJ0komM8tU

Did Emperor Decius Target Christians?
ReligionForBreakfast | 10.V.2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeKiF_7eZ4A

I think Decius may have refrained from openly targetting Christians, rather giving them a chance (as the modern language goes) to show themselves reasonably non-fundie about certain anti-idolatry canons ....

Once many Christians refused that chance, Decius may have seen them as hard core malcontents and had no qualms about killing them.

Obviously, neither did he have any qualms about sparing "sensible" Christians.

Who were of course condemned by the Church.

I have a certain feeling this fact and the fact that "sensible" Christians rallied around the hard core martyr friendly hierarchy was part of the reason why Diocletian came out as more directly Antichristian.

Two refugees went to the Egyptian desert, one under each, St Paul the First Hermit under Decius, St Anthony the Great under Diocletian.

Göbekli Tepe: The World's Oldest Temple?
ReligionForBreakfast | 17.I.2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhUIHsZXDCo

I

Pre-Pottery Neolithic A ... 9500 - 8500 BC, carbon date wise.

What would a recalibration look like?

I might want to fine tune a bit where I place Babel in the Genesis 11 chronology in the corresponding space of time in Roman Martyrology.

But my at least preliminary hunch is, this is sth like 2602 - 2562 BC. Babel.

Carbon 14 levels going up from c. 42 to c. 47 percent modern carbon in this era, explaining why the fourty years expand to 1000, bc earlier date has more extra years or instant age.

No pottery ... perhaps experimentation with bricks, though ... wonder when one will find that one.

Either way, "no pottery" = prepottery era. Not a specific date. Oh, obviously within thespace of dates available before pottery and historically dated such.

II

2:49 wall plaster

Any specifics on what it is made of?

Plaster does suggest experimenting with mortar as well ... so, wonder if we'll find bitumen used as mortar ...

Thank you for the link btw!

III

7:23 One piece of evidence you have not discussed.

Skulls pierced and piled on top of each other on a string.

Human sacrifice? Gruesome burial honours? Or .... demonstration of one's power to kill?

Like skulls around Celtic cities' pallissades, celebrating killing of enemies .... or like skulls of executed criminals displayed for making a fearful impression.

We have recently had a century in which people were executed for refusing to work in camps or even at Red Army's taking of Budapest (a Jew was killed after refusing to work on a Saturday, he was treated better by the frightened German soldiers).

If there was a "project" (rocketry, though Nimrod would not have been equipped to make good choices for fuel), those refusing to work on it may have been executed.

And if the work was in defiance of God, this may have been real martyrdom in some cases.

IV

8:14 Yes, the intentional filling of the site with sand ... perhaps the thing to do after seeing that the linguistic changes were irreversible ...

Genesis 11:[7] Come ye, therefore, let us go down, and there confound their tongue, that they may not understand one another's speech. [8] And so the Lord scattered them from that place into all lands, and they ceased to build the city. [9]And therefore the name thereof was called Babel, because there the language of the whole earth was confounded: and from thence the Lord scattered them abroad upon the face of all countries.

Note, Babel is of course a pun ... one alternative meaning being embraced by those considering it as Bab-Ilu.

Babylon is c. 5.5° E and 5.5° S from GT. Nearly due SE within Mesopotamia ....

V

8:22 We ultimately do not know why these enclosures were built, etc.

Which at least leaves my hypothesis or theory an alternative possibility ...

8:39 Predates pottery, writing, metallurgy.

Pottery - possible.

Metallurgy - predates the post-Flood recovery of it. Tubal-Cain was well proficient well before this.

Writing - have you checked out the late palaeolithic signs studied by Genevieve Petzinger?

Intriguingly, 32 symbols is the right number either for a very phonetic alphabet or for an alphabet with some extra signs.

And as they are not deciphered, we cannot rule out them being in Hebrew, the pre-Babel language.

Same goes for any proto-writing later on around Göbekli Tepe.

Les écoles publiques devraient-elles enseigner la religion ?
(probably in English, despite title as shown in France, automatic subs were in English)
ReligionForBreakfast | 23.X.2015
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBx3qaIm1Qc

I

3:46 You don't even have the answer 42?

II

I have been to school in both Sweden and Austria.

Sweden has basically religious studies, except in very early grades it verges a bit on catechism.

Austria has catechism - if you are Catholic, Protestant or Jewish, you decide which catechism your children get, by now probably also if you are a Muslim.

Religious studies tends to stereotyping lots of religions and making students more or less equally ignorant of all.

While my ma was technically Protestant, she decided I have Catholic catechism.

Church of Sweden of High Church type is a bit closer to Catholicism than to usually Calvinism, as Protestantism often is in Austria.

I wasn't in Austrian school long enough to see the effect on other students (considering Conchita Wurst perhaps "not too much" effect = not sufficient), but it helped me have a Catholic outlook on two key questions for my conversion later on : St Peter was the first Pope and Eucharist = Real Presence.