More Mitterer

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

Each comment is divided with the quiz in the middle, and before the middle, the pre-quiz parts of each comment, and after the middle, the post-quiz parts of each comment. The quiz is a list of 10 gotcha questions against Christianity.

Pre-Quiz Parts

Sat. 16.III.2024

Josef G. Mitterer

I actually specialise in having a global vision differing from Evolutionist mainstream and also in ignoring no "neighbouring fields" — or as few as possible.

Okay, but I still find it hardly possible to be more expert in five, six different fields than, say, university profs, even studying day and night. As far as I have seen, many people in the “anti-mainstream” community are pretty selective in what they accept and what not, in the sense that “mainstream” science is “good” if it’s helpful (and it very often is) or if it supports the pre-existing convictions, but it’s “bad” (or wrong or manipulated, or manipulating etc.) if it contrasts them or leads to inconvenient consequences. (Just saying, I’m not referring these words to you — it’s generally more complicated, for not all sciences use the same methods etc.)

The panorama and the details of day 6.

What do you mean with that? Besides, there’s something else I’ve always wondered: how could Eve and Adam know that it was evil not to obey God before eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?

"they were limited to their time’s horizon of knowledge."

We are often enough even more limited to our time's ...

I wouldn’t say so. We do know the Ancient works and, partially, the Ancient thoughts. The Ancient authors couldn’t have had any idea about our knowledge and thoughts. The explanations of natural phenomena or etymologies were mostly wrong (even if great for the time; our modern knowledge is not just “ours”, of course, but the harvest of centuries, and the first ones who tried to answer those questions didn’t have anything previous to harvest).

Are the Semantic shifts from a common heritage, or due to miscommunication in a loose or early stage of a Sprachbund?

From a common heritage. They are the same as we find in the attested language history. Besides, sound laws are very sensitive to relative chronology. I gave one example in the second part of my (initial) answer. If all the IE relationship were just a Sprachbund phenomenon, you wouldn’t expect such a high level of coherence in the related words.

Fine, but in discussions either on language or history, between an atheist and a Christian, perhaps the material proofs are more of a common ground than your own version of "rationality"? […] But thank you for being candid about basing things on overall world view rather than specific material evidence!

Well, let’s see. I grew up in a very Catholic environment and had enough time to think about both God and the Catholic church (if I’m not mistaken, you’re a Catholic too).

Sun. 17.III.2024

St. Patrick's Day and I Passion Sunday

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"I still find it hardly possible to be more expert in five, six different fields than, say, university profs"

I don't need all of linguistics. I need an alternative to Yamnaya speaking PIE 500 years before presumed descendants of that emerged.
And obviously, the impossibility of turning ape into human, as far as communications are concerned.
I don't need all of geology or palaeontology. I need to check Flood geology works and the fossils can reasonably be from the Flood.
I don't need all of chemistry, I need to check the buildup of carbon 14 can reasonably account for reducing the time scale to Biblical.
I don't need all of archaeology, I need things like no clear sign of language diversity prior to Babel, and signs of language diversity (different scripts) after Babel, and carbon dates that match.
I also need the Fall of Troy to show less discrepancy between carbon date and historic date than Babel. Perhaps even less than the Fall of Jericho (historically 1470 BC, Kenyon's date 1550 BC).
I don't need all of Egyptology, I need to be able to show that Egyptian records are so fragmentary that establishing a beginning of Pharaonic Egypt in 3000 BC is as doomed from documents as it is (for above mentioned reason) by carbon dates.

"but it’s “bad” (or wrong or manipulated, or manipulating etc.) if it contrasts them or leads to inconvenient consequences."

My way of avoiding that is to engage in debates. I don't need all of linguistics, but if you had a part in what I miss which could definitely preclude Sprachbund (so far not seen any), I'd need to know. How do you reconstruct the PIE forms of I and II plural, btw, and using normal sound laws get Slavic / Latin, Baltic, German, Celtic forms?

I think I mentioned there was a paper in the 1980's which I read in the 1990's and which seemed very roundabout to me ...

"What do you mean with that?"

Chapter 1 gives the panorama. Chapter 2 account, beginning a bit into chapter 2, gives details for day VI.

"before eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?"

So far, their definition of good was "obeying God"

"We do know the Ancient works and, partially, the Ancient thoughts. The Ancient authors couldn’t have had any idea about our knowledge and thoughts."

That's forgetting that a certain approach to their thoughts is pretty obligate in modern Academia. It's patronising. It's a bit like asking a Patriotic US General to be able to use his info on Amerindian thought when taking a look at reality around him. He's usually too patronising.

