Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: August 2023

Thursday, August 31, 2023

Reviewing a Holds (Not So Much) Worth, Video

The Cost of Escaping Reality
Brian Holdsworth, 26 Aug 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DB9E_EUiC0

2:19 we're escaping our real lives in pursuit of something more exciting and more seductive

This kind of analysis has very long been popular with shrinks.

My atheist granny, who died in 1993 used to harrass ma and me over Christianity, discussions on theology, prayer, reading the Bible being "verklighetsflygt" = "escape from reality" ...

Before you make this kind of analysis, would you mind telling me, when a real part of someone's life means "an escape from his real life" ...?

Are Renaissance fairs evil because the participants escape the real life in XXth / XXIst CC.?

4:02 Antithesis to love is "narcissism"?

Is this a word from Catholic moral theology?

I mean, I can't recall finding it either in the Prima Secundae or the Secunda Secundae ...

Can you at least trace it to St. Alfons Maria Liguori?

I can't claim having read him as moral theologian, just The Glories of Mary.

4:24 I was tempted to go to St. Augustine ... when I recalled it could be Chesterton. Indeed.

“Let us suppose we are confronted with a desperate thing – say Pimlico. If we think what is really best for Pimlico we shall find the thread of thought leads to the throne of the mystic and the arbitrary. It is not enough for a man to disapprove of Pimlico; in that case he will merely cut his throat or move to Chelsea. Nor, certainly, is it enough for a man to approve of Pimlico; for then it will remain Pimlico, which would be awful. The only way out of it seems to be for somebody to love Pimlico; to love it with a transcendental tie and without any earthly reason. If there arose a man who loved Pimlico, then Pimlico would rise into ivory towers and golden pinnacles… If men loved Pimlico as mothers love children, arbitrarily, because it is theirs, Pimlico in a year or two might be fairer than Florence. Some readers will say that this is mere fantasy. I answer that this is the actual history of mankind. This, as a fact, is how cities did grow great. Go back to the darkest roots of civilization and you will find them knotted round some sacred stone or encircling some sacred well. People first paid honour to a spot and afterwards gained glory for it. Men did not love Rome because she was great. She was great because they had loved her.”

Note, he did not say loving Pimlico for what it is, but loving Pimlico arbitrarily - and the very next phrase suggests loving Pimlico as Pimlico can be shown in a Sims game.

"The area has over 350 Grade II listed buildings and several Grade II* listed churches."

"In the mid-1930s Pimlico saw a second wave of development with the construction of Dolphin Square, a self-contained "city" of 1,250 up-market flats built on the site formerly occupied by Cubitt's building works. Completed in 1937, it quickly became popular with MPs and public servants. It was home to fascist Oswald Mosley until his arrest in 1940, and the headquarters of the Free French for much of the Second World War."

It seems that some people took Chesty's advice to love Pimlico. Perhaps Chesterton meant morally : "Pimlico is the setting of the 1940 version of Gaslight."

4:40 And before that effort bears fruit, the love will very certainly be described by some as "escape from reality" ...

4:48 I think Chesterton actually did mean love in the sense of infatuation.

As to "intending the good of someone" ... it is possible that by "desperate" Chesterton meant the Peabody Estates of Pimlico:

"Through the late nineteenth century, Pimlico saw the construction of several Peabody Estates, charitable housing projects designed to provide affordable, quality homes."

It could very well have been those that made Chesterton say:

"Let us suppose we are confronted with a desperate thing – say Pimlico."

5:06 While the duty of parents is well described, you forget that some hormones of bonding are involved in making them in a sense infatuated with their children. Not sexually, but still, they are very far from being purely objective observers with no escape from reality.

Indeed, they arguably manage to raise their children better above their natural tendencies the more they are escaping from reality while doing so.

5:41 The majority of people who play with Sims are in fact teens or tweens who so far do NOT have parental responsibilities.

And the more one takes away from them the right to "escape reality" the less likely they are to succeed in acquiring such or similar responsibilities.

