Wednesday, July 30, 2025

Friendly Atheist Took On Connor (part I)


Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Defending Connor's Honour, So Far (And One Comment,15, Was Censored as I Corrected It) · Friendly Atheist Took On Connor (part I) · I Prefer Per Engdahl over Fridtjuv Bergh · New blog on the kid: In Response to Doug Wilson Who Responded to Caleb Campbell (pastor)

One actual misgiving about Connor, and lots of other Fascists but also NS ... they could be into pushing homeless out of liberties, but not offering actual homes with freedoms. The reason I don't count this against historic Fascism is, every other state did so too (Social Democratic Scandinavia, Democrats of the US, Progressive Democrats in Canada ...), to some degree even Austria (Aufenthaltslager).


The Debate on Jubilee with Mehdi Hasan earned a Fascist Catholic sacking*
Friendly Atheist | 24 July 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Is1sRF6wj7c


The only one I hear about is Connor.

I didn't find him scary.

I do NOT think Connor made it a "me" vs "you" thing.

In a certain way, "us" vs "them" ... yes. He doesn't like abortionists or Church looters (neither do I). You don't like Fascists.

In each case, you are both disliking or we are all three disliking someone not for himself or not liking the shape of his nose, but for something added to the person, some choice.

I'm not really sure where Connor stands on a Commie who is:
  • not providing or seeking abortion or contraception
  • not attacking the Catholic Church
  • not trying to overthrow a government because it's Fascist.


If he'd be fine with shooting or even just in peacetime imprisoning someone over simple Ostalgia, I'd be against that, but I don't find it all that probable. If that's so, he would be somewhat like you, except you may prefer sacking over shooting. As he's a Fascist, he's syndical, so, sacking isn't really his thing.

If, like me, he wouldn't hurt that kind of Commie or a Commie probably in those situations, you are the one closest to us three to wanting to degrade someone for simple identity, even if it is a chosen one.

3:14 How much do you have to back up your views against Connor?

"crazy, doesn't want to live in a democracy"

Sounds like prejudice.

3:26 "the rules that apply to you should not have to apply to me"

Not what he's saying. More like the limitations on power that apply to your side should not apply to my side.

In other words, kind of a turning the tables on the situation as it is. In "democracy" as it is now, power limitations on Fascists don't apply to people who loved the governments handing the US abortions, contraception and gay marriage. In fact, the kind of things I've seen being pushed against Connor would be regarded as beyond insane if a Fascist tried to push them against run of the mill modern Democrats.

3:47 What right out racist thing could you link to, if not copy?

Are you making this up?

Connor did say the American nation which should be represented by an American government is mainly a white population.

He did specifically say it also included some non-white populations.

I did not specifically hear him say that excluded the Afro-Americans. More probably included, if I can give an educated guess.

4:15 If I may venture an educated guess ... Connor would want US American mothers to have 52 weeks paid maternity leave per child.

As they haven't that, they have less of a chance being homemakers.

Nazis, so presumably Fascists too, have complained on how two incomes have become a standard necessity to even have an appartment.

Citing an actual Nazi (no longer among my FB friends, I can't recall why), "women on the labour market have been driving wages down since ..." (forget the year).

On a video about how other countries are making better deals for their workers, which was spoken by a voice not totally unlike his, though not in a heated debate tone, I heard that some decades back (1960?) only 20 % of women worked full time, now it's far more, not having two incomes is basically a luxury these days ... (the video mentioned countries with 52 weeks paid maternity leave, I think Afghanistan was among them, unless that was the one with even more weeks).**

4:53 It was in actual fact Mehdi who, at once, pin pointed Carl Schmitt as a Nazi. In historic fact and probably more to Connor's taste, he went over to Franco's Spain after a while.

The "yeah" should probably be interpreted "yes, that's the guy" than "yes, that's how I see him too" when he specifically was condescending to NS régime and enthusiastic for Franco's.

Carl Schmitt was not a simple propagandist, he was a philosopher. You may detest his philosophy, but that doesn't make him just a propagandist.

He was the one promoting a nominal adherence to the former constitution rather than a simple change of constitution in 1933, didn't like Jewish authors (a prejudice somewhat common at the time, neither did Waldemar Bonsels) and he fell out of favour as early as 1936. In 1937 Goebbels stopped the NS administration from harrassing him, which they had by then done for a year.

He was after the war banned from professorship, because he refused denazification (persecution for his political views, with the difference that in Germany they were becoming illegal), was a friend of Ernst Jünger and a few more and in 1962 / 63 wrote a work on Franco in the civil war, and the partisans supporting him.

In 1962, Schmitt gave lectures in Francoist Spain, two of which resulted in the publication, the next year, of Theory of the Partisan, in which he characterized the Spanish Civil War as a "war of national liberation" against "international Communism". Schmitt regarded the partisan as a specific and significant phenomenon which, during the latter half of the 20th century, indicated the emergence of a new theory of warfare.


Probably this is where Connor Estelle has his views on Franco from. I used other sources, including documentaries in Swedish state owned TV and one biography written by Michel del Castillo, son of Spanish Republicans who went to France. I didn't know some of the things Paul Preston wrote until yesterday. They are less flattering than what Michel del Castillo had to say. Or the early 1980's documentary on Swedish TV. I suppose the reverse can reasonably be said for Carl Schmitt's work.

6:45 Noting, Connor didn't even vote Trump. Perhaps not even a Republican. Maybe pretty probably not.

7:18 "I do have a problem with giving them this chance to espouse their views"

Expose, I suppose you meant, slip of the tongue, happens.

In other words, you think that while a man has legal freedom of speech, people should by private initiative band together to exclude some from this freedom?

Why don't you worry about a real NS? Kyle Langford:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Esj4WN2L-cQ




* Not sure of the exact English title, youtube unfortunately pushes an automated French translation on someone watching from France: "Le débat du jubilé de Mehdi Hasan a valu le licenciement d'un fasciste catholique"

** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhBkeAo2Hlg

Tuesday, July 29, 2025

Replying to advice from Cameron Riecker


Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Replying to advice from Cameron Riecker · Mentor / Mentoree Dynamics Changing with Age Pyramid · New blog on the kid: Is There Traditional Property in the Digital Sphere? · To Whoever Tries to Tell Me I Write "Wrong" (Not Meaning I Am Wrong About a Subject, Which Would be a Matter for a Debate)

Don't start seeing someone ... before you do this
Cameron Riecker | 28 July 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd_TP-U8In4


You have stated three things.

1) I need to have no sins of lust (or other mortals)
2) I need to be healthy
3) I need to be on the verge of financial independence.

Let's take them in reverse order.

3) I have 13 000 + blog posts on my account. I could be in bad luck, an old post in support of Richard Williamson, which I'm not taking down, could be, not just judicial matter for deleting the blog it's on, but the 40 others, before any of this is on paper. But apart from that, and that one was cautious, I would be able to help others to economic independence if not being infantilised, among others by the clergy and lots of parishioners in the nearby Novus Ordo parish. A publishing house could be set up today, if one of the 23 page views per day from France last week I checked (record low, by the way) had an appartment and c. 200 € to start up a first book print, or if one of the 629 page views per day from the US had 250 $.

Next step would be asking me what I want printed first. Or accept my offer on "I trust your judgement, as long as each essay is presented as on my blogs, and not truncated or changed" ... and they add up to sufficient text for a book.