Apart from being too patronising, the things I mentioned are also so out of the public view, that they are inaccessible in practise to most. There is a hegemony for natural scientists who ignore both St. Thomas Aquinas and Plutarch and the epistemology of history.

"The explanations of natural phenomena or etymologies were mostly wrong"

For natural phenomena, I think you rely too heavily on materialism. Plus, you are showing in action the kind of Natural Sciences hegemony I just complained about.

"They are the same as we find in the attested language history."

Theos and dizzy? Blogas and blagu- ? I don't think so.

I think even the give, have, take and "siegen" semantics would be lacking examples for attested language history. I find that one as incredible as you find loans in such central vocabulary.

Josef G. Mitterer

I don't need all of […]

That’s a legitimate approach, but I doubt that it’s a very good one, because you risk gaps. You can’t be an expert of historical syntax if you aren’t very good in historical phonology and morphology, too. You can’t be an expert of, say, English language history if you aren’t familiar with the history of other languages. I’d even say you can’t be an expert of Latin if you don’t have at least some notion of the Romance languages. — I’m pretty sure this also goes for other sciences. Everywhere there are synergetic effects and a lot of different factors to consider.

My way of avoiding that is to engage in debates.

That’s a legitimate approach indeed.

How do you reconstruct the PIE forms of I and II plural, btw, and using normal sound laws get Slavic / Latin, Baltic, German, Celtic forms?

First of all, sound laws are not always enough to describe the evolution of a conjugation. There are always (obvious) processes of analogy (EDIT: or complete restructuring; for instance, the rioplatense form ustedes cantan is not derived from Latin VŌS CANTĀTIS, but still built with Latin material), too, also in the well-attested language history. So as for your question (and referring to the imperfective system), the endings were *-(o)me/*-mos for the 1st (primary/secondary) and *-(e)tes for the 2nd person.

1. Latin is no problem: *leg̑emos > legimus (with regular vowel development in internal and final syllables); *leg̑etes > legitis.
2. Slavic (Old Church Slavonic): *bʰeremos > беремъ beremŭ; *bʰeretes > берете berete. For the loss of final *-s, see also три alongside Latin trēs, Greek τρεῖς, Lithuanian trỹs and many other examples.
3. Baltic (Latvian) forms are very similar: beram, berat, yet final vowels were dropped, too (like, partially, in modern Slavic languages).
4. (Old High) German: nemumēs ‘we take’ and nëmet ‘you take’. The ending -mēs is most probably related to the Proto-Indo-European pronoun *u̯ei̯-s ‘we’. The agglutination of a postponed pronoun is a pretty common phenomenon.
5. Celtic (Old Irish): -beram < *beroμah < Proto-Celtic *beromosi; -beirid < *bereθih < Proto-Celtic *beretesi.

As for your Genesis explanations, I must say I find them pretty arbitrary.

For natural phenomena, I think you rely too heavily on materialism. Plus, you are showing in action the kind of Natural Sciences hegemony I just complained about.

I really don’t think so. Take the example of wind. Many intelligent people of different epochs tried to explain it. Their explanations can by no means compete with our modern one. Natural Sciences work. Otherwise many things based on them wouldn’t work, neither.

Theos and dizzy? Blogas and blagu- ? I don't think so. I think even the give, have, take and "siegen" semantics would be lacking examples for attested language history.

Who actually said θεός and dizzy are related? While as for blogas and благо-, note the Russian word блаженный (< *blagʲ-enn-yj) which means both ‘saint’ and ‘God’s fool, holy fool’, so there’s the bridge between the two semantics. Also in well-attested language history, there are many weird semantic shifts, such as morbido meaning ‘soft, tender’ in Italian.

It suggests that you use non-existence of God as a premiss in treating historic facts of documentation and apparent such and what you allow to be documented.

It’s rational to believe something doesn’t exist unless there are immediate proofs or very good arguments. — And I don’t think rational considerations are less powerful than historical ones, unless you can immediately proof “God’s acting” in history. If God is contradicting, he can’t be plausible in another field. That’s why I think God should have to “survive the quiz”:

Mon. 18.III.2024

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"You can’t be an expert of historical syntax if you aren’t very good in historical phonology and morphology, too."

For Gregory of Tours, I'm relying on what I have been taught, while reading him.

"You can’t be an expert of, say, English language history if you aren’t familiar with the history of other languages."

I'm roughly familiar with Germanic language histories since childhood.

"I’d even say you can’t be an expert of Latin if you don’t have at least some notion of the Romance languages."

Alcuin was in England, before he came to confront a Latin he considered Lingua Romana Rustica rather than the real deal ...