Noah had three sons around the age of 500 ... how come? Perhaps his earlier children had died, from not escaping the realities of sth like the Mahabharata war - or perhaps someone had consistently stamped him as "escaping from reality" so he didn't get a wife to when he was 500. From when his father begat him or his son his grandson, we can at least gather, it was not like puberty back then took 500 years to achieve.

5:58 "real relations"

Are you speaking of teens' and tweens' "real" relations to those older than themselves?

Have you considered, with an aging society, older people willing to give advice compete in greater and greater numbers for fewer people willing to hear it?

In other words, the older generation are less and less a real support, and more and more a real competition about the relations that could have gone into for instance getting a wife or a husband ...

When those busibodies are being fled, it's a boon for them if they can pretend those fleeing them are in fact hurting themselves.

6:29 When it comes to the phone, I think it is distracting without offering what's normally referred to as "escape from reality" - I'm actually considered escapist by some for my refusal to get one.

7:36 Scrolling on your phone is not "virtual reality" ... your mistransferring what you did with what people playing Sims do ... not that I ever did.

9:25 I've never recommended anyone to walk around with ear phones ... may have sth to do with inadequate opportunities for healthier escapism ...

9:38 Being inattentive to the world around is a physiological need.

If it takes forms like walking with head phones it is because that need is not respected when they are sitting at home or in the bus or whatever. When you sit, you usually can avoid needing to quickly move - unless it's in enemy territory.

10:56 I begin to worry about your attitude to a Man who spent nights in prayer, removing Himself for hours on row from the world around Him. In case you are not aware, prayer usually does involve alpha state. Which certainly does lower your attention to the world around you.

11:35 "smartphones and social media"

I never access my social media on smartphones.

I don't even own one.

What your superstitious friend said about smartphones may well be worth saying, but he showed his superstition by adding social media to them. Why are you even friends with someone who's into the superstition of psychology?

Would you be friends with a pythic medium?

11:50 Being startled is not necessarily anxiogenic.

A man I admire far more than shrinks was once startled by discovering himself to be trying to open his door with a cork-screw - before putting it to its proper use. I think you cited him in a Pimlico / Rome connexion.

11:58 There is a kind of getting startled that actually can be anxiogenic.

Getting startled by grown up people who absolutely exact your attention to them, because they "know" (from a man like your psychologist friend) that you need to attend to them. Not that they need your attention. You could arrange so they didn't. But their pov is that you need it, for instance in order to come back to the real world.

Here is the witness of someone who at the age of thirty (or past) did escape from such people:

I Ruined My Life
Cinzia DuBois, 25 Aug 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3g5HkfUrna0

12:08 "that's what sleep is for"

And prayer?

And reading?

And music?

And doing cross word puzzles and sudokus?

And comfort foods, including sweet coffee or tea and small amounts of alcohol?*

Or just sleep?

If you push someone out of all moments of escapism except sleep, you may end up not respecting sleep either. I've dealt with both types.

Or rather, not been able to deal with them. How does a homeless person compete with the fashionable shrinks in his neighbourhood for attention about how to treat him?

Especially if some don't want him to be charismatic when presenting his blogs?

* And Gregorian and Eastern rite liturgic music ...

12:27 Did you say we are created for this world?

If you said adapted, you might just be an Evolutionist Atheist ... I thought I heard created. A k a made ... let's check with the Penny Catechism ...

2. Why did God make you?
God made me to know him, love him and serve him in this world, and to be happy with him for ever in the next.

Knowing God, loving God, serving God, all three depend on looking away from this world, in which His presence is not immediately known or visible to the senses.

There is a reason why my atheist granny called Christianity "escape from reality" ...

12:47 Oh, indeed.

But God has not refused either to be or to provide refuge ... what road would you rather take to holiness ...

Calvin says you need to fairly and squarely face how evil and utterly unworthy you are
Thérèse of Lisieux preferred to look away from herself and unto the Babe Jesus - and the Holy Face in Gethsemaneh.

Who of these do you think went justified when quitting the meditation for a chore?

Oh, wait, absorbed in real life chores leaves no room for meditation ... what was St. Thomas saying about why porc (meat) signifies impurity?

I think you can look up in Leviticus that the pig is not a ruminant ...

