An Anti-Christian Bumped in On My Dialogue with Mitterer, Starting with a Red Flag

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Proto-IE or Sprachbund? Dialogue with Josef G. Mitterer · Φιλολoγικά/Philologica: Indo-European Branches for I and II p. Plural, Pronouns · back to Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: An Anti-Christian Bumped in On My Dialogue with Mitterer, Starting with a Red Flag · Continuing with Mitterer · More Mitterer · Mitterer isn't tired, nor am I

How do we know that a Proto-Indo-European language really existed? What is the evidence?
Josef G. Mitterer*
https://www.quora.com/How-do-we-know-that-a-Proto-Indo-European-language-really-existed-What-is-the-evidence/answer/Josef-G-Mitterer

Plus debate as per previous post.

Thomas Saldana

Tue, 20.II.2024

“Your logic suffers from what you seem to regard as "scientific methodology", and I praise God I'm an amateur linguist and didn't undergo your training.”

This here is a massive red flag. You openly acknowledge that your method is less professional, level that you are less well trained than the other guy, but for some reason you think that's a good thing?

Edit:

“…I am as sure as for IE that different peoples spoke different languages right after Babel”

Oh, good grief. The Tower of Babel story is a god-of-the-gaps fallacy. Bringing that into a discussion on linguistics, is like bringing Zeus and his temper into a discussion on lightning. It has no place here, and just exposes you as an anti-intellectual.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Thu, 22.II.2024

“You openly acknowledge that your method is less professional, level that you are less well trained than the other guy, but for some reason you think that's a good thing?”

The lack of professionality and training isn’t of itself, but the freedom from a certain ideology definitely is.

“The Tower of Babel story is a god-of-the-gaps fallacy.”

Courtesy of Nietzsche, Drummond and Barnes. Plus the addition of “fallacy” some time around the emergence of internet.

Seriously, no. I am perfectly aware how Dutch and German emerge from a very undoubted common ancestor, but after the Flood, there is no similar room for this to happen between Egyptian and Sumerian. Or even Akkadian and Sumerian. My contention is, at least some of the major divisions between “branches of Indo-European” are closer to Akkadian and Sumerian than to German and Dutch.

“Bringing that into a discussion on linguistics, is like bringing Zeus and his temper into a discussion on lightning.”

If I were a Neo-Pagan, I very seriously would do that. As I am not, I prefer talking of demons’ joy in destruction and in tormenting people by fright, and God’s permissions to them, and provision for us.

“It has no place here, and just exposes you as an anti-intellectual.”

You just exposed yourself as:

• halflearned
• and on top of that anti-Christian of the Bad Old Communist type.

Vigil of St. Matthias

24.II.2024

Thomas Saldana

I’m not anti-Christian, I’m pro-reality. If you want to define your Christianity as based on ideas which have been conclusively debunked, that’s your problem.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Instead of blustering about “reality” and “debunked” — how about doing some debunking?

Thomas Saldana

This is a very brief summary of some of the most obvious pieces of evidence, presented in a manner which the average layman can understand.

How Aron Ra Disproves Noah's flood
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXJ4dsU0oGMJP95iZJqEjmc5oxY5r6BzP&si=MBk7uXE0fPecOqM3

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I’ve replied to some of them, specifically meteorology and mythology:

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: On Flood with AronRa Referring to Soroka and Nelson
https://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/2017/01/on-flood-with-aronra-referring-to.html

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: AronRa Mixed Archaeology and History (Including Legend)
https://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/2019/04/aronra-mixed-archaeology-and-history.html

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: AronRa Takes on Mythology
https://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/2019/04/aronra-takes-on-mythology.html

Now, did you have anything in particular to offer on the subject matter of my theory on Indo-European, or were you just trying to be a nuisance? Plus, if you deny such a basic Christian tenet, how are you NOT Anti-Christian (AronRa openly states he is, btw).