"First of all, sound laws are not always enough to describe the evolution of a conjugation."

I was not speaking of the verb endings, I was speaking of the pronouns.

Indo-European Branches for I and II p. Plural, Pronouns
https://filolohika.blogspot.com/2024/02/indo-european-branches-for-i-and-ii-p.html

we—ons, ye—you :
mes, jus :
nos, vos / my—nas : vy—vas

"Their explanations can by no means compete with our modern one."

You have given no concrete examples of them being wrong.

"Who actually said θεός and dizzy are related?"

C. S. Lewis, Studies in words. “giddy” is a parallel, starting from Germanic “god” instead of from a word etymologically identic to θεός.

"While as for blogas and благо-, note the Russian word блаженный (< *blagʲ-enn-yj) which means both ‘saint’ and ‘God’s fool, holy fool’, so there’s the bridge between the two semantics."

You can't get from "holy fool" to "bad" ... if you really wanted a parallel, how about “sacré” or “verdammt” …? But both have etymological roots in words for dedications to higher or lower entities, I think a real example of such would be unattested behind “блаж-” and blogas.

"Also in well-attested language history, there are many weird semantic shifts, such as morbido meaning ‘soft, tender’ in Italian."

A muscle area with more lipid cells than muscle tissue? A beaten and sore shoulder is sickly in a living man, but ideal in beef.

"It’s rational to believe something doesn’t exist unless there are immediate proofs or very good arguments."

It's not rational to keep this up, when the prima facie version of lots of things (astronomy, history, human mind) is such a good argument that in order to keep up atheism you discard the prima facie version, like things considered historic by a people actually being that.

"And I don’t think rational considerations are less powerful than historical ones, unless you can immediately proof “God’s acting” in history."

Prima facie interpretation of Flood account, Exodus account, Resurrection account.

"If God is contradicting, he can’t be plausible in another field."

You seem to have extremely high requirements for accepting coherence or low ones for suspecting contradiction.

To the quiz.

Josef G. Mitterer

"You can’t be an expert […]

I didn’t actually mean it in that specific way. What I meant was that you often have to understand the whole field in order to be able to evaluate one part of it correctly.

I was not speaking of the verb endings, I was speaking of the pronouns.

Well, actually you were speaking about “the PIE forms of I and II plural” so I couldn’t really know what exactly you were referring to. — So, as for the pronominal system, firstly, here goes the same what I had said yesterday: sound laws alone can’t explain everything. Spanish (Am.) ustedes ‘you’ and Italian ci ‘us’ can’t be derived from Latin VŌS and NŌS, yet they developed inside Spanish and Italian, with inherited material only (< VOSTRA MERCĒDE, *HĪC-CE). So even within the Romance languages you have a divergence like ustedes nos dan = voi ci date. So why wouldn’t one expect some divergence also within IE languages? If we didn’t know anything about the history of the Romance languages, we could easily think that ustedes or ci came from outside. But well, let’s re-start:

1. PIE: Nom.: *u̯ei̯s, *i̯uhs, Acc.: *nōs, *u̯ōs (clitic), *n̥sme, *usme (orthotonic).
2. Latin: nōs, vōs go directly back to *nōs, *u̯ōs. The use of originally oblique pronouns in subject function is a very common phenomenon also in attested language history (cf. moi in French, lui in Italian [in Dante, e.g., lui was only object pronoun, while egli/elli was the subject], me/us in English etc.).
3. Slavic (Russian): мы my, вы vy; нас nas, вас vas. The m- in my (< *u̯éi̯s) is most probably due to analogy with the verbal ending (мы читаем, cf. also Baltic as well as the Bavarian mia sein mia = wir sind wir or Spanish dialectal mos for nos), while the -y is an analogy based on vy. The initial v- of vy was obviously remodelled according to the oblique cases. Nas and vas are developments of *nōs, *u̯ōs.
4. German: wir < *u̯îz < *u̯éi̯s. Ihr < *i̯is < *i̯úhs. As for the vowel, in Gothic we still find jūs; in German language history, however, the vowel was remodelled after the 1st person. Uns has a direct equivalent in Hittite (anzaš). It goes back to *n̥smé; for *n̥- > *un- cf. the negative prefix un[pleasant] < *n̥- (= Latin in-, Greek a- etc.).
5. Lithuanian: mẽs < *u̯ei̯s with the same analogical m- as in Slavic. Jũs = *i̯uhs. The accusative mùs is most probably a contamination (generalisation) of the nominative m- with the oblique -us.

I might add Celtic later, but I’m not very familiar with Celtic language history.