"The animal that chews the cud and has a divided hoof, is clean in signification. Because division of the hoof is a figure of the two Testaments: or of the Father and Son: or of the two natures in Christ: of the distinction of good and evil. While chewing the cud signifies meditation on the Scriptures and a sound understanding thereof; and whoever lacks either of these is spiritually unclean."

I think ruminants do escape from surrounding realities while ruminating ....

13:38 Taking up one's cross is one thing, but He also gave an example of praying, which is escapism.

Between Martha and Mary, who was escapist?

Who was holier?

Theo Fessenden Debate

Catholic Apologetics

"primary duty of charity does not lie in toleration of false ideas" St. Pius X

Theo Fessenden

Studied Catholic and evangelical theologies.

On Aug 25 2023 answered

Do you know why the Bible has zero errors?
https://catholicapologetics.quora.com/Do-you-know-why-the-Bible-has-zero-errors-1

Thus:

First, recall that the Bible did not define the Church, rather Jesus founded His Church, and that Church later defined the Bible. We know the Bible is inerrant because the Church Jesus founded says so (including what does and what does not belong in it) however, this does not mean it has zero errors.

When we Catholic Christians say the Bible is inerrant, we mean in terms of teaching spiritual and moral truth when understood as guided by The Holy Spirit.

If by "zero errors," you're speaking in terms of Fundamentalist literalism, that is not the case. The Bible is not without practical errors. Its writers were inspired by The Holy Spirit. They were not possessed by it.

Note: Jesus never promised us a New Testament. He never charged anyone to write anything: not its various components or other things which didn't make the cut.

He did appoint Apostles and He empowered them. He did send them The Holy Spirit to further empower and guide the Church in all truth (as He promised). It is by this power He gave to the Church that all Christians have the scriptures we do today. It also is through this same power He gave His Church that we may properly understand them.

Further, The Bible is not a single book, but a library comprised of many writings of various kinds of literature. Some components contain various literature types within themselves.

Biblical literature types include:

Religious History: Interpretation of actual historic events in light of revelation [e.g. The books of Kings, The Gospels, The Acts of the Apostles]
Apocalyptic Literature: Intentionally disguised, politically charged narratives, often with some prophetic content — can include political prophesy disguised as latter-day prophesy. [e.g. parts of Daniel, The Apocalypse of John]
Poetry and Idiom: Poetic content may include idiom, metaphor, simile, allegory, analogy, hyperbole, parables and more. [e.g. The Song of Solomon, the gospels' parables]
Songs and Hymns: used in worship and as teaching devices, these may have multiple poetic elements. [e.g. Psalms, the preamble to the Gospel attributed to John]
Wisdom Literature: Didactic proverbs whose sometimes complementary, sometimes contradictory meanings provoke the reader to seek and find balance and wisdom. [e.g Proverbs, The Wisdom of Sirach]
Sacred Mythology: ancient stories of origins and early heroes whose histories include mythology, but whose stories represent spiritual truths, especially regarding the natures of humanity and God, and their relationship [e.g. the Creation myths of Genesis, parts of the books of Judges, parts of the books of the Maccabees]
Prophetic Narratives: Often highly-stylized and symbolic inspired messages intended to admonish, teach, and/or encourage. The prophet speaks with divine authority as directly inspired by The Holy Spirit. Prophesies range in styles from the literally pragmatic to the overtly enigmatic. [e.g. Ezekiel, Joel, eschatology narratives of the Gospels]
Didactic / Pious Folk Tales: stories intended as morality tales or teaching fables. Their fictional characters (even when representing actual beings) represent models of how we should (and often should not) live our lives and contemplate right and wrong. [e.g. Job, Tobit, gospel parables.
General Didactic Narratives: straight-up moral and practical teaching [e.g. Deuteronomy Leviticus, The sermon on the mount, other parts of the Gospels]
General Epistles: Often didactic, corrective and dogmatic letters sent by Church Fathers to the Church at large [e.g. 2 Peter, James]
Community Epistles: Often corrective and edifice-building letters sent by Church Fathers to guide particular communities through spiritual and/or physical crises [e.g. Hebrews, Romans, 1 & 2 Thessalonians]
Private Epistles: "House keeping" and administrative correspondence from a Church father to an individual. e.g. 1 & 2 Timothy, Philemon]

We believe all are inspired [See Timothy 3:16,17.]. Yet as you should see, their content needs to be understood in historical context and in their intended purposes. Much is not literal.