THE main threat against this is not so much Muslims who are angry I compare Mohammed to Joseph Smith or Jews who hate what I reply to Tovia Singer, not even their efforts (probable ones, I haven't checked face to face, nor been able to systematically check with third party) to stamp me as alcoholic or drug addict, perhaps some Protestants in on it too, but Catholics who decide to agree with them. Unlike marriage, at least on your view, financial independence can be achieved without complete freedom from mortal sin. Unless Catholics take a stance of deplatforming me, as they did with two influencers recently.

2) Energy levels. Best part of my health actually. While lice being pulled out drain biologic material from me, which is a drain on the energy, I still use another drain, 3 + cl of alcohol (pint of beer, 1/2 pint of wine) to pee out calories in the evening, otherwise, I risk being awake lots of the night because I'm not tired enough. Like yesterday I drank no alcohol in the evening, and as a result I woke up before 5 AM this morning and will probably be tired in the noon. If I had a home, I could obviously use yarrow infusion instead, or simply tea in large quantities and not too sugared, 2 h before I go to sleep. As it is, I can't heat water for yarrow infusion or tea. Alcohol is also a diuretic.

My kidney health has actually probably suffered from people trying to feed me to get me into a mortal sin where I'd be easy to manipulate into a marriage of someone else's chosing, and also trying to cure me from a non-extant alcohol addiction.

1) My mortals (in their kind) are more often hatred and despair than unchastity. I'm usually somewhat oversexed, except when bad digestion or sleep keeps me too exhausted for that. But I'm not into pornography.

And given what's being done to my finances by preventing people from reading me, pretty obviously very actively, I am thankful hatred hasn't pushed me to violence yet.

...

As to school teacher, that was once my trade.

I can't make a class. I'm not sure if it's called "make a class" in English, but in French it's "faire la classe" .... the people I get most orrery about, momentarily to the point of hatred, probably want to a) shape me up, including b) take away time from my "hobby" of writing on the internet in order to c) get me a job as a school teacher.

Didactics? I think I was tolerable for those who were interested in subjects. Discipline in the classroom? Unless they were 12 or fewer, someone was taking over the class, and it was not me.

Unlike writing, teaching in school or talking in public (including youtubes), takes a good pronunciation. I've lost teeth, I couldn't stand gums, so my pronunciation suffers. Not a good idea.

Monday, July 28, 2025

Ascension and Geocentrism (Contra Ortlund and Torrence)


New blog on the kid: Are Catholic Clergy Helping to Make Knowledge Flat? · Correspondence of Hans Georg Lundahl: Me and Jacobus de Bruyn on Heliocentrism / Geocentrism and Sovereignty of God · Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Ascension and Geocentrism (Contra Ortlund and Torrence)

The Ascension of Christ is stranger than you think
Gavin Ortlund | 28 July 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLDTKaRQu-0


Jesus' body is in Heaven. Physically.

An excellent reason to be Geocentric.

Beyond the sphere of the fix stars, there is a place that's sometimes referred to as Empyrean Heaven, and it's inhabitable, though not for long for mortals, though the parallel to the third heaven is not exact:

I know a man in Christ above fourteen years ago (whether in the body, I know not, or out of the body, I know not; God knoweth), such a one caught up to the third heaven.

Moon, Mercury, Venus. Or Moon, Venus, Mercury. So, sphere of Mercury or of Venus is where St. Paul presumably went (basically no one thinks he spoke of someone else).

Jesus is there, living like we do, except for the differences He showed the 40 days after Resurrection.

I would also say:

The Empyrean Heaven is one light day up, Jesus travelled up 1/10 of the speed of light, and on the tenth day He told the Holy Spirit Who didn't need any travel time at all, and He was straight on the people assembled in the upper room. While Jesus remained up there.




No, the Body did NOT depart this Space Time Universe.

He did NOT "go to the father" in the sense of being "resumed in the Holy Trinity" He had never left it.

He DID go to the father in the throne room witnessed by was it Ezechiel or Daniel. That throne room, a reception place for creatures closest to Him, being in the Empyrean Heaven. Outside and above the Fix stars, arguably the same coordinates in the Empyrean as Jerusalem is on earth.

Sunday, July 27, 2025

Bible and Catholicism, One True Church vs Reformation Type Protestantism


You did NOT become Catholic by reading the Bible!
St AnthonyPadua RadTrad | 26 July 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8wb5_s53Cs


Those of us who are religious or clergy are obviously obliged to read the Bible. Lectio divina, as it is called. (Lay brothers are exempt if analphabets ... in some cases also authorised to replace the Breviary with Our Fathers and Glory Be's to 150 per day)

Those of us who came from Protestantism may have had a habit before becoming Catholic.

I will not fault a Catholic who goes to Mass, prays the Rosary and Litanies and never opens a Bible. But neither do I think I should bear with someone calling me out for reading and citing the Bible in debate with Protestants. Or when figuring out the exact archaeological or naval implications of Young Earth Creationism.

Also, credenda like Young Earth Creationism are very widely known to be Biblical, even by people who don't read the Bible. St. Thomas says, if you don't know the Bible says that Abraham (at age 100) had two sons, you are excused for not believing it, but once you know it is in the Bible, you are obliged to believe it. No one in today's world would be unaware of a certain type of Protestant who is Young Earth Creationist precisely because that's in the Bible. And therefore also not that Young Earth Creationism is in the Bible. Hence, we are obliged to believe it. Day age is only an option for prolonging time before Adam, and by now the Old Atmosphere would contradict the human timeline since Adam in the Bible. To Revd. Fulcran Vigouroux, it was perfectly plausible either that Neanderthals weren't human at all, or that all Neanderthals lived the last 7000 (to up to 10 000 or maybe 20 000) years (extensions being in the Genesis 11 part). To us that is impossible, unless the atmosphere is young, since an old atmosphere is bound to have C14 around 100 pmC, this validating C14 dates beyond 40 000 years as actual years. The dispensation from 1909 doesn't break down canonically as much as scientifically. Those who really hold adequately to Fulcran Vigouroux's position today publish the Watchtower and Awake! And they are not the best archaeologists or palaeontologists.

I stick to Douay Rheims and Vulgate, except when I go for a LXX reading (which both Fulcran Vigouroux and the Roman Martyrology for Christmas Day do for Genesis 5 and 11).

I also go for Haydock, when the sense is in dispute between us and Protestants, between us and Jews.

4 Reasons I Reject the "One True Church" Claim (And You Should Too!)
Canon & Creed | 21 juil. 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoC7t93r-U8


1:35 False.

There are five or six major traditions of non-Protestants.

Roman Catholics. Eastern Orthodox. Copts. Armenians. Assyrians. Assyrians are also labelled Nestorians, maybe there are also a Miaphysitic group in the same region, if so that would be the sixth of them.

To decide for or against Assyrians, I need the THIRD Ecumenic council. To decide for or against Copts, Armenians and a possible sixth group, I need the FOURTH.

To decide between Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, the history is more dispersed, since Photius died in communion with the Pope, but I need to study Photius and Caerularius and the Roman side and possibly Florence too.

Done, except for those who would accept three councils, where a decision between Copts and Armenians would take some more.

Alternatively, between RC and EO, I'd need to study three topics.
  • Procession of the Holy Ghost
  • Matter of the Eucharist
  • Papacy vs Episcopal autonomy.


That's very far from a "needle in a haystack" like what you seem to suggest.

1:41 Donatio Constantini, forged or true, I happen to believe it true, is irrelevant for the Papacy.