You have given no concrete examples of them being wrong.

Aristotle thought it would be absurd to believe that wind is moving air.

As for etymology, if in English to cleave can mean both ‘to split apart’ and ‘to adhere firmly’, or if to sanction can mean both ‘to approve’ and ‘to impose a penalty or sanction against’, why shouldn’t *gʰebʰ- mean both ‘to give’ and ‘to take’. Maybe both are developments from a more basic meaning ‘to move (towards)’ or ‘to take in order to …’.

It's not rational to keep this up, when the prima facie version of lots of things (astronomy, history, human mind) is such a good argument […]

I don’t think these are good arguments, the less so if you consider that Science and world perception started in a very religious, later on in a very Christian context. So it was a hard way for modern sciences. Initially, the default explanation was always God, and if that explanation would work out, how can one explain the success of modern sciences? You need very good evidence in order to reject religious explanations in a religious world. If today many people don’t believe in God or in God’s actions, it’s not because they mysteriously lost their faith or because modern sciences violently took the power, but because modern science is convincing, even if you still can find “gaps” here or there. But that doesn’t already discredit science. Quite the contrary, the “gaps” are getting smaller and smaller.

Prima facie interpretation of Flood account, Exodus account, Resurrection account.

You still have to believe all that is true.

To the quiz:

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"What I meant was that you often have to understand the whole field in order to be able to evaluate one part of it correctly."

That sounds a little bit like "if you don't evaluate the facts according to OUR ideology, you do it wrong" ... any ideology will automatically be a peg on which all of the field is hung up, so, being familiar with all of the field will be what prompts to accept it. Anyone who is not inside is freer to reinterpret, anyone who is, will automatically be worried about what else to revise if this is really so.

"So why wouldn’t one expect some divergence also within IE languages?"

That does not settle whether divergence from an Ursprache or convergence in a Sprachbund best accounts for what we see?

"Nom.: *u̯ei̯s, *i̯uhs, Acc.: *nōs, *u̯ōs (clitic), *n̥sme, *usme (orthotonic)."

So, you are proposing an original system in which u̯- is I p Pl in the Nominative, and II p Pl in the Accusative?

To me such a system sounds highly unlikely. I don't recall all the detail of the article I read back in the early 90's, I think it differed in detail, but it was also highly roundabout, probably just a bit worse in phonetic shape than this.

Lat / Slav / German / Lithuanian ... given your reconstruction of PIE, none of this is unlikely after that, but if you don't proceed from it, it may be likelier that they were from different languages.

I p. Pl from three different languages, beginning in m-, n- and u̯-
II p. Pl. from at least two different ones, beginning in u̯- and i̯-

Note, on this view, the Germanic forms would be supplementary in the I p. Pl, u̯- for the nominative, and n- after a kind of prefix, or a laryngeal, for the accusative and other cases. From two different languages.

The Slavic also, but m- from one language and n- from another.

Lithuanian shares the through-out m- with Finnish, which also has a conjugation of the verb in -mme.

"Aristotle thought it would be absurd to believe that wind is moving air."

Have all followed him on that one? Did he not voice the idea in response to people who precisely thought wind is moving air?

"why shouldn’t *gʰebʰ- mean both ‘to give’ and ‘to take’."

But "habeo" doesn't mean "to take" it means "to have" ... anyway, there are more divergences of meaning than just this etymology in my enumeration.

"if that explanation would work out, how can one explain the success of modern sciences?"

In fact, the "pre-scientific" explanation was NOT by default "God" in all contexts, there was a difference on whether the direct explanation was God Himself or sth created.

"You need very good evidence in order to reject religious explanations in a religious world."

But not in an anti-religious élite. And both Germany had Rosicrucians, and England / Scotland freemasons in the aftermath of deep religious conflicts in the Thirty Years War or the Cromwell Era and its prequel the English Civil war. And note, it was first of all an élite that accepted to remove God even more than would previously have been done. One which did not always communicate with the masses in the most straightforward way.

Take a look at how Euler was promoting Heliocentrism to a Prussian Princess (in German), here:

Euler als "Astronom"
https://aufdeutschaufantimodernism.blogspot.com/2017/12/euler-als-astronom.html

"it’s not because they mysteriously lost their faith or because modern sciences violently took the power,"

Loss of faith was not mysterious in the world described by Grimmelshausen (with parallels in England), and involved people who had violently taken power. They then promoted a certain ideology in science.

"but because modern science is convincing,"

Especially as long as dissenting voices are either silenced, or, as has so far happened to me, marginalised.