Asked:

Do you know why the Bible has zero errors?

I answered him

more than once, and am giving the order in which they get answered back, not the order in which they were given.

I

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Tue 29.VIII.2023

Decapitation of St. John the Baptist

What exactly do you mean by “mythology” here?

// Sacred Mythology: ancient stories of origins and early heroes whose histories include mythology, but whose stories represent spiritual truths, especially regarding the natures of humanity and God, and their relationship [e.g. the Creation myths of Genesis, parts of the books of Judges, parts of the books of the Maccabees] //

Do you hold there is such a genre as “myth” with the characteristic of non-factuality?

II

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Mon 28.VIII.2023

The Bible is not without practical errors. Its writers were inspired by The Holy Spirit. They were not possessed by it.

Are Magisterial Definitions without errors in faith and morals? Are Popes and Council Fathes possessed by the Holy Spirit?

The point you seem to make is, hagiographers retained freewill and were therefore free to err.

Fine, but God was free to make sure the ones who did when they did were not taken for hagiographers.

Popes and Council Fathers also retain freewill and are free to err. God is free to make sure that such errors are not taken for magisterium, including by showing Popes to be non-Popes, Councils to be non-Councils.

Theo Fessenden

Mon 28.VIII.2023

I'm not sure what you're saying, but that isn't what I am saying.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Tue 29.VIII.2023

Decapitation of St. John the Baptist

My point is: a man does not have to be possessed by the Holy Spirit to be totally preserved from uttering an untrue word, by the same Holy Spirit.

It is not as if the Holy Spirit were “inspiration” in the way artists speak of “inspiration” - and it is clearly as if the Holy Spirit Himself spoke. Qui locutus est per prophetas.

My point is: if you can see how this works when it comes to infallible magisterium, like the Protestants can, how come you can’t see how it worked for the Hagiographers.

Theo Fessenden

Tue 29.VIII.2023

Decapitation of St. John the Baptist

I am defending the inerrancy of scripture.

Are you claiming every word of scripture is literal?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Wed 30.VIII.2023

Unless otherwise obviously marked, yes.

And by obviously, I mean things like hyperbolic remarks in the form of absurd commands, taken at face value.

III

Francis Marsden

Aug 25 2023

You will make the literalistic Fundamentalists froth with apoplexy. But well written!

Theo Fessenden

Aug 25 2023

Better they catch their breath than pluck out or cut off whatever body part causes them to sin. I've yet to meet a literalist who has done so, regardless of Jesus' apparently explicit instruction.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Mon 28.VIII.2023

Metaphor and error are two different things.

Theo Fessenden

Mon 28.VIII.2023

Yes, we know.

I think you're misunderstanding the answer.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Tue 29.VIII.2023

Decapitation of St. John the Baptist

What am I misunderstanding about this? Here:

// If by "zero errors," you're speaking in terms of Fundamentalist literalism, that is not the case. The Bible is not without practical errors. //

I take objection to this, and I find the Chicago Declaration in Biblical Inerrance MOSTLY compatible with Trent Session IV.

Theo Fessenden

Tue 29.VIII.2023

Decapitation of St. John the Baptist

Read my answer. Clearly it all is not literal. In practical terns, the cosmos from Creation to humanity was not made in 1,008 hours. There are no floodgates in the sky. There never were.

Take all the exception you like.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Wed 30.VIII.2023

"In practical terns, the cosmos from Creation to humanity was not made in 1,008 hours."

6 * 24 = 144 hours - where do the 1,008 come from?

"There are no floodgates in the sky. There never were."

Yes, the division between Oxygen layers of the atmosphere and Hydrogen layers of the High Atmosphere. When the division was eliminated, it was like gates opening. Brown gas + lightnings = water.