Succession disputes are more vital inside Protestantism or inside some of these "big five" (is Jansenius or Clement XI the true heir of Trentine Catholicism? is "Leo XIV", Michael II, "Peter III" the true heir of Pius XII? or is papacy or Écône the true heir of Pius IX?)

If you want to argue "polemic Avignon papacy was the true heir of pre-exile and pre-schism Avignon papacy, but polemic Avignon papacy didn't survive, therefore papacy as such must be dismissed" you are making things very unnecessarily complicated for yourself. To an Orthodox, such a proposal would be a very minor point.

So, no, between the big five, you do not have to decide on each succession dispute, you generally don't have to decide on succession disputes at all. We can know Cornelius was and Novatian wasn't the true pope, because historically Trail of Blood is a lie, and in real history, Novatian didn't have many successors, even the Donatists weren't such.

1:55 Well, the thing is precisely, there are lots fewer schisms between the big five or current ones within Catholicism, than there are Bible verses that can be misinterpreted.

That kind of does make the choice way easier.

2:27 Protestants are using reason and Catholics are using reason. But Protestants claim to use it about 1334 Bible chapters (or some less if you reject "Apocrypha" as in Deuterocanonics). The person chosing between Catholicism and Orthodoxy are pretending to use it about c. 3 conflicts. The person who is already Catholic is claiming to use it about specific instructions issued often enough more recently and therefore less prone to cross-cultural misunderstanding. And can usually ask a successor if unsure of his own interpretation (not the case with those who believe the papacy is currently vacant, though).

2:42 single visible institution ... that one is actually pretty clear from the Bible.

Single?
Una est columba mea. The body of Christ is not divided.

Visible?
He who heareth you, heareth me. No one places a lamp under a bushel, nor can a city built on a mountain be hidden. The Church replaces Israel, which was visible (and had a visible succession schism, between Jews and Samaritans), therefore the Church is visible.

Both single and visible:
He who heareth you, heareth me ...

Institution?
If Acts and Pastorals don't describe an Institution, I don't know what would describe such a thing clearer. They certainly don't describe an absence of institution.

2:45 No one says Apostolic Succession guarantees doctrinal purity. Yves Congar and Michael Caerularius had apostolic succession, but not doctrinal purity. Cranmer had apostolic succession, but not doctrinal purity.

In fact, what we are saying is, Apostolic Succession of the Magisterium is part and parcel of a larger thing guaranteeing doctrinal purity, the other components being Apostolic Tradition (you cannot come across a doctrinal point no one has been making for centuries and pretend imposing it is a reform) and the Bible (you also cannot flatly and blatantly contradict the Bible).

Besides, we could perhaps agree that God could have, had He wanted, organised His Church in a more democratic way, so the 12 weren't preeminent over the 72 and the bishops not over the priests. But we conclude He didn't from the fact that this is not what we find within Apostolic Tradition.

2:48 that Scripture is unclear without an infallible interpreter

What does Scripture actually say?

As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are certain things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, to their own destruction
[2 Peter 3:16]

We are far from saying, Scripture is shrouded into a dense fog where only the magisterium allows us to catch a glimpse. Gospel simplicity made the point, it is easy to know Scripture teaches Hell, just as it is easy to know CSL believed in Hell. Fine. 95 % chance of getting half the truth of one of the articles of the creed "inde venturus est iudicare" right. The other half is Heaven. 95 % chance of getting that right. Wait, those are the results of a specific act of Judgement, 95 % about that one too ... when we have 12 articles of the creed and one of them contains three truths, you have 14 to 36 things to get right. Even with just 14, there we are down to 48.8 % of getting all of them right.

I think the quote is very clear. Not everyone is fit to interpret the Bible on his own. Of the two ways out, a magisterium which unlearned can rely on and even learned have to obey, and "lets make sure we are all learned and stable" I would say Protestantism has shown a dismal track record for the latter position.

3:01 I very most definitely did accept these axioms VERY consciously when converting in my teens.

I don't know how you know "many" convert without realising they have accepted them ... could that be YOUR wishful thinking about a majority in a friend group who became Catholic or Orthodox?

[tried to add]

Also, even in Protestantism, the Reformers agree you are at risk of walking astray without a Magisterium.

The difference is, Augsburg and Westminister lack apostolic succession and on various points contradict what appears to be Apostolic Tradition.



3:22 For my own part, I can just say that you have misused your reason, and especially by sloppy fact checking and arguing.

4:02 The Immaculate Conception is maximalising the sinlessness of Mary, which is clearly taught Scripturally, if you read New and Old Testaments in each other.

Luke 1, Our Lady is called "Blessed Among Women" twice over. The first time before God became Man inside Her womb.

The phrase has a specific connotation, about Jael and Judith. You may not consider Judith Scriptural, but Jael is, even on your view. The phrase is found in no other OT context (and in both of the cases, there is a limiting clause). Jael, and for that matter Judith, had each destroyed some enemy of Israel.

Who was Mary's Sisera and Holophernes?

The second time Our Lady hears the phrase, it is with the addition "and Blessed is the Fruit of thy womb" ... echoing Genesis 3:15. There is frankly no other candidate for Mary's Sisera than Satan, in the light thereof. But given what is Satan's victory, this implies Mary was, in Herself, not just by carrying in pregnancy, Sinlessness.

There are two possibilities of maximising. You maximise the sinfulness of mankind to include the first moment of Her existence, but no more. Or you maximise Her sinlessness to include the first moment of Her existence and every moment since. St. Augustine did the first, St. John of Damascus the second. Up to the Crusades, the Immaculate position was mainly held in the Eastern Patriarcates, some of which went into schism just after the taking of Jerusalem and Antioch. Prior to St. Augustine, every source remaining is not actively maximising either, but also not polemising against the other. Hence presumably OK with maximising one.

4:10 Your point misses that we have an incomplete view of the Church's past.

Both Newman and CSL made it very clear that what we have as historic sources is a very tiny selection of the whole actual past. This also applies to the Church.

Can you pinpoint any moment in which so and so accepted Mary's Immaculate Conception and you actually know that his predecessor hadn't?

St. John of Damascus died in Jerusalem 749, in communion with Theodore of Jerusalem who presumably was OK with it, can you show John V wasn't? Can you show Anastasius II of Jerusalem wasn't? These men, while on wiki listed as "Greek Orthodox" patriarchs because not Syriac Orthodox ... who are in communion with Copts, btw ... were in communion with Rome as well as Constantinople, up to c. 1092 or sth.

So, you cannot pinpoint such a moment for the Immaculate Conception. I can however pinpoint such a moment about denial of Institutional Infallibility, even in Councils. Luther, after 1517, but before his date of excommunication. As soon as he said it, one reacted as Constantinople reacted to Nestorius.

Greek Orthodox tended to believe in the Immaculate Conception up to the Skirzhal of 1666, which was translated from an Orthodox writer in Venice who had been to Wittenberg, where Luther had his position from St. Augustine, but obviously not everyone agreed in that time.

4:27 Philosophically, that doesn't follow.

If St. Thomas and St. Augustine were pardoned for not believing the Immaculate Conception happened, I think you showed Palamas who did, by the way, this is indeed because the thing was not defined as dogma in their day. They had an error, but not a disobedience about that error.

The magisterial statement serves the truth.

The truth is Biblical.

But once the magisterial statement is made, the truth must be held, by obedience, even by those who cannot trace it in the Bible.

You are confirming I have been right in supposing you misused your reason, since you are capable of such twisting of our position, just in order to polemise against it.

