Spooks or Angels Diagnosed a Brain Tumour + Tangent on Jimmy Akin's Other Positions

Spooks or Angels Diagnosed a Brain Tumour + Tangent on Jimmy Akin's Other Positions · GMS Reasons for Deconversion - My Answers to Some · Language is Not a Product of Evolution (with JuLingo)

On the former subject, I contribute very little, my first and last comments are just to say guardian angels are also possible. But otherwise, I refer to Jimmy Akin's story. The tangent begins with a comment he made while discussing the story.

Mysterious Voices! (Medical Diagnosis? Hallucination? Spirits?) - Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World
Jimmy Akin, 21 July 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcBNzJ5noOQ

39:49 Two possibilities.

Basically. Two former employees of GOSH were spooking, with God's permission (perhaps last thing they did in Purgatory before getting to Heaven).
Two guardian angels of defunct people around that hospital - it could be of children who had died there or it could be of people who had worked there. Either way, the guardian angels would have been working.

40:43 "on general principles, we should stick with how a case appears until such time as we have evidence that the appearances are mistaken"

Mr. Akin, if you did that you would logically be Geocentric and Young Earth Creationist.

I think Geocentric speaks for itself. We are by God's providence placed on earth in ways that often involve immbolity - we absolutely have no impression of riding earth like a bike through space, nor any reason to deny angels could have that impression if they are moving celestial bodies, that is non-Earth bodies. We also have no reason to believe parallel Adams on other planets. So, to an Atheist, Newton's physics would be a very excellent "evidence the appearances are mistaken" - universe rotating around earth each day and Sun along with it would not just take more energy, it would need that more energy to be directed by purposes, the orbits being too intricate for non-design. However, we know from normal theology and angelology that God can move anything (including the whole universe) any way He wants and angels can move any given body any way they want and are allowed to or appointed to by God. Presumably without using already existing vectors, but also resulting in vectors being produced. This means, Newton's physics is not evidence to us that the appearances are mistaken.

A certain narrative at face value appears to be taken by its audience as history. It's narrated as events in the past, with a specified chronological relation to the present. Therefore, we should take that narrative as history, unless there is very good reason to not take it so. A stylistic or anthropological classification of it as "myth" does not make it an example of what Tolkien called Mythopoeia. Therefore, that is not a valid reason to reject its literal truth or close to truth. Goes for Genesis too, including chapters 1 - 11. AND we are perfectly free to give a similar treatment to texts traditionally classified as Greek myth without betraying the faith - St. Augustine considered Aeneas and Romulus as historic. None of the recounted facts about either, except those that are hidden, therefore guesses or "revelations", like Venus or Mars being parents or Romulus being taken up into heaven (there is a false revelation for that one, but one man only), none of the facts involve anything strictly divine or miraculous. The consultation of the Sibyl of Cumae could have involved sth paranormal, the seduction of Dido (if that's not an anachronism) as well, but that paranormal could be demonic rather than divine. So, taking the principle to its conclusions is not unreasonable.

But what about using it about the datings? Well, for K-Ar, we have appearances countering that appearance in recent lava flows dated to millions of years, both New Zealand and Hawaii, most famously Mt. St. Helens. For radiocarbon, I think it very reasonable to consider the C14 content has been roughly 100 pmC since the Fall of Troy, since the historic date (Eratosthenes believing in Homeric truth) coincides with the archaeological date, but equally, I have seen dates like "40 000 BP" - interestingly enough on beings that seem to be pre-Flood men. So, I take the Flood as having real date 2957 BC (St Jerome's version of the "Ussher method" -> Historia scholastica -> Usuardus -> Martyrologium romanum), and the carbon date to be roughly 40 000 BP / 38 000 BC, extra years 35043, or 35 000, carbon 14 content back then the same which would now be dated as 35 000 years old, i e a bit over 1.4 pmC. I later corrected this to 1.625, the carbon date to 39 000 BP, because of the tephra, not lava, from Campi Flegrei eruption, which is likelier in the Flood than in non-catastrophic times. We have no appearances that are very strong that preclude my table of rising carbon 4 content and therefore diminishing number of extra years, indeed, we do have an appearance confirming it.

I presume you would still take Genesis 14 as history, not as myth, since it's after the chapter 11 limit, well, many progressive Protestants don't do that. And with a Biblical chronology, say Abraham born 2015 BC, it doesn't fit the archaeology. Since he was around 80 (75 - 86), this was around 1935 BC. But the archaeology of En Geddi dates the end if the chalcolithic occupation, the evacuation of Amorrhaeans from En Geddi, to 3500 BC. 3500 - 1935 = 1565 extra years, well beyond the reach of the wiggles in calibration curves that are accepted. 1565 extra years can be explained by a carbon 14 content in the atmospheric carbon of 82.73 pmC, explainable by a carbon 14 content still rising after the Flood, at a production rate higher than at present. And the production rate higher than at present would depend on more radioactivity, from the cosmos, which would also have provided for both ice age and more rapid mutations and shortening the life spans.

But without 1565 extra years, in the carbon date, you cannot take Genesis 14 as history. And you cannot explain 1565 extra years as simply due to the kind of wiggles, like when any date from 750 to 450 carbon dates, with few exceptions, as 550 BC.

Jimmy Akin

Dear Mr. Lundahl, I don't consider YouTube comboxes the place to go into detailed calculations, so I'll refrain from that, but I appreciate your comment.