Thomas Saldana

From your source:

“The thing is, a creationist today is generally saying that where the water went after the Flood is a matter of Oceans sinking and tectonic plates rising.

Meaning, Oceans before the Flood were more shallow and mountains before the Flood were less high.”

That's not evidence against the debunking, that's an additional claim. That additional claim needs to be proven, before it can be taken seriously as an explanation. And that'll be impossible, because if the world's mountains had risen that suddenly, we would see that in the geological record, and we don't.

I won't waste too much time reading further into your source, because it's obvious that it was written by someone with no knowledge of geology.

Now, as for your suggestion on Indo-European. No, I was not “just trying to be a nuisance”. What I'm saying is that you should leave it to the people who actually know what they're talking about. And, as aforementioned, if you try to shoehorn the tower of Babel into real history, that will lead you to a wrong conclusion. It's like if someone were discussing the history of flight, but they assert that the first aeroplanes were copied from a crashed UFO in the 1930s. You're never going to get the right answer if your ideas have been contaminated with something so false.

I am not anti-Christian, any more than I'm anti-Islamic, anti-Hindu, anti-Zoroastrian, etc. Your religion is not special to me, so I don't define myself by opposition to it. As I said earlier, I am pro-truth, and if your religion is not true, that's not my problem.

Feast of St. Matthias

II L.D. of Lent

24.II.2024

Hans-Georg Lundahl

“That's not evidence against the debunking, that's an additional claim. That additional claim needs to be proven, before it can be taken seriously as an explanation.”

False methodology.

A debunking needs to be proven before it can be taken as proof against the claim, and any gap in the debunking is fair game for even speculation, unless you pretend the explanation is impossible.

For the record, the basic proof that the Flood occurred is historical. It’s recorded in the Bible as well as in parallel traditions.

“And that'll be impossible, because if the world's mountains had risen that suddenly, we would see that in the geological record, and we don't.”

The highest mountains actually are metamorphic, perfectly compatible with the claim.

“I won't waste too much time reading further into your source …”

Into my REPLY to AronRa. If you didn’t notice, I introduced the three links by “I have replied to” …

“because it's obvious that it was written by someone with no knowledge of geology.”

While I am not a geologist, I have debated geologists before …

“What I'm saying is that you should leave it to the people who actually know what they're talking about.”

Since you are not in that category, your pretense to debunk me coming from entirely different areas, you should have kept quiet. I am definitely a better linguist than YOU are, even if not the equal of Mitterer.

“And, as aforementioned, if you try to shoehorn the tower of Babel into real history, that will lead you to a wrong conclusion.”

If you try to shoehorn it out of real history, it will lead you to a wrong conclusion. It’s like trying to explain Europe of 1900 AD without admitting Napoleon and Bismarck had something to do with it, or even admitting the French Revolution happened.

“Your religion is not special to me, so I don't define myself by opposition to it.”

But I do define you in your opposition to the truth.

Thomas Saldana

No, not a false methodology at all. We could bring up Hitchens' Razor, but really I don't think it's respectable to just wallow in speculation with no evidence. That's an intellectual cul-de-sac.

The problem here is that you are so ignorant that you don't even have enough knowledge to understand how ignorant you are.

When rock forms, and when it is bent by metamorphic pressures, it forms a crystalline structure, which can be seen and studied with a microscope. This structure will look very different if the rock formed quickly, compared with if it formed slowly.

That's what I was talking about when I said that if the mountains had risen so suddenly, we would know.

You then replied that most mountains are metamorphic, but if you knew enough about geology to understand what I just said, you would know that merely being metamorphic doesn't get around that problem.

And that's before we even get into the issue of heat dispersal; all that motion would have required a lot of kinetic energy, which would then be converted to heat.

Napoleon and Bismarck are real history. The Tower of Babel isn't. There may be some kernel of truth, in that maybe some king tried to build a tower and they had to give up before it was finished, but it most certainly does not explain the difference in world languages.