5:29 No, the infallible authority is not assumed, it is actually there in the activity of Jesus as historically shown in the NT.

As to "the RC is that Church" I don't think Scheeben is at this point concerned with discerning between RC, EO, Copts, Armenians, Assyrians. He arguably has or at least other theologians could have, arguments against EO, Copts/Syriac Orthodox, Armenians or Assyrians being the Church which spoke in the councils of Rome, Hippo and Carthage.

His conclusion is "therefore the Church" ... which is true irrespectively of which of the "big five" is the true Church.

Again, you misuse your reason by falsely analysing people's arguments, when you dislike the conclusion.

5:45 Neutral history is not the criterium.

If Jesus is God, we cannot be neutral on whether His obvious intention of founding an infallible Church resulted in His Church actually being infallible.

I would say "non-partisan" history only in the sense that all parts (except modernists) accept facts, however, some do not accept very obvious interpretations, they prefer very counterintuitive ones. Like pretending "he who heareth you" applies only to the apostles personally when Jesus said He was staying with them to the end of time. Meaning, very obviously, with them and their successors. It also cannot mean "11 apostles personally plus writings they left" because:

  • Paul, Luke and on the more common view James, even on a less common view John are not among the 11 in Galilee
  • because Matthew, Peter, Jude, possibly James the Taller, possibly his brother John, are not all of the 11, and the other ones left no NT books
  • because it's unclear whether Mark should be attributed to Mark or Peter if Mark actually penned it


Compared to this convoluted view that 1st C Christians had access to infallible Apostles, but we haven't, only to infallible writings, and this is all that "with you" means, in Matthew 28:20, the interpretation that "with you" means with Apostles and Successors is infinitely more intuitive. And both as on some levels and occasions infallible.

5:55 That Christ intended to give His Church infallibility is a Roman Catholic reading of that history.

It's a Greek Orthodox reading of that history.

It's a Coptic and Syriac Orthodox reading of that history. As well as an Armenian one.

It's an Assyrian reading of that history.

It's just NOT a Protestant reading of that history, and not only are they the odd man out, they were lacking the first 1500 years or nearly so of the Church. AND it's a very convoluted reading of that history. It depends on highly second rate arguments in controversial issues, many of which would if spelled out honestly take the form "I don't find that in the Bible" or "I don't find it in the Church prior to" (various years depending on issue). Then that is used as a crowbar against the obvious reading of the last five verses in Matthew.

6:20 To assume sth that Protestants dispute is not automatically to assume what isn't in the text.

You are presuming Protestants are competent and honest readers of NT history. Not just in individual capacities, but also collectively.

6:57 Lumen Gentium and Tuas Libenter do not correspond perfectly.

What Pius IX said, corresponds to what I professed as converting in 1988 "whatever the Church believes, teaches and professes to be revealed by God, that I believe and confess". Submission to the infallible solemn magisterium and submission to the everyday magisterium across sees and ages which is also infallible.

What Lumen Gentium said corresponds to the new profession of faith introduced by "John Paul II" in 1990. Submission to the infallible solemn magisterium and also to non-infallible decisions of those holding a potentially infallible magisterium but not in this case so used.

Michael Lofton is saying "even when the magisterium holder teaches sth non-definitively, we have to submit" and "the successor can change non-definitive teachings" ... that doesn't make all that much sense, how shall the successor know that a non-definitive teaching needs changing if no one pushes back against it? How shall the pushback be licit on his view?

In the case of John XXII, there was pushback, he said "I'll study" and on his deathbed took a distance from what he had said, and after that, his successor definitively decided the saints in Heaven already do enjoy the Beatific vision. But that was only possible because there was a pushback and the pushback was only possible a) for not holding the submission was absolutely due to non-infallible statements or b) suspecting John XXII was not Pope, until he clarified he hadn't quite made up his mind.

8:57 Come on. Get real. Beroeans were not scrupulously double-checking St. Paul after converting to Christianity, Beroeans did so while deciding on whether to be Christians or not.

The chapter in Acts very explicitly says this double-checking was happening while St. Paul was teaching in a synagogue, a hall so far institutionally bound to the Old Covenant, at that point, and therefore not where they would be once they had decided to become Christians (unless they all decided so and made the synagogue into a church).

And disciples of Christ were required to reject their own reason to follow Him.

Then Jesus said to the twelve: Will you also go away And Simon Peter answered him: Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life
[John 6:68-69]

9:26 And you are trying to prove our conscience isn't properly formed because it has agreed to agree with the magisterium.

9:55 Well, thanks for reminding me.

I recall a certain Gendron complaining the Council of Trent issued 130 condemnations of Protestantism.

I'm defending the 130 anathemas, some of which do not condemn Protestantism but a very opposite error, like denial of Original sin. I'm behind schedual.

Denial of transsubstantiation is very much fuzzier in Lutheranism and Anglicanism which (obligatorily or optionally) believe in the Real Presence. I was not even as a Lutheran in denial of it. (Back in the teen days when I decided). And you cannot get this denial from Scripture, least of all from John 6.

10:13 Heretics under anathema collectively.

Ignorant or stupid in some individual best case scenarios, or very best case, will later sober up or get the facts straight and become Catholic.

I have no intention whatsoever to dispute the anathemas of Trent. Against Protestants and other errors (I argue the Vatican II sect is since 1992 flirting with the condemnations of Session V, canons 1 to III, which all presuppose a literal Adam ... not all Vatican II-ists deny this, but some do, as proven by Sébastien Antoni, supposed Assumptionist priest in communion with back then "Francis" ...)

10:36 Every piece of logic is in fact clothed in some rhetoric.

Trent uses the rhetoric of divine decree, and in fact, the texts of Vatican II are not directly opposing it, just making another consideration. Some rejectors of Vatican II are considering even this one totally illicit (Dimond brothers), some aren't. Ask Pope Michael II if he considers you as a separated brother or as a heretic or both concurrently.

11:39 It may be noted that the one true Church in the time of Mark 9 was the Jewish Church, founded on Sinai, and Caiaphas and Hannas also belonged to it, as did the Pharisees.

Situations have perhaps changed.

But "spirit at work outside one true Church" doesn't equal "no need of one true Church" ... what we are asking is not just for the Holy Spirit to work in us, but to sanctify us, so we can get to Heaven and not belong to the impure groups that cannot get in. A man may have temporarily been in the state of grace and done a miracle, even if he weren't part of the Church.

The healing of an ailing by Pentecostal or Jewish prayer do not contradict that Jews and Pentecostals need to convert. And if the pastor doesn't convert, perhaps his spiritual grandchildren will.

Other than miracles, your claim is somewhat murkier. I have seem Protestants who seem to take me for a drunkard and therefore unsaved because I drink alcohol (usually beer or wine). That links them more to the Qoran which says "if a large quantity intoxicates, even a small quantity is Haram" than to the Bible. Does your claim refer in part to people doing moderate drinking and then giving that up under what I can only consider as undue group pressure, except in exceptional cases, where some are actually engaged with missionary work among alcoholics (I'm not, btw)?

12:15 The Catholic Church is ideally not trying to erase a house church, but to absorb it.

Btw, house churches are a red herring against "institutional church" ... a policeman is a policeman with a badge, even if he uses a private home as temporary office, and a bishop is a bishop, a priest a priest and a deacon a deacon, even if they each use a private larger villa in Antonine Rome. The architecture does not negate the institutional structure.