Theo Fessenden

Wed 30.VIII.2023

Ah. So you're a literalist. Got it.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Wed 30.VIII.2023

Sure, that’s what inerrancy entails.

Theo Fessenden

Wed 30.VIII.2023

No. My brother, that is not what inerrancy means… And that's the central point of my answer.

You demonstrate its truth yourself. You haven't plucked out your right eye because (as you say) it's "obvious" to you that it isn't to be taken literally. Yet you embrace a pseudoscience nonsense explanation for there to be (or have been?) literal floodgates opening in the sky, because that is obvious to you. Of course they were/are literal only to the extent that you're able to envisage. Your floodgates do not have actual gates that lift away or swing open. So it's obvious to you that at some point they aren't literal floodgates. Your description has

no physical infrastructure,
no actual water channels, gates and sluices,
no dammed up watercourse or multi-trillion-ton dammed-up physical body of liquid water suspended above all the world (unless you claim a an atmospheric inversion can do that. And no, it cannot.),
no mechanism to raise or lower the gates and
no physical remnants of these watercourses, gates, sluices and dam(s) to be found on earth or in the sky—even though no text says they fell to earth or vanished.

Whatever explanations you might toss at the wall, in your opinion they obviously stick.

Why stop there?

Why not decide for yourself what obviously is and what obviously is not Holy Scripture? The Bible's Table of Contents is not part of any of the texts. Jesus Himself never mentions a New Testament. He never tells us what belongs in the canon of His own time while on His earthly mission. Nothing in either covenant tells us that.
Why not make your own Bible? You could even write your own new text and clarify everything so nobody need disagree again. By your standard you are free to make The Gospel of Hans-Georg be Holy Scripture should you desire

Please consider:

Was all of creation made (including humanity) in 144 hours? (Thank you again for pointing out the weird number I had there before—I have no idea where that came from.)?
Is the Earth literally stationary a flat circle?
Is the sky (the heavens) God's literal throne upon which He sits and the earth His literal footstool?
Does the sun move about the Earth as scriptures literally describe. Did it once simply stop moving for a while as per scripture?

To me, all of the above obviously are not literally the case. They each represent factors in stories about moral, spiritual and even historical truths, but in light of revelation about God's relationship with His people and His creation. They are not paleontology or astro physics lessons.

So long as you recognize that you are not meant to literally chop off your hand and pluck out your eye, you're simply agreeing with me except you make yourself your own magisterium. The result is that the Bible means to you whatever you want it to mean—and you "take issue" with anything that contradicts your personal take. Your trust is in yourself.

To you there is no doctrine, no reason, no physical fact of God's own Creation or tenet of The Church Jesus founded contradicting your own private interpretation of scripture which you cannot ignore or explain away if it doesn't suit you. In the end, it's not about any authority other than your own. You deem you follow scripture, but in actuality it simply follows you according to your personal preference and whimsy..

Yet according to Scripture, truth is not what is "obvious to you." In fact what is obvious to you may lead you to death. [1] Rather, the Church is the foundation and pillar of truth. [2]

May God bless you with all good gifts He would lavish upon you. May the face of Jesus shine upon you. May the Holy Spirit lead you into the Church which Jesus founded and to which He promised all truth. May He hold you in the midst of His fold that you too may run and finish the race and gain the imperishable prize. [3] By His grace may we live with Him and in Him in the fellowship of the saints forever and ever.

. .

Footnotes

[1] Proverbs 14:12 NABRE - Sometimes a way seems right,but the - Biblics
[2] 1 Timothy 3:15 But if I should be delayed, you should know how to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of truth. | New American Bible, revised edition (NABRE) | Download The Bible App Now
[3] 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 Do you not know that the runners in the stadium all run in the race, but only one wins the prize? Run so as to win. Every athlete exercises discipline in every way. They do it to win a perishable crow | New American Bible, revised edition (NABRE) | Download The Bible App Now

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Wed 30.VIII.2023

Would you mind telling me where you get it from the CHURCH defined 144 hours to be non-literal?

I hold to Trent Session IV.