You're not actually defining me as in opposition to truth. You're defining me as opposing the mythology which you believe. Just because you believe it, does not make it true. And, as aforementioned, your mythology is not special. I oppose the others, too.

Cont. Mo 29.II.2024

I

Hans-Georg Lundahl

“We could bring up Hitchens' Razor, but really I don't think it's respectable to just wallow in speculation with no evidence. That's an intellectual cul-de-sac.”

Not if you later find the speculation confirmed by evidence. It makes you look in the right direction. Btw, as you speak of Hitchens, you are once again alignining yourself with opponents to the Christian truth.

“When rock forms, and when it is bent by metamorphic pressures, it forms a crystalline structure, which can be seen and studied with a microscope. This structure will look very different if the rock formed quickly, compared with if it formed slowly.”

What’s your slowest known example of “quickly”?

I think one can go slower than that and still respect the Biblical time frame for the post-Flood era. This is the exact reason why after the first confinement (which blocked me from computers), I did a series on the Himalayas: Himalayas ... how fast did they rise? · Himalayas, bis ... and Pyrenees · ter · quater · quinquies ... double-checked

“Napoleon and Bismarck are real history. The Tower of Babel isn't.”

Given the amount of detail you show on geology, and the lack thereof on history, I think you know less of how history is proven, than I about how stones are formed.

Thomas Saldana

It's not about having a “slowest known example of “quickly”?”. Let's not fall into a black-and-white dichotomy.

The issue is, if the mountains had formed anywhere even remotely close to as quickly as they would need to for a biblical timeframe, then they would look very different than what they do, under a microscope.

More to the point, you didn't appear to even know about this problem with your ideas. For you to say that you have debated geology, when you don't know that different formation speeds lead to different crystalline structures, is like saying you've debated biology without knowing what a cell is.

Reading through your link; “I suppose…”, “I'll suppose…”, “I am supposing…” How about you just leave it to people who actually know what they're talking about. The arguments you present are not based on any evidence, they're based on your need for them to be true. If you tried to present that as a paper in a proper scientific institution, you would be laughed right out of the place.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

“even remotely close to as quickly as they would need to for a biblical timeframe, then they would look very different than what they do, under a microscope.”

I don’t think you are able to check that.

Himalayas and Andes started forming 5000 years ago, in the Biblical timeframe.

It’s impossible you have a sample “that young” that is that old and you have checked it looks different under a microscope.

“If you tried to present that as a paper in a proper scientific institution, you would be laughed right out of the place.”

So?

“More to the point, you didn't appear to even know about this problem with your ideas.”

Indeed, I learn as I go along. What’s wrong with that?

II

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Btw, just so you know it, here is a collection of links, the last being dedicated to your interference:

[see above and ...] back to Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: An Anti-Christian Bumped in On My Dialogue with Mitterer, Starting with a Red Flag [actual links, see above]

Thomas Saldana

Do not misrepresent me, Hans. I am not anti-Christian, I'm pro-truth. It's not my fault that your form of Christianity is anti-truth.

And the fact that you describe it as “interference”, rather than conversation or discussion, is supremely arrogant. Really, that says a lot about your mindset. What actually is going on in your head? You're allowed to comment on Mitterer’ Answer, but if I reply that's somehow rude, is that it?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

“And the fact that you describe it as “interference”, rather than conversation or discussion, is supremely arrogant.”

I’m so sorry, you seem bent on missing a point.

In my parlance, you are anti-Christian whether you are solely anti-Christian and love every other religion, or whether you are anti-all-religions.

And once again, the conversation I had with Herr Mitterer really was one. We both kept on the topic of Indo-European, Family or Sprachbund. We both had arguments to profer on this exact topic. That’s a conversation.

What you did was bump in, interfere, react to the fact I even believe in the Bible, try to take me to task for that, and you don’t think that qualifies as “interfering” when you have contributed exactly nothing, zilch, nada, zero, to the conversation we were having?