1) I don't use the term "myth" to describe the first 11 chapters of Genesis. Others may. I don't. As popularly understood, the term "myth" would be misleading.

2) Where we seem to differ is that I think we have good evidence to the contrary of the appearances in the case of geocentrism and young earth.

a) In the case of geocentrism, it's true that the semicircular canals in our ears don't give us the sense of the Earth moving through space, but the same thing was true of the semicircular canals in the ears of the astronauts who visited our sister planet, the Moon, and the same will be true of any colonists on Mars. The lack of a subjective sense of motion thus doesn't give us evidence that Earth is a privileged frame of reference.

Furthermore, we cannot see a boundary to the universe. Therefore, we cannot establish where its center is--if it has one--or if Earth is at that center.

I thus conclude that we do not have good scientific evidence that Earth is a privileged frame of reference at the center of the universe. We have no way of establishing an absolute physical frame of reference, and so the selection of a frame of reference is arbitrary and one can pick whatever frame of reference (including Earth) that one likes.

b) Regarding young earth, I discussed radiometric dating in Episodes 119-121, but for me a larger problem is starlight, which was also discussed in those episodes. Based on our scientific understanding of the speed of light, we see events in the sky that would have happened millions and billions of years ago. The idea that God would be showing us fictions in the sky every night is inconsistent with his truthfulness. Therefore, I conclude that the events we see occurring (e.g., supernovas) really did happen millions and billions of years ago.

God bless you!

Hans Georg Lundahl

@JimmyAkin , I am glad you answered.

Hope you had a blessed name's day yesterday (if you are named for St. James the greater).

I am glad I know enough about the nature of the calculations to not need to discuss their exact numbers and complications.

"the same thing was true of the semicircular canals in the ears of the astronauts who visited our sister planet, the Moon,"

When I am on a train that moves, I have the impression that I am still and trees move. When I am outside the train, I also have the impression that I am still. But, being outsie the train is more normal. Being on Earth is also more normal than being on the Moon. Hence, yes, the inner ears prima facie do give us evidence for Earth being still. It can be discounted if needed, you have shown how it can be discounted, but not why it would be needed.

"Furthermore, we cannot see a boundary to the universe."

Sphere of fix stars?

Plus a rotating universe must be a finite one.

"Therefore, we cannot establish where its center is--if it has one--or if Earth is at that center."

The establishing thereof is its not participating in the rotation.

"I thus conclude that we do not have good scientific evidence that Earth is a privileged frame of reference at the center of the universe."

"Scientific evidence" be blown, we have - as you mentioned as involved in your principle - appearances. You do not discount the apearances because one can find a means to do so, but only when you have to, is what you just said.

"but for me a larger problem is starlight, which was also discussed in those episodes."

The distance to alpha Centauri cannot be known if Geocentrism is true. Earth to Moon, yes, Earth / Moon to Sun, yes, Earth / Sun to far off planets, yes, distance of Voyager 1 and 2, yes. But "alpha Centauri is 4 light years away" depends on trigonometry over time interpreted as "we have one distance, earthW to earthS, two angles, at earthW to earthS and star, at earthS to earthW and star" - and one distance plus two angles are sufficient.

However, one angle and no known distance is not sufficient. On Geocentrism we have angle at earth to starW and starS (W and S refer to positions in Winter and Summer solstices).

This breaks the von Neumann chain, making light years well beyond Biblical chronology totally impossible to verify, as even 4 light years are so.

"we see events in the sky that would have happened millions and billions of years ago."

Posit that the distance to the sphere of the fix stars is 1 light day (at present it could be 1 light day or 3 and a half light years, if the stars expanded, in creation week it arguably was 1 light day). This means we see today in the sky the events that happened yesterday in the star and God showing us fictions is not involved in Biblical chronology. This is why I became a Geocentric in 2001, the night to 24th of Aug. while reflecting on that exact challenge by an Evolutionist. Between the library with the computer and the bed, I had bought a book of astronomy which told me the biggest proper movements of stars are way beyond the biggest parallax. That plus St. Thomas angelology settled it for me, Geocentrism is clearly possible, and as such and as prima facie appearance, preferrable.

@JimmyAkin Hope you don't mind I copied this exchange to my blog.

Hans Georg Lundahl

@JimmyAkin A little PS, in case your "detailed calculations" were to involve Geocentrism involving speeds higher than that of light ...

Emma Thorne was against claiming God created space, and time and matter, by claiming, space is actually kind of a fabric or matter itself. I happen to agree. It happens to agree with Aristotle. It happens to agree with the aether that some consider Michelson Morley disproved (but only did so on assumption of Heliocentrism).

This means, all Geocentrism takes is God turning the fabric of space itself, rather than bodies through it, around the earth each day. That way, the speed of the Sun through that fabric is not 8 / 1440 * 6.28 = 3.49 % of the speed of light westward, but that divided by 366, or 0.00953 % of the speed of light eastward.

For fix stars, we would indeed have 6.28 times the speed of light in overall local movement, but as the movements misanalysed as aberration, parallax and proper movement are very much more minute, it is practically just the fabric of space movement westward. Objects in it move with it.

46:58 They never in so many words said they were former medical professionals, since not only medical professionals (and a few others, like cleaning ladies) work in hospitals, but guardian angels also do so. In the case of guardian angels, it could have been those of children having died at the hospital, possibly from the exact same undetected brain condition that "Annabelle" had.