If something is such that the Church tenuit atque tenet it, or is consensus of all Church Fathers, you can safely ask me to take that.

Theo Fessenden

31.VIII.2023

At this time the Church has no official teaching on what we must believe about our origins in terms of ira tú al history. The Church does assert that faith and genuine scientific discovery cannot contradict one another. Thus, for example, the continuous unbroken record of tree ring analyses proves beyond any doubt that trees were here at least 13,000 years ago. The earth is far older than the literal 6000 years delineated in scripture. We therefore know that if our literal interpretation denies this proven truth, then the literal is not the correct interpretation.

Catholics should weigh the evidence for the universe’s age by examining biblical and scientific evidence. “Though faith is above reason, there can never be any real discrepancy between faith and reason. Since the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed the light of reason on the human mind, God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever contradict truth” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 159).

and

The Catholic Church has always taught that “no real disagreement can exist between the theologian and the scientist provided each keeps within his own limits. . . . If nevertheless there is a disagreement . . . it should be remembered that the sacred writers, or more truly ‘the Spirit of God who spoke through them, did not wish to teach men such truths (as the inner structure of visible objects) which do not help anyone to salvation’; and that, for this reason, rather than trying to provide a scientific exposition of nature, they sometimes describe and treat these matters either in a somewhat figurative language or as the common manner of speech those times required” (Leo XIII, Providentissimus Deus 18).

and

“Methodical research in all branches of knowledge, provided it is carried out in a truly scientific manner and does not override moral laws, can never conflict with the faith, because the things of the world and the things the of the faith derive from the same God. The humble and persevering investigator of the secrets of nature is being led, as it were, by the hand of God in spite of himself, for it is God, the conserver of all things, who made them what they are” (CCC 159). The Catholic Church has no fear of science or scientific discovery.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Thur 31.VIII.2023

“The Church does assert that faith and genuine scientific discovery cannot contradict one another.”

Key word “genuine” …

“Thus, for example, the continuous unbroken record of tree ring analyses proves beyond any doubt that trees were here at least 13,000 years ago.”

I’d be happy to take a debate on that one.

I’m an amateur on the question, and according to your credentials, so are you:

Former Writer: Science, IT and Engineering. at Att Bell Labs
Studied Information Technology & Management at DeSales University

IT and Engineering = NOT tree rings.
IT and Management = NOT tree rings.

For starters, the further back you go, as with the other now usually lignine based dating method (written records on paper or papyrus, though there were other writing supports), the fewer samples survive and the shorter they are and the less sure the fitting together of them are.

“The earth is far older than the literal 6000 years delineated in scripture.”

Scripture and post-Acts history … Masoretic history by itself would give c. 4000 years
I use a LXX based Biblical history, Christ born 5199 after Creation, as the old Christmas proclamation said.

“We therefore know that if our literal interpretation denies this proven truth, then the literal is not the correct interpretation.”

Or we know that if our literal interpretation has to be the correct one, as per being the one which the Church tenuit et tenet, which has the consensus of the Church Fathers, then this cannot be a proven truth.

“Catholics should weigh the evidence for the universe’s age by examining biblical and scientific evidence.”

But I do.

“The Catholic Church has always taught that “no real disagreement can exist between the theologian and the scientist provided each keeps within his own limits.” “

That’s why I am against scientists going beyond their limits. Note, I agree the Bible is not a scientific text book. But nowhere in Providentissimus Deus does it say that the Bible is not in fact inerrant when it touches on science, nor that the age of the earth can have no bearing on salvation.

Just two, three possible bearings:

If Adam lived way further back than 7000 years ago, Genesis 3 is not historically certain, and God could have said something other to the serpent than the recorded Proto-Gospel. Utterly false.
If Adam had biological pedigree to non-humans, he grew up as a feral child. Utterly false.
If Adam did not individually exist, the punishments for original sin are not for a voluntary act, but for a social coincidence of acts, which is per se willed by no single individual, and does not directly proceed from free will. Utterly false.

“The humble and persevering investigator of the secrets of nature is being led, as it were, by the hand of God in spite of himself, for it is God, the conserver of all things, who made them what they are”

That’s a very good description of a scientist finding his way into Young Earth Creationism.