The SSPX has acted as (from the architectonic and property related pov) a house church in Copenhagen for a while, perhaps still does so, and the emergency conclave of 1990 was in a house church.

When it comes to Hgh Church Anglicans, for the Vatican II-sit pov, this is apparent in the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. A certain Fr. John Hunwicke belonged to it while alive on earth. I count him as a friend.

13:16 Can you really not see the deviousness of John Calvin?

He argues as if Apostolic Succession in and of itself were sufficient to belong to the one true Church. [According to those he argues against, i e us Catholics]

It certainly isn't according to Roman Catholics, who say Apostolic succession is materially or sacramentally preserved, while only formally and magisterially lost by being outside the Church.

"John Paul II" and Michael I (for different reasons) believed that Mgr Lefebvre was outside the one true Church in 1991. Both agreed that he had apostolic succession, that his is a valid line of bishops, that Mgr Williamson was an actual bishop, sacramentally speaking.

As to Orthodox, they would argue, some of them, that Apostolic Succession is totally lost, totally invalid, outside the Church. In other words, that Mgr Lefebvre was actually a layman.

That both George III and George Washington laid claims to being a legitimate overlord over Massachusetts doesn't negate that only one of them actually was so at any given date, up to you to say George III forfeited by tyranny or George Washington never acceeded, but usurped.

13:26 Calvin was right that Succession alone was not a sufficient guarantee of truth in any given bishop.

It does not follow it is not a necessary condition of the guarantees of truth in the Church as a whole.

13:40 The true Church is the one Christ instituted by His resurrection and on occasion of the last five verses of Matthew.

It is marked BOTH by continuity (all days) AND by doctrinal purity (teching them to obey all I have ordered you).

Jesus didn't think it was one or the other, but both together. Missing this is a blatant misreading, not a legitimate "other viewpoint" of what is going on.

13:53 There is a difference between "rival factions" within the Church (17th C. Franciscans and Dominicans on the Immaculate Conception, 17th C. Jesuits and Franciscans on Predestination and Freewill), and, on the other hand, mutually excommunicating parties, like George and Athanasius in Alexandria.

Protestantism is a collection of denominations the earliest of which are all excommunicated by Trent and many later arrivals, possibly from Menno Simons, certainly from first Baptists, join excommunicated doctrines. Some of them may simply lack Catholic doctrine and also Catholic sacraments for some of them (though two, Baptism and Marriage need not be lacking).

From before the 16th C. you have the "big five" claimants to one true Church, plus Waldensians and Hussites, pretty recent precursors of the Reformers (Waldensians closer to Calvin, Hussites to Luther). The mutual excommunications exist, and persist. But they are few. It's not a needle in a haystack.

Maronites were once excommunicated Monothelites, but are reconciled with the Church since at least the Crusades ... as are also various uniates from Orthodox or Coptic or Armenian or Assyrian backgrounds. The excommunication between Luciferians and Semi-Arians, aka Cappadocians, not only was not respected by Athanasius in the day, but also was not prolonged after Emperor Theodosius came to power. I don't recall the exact moment when it ceased. An already healed excommunication, as well as an excommunication where one side completely ended (Arians, Donatists, Priscillianists) is not a problem for finding the one true Church. Maronites and Rome are already one. Arians are already zilch.

14:18 Scriptural engagement is definitely not lost on a collective level, every priest is required 15 or 30 minutes (forget which) lectio divina. On the individual level, it is not a requirement.

I do not know what kind of "spiritual vitality" you consider as lost by a one true Church, it is not miracles, which were rather lost on the Protestant side, and as for teetotalism, that's a "vitality" for Antichrist.

14:26 It hasn't occurred to you that outsourcing discernment was always a requirement of individual Christians?

Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life

Was it only to Christ?

He that heareth you, heareth me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth me; and he that despiseth me, despiseth him that sent me.
[Luke 10:16]

Was it only while the Apostles were still alive?

Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world
[Matthew 28:20]

15:22 Did you notice how he qualified what he "refused to leave"?

The faith once for all committed to the saints.

It's a Biblical description for the true faith.

Well, if he claims that he would be leaving it if he became Catholic, he's claiming Catholics don't have it, i e he is on this point voicing a Restorationist, not just Reformist view of the Reformation.

Logic. If Calvin wasn't Restorationists, Catholics still had the true faith and he could safely return. If he was Restorationist, he denies that the true faith was committed to the saints once, since he claims it was re-committed to them through him. He wants to have it both ways. When Catholics bring up "where was the true faith in 1400" he could say "oh, in Rome" ... if they brought up "where was the true faith now?" he could say "oh, not in Rome"

One cannot compare Popes Michael I and II who claim to preserve pre-Vatican II theology (and Michael I was born 1959, the year after Pius XII died, he was not a centuries distant nostalgic for a truth he needed to reconstruct). Preservation through a small faction is not equal to restoration by a new faction, that's obviously theologically new.

Friday, July 25, 2025

Defending Connor's Honour, So Far (And One Comment,15, Was Censored as I Corrected It)


Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Defending Connor's Honour, So Far (And One Comment,15, Was Censored as I Corrected It) · Friendly Atheist Took On Connor (part I) · I Prefer Per Engdahl over Fridtjuv Bergh · New blog on the kid: In Response to Doug Wilson Who Responded to Caleb Campbell (pastor)

Jubilee Fascist FIRED After Debate With Mehdi Hasan | The Kyle Kulinski Show
Secular Talk | 23 July 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNFnaAMHblg


1) "I hate minorities" - does not follow from Fascist
"I hate people who aren't like me" - does not follow from Fascist
"I love authoritarian rule" - selectively does follow from Fascist [Mussolini wasn't fond of the Soviet Cheka]

2) Mehdi very far from "catches" him by confusing a Fascist with a Nazi.

You know the kind of Americans who confuse Sweden, Switzerland and Norway (and get slapped by Batman if they are the Boy Wonder)? Well, Mehdi confusing Fascist with Nazi is basically showing off a similar ignorance of politics of the 20's and 30's and into the 40's ...

3) Fascists and Nazis have some common enemies, and while I have other reasons to object a bit more to the Nazi label, I can definitely see how a honest Fascist who was NOT a Nazi could get jaded about the label.

Franco and Mussolini didn't persecute Jews while holding the positions they came to power in (Mussolini eventually did so as a puppet régime, other story).

For someone identifying as supporter of Franco, the question of what Nazis did to Jews is not an appropriate objection. The régimes are not the same and did not do the same things. In fact, from the Embassy of Budapest, Franco's Spain competed with Gustaf V's Sweden in saving Jews from camps. And the two diplomats (one of them originating in Italy) were actually veterans from the war overthrowing a sad and ultraviolent ghost of a Spanish democracy that didn't actually exist. Look up Ángel Sanz Briz and Giorgio Perlasca (in the Embassy Jorge Perlasca).

4) You may not have noticed, but Nazis actually exist, and they are often enough not Trump supporters.

Swedish actual Nazis (whom I occasionally look up, and mostly respect as persons, especially some of the ladies) have time after time stated they are against Trump. No Nazi would have volunteered to be one of the 20.

5) How about stigmatising Hitler with Lenin?

He was a part time Leninist in the Soviet of Munich, but he was never either Squadrista or other kind of member of the Italian Fascist party.

In Hendaye, Franco thanked Hitler for the help, but refused to help him out in WW-II.

6) "your ideology is based on 'I want to either kill or expel anyone who isn't like me' "

When did that become the Definition of Fascism?

Piazza San Sepolcro on 23 March 1919?
National Fascist Party programme from 9 Nov 1921?