Here you can study one man eager to marginalise me (also in German), the PreußenHeute:

So was nennt mann Saupreißn
https://antw-n-sorte.blogspot.com/2024/03/so-was-nennt-mann-sauprein.html

"You still have to believe all that is true."

If a people considers a specific story their past, the less strong claim is to believe it happened, as I believe George Washington was involved in founding the USA, and the stronger claim would be to disbelieve it happened.

The prima facie is belief, not disbelief, when we deal with purported history, purportedly or impliedly simply transmitted since the events.

The quiz now ...

Quiz

1)

Josef G. Mitterer

Can you solve the theodicy "problem"? (I put the word "problem" in quotation marks because I personally don't think it's a problem insofar as it could be solved immediately by dropping the unproven premise of the existence of a [good] God.)

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Moral evils only came about by turning away from God, and physical evils (not just discomforts, but real evils) only came about by God punishing moral ones, or as results of moral ones. No moral evil was pre-ordained by God, Who gave angels and ourselves free will.

Josef G. Mitterer

Firstly, animals suffer, too. And not only because of our actions. Secondly —and more importantly—, what is “free will”? Where is it located? Can you choose what you want to do? As I see it, all our actions are kind of the result of a formula, nothing else. There are two elements: that what we were born with (and we couldn’t choose, that’s the formula itself) and the input from outside (we can’t choose, neither; we can only choose it secondarily, based on the result of the two elements from before; the input are the “variables” in the formula). Where can a “free will” exist or be formed in our body or mind?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Animals began to suffer after Adam sinned. I have also made this point against accepters of "Wojtyla, Ratzinger, Bergoglio" upholding evolution and long eras prior to (just possible) Adam in CCC. Free will involves the freedom to chose what one considers.

Josef G. Mitterer

So animals suffer without sin? That’s pretty unfair. I’d say it’s already unfair enough that all humans are punished for Adam and Eve eating the fruit. — As for free will, yes, that’s what it would imply, but we effectively can’t choose. There is no such thing as a free will. Our actions are the result of what we are and of what we perceive. There’s no space for a free will. We can only do what we consider the best option for us in a given moment.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

It's not unfair if animals were created for man, and if their suffering is a useful signal for us. The other part is also not unfair if we owe them our existence. The pretense "we can't chose" is in contradiction with simple introspective observation. It's the conclusion of a priori Atheism and one of the conclusions of it that makes it suspect.

2)

Josef G. Mitterer

Can you explain how omnipotence and omniscience can coexist (or don’t they)?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

God knows an infinity of things He can do, and He is perfectly free and perfectly self-aware about which ones of these He choses to do accord created reality to.

Josef G. Mitterer

If God knows everything, he knows also concretely what he’s going to do in a concrete moment. So he isn’t only not omnipotent, but completely lacks power. Otherwise, i.e. if he does something he had not know, he is not omniscient. If he only does what he knows, he is not omnipotent.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

The conundrum erroneously presupposes God's actions are, to Himself, in time. His eternity being a totum simul (as eternal life will not be for us), there cannot be a contradiction between His omniscience and His omnipotence.

Josef G. Mitterer

That’s another arbitrary affirmation in order to avoid contradiction. God who acts, necessarily acts in time.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

God's acts are in time as seen from their results, but not as seen from Himself as acting.

3)

Josef G. Mitterer

If God is “love” (1 John 4,7 etc.) and our “father” (Matthew 6,9 etc.), why is there a (concrete!) hell? Can his love not match the love of “average”, mortal, sinful parents?
a) Why do we have to pray that he won’t lead us into temptation? (Which seems to be so unacceptable that the Church even corrected “Jesus’ own words” and rewrote this verse in the IT/FR/SP Bible translation!)

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Parents sometimes have to exclude very bad behaved children from their home. They can then usually hope, the child will come over it. Now, God can also know when this is incurable.
(a.) It's "Et ne nos inducas in tentationem," in the Vulgate.

Josef G. Mitterer

“Incurable [yet finite] badness” deserves infinite torture?
a) That’s also what the Greek text says. However, in the modern translations God is only seen as a passive viewer.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

What else is there to do? The torture is "infinite" only in duration, the alternatives would be

i. to get the guy good (impossible with post-death fixing of priorities)
ij. allow the guy illusionary bliss while bad (more undesirable)
iij. annihilate him (less loving from God's side, also not desired by those in Hell).

a. I don't support modern translations.

Josef G. Mitterer

No, the alternative would be to let the guy just die, disappear forever after death. Or to torture him for some time and then let him die (or pardon him after that time).

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Disappear forever after death = annihilation = even more unfair than eternal punishment.