If you actually wanted a conversation, big difference from what you’ve provided so far, how about:

• ditching your tone of superiority complex
• taking a topic you like and put it as a question to me, or ask me to comment on an answer of yours on that topic?

And speaking of topics, you are clueless on topics like:

• historical epistemology
• Christian views of pagan mythology
• and, obviously, historic linguistics.

Sa 9.III.2024

Thomas Saldana

The word is bias, not parlance.

And I’m not missing the point, I’m disagreeing. That simple distinction also addresses your false assertion that my “interference” is functionally different than Josef’s discussion. You said something very wrong, so I gave an explanation of why it’s wrong. You refuse to accept that you’re wrong, but that’s not my fault.

I don’t have a “tone of superiority complex”. If anything, that’s more a description of your behaviour (attempting to label me as “anti-Christian”, for example) than of mine. And I’m certainly not under any obligation to post a Question. If you don’t want to have a discussion here, that’s fine. I won’t force you to reply if you don’t want to.

I don’t have a problem with you saying that you “even believe in the Bible”. The problem is when you try to bring the Bible’s historically erroneous ideas into a discussion on real history.

I’m certainly not clueless on historical epistemology. I would say that Christian views on pagan mythology are far less important than facts on pagan mythology. And, obviously, if you believe that the Tower of Babel story is a valid explanation for linguistic origins, then you are not in a position to criticise anyone on historic linguistics.

Take the log out of your own eye, before you ask someone else to take the speck of dust out of theirs. You may have heard that phrase before, now is the time to apply it.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

“You said something very wrong, so I gave an explanation of why it’s wrong.”

I got it that this was your rationale.

But I said it on a discussion of LINGUISTICS and discussed it with a LINGUIST, not a geologist-WANNABE who can’t even take a geology related answer on his interruption without going off YET another tangent about my supposed ignorance.

Imagine you had been in a disagreement about … politics, on a discussion related to the 2016 election of California, and someone of the opposite party had said “you said sth very wrong” but taken all his arguments from the 2008 election of Iowa, which was not the least the point, would that have been an interruption? Yes. It’s less important in an internet forum, since it doesn’t take away talking time (your other comment about “you don’t understand how ignorant you are” instead of answering my arguments even is wasteful of writing time), I can write comments to both you and Josef, but still, it definitely feels rude, like in the talking politics example and it’s a disruption.

You take yourself the airs as if you needed to protect me from pronouncing a heresy. I don’t belong to YOUR religion, so I don’t even care what YOU consider as heresy.

“I’m certainly not clueless on historical epistemology.”

Your use of and presumable views on mythology, actually suggest you very much are.

“And, obviously, if you believe that the Tower of Babel story is a valid explanation for linguistic origins, then you are not in a position to criticise anyone on historic linguistics.”

How is that for religious bias?

“I don’t have a “tone of superiority complex”. “

You just repeated it.

“attempting to label me as “anti-Christian”, for example”

Given your tone, it is a fair OBJECTIVE description, and I was not exactly attaching a superiority or inferiority to it explicitly, though you are free to infer one.

“The word is bias, not parlance.”

So, if I lacked this bias, would I stamp you as pro-Christian or as benevolently indifferent? Na, not a chance when Hell freezes over. I would even as an agnostic stamp you as heavily anti-Christian. The reason I spoke about my “parlance” is that you seemed to interpret my semantics as your being pro-every-thing else than Christianity, and those are NOT my semantics, nor those of my agnostic grandfather.

Laetare Sunday

10.III.2024

Thomas Saldana

“But I said it on a discussion of LINGUISTICS and discussed it with a LINGUIST, not a geologist-WANNABE”

This says a lot.

I am not a geologist-wannabe. I am very transparent in that I don't have a PhD, I've never claimed to be qualified. I am no more a geologist-wannabe, than I am a historian-wannabe, a chemist-wannabe, an astronomer-wannabe, etc.