Cite the sources, not the Commie rumours!

7) For the record, unlike Connor Estelle, Trump never called himself a Fascist.

He's too anti-syndical, I'd say, to qualify as one.

8) As you mentioned Guantanamo Bay:

As of January 2025, at least 780 people from 48 countries have been detained at the camp since its creation, of whom 756 had been released or transferred to other detention facilities, nine died in custody, and 15 remain.


2022 Biden had more prisoners there, than Trump has currently. 40 down to 38 vs 15.

9) One point about free speech is, it is free even for those who don't believe in it.

You seem to believe in "freedom retaliations" and on top of that pretending you know better than the concerned themselves what freedoms they are against.

Btw, retaliations against heterosexuality for those who are against homosexuality is disproportional. Heterosexuality serves a clear purpose, especially if condoms, pills and abortions are forbidden.

Your passion for "freedom retaliations" isn't liberal either. Gladstone would have loathed your attitude, possibly even d'Israeli.

You know why the Spanish Republic died a very violent death? Because people who believed in "freedom retaliations" were terrorising people they didn't agree with. Franco made his pronunciamento with Sanxurxo and Mola over the killing of Calvo Sotelo. Some people in Italy thought a régime should fall because Matteotti had been killed. So, some people in Spain thought a régime should fall because Sotelo had been killed. Those in Spain took action. And leading up to the Sotelo murder, lots of anti-Church violence as well.

10) Mehdi seems to have decided to confuse Fascists and Nazis ... like Sweden is where they make good chocolate and watches, right? (Oh, Switzerland) And where icebears walk in the streets of the capital? (Oh, an Arctic province of Norway, either Svalbard or Jan Mayen).

11) 1936 to 1980 in Spain, more like it.

Just to clarify, Madrid and Berlin are 1895 km apart as the bird flies.

Or if you want hardcore supporters of the right wingers (if you even call the 1919 Munich Leninist that), Burgos and Königsberg (now Kaliningrad) 1671 km.

Ottawa to DC are just 734,23 km by bird flight, and there is only one frontier between them (wait, don't tell me that's the stretch where the frontier folds?)

Berlin to Madrid you minimally cross two borders. Like between Mexico City and Ottawa, even though the distance in space is longer there, 3615 km, as the bird flies. On the other hand, language barriers are more numerous from Berlin to Madrid: German to French, French to Spanish.

Canadian League of Rights doesn't equal Mexican Fascist Party. Canadian Aryan Guard doesn't equal Mexican Cristeros.

"1940's in Germany" ... the usual appropriate comment on the quote is unfortunately impolite.

12) You know, you can invoke free speech as the law even if it's not your actual value.

It certainly isn't yours, since you are in the logic of political "freedoms retaliation"

perpetually blocked nose (free🇵🇸)
@stuffynosepatrol
Freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences. You are not entitled to your job no matter what you say or how you might impact the company's image.

This is like saying "this is infringing on my free speech!" When people dont want to hang out with you because of your beliefs.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@hglundahl
@stuffynosepatrol You are deflecting from the topic of my comment.

Mr. Kyle Kulinski did make a point about "consequences" too, and, that's a broad category. I commented on that one too.

You are basically using it as a euphemism for reprisals. Kulinski made an appeal for "consequences" to basically always follow.

In other words, for making "self regulation" work with mandatory but non-government sanctions. In other words, for introducing a parallel police.

Now, if a Black person at the same company choses another table, I think that could be bearable for Mr. Estelle. But it seems, on the one hand he was doing a decent work at his job, on the other he didn't mention it while on Jubilee. In other words, the only way in which he could "taint" the image would be if someone recognised him at work and called out "hey, you called yourself a fascist!!"

Sth which McCarthy thought appropriate about Communists. However, Connor Estelle expressed sympathies mainly with Francisco Franco, not directly McCarthy. And while Franco did try to get lots of people more than needed punished legally for Communism (it was an actual offense, like National Socialism is in Germany today), when he couldn't get someone in prison, he didn't bother to kick him out of his job ... as far as I know. I could obviously be underinformed.

No, someone has overreacted. There are two dimensions to this. The Constitutional right to say what he said, and the Syndical right to not be punished by sacking for saying legal things. As Fascists are a kind of Syndicalists you can't expect him to just ignore this aspect.

Part of the overreaction consists in confusing two different ideologies, one of which he has said did bad things, and another one to which he said he adherred. Just because some American syndicalists nicknamed thugs hired by corporations to shoot on reposing workers "Fascist" doesn't mean they have a right to expect everyone to accept their identification of Franco with that.


13) "Consequences" seems to be a very favourite word for people who want to punish without an actual law supporting a legal sentence of punishment.

Nulla poena sine lege ... "ah, but it doesn't say 'nulla consequentia' "

You simply don't believe in freedom under the law for those who do not break the law.

14) Why would Hispanic people object to a man supporting one of the greatest men of Spain who was also a friend of Juan Perón?

I do get it some Black people are about as ill educated as you about 1930's European politics (or the Boy-Wonder about European Geography). But they could just theoretically start with asking and let him explain, right?

Case in point, believing that Kenosha was built by slave labour or that a Somalian equals an Afro-American.

15) The worst thing Francoists did to Homosexuals was abuse Psychiatry against people who hadn't committed the crime of Sodomy.

And Carlists stood up against that.

In the US, Sodomy is not a crime and Homosexuality is not on DSMH-V. So, what exactly is a Franco supporter supposed to be threatening them with?

[A reference has been removed, as signalled as incorrect. Looking into it.]

16) What if someone stated that YOUR ideology of for instance "freedoms retaliations" (you would like to limit a freedom for others, so we actually limit a freedom for you, outside the law) is violent by nature?

Ah, wait, you are your own media producer ... perhaps a practical tip for Mr. Estelle.

17) "you cannot be tolerant of intolerance"

As in "freedoms retaliations" ... I've heard that Masonic agenda in Sweden and in France, from time to time.

Both countries are now dealing with severe violence because "intolerance" used to be unacceptable.

I wouldn't quite say the violence in US is the same thing, but it could become so.

18) "this derpy loser"

Some people have tried to describe Fascism as a personality type (intolerance of losers ...) ... wonder what that makes you.

As a Fascist or perhaps just perhaps ex-Fascist (looking into police violence in Italy those years), but even then for Fascists I respect, I would not like to have a hatemonger like you on the same list as myself.

19) On the side of not calling me Fascist any more, Mussolini recognised Jabotinsky as one ...

20) That woman defied a bully with a camera by using the N word.

You recall the clip? You hear the guy shout at hear or nearly, and ask aggressively "what did you call him?!!!"

The Somali boy had snatched another child's toy. The child's mother stood up for her child, and somehow that's a crime because in the heat of it she blurted out a racist prejudice.

Which in Minnesota was never involved in actual oppression of Blacks on a large scale anyway.

21) Yes, it seems you are about as sick of Fascists as certain Trumpists are of illegal immigrants.

Or of Racists, which, may I remind you, is not the same thing.

No, Trump, Leavitt, and a few more are not Fascists just because they like expelling people in a manner reminding me of some clear non-Fascists I've come across, in some cases Jews. Obviously not at all the same scale.

The expulsion craze seems to have roots in a certain passage of the Talmud.

22) The concentration camps were basically a Nazi thing. [And a Commie thing, and an English thing in the Boer war]

Until (very much smaller scale) Mussolini took a cue of a puppet master after 1943.