4)

Josef G. Mitterer

Can you explain where God came from and who gave him the power to create? (I don't claim to know how matter came into being, but introducing God not only explains nothing, but also adds an additional problem: obscurum per obscurius.)

Hans-Georg Lundahl

If primary reality were matter, energy and space-time, i e impersonal, persons and awareness would not exist. If primary reality is personal, there is less of a problem explaining how that personal reality could create matter.

Josef G. Mitterer

That’s actually just claims. And it still doesn’t explain how God was created. You’d need an infinite number of “meta Gods” to create a personal God. (But of course, as I said, also from a materialist point of view you’d need an infinite number of causes, which, too, leads to a regressus ad infinitum).

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"also from a materialist point of view you’d need an infinite number of causes," — no. And not from a theistic one either. Hence no creation of God is possible or needed. The question is just which of them is likelier as ultimate reality.

Josef G. Mitterer

To say that God is “uncreated” doesn’t explain anything. And if you presuppose his existence, you run into a lot of contradictions.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

You run into less contradictions by presuming His existence as the primary than by presuming space-time plus matter and energy as the primary.

5)

Josef G. Mitterer

If God hears prayers of petition (and as far as I know this is believed in Catholicism), why doesn't God hear prayers of petition?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

God hears some and does not hear others, as He sees fit.

Josef G. Mitterer

If God heard, it would be possible to proof that statistically. I’d rather say the idea that Good hears petitions is based on selective perception.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

You cannot statistically prove God hears a particular kind of petition, because those most likely to be heard are least likely to be visible to statistics.

Josef G. Mitterer

That’s another completely arbitrary affirmation. It’s like: “I can fly (but only if nobody is watching).”

Hans-Georg Lundahl

No statistically visible difference does not equal no visible result. The question is how you value statistics vs anecdotal evidence.

6)

Josef G. Mitterer

If God is the creator of everything (and there wasn’t even an evolution — but even with evolution, God should somehow “guide” it), why did he commit mistakes? For instance, extrauterine pregnancies are actually caused by “bad design”. So I’d say either God didn’t “design” female anatomy or he has built in a perfidious mistake. Is there a third option?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

If Eve had not sinned, there would be no extra-uterine pregnancies.

Josef G. Mitterer

Okay, so all women are punished with the pain of childbirth, but some even with extra-uterine pregnancies, too.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Yes, just as lots of men are punished with hard work, some with poverty, some with poverty despite hard work.

Josef G. Mitterer

Okay, but that’s by no means fair.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

What Adam did was not fair to God, not fair to himself (he was not deceived) and not the most fair thing to do for Eve either.

7)

Josef G. Mitterer

Generally, why isn’t God interested at all in the individual destiny of his creatures? That’s perfectly consistent if we talk of inanimate nature which is neither “good” nor “evil”, but just as it is. But it’s not consistent with the idea of a good, personal God.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Where do you get this "God is not interested at all" idea from?

Josef G. Mitterer

It’s obvious. Some children are born ill and die after a few years of suffering. Some women develop extra-uterine pregnancies etc. So if there were a personal God, he obviously would only be interested in preserving life (he obviously doesn’t care if so and so many women die in childbirth as long as enough women give birth to healthy children — that’s only one of many examples).

Hans-Georg Lundahl

God's interest in our afterlives?

Josef G. Mitterer

Maybe, but maybe not. If God was love, it would be highly implausible to treat us this unfairly in our “terrestrial existence”. It’s a bit like playing with us, but not in the good way.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

There is such a thing as submission in a certain type of relations. If Adam and Eve were insufficiently submitted to God, perhaps God wants things that in human terms would be excessive, as reparation?

8)

Josef G. Mitterer

Why are most people in Saudi-Arabia Muslims? Why are most people in Italy Christians? Why are most people in India Hindu?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Why are women better off and slavery less prevalent in Italy than in Saudi-Arabia or India?

Josef G. Mitterer

Mainly, because of humanism and social movements (and even if you attribute it partly to Christian influence, it concerns only the Christian “philosophy of life”, not the question of veracity). Yet what I actually wanted to say is that the believe one has almost always depends on the region and culture he was born. There’s no rational decision, but only taking on the believe of the family or the environment (even if, of course, there are exceptions, too).

Hans-Georg Lundahl

My point is that the goodness of God is manifest insofar as the guys who have a bad philosophy of life also being more likely to miss out on the true veracity of religion.

Josef G. Mitterer

So if you’re born in Saudi Arabia you just have bad luck because your parents tell you a bad life philosophy? I really see it the other way round. The place you were born determines your religion. If the Christian belief would be significantly more plausible than other believes (or atheism), much more people should convert to Christianism.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Much more people did convert to Christianity, before Churches were hijacked by the élite that became anti-religious after the Thirty Years war.