Yes, it was a discussion on linguistics, but when you mentioned the Tower of Babel, you derailed the linguistic discussion. You brought mythology into it. I merely replied to your derailment of the discussion.

“So, if I lacked this bias, would I stamp you as pro-Christian or as benevolently indifferent?”

And this, really, speaks to the crux of the issue. I'm trying to discuss history, and science, but you care more about your religion. Your religion is not special to me. I am not pro- or anti-Christian, any more than I am pro- or anti-Buddhist. Religion shouldn't even have been brought into the discussion, but you insisted on bringing it up, so that means I'm allowed to rebut it.

Now, if you want to put your religious claptrap aside and actually have a discussion on linguistics, we can. But don't blame me for the problem you caused.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

“when you mentioned the Tower of Babel, you derailed the linguistic discussion. You brought mythology into it.”

This says all.

No, “mythology” is not identic to non-fact. If that’s the one thing you “know” about historic epistemology, you don’t know historic epistemology.

My geology-wannabe quip was, you preferred arguing against the Flood over arguing either against Babel or the linguistic side of it.

But mainly, enough is enough. You are not my nanny, you are not my daddy. If Josef asked you to do so, I’d like to know, if he didn’t, you didn’t do him any service either.

You don’t need to have a phd to have some amateur expertise in a subject, but you seem to think you can argue about “mythology” without even amateur expertise.

“if you want to put your religious claptrap aside and actually have a discussion on linguistics, we can”

This says it all, except you already had said exactly the same thing in other words.

Mo, 11.III.2024

Thomas Saldana

Yes, it does say it all. People were having a reasonable discussion, and you tried to derail that discussion with your mythology.

I’m not actually the one who diverted the conversation from Babel to the Flood. That was you.

And, yes, I’m not your nanny, or your daddy (which I consider fortunate). But I don’t need to be, to participate in conversation. I don’t need Josef to invite me to participate in the conversation, either. Any Quora user is allowed to comment, just like you did.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

“People were having a reasonable discussion, and you tried to derail that discussion with your mythology.”

The only one where I brought it up was in a discussion which I had with Josef. I did not bump into someone else’s. He had a right to know my ultimate motivations, he could have ignored it and kept on with the linguistic stuff. Which is what I directly brought up.

Now, I do think that the Tower of Babel and the Biblical timeline are relevant to historic linguistics. Precisely as in Romance linguistics it is relevant that Caesar brought Latin to Tours, and Alcuin in Tour separated Latin from what became French, and that there were c. 850 years between the events.

I will not discuss Romance linguistics under the presupposition that Alcuin was Caesar’s grandson, or that Caesar found people speaking French in Gaul, those are not real events.

I will also not discuss Indo-European linguistics under the presupposition that Proto-Indo-European was spoken in the Yamna culture in 4000 BC, that’s also not a real event. What’s carbon dated as 4000 BC would have really ceased to exchange carbon dioxide with the atmosphere in some time between 2039 and 2022 BC. IF there was a proto-language, it came from Babel in what’s basically dated as 8000 BC. Actual date 2556 BC. But Neolithic Anatolian Farmer expansion has a root area which anyway is very prone to have involved a Sprachbund.

What you call “my mythology” are real events. What you mean by leaving it out of a reasonable discussion is, “if it’s mythology, it’s automatically NOT real events” … and that’s not a matter of linguistics, but of hugely bad epistemology of history.

Babel and the Flood are connected. If we’d had 40 000 years or 90 000 years without a Flood, Sumerian and PIE could have diverged naturally. If Abraham lived 1000 years after the World Wide Flood, Sumerian, Elamite and Akkadian can’t have diverged naturally, a supernatural event or a conspiracy of conlangers somehow succeeding to impose their products is needed. The supernatural event is the one recorded in Genesis 11, and its area was dug up by Klaus Schmidt.

Thomas Saldana

Let's just say that there are a multitude of reasons why historians, linguists, archeologists, biologists, etc have an overwhelming tendency to disagree with you.