Not sth to accuse a Fascist of. Sending opponents to small villages on the countryside or Liparic islands was probably overdone, but it's a very far cry from Alligator Camp.

23) OK, see your tactics.

You can't get Trump out of office. But you can go after a Trump supporter who might have more reservations than most, if his praise of Franco isn't lip service.

I don't like what Trump is doing to Latinos for red tape slips.

I also don't like what you would be doing to White's for not being politically correct.

24) I have so far not come across documentation of Connor Estelle praising Hitler. I tend to praise him as a painter ... he should have remained a painter.

I didn't see Connor go even that far ...

25) Might watch your video about Palestine, but certainly didn't subscribe, and actually gave you some dislike (one account = one thumb down) ...

Gift of Death and Númenor


JRR Tolkien on the Decline & Destruction of Western Civilization
First Timers | 25 July 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBP1mQF8voA


6:26 That's kind of where Tolkien's theology has faults.

In real life he was a Catholic, and knew that death was a punishment. True: punishments can involve blessings, indirectly, but they are not in and of themselves directly blessings only or primarily.

Claudia Manfredini
@Laurelin70
Tolkien theology IN UNIVERSE has no fault. Actually, about death, sin and the passing nature of the world is more advanced than the (classic) Catholic theology, since it's more easily integrated with our scientific knowledge of the world.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@hglundahl
@Laurelin70 The problem with that is, Tolkien didn't conceive of Arda as a separate universe or "world of Narnia" ... in the world of Narnia men can already be mortal when arriving the forbidden fruit can turn Jadis immortal (except for killing), because it's another universe.

For Tolkien, the world is the same so all of the same theology applies, even if centuries or millennia before Abraham, not all of it is revealed yet.

As to "our scientific knowledge of the world" that's obviously the source of more than one Inkling error on theology. Knowledge falsely so called.

However, Lewis in The Problem of Pain is worse, since making the fall collective removes individual and therefore all responsibility for it, which makes that version a kind of Supralapsarian Calvinism.

I'm very sad a "Catholic" priest in Paris expressed himself in 2021 or so as sharing that view. Lewis had the excuse of not having the Church and the Council of Trent, with Catechisms. As well as indignated.


[he wondered what Numenor had become in Faramir's time]

8:13 In Faramir's time, Numenor had sunk below the waves c. 3000 years earlier.

As another name for it since then is "Atalante" I think you can guess what Tolkien is alluding to.

Thursday, July 24, 2025

What's In a Debate? (General + Title Topic for Rebecca's Video)


Debating Fascists
Rebecca Watson (Skepchick) | 24 July 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4px0MUlTvBk


Oh, the debate between the Biologist who happens to be an Evolution believer, and Creationists is ideally supposed to consist in him (or her, but Dawkins and Myers aren't ladies) educating, and Creationists being audience.

Nice take on what debate means.

The implication is that the general public, the guys we go to as "audience" when we provide content, are divided into one huge solidly evolutionist majority who won't be persuadeded by the creationist no matter what he says and a minority who is creationist and either willing and capable or not of getting educated.

Or maybe not. The implication may instead be, the audience part of the evolutionists are carefully shielded from actually hearing the debate.

Which is what you guys (and gals, I recall Genie Scott making a point of telling evolutionists that creationists are too stupid to debate) are to a big degree actually doing.

I might say that this shows that guys and gals have different temper when it comes to debates. It's not so much a gal thing. Come to think of it, the only gal I've seen debating Creationists is Gutsick Gibbon.

Now, my take on what a debate ideally looks like is:
  • Creationist and Evolutionist sides both find themselves championed by people with debate appetite
  • Audience consists of both sides and of undecided
  • If the general public isn't shielded from the debate, I consider that some of each side would join the other, it might even be more common among debaters than among audience, and the undecided would eventually tend to go with the one having the stronger argument.


Unfortunately, a certain Genie Scott has lobbied heavily for the slogan "there is no debate" ... in other words, for cancelling whatever debate there is to shield the public from it.

Was an evolutionary biologist 0:24 able to meaningfully educate and 0:26 persuade an audience of young earth 0:29 creationists, for instance, or was the 0:32 attempt less than useless with the 0:34 debate actually elevating creationism to 0:37 be an equal philosophy on par with 0:42 evolution.


Well, 10/10 for intellectual snobbery.

If philosophies aren't a totally vain pursuit, they cannot be equal. But equally, if debate and democracy (in some sense of the word) are not vain pursuits, they must be treated as equal.

The debate debate is back now 2:43 because people have learned that debate 2:46 is a money printing machine online, 2:48 especially if you adopt the Jerry 2:50 Springer tactic of hosting basically 2:53 brawls between groups of extremists or 2:56 otherwise loathsome people.


I'm noting that Slate, Popular Science, and the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry are perhaps money printing machines as well.

Are you arguing for an authoritarian régime where intellectual content is banned from spreading further than the coffee table and making any money?

That begs the question what you live off ....

5:03 Jordan Peterson is impossible. He is telling everyone to be more virtuous, defines virtue in basically stoic terms, supports Christianity because it's more stoic than atheism is, is on the fence on actually becoming a Christian or not ...

I definitely believe in the Immaculate Conception. I recently defended why Jesus had to have a mother without sin and Mary didn't, which is one thing some Protestants bring up, well, Mary wasn't making a public ministry. If She didn't need the same dose of security, in the psychological and social sense, She had less need of a parent being exactly like Herself morally.

But then, I actually am a Christian. And definitely NOT a Stoic.




13:00 I'm pretty sure Candace Owens would have found some ground with Edwin.

Is an Edwin point the opposite of a Godwin point?

I think you bringing up those other 19 opponents of Mehdi Hasan is pretty close to a Godwin point ... and an illicit one when it comes to Connor James Estelle.

Citing Times of India:

  • ... Estelle openly supported autocracy and responded with "Yeah, I am," when asked if he would describe himself as a fascist ...
  • When asked about Nazi persecution, Estelle dismissed concerns by saying he "frankly doesn't care" about being called a Nazi, and that the Nazis "persecuted the church a little bit." When pressed about the Holocaust and Jewish persecution, he admitted it was "bad" but quickly moved on.


Why was he even asked about Nazi persecution in the first place? He admitted to being Fascist, not Nazi. He said he didn't get insulted by being called a Nazi, but he didn't say he was one.

He may have known about the Nazis depriving the Catholic bishop of Dresden of the driving licence, for speeding when bringing the sacraments to a dying man, but he seems to have ignored the execution of an Austrian nun, who as a nun had made a poem against Hitler and was executed because she refused to step back and be a nun no more ...

Asking a Fascist about his regrets for Nazism is like asking a Social Democrat or Bernie Sanders if he doesn't hate the Russian Revolution and Communism. Well, if you are exposed too much to a question that doesn't make remotely sense, you get jaded. That's all there is to Connor Estelle not being insulted when called a Nazi, as far as I can see.

14:20 Was Connor Estelle one of the guys who flagged Edwin?

The fact that he called himself a Fascist doesn't guarantee that.

Was Connor Estelle one of the guys who told Mehdi Hasan to get back?

Dito. The fact that he called himself a Fascist doesn't guarantee that.

On the fund raiser, Connor Estelle mentioned the views he expressed were legal. I suppose that means he not even once said a word that could be reasonably interpreted as incitation to hatred. Obviously some very unreasonably take his self identification as a Fascist to mean that, but that's totally beside the point.