9)

Josef G. Mitterer

Why would God, the almighty Creator of heaven and earth, choose the small nation of Israelites of all people? And funnily enough, it was the Israelites who wrote about it.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Actually, He didn't. He chose one man, Abraham, and then created the small nation from that one man. One possibility is that he was the last man who along with his household was sufficiently aware of proto-history like what he knew of the Genesis 3 event or the Genesis 6 conditions leading up to God's decision to send a Flood, or the genealogies in Genesis 4, 5 and 11, or he actually recalled the Babel débacle, which people were trying to forget. Babylonians kept no record of a project ending with that kind of punishment against those governing, or of the workers getting a day off from that centralised boss, because he couldn't speak to them.

Josef G. Mitterer

Okay, that’s your approach to history.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

The conundrum for a "chosen people" should not be compounded with a strawman about what the religion believes about why it is chosen.

Josef G. Mitterer

Okay.

[EOL]

10)

(later 9)

Josef G. Mitterer

How can faith be a virtue? (I think Galen did not speak without any reason about the Christians of his time.)

Hans-Georg Lundahl

CSL explained it very well. Every man is confronted with some kind of apparent arguments against his convictions, and it would just be plain stupid to be wayward and change your mind every time that happens. In the military, there is a consignment that when you are over tired, you stick to the plan, you don't change plans for the new bright idea you come up with. In the case of the things of God, we need to add that they involve lots of info we can only get through revelation.

Josef G. Mitterer

Okay, but, again, you have to believe in the revelation.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Given the prima facie evidence for the Resurrection and for the God Resurrecting having founded an identifiable Church, it's not a chore to rely on revelation. You did not adress the part about anyone having to have some kind of "faith" in a more general sense in order to keep his convictions, at least provisorically, rather than lose them at the first little whiff of a contrary argument.

Josef G. Mitterer

Okay, but if there are enough reasons to doubt and enough counter-arguments, it can be better to abandon the faith in something, instead of trying to stabilize it with completely insufficient arguments or satisfying fallacies (generally speaking).

Hans-Georg Lundahl

(Previously 10) Who says there are enough reasons to doubt or enough counter-arguments? When it comes to Christianity that is? I have not come across them.

Post-Quiz Parts

Sat. 16.III.2024

Josef G. Mitterer

That was just a short selection. However, it gets even worse if we’re talking about the Catholic church. Not only because it’s based on the barbarism right after the Constantinian shift, but also because of its internal contradictions. For instance, what about the syllabus errorum? The oath against modernism? Are these errores actually errores or was Pius IX wrong? How do these developments match Woytyla’s and Ratzinger’s battle against relativism? Why is Mary so important in the Catholic church?

I would say, in spite of your words of contempt, questions like these (1) are relevant and (2) precede material proofs, the more so as I couldn’t think of immediate material proofs of the (non-)existence of God.

Sun. 17.III.2024

St. Patrick's Day and I Passion Sunday

Hans-Georg Lundahl

For your little list of questions, I don't think any of them is a reasonable defense of atheism, and each is lots less germain to the issues we could discuss on linguistics and archaeology.

It suggests that you use non-existence of God as a premiss in treating historic facts of documentation and apparent such and what you allow to be documented.

Again, my best clue to whether God exists and what God, despite the proofs of St. Thomas being different, is history, so I'd love to discuss history. As far as Constantine is concerned, I think you rely too much on Adrian Ziegler. As far as the Blessed Virgin is concerned, I gladly refer to Heinz-Lothar Barth "Ipsa conteret : Maria die Schlangenzertreterin" ...

I obviously hold with Pope Pius IX and Syllabus Errorum against Ratzinger and Wojtyla, whom I consider as Antipopes.

Josef G. Mitterer

As far as Constantine is concerned, I think you rely too much on Adrian Ziegler.

Not too much. I’m also referring to Catherine Nixey, KH Deschner and others. The history of the last two millennia was written by Christians. They wrote what they liked and they remained silent of what they wanted to consign to oblivion (even though, in “early times” they were often enough also proud in what they were doing).

Maria die Schlangenzertreterin

Is this referring to Revelation 12? In my opinion, the woman described there is pretty much Leto.

(EDIT: Besides, I find your view on Wojtyla and Ratzinger interesting, for I think they are “heroes” of “mainstream traditionalism” among Catholics; but in any case you seem to be coherent.)

Mon. 18.III.2024

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"I’m also referring to Catherine Nixey, KH Deschner and others."