For example, you say that the yamnaya could not have been speaking PIE around 4000bc (because that would contradict the biblical timeframe). Those experts would disagree with that statement completely. They would say that the fact that they were, is strong evidence against the flood and Babel stories.

We've already established that you lack even a layman's understanding of the topics being discussed. I'm going to suggest that in future, you get your information from a relevant source. Asking a religious book for linguistic knowledge, is like asking your plumber how to rewire your house, or asking your lawyer how to perform surgery on yourself.

Tue, 12.III.2024

Hans-Georg Lundahl

No, you have established nothing of the sort.

You stamp it as a “fact” that:

• a culture existed called Yamnaya
• it was present 4000 BC
• it spoke Proto-Indo-European.

First, these are three different statements. Second, what kind of fact (if such) are they? Direct observation, or conclusion?

I don’t think I have to blush before any bunch of scientists, if what I disagree with them about is their conclusions, and if I track their wrong conclusions to bad paradigms in …

• nothing for the first, it’s a really good paradigm that the Yamnaya culture existed, it’s a classification;
• carbon dating;
• Indo-European studies.

It’s pretty common for scientists to have a bad paradigm, if you look at it in hindsight, so that these are bad paradigms are perfectly conceivable. As for the correct paradigms, let’s say :

• the atmosphere back then had only c. 78~79 pmC (conceivable to any Young Earth Creationist, and this is my calculation), therefore carbon dates c. 2000 years older than it should
• Sprachbund is a possibility, in fact the one I was discussing with Mitterer when you came jumping in.

If for instance IE is a Sprachbund, then the Yamnaya culture spoke what became ONE of the “branches of” IE (or started out even with a Fenno-Ugric or Turkic language) and then contributed to the Sprachbund with some of the traits shared by different IE “branches” …

“Asking a religious book for linguistic knowledge”

Historic sources are often enough religious works. Nearly always in premodern times. Linguistics, as I just underlined, does not stand on its own, it has a relation to history, and history is known by other arguments than those used in historic linguistics.

Thomas Saldana

I don't need to stamp as fact myself, because I can rely on the expertise of people who know more than I. I would say people who know more than you and I put together, but that's not much different.

Do you really want to say that conclusions are not as good as direct observation? A lot of what you've said in this discussion, such as carbon levels, mountain ages, or sprachbunds, are conclusions, not direct observations. The difference is that their conclusions are based on the evidence, whereas your conclusions are based on your narrative needing them to be true.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Both conclusions have taken evidence into account.

Both of them also has a narrative the concluder needs to be true, in their case the Deep Time narrative.

Hence the interest on comparing conclusions with raw data. I didn’t do that, I just set out to show how the raw data can get a different conclusion.

* See also, if you speak German:

Sprachmythen: Was man sich über Sprachen erzählt und was davon (k)einer Prüfung standhält
Paperback – 2 May 2021 | by Josef G. Mitterer (Autor)
https://www.amazon.de/Sprachmythen-Sprachen-erz%C3%A4hlt-Pr%C3%BCfung-standh%C3%A4lt/dp/B09419FGMW

Sind die modernen Sprachen weniger komplex als die Sprachen der Antike? Kann uns die Etymologie die wahre Bedeutung und den Ursprung der Wörter offenbaren? Ist der Buchstabe R ein Konsonant? Sind Deutsch oder Latein »logische« Sprachen? Wozu sollte man Latein lernen? Was auf den ersten Blick plausibel erscheinen mag, erweist sich bei genauerer Durchleuchtung oft als unrichtig. — In diesem Band werden 14 geläufige Auffassungen über Sprache(n) einer Prüfung unterzogen. Die »Mythen« werden dabei nicht einfach nur widerlegt: Anschauliches Hintergrundmaterial ermöglicht den Blick hinter die Kulissen der Sprache und hilft dabei, die alten Erzählungen durch interessante Fakten und überraschende Zusammenhänge zu berichtigen.