It’s also a very bad description of the consensus against YEC, fabricated among other things by Carnegie’s funding of institutes of higher learning. He was biassed against Christian Orthodoxy.

More may come ... meanwhile, note, his writing position included, while his studies did not include science ... he's not the guy to pick on me for writing on subjects outside my field of studies ...

Theo Fessenden
31.VIII.2023: Enough nonsense.

Pseudoscience removed.

We're done.

Any further from you also will be removed.
Hans-Georg Lundahl
1.IX.2023: Glad my comments are already saved, Mr. Cancel Culture!

Or were you removing your pseudo-science of 13000 years “recorded” in tree-rings?

Theo Fessenden Debate
https://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/2023/08/theo-fessenden-debate.html
Theo Fessenden
1.IX.2023: There's no debate. I care not one bit about whatever you post under your own auspices.

This is not a platform for pseudoscience. You are done here.

In other words, a Catholic doing "pseudo-science" for the faith is unwelcome, one who does actual pseudo-science against the faith is thrown out ... nice for a forum called Catholic Apologetics ...

Sunday, August 27, 2023

Unity of the Christian Religion : Catholicism

Q: If Christianity is the true religion, shouldn't there be one denomination? Looks like either all have to be true, or are they all false? Does each individual person decide what is true?
https://www.quora.com/If-Christianity-is-the-true-religion-shouldnt-there-be-one-denomination-Looks-like-either-all-have-to-be-true-or-are-they-all-false-Does-each-individual-person-decide-what-is-true/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl
Hans-Georg Lundahl: Studied religions as curious parallels and contrasts to Xtian faith since 9, 10?
5 years ago: “If Christianity is the true religion, shouldn't there be one denomination?”

There is one, Catholicism.

There should also be fake denominations, as prophecied and as warned against. There are.

“Looks like either all have to be true, or are they all false?”

Not really, since the Catholic and three or four similar ones claiming with some realism to continue the apostolic Church without a break are in a hugely better position than any denomination either openly admitting at starting at Reformation (1500 years c. after Christ) or pretending a continuity but with very little and very illread documentation (some Protestants consider their own Baptist denomination as a survival from Apostolic times rather than a branch of Protestantism, but it seems to me they wiggle very broadly with actual history as per a more normal reading of the documents and summaries°

“Does each individual person decide what is true?”

No, Catholicism and its 3 or 4 “twins” (Orthodox, one or two denominations of Monophysite - one can consider Copts and Armenians as different, Nestorians) all claim that the individual has to obey the visible Church in what it requires of all its members.

Protestants claim one must always obey the Bible (which if taken literally according to Matthew 28 precisely precludes Protestantism), and while Protestant denominations started out attacking each other as un-Biblical (and they were right about each other!) they now tend to politely presume, if a matter is not agreed on between Protestants, then either option is Biblical and it is judgemental to say otherwise.

This of course means, if a Catholic comes to debate with Protestants, he heavily risks being stamped as judgemental.

Only very liberal Protestants, the type who would be Catholics or Orthodox if they took Christianity a bit more seriously, would really and truly say “oh, you decide for yourself what is true”. Lately, they have come to dominate Protestantism.

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.

It is about infinitely many notions, not about a finite number of emotions.
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).
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.”
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”.
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.

Saturday, August 26, 2023

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

Ussher II

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

Q

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?

Friday, August 25, 2023

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.

Thursday, August 24, 2023

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.

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.

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere

Pages

Thursday, August 31, 2023

Reviewing a Holds (Not So Much) Worth, Video

Theo Fessenden Debate

Sunday, August 27, 2023

Unity of the Christian Religion : Catholicism

Language By Evolution? No.

Saturday, August 26, 2023

Ussher IV

Ussher III

Ussher II

James Ussher in Catholic Apologetics

Friday, August 25, 2023

First Half of Heschmeyers Video Against Mike Gendron

Thursday, August 24, 2023

On Evolutionism and Other Evils

About Me

Fighting Totalitarian Takeovers