I heard of Karlheinz Deschner even before I knew of Ziegler. He was arguably less of a historian than I am of a linguist. Ziegler gives lots of accurate information about the late Roman Empire, the period of transition. I haven't extensively read Deschner, unlike Ziegler who apart from his anti-Christian bias also has lots of facts about Rome in 400 or Constantinople in 800 that I tend to like. Deschner makes Catholicism the villain, but paganism is mainly victims. Ziegler at least has heros, even if I disagree about their worth. He loves that a Caesar forbade entry into monasteries prior to a certain age (too late for a positive vocation, but acceptable for women who didn't manage to get a husband). I would say, the problem was the Pagans, who were not willing to have children. The ones who DID give children to Rome were the same ones that occasionally gave daughters to nunneries, Catholics.

"The history of the last two millennia was written by Christians."

The histories of Oedipus, Orestes and Croesus, and their relation to Delphic Apollo were written by Pagans.

"Is this referring to Revelation 12? In my opinion, the woman described there is pretty much Leto."

Interesting. But the son is definitely not Apollo of Delphi. Even if both are considerd sauroktonoi in some sense. St. John echoes Homer in calling Apollo Apollyon.

No, it is not. It's about Genesis 3:15.

Inimicitias ponam inter te et mulierem, et semen tuum et semen illius : ipsa conteret caput tuum, et tu insidiaberis calcaneo ejus.
I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.

The Hebrew is considered, if I recall Heinz Lothar Barth correctly, ambiguous. The LXX has the Greek equivalent of "ipsum" or "it" = the seed will crush thy head. Heinz-Lothar defends that Satan's head is actually crushed even just by Mary.

Josef G. Mitterer

I heard of Karlheinz Deschner even before […]

Catherine Nixey, in any case, is a reliable historian. While as for “anti-Christian bias”, note that centuries of historiography had a “pro-Christian bias” (and the church could even put books onto the “index” if they weren’t pro-Christian enough). Christian history-telling only is not hegemonic any more, and not because of hatred or something, but because of good reasons.

Deschner makes Catholicism the villain, but paganism is mainly victims.

Isn’t it accurate? Of course, the persecution of Christians must not be concealed, but it is portrayed in an incredibly disproportionate way, and it is also forgotten to add that many Christians actively sought martyrdom. “Pagans” in any case, were victims.

The histories of Oedipus, Orestes and Croesus, and their relation to Delphic Apollo were written by Pagans.

I’m not sure if I understand what you want to say with this. I was referring to Medieval and post-Medieval historiography (and hagiography).

No, it is not. It's about Genesis 3:15.

Interesting, but is this verse actually relevant in the history of Catholicism? I tend to see the relevancy of Mary in Catholicism rather as a consequence of the total lack of “spiritual” femininity in the Bible. With fantasy, you might find a female Σοφία, but God, Jesus and the Spirit are usually seen as plainly male. So we have a well-working difference scheme in the pagan cults and a problematic hierarchic scheme in the monotheism, which leads to a secondary veneration of a female figure.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"Catherine Nixey, in any case, is a reliable historian."

// The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World is a 2017 book by Catherine Nixey. In the book, Nixey argues that early Christians deliberately destroyed classical Greek and Roman cultures and contributed to the loss of classical knowledge. //

From what I know as a Classicist, like R. R. Bolgar's The Classical Heritage and its Beneficiaries, this is not the case. It's basically the thesis of the film Agora, and Tim O'Neill, an Atheist and a Historian, disagrees with that.

"“Pagans” in any case, were victims."

They were divided into:

• victims
• syncretists
• heroic resistance
• subreptitious resistance (on a large and heroic scale by Maiorianus, celebrated by Adrian von Ziegler)
• and in a high degree sincere converts.

"I was referring to Medieval and post-Medieval historiography (and hagiography)."

I thought you were partly referring to how Christianity views Paganism? Well, part of it is, Paganism spoke for itself, and Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides did not get eradicated. Nor did the song VI of the Aeneid. Paganism was not the modern cult of science, except when the science is obscure and the resistance can be labelled as "obscurantists", which is basically their attitude to Apollo's oracles. Paganism was into voodoo-priestesses. A Catholic priest (Novus Ordo) who was my Docent in Latin and taught Latin Poetry, he commented on the Sibyl in Aeneid VI and mentioned "that's what it looks like with a voodoo medium too" ...

"I tend to see the relevancy of Mary in Catholicism rather as a consequence of the total lack of “spiritual” femininity in the Bible."

Reread Genesis 3 and Luke 1. Between them, reread the story of Jael and of Judith.