On a Good Thing Mohammed Did


What I Think About Mohammed's Wives and About Islam (Looking into it: was Mohammed Malthusian?) · On a Good Thing Mohammed Did

Why Islam had to Change Eeverything | What Really Happened at Uhud
Morgan Miller Reverted Muslimah | 22 July 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmsHzH3k8TI


Sounds like on that account, Mohammed did locally in the Arabic Peninsula what the Roman Catholic Church get through when Constantine became a Christian.

Good for him, but may not exonerate all of his methods and doesn't make him a prophet.

Actually, the custom in the Roman Empire was slightly less barbaric.

Children were not buried alive, but set out. It typically happened to girls or handicapped children (the categories intersect).

Anyone who wanted to save them could, and often they were picked up for life in a brothel.

Christians also picked up babies and raised them as free family members.

Yes, exactly the Christians who believed the Trinity and that Jesus is God.

Did Daniel Mean Jesus Christ or Jetty Carpathia? (a Nicolae Jetty Carpathia Style Antichrist)


Signs of the Coming Antichrist in Israel ‪@eartohear‬
Ruslan KD | 23.VII.2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRC6U_rCrXU


6:05 "at that moment(1), there's going to come a man(2)"

OK ... do you have this view from specific verses in the Bible or from Nicolae Jetty Carpathia in a certain franchise by the not so left behind author Tim LaHaye?

Rlambjr21
@Rlambjr21
He is probably referencing the 70th week of the Prophecy of the 70 weeks (Daniel 9). Daniel 9:27 "He will confirm a covenant with many at the beginning of the week then he breaks the covenant in the middle of the week." I think he is interpreting the covenant in Daniel 9:27 as some type of peace treaty in that geographical location. Then you can pair Daniel 9:27 with 1 Thess 5:3 "For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape." I think he is placing the war in Ezekiel 38 as an event that leads up the the beginning of the 70th week in Daniel 9.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@hglundahl
@Rlambjr21 What about the interpretation(3) that Jesus confirmed the NEW covenant and took away the OLD, with a time lapse of 3.5 years between Christ's Baptism and His Crucifixion?

The New covenant is available to Gentiles, hence "many" ... the Crucifixion does away with the previous Covenant.

In other words "he" = the Christ, not the leader of a people that shall come.

Then this criterium "for the Antichrist" simply isn't one.


(1) when everyone is tired of war (in the Middle East)
(2) who proposes a peace treaty (in the Middle East)
(3) See Haydock comment:

26 And after sixty-two weeks Christ shall be slain: and the people that shall deny him shall not be his. And a people, with their leader, that shall come, shall destroy the city, and the sanctuary: and the end thereof shall be waste, and after the end of the war the appointed desolation.

27 And he shall confirm the covenant with many, in one week: and in the half of the week the victim and the sacrifice shall fail: and there shall be in the temple the abomination of desolation: and the desolation shall continue even to the consummation, and to the end.

Ver. 26. Weeks, or four hundred and thirty-eight years, which elapsed from the twentieth of Artaxerxes to the death of Christ, according to the most exact chronologists. (Calmet) --- Slain. Protestants, "cut off, but not for himself, and the people of the prince that," &c. (Haydock) --- St. Jerome and some manuscripts read, Christus, et non erit ejus. The sense is thus suspended. The Jews lose their prerogative of being God's people. (Calmet) --- Christ will not receive them again. (St. Jerome) -- Greek: "the unction shall be destroyed, and there shall not be judgment in him." The priesthood and royal dignity is taken from the Jews. (Theod.) --- The order of succession among the high priests was quite deranged, while the country was ruled by the Romans, and by Herod, a foreigner. (Calmet) --- Leader. The Romans under Titus. (Challoner; Calmet)

Ver. 27. Many. Christ seems to allude to this passage, Matthew xxvi. 28. He died for all; but several of the Jews particularly, would not receive the proffered grace. (Calmet) --- Of the week, or in the middle of the week, &c. Because Christ preached three years and a half: and then, by his sacrifice upon the cross, abolished all the sacrifices of the law. (Challoner) --- Temple. Hebrew, "the wing," (Calmet) or pinnacle, (Haydock) the highest part of the temple. (Calmet) --- Desolation. Some understand this of the profanation of the temple by the crimes of the Jews, and by the bloody faction of the zealots. Others, of the bringing in thither the ensigns and standard of the pagan Romans. Others, in fine, distinguish three different times of desolation: viz. that under Antiochus; that when the temple was destroyed by the Romans; and the last near the end of the world, under antichrist. To all which, as they suppose, this prophecy may have a relation. (Challoner) --- Protestants, "For the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even unto the consummation; and that determined, shall be poured upon the desolate." (Haydock) --- The ruin shall be entire. (Calmet)

Sunday, July 20, 2025

What I Think About Mohammed's Wives and About Islam (Looking into it: was Mohammed Malthusian?)


What I Think About Mohammed's Wives and About Islam (Looking into it: was Mohammed Malthusian?) · On a Good Thing Mohammed Did

Those are not quite the same story. Researching the answers, I came to the wiki article Wives of Muhammad


I reverted to Islam, neither for a man, nor by force! 😌 Being a convert isn't easy.
Morgan Miller Reverted Muslimah | 15 July 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwDfdvZ5OR4


My main reason for being neither Muslim, nor Mormon is, Matthew 28:16 to 20.

Jesus stated, in your terms, He was founding the FINAL Ummah.

Note, the word prophet means two very different things for a Christian. One is, you were part of the gradual revelation leading up to Christ. Like Moses codified Genesis and received many revelations about God's justice. Or Isaias foretold Christ. Or Jeremias foretold the shift in covenants. In that sense (and that would be the one relevant for your "Prophet") there are no prophets after Christ.

The other sense is, you do miracles and foretell current events or perhaps end times events, even, but when it comes to doctrine, you don't actually add anything. In this way, there are prophets after Christ, like St. Bridget of Sweden or like St. Catherine of Siena or like the children of Fatima (the city is named after a Moorish princess converting to Christianity and she had obviously been named after Mohammed's daughter with Hadidja).

0:46 I have a tendency not to bring up Aisha.

IF I want to make a point about his love life, it's more Zaynab bint Jahsh.

Forcing a stepson to divorce his wife so you can marry her yourself is ... well, to put it mildly ... overbearing.

I have a tendency, when I want to argue about why two religions are false, to compare them to each other, rather than bring up the love lifes of their founders. The other one was founded by Joseph Smith.

1:30 No. Children were considered as having "the age of reason" at age 7.

The specific meaning of "age of reason" is, you are responsible for your life under the guidance of someone else, like your parents. Before the age of reason, you cannot go to Hell. You can go to the limbus infantum if you aren't baptised, but you can't commit a mortal sin, so you cannot go to eternal flames.

In more secular terms, that was when you could enter an apprenticeship and also an engagement to be married later on.

If your knowledgeable text book says otherwise, it's not so knowledgeable.

The age where you could marry, according to a Papal decree from the 12th C. I think, was "14 / 12" ... 14 years for the husband, 12 years for the wife. These limits were from time to time ignored, but less and less, even before the Renaissance.

1:34 "in the Crusades by 9 years old"

Either you speak of the Children's Crusade, which was illegal, or you speak of younger siblings going with their older brothers. Or pages going with knights.

(7 to 14, page. 14 to 24, squire. 24, possibly, knight.)

1:57 Adolescence, you have a valid point.

Postponing marriage to 18 or 21, obligatorily for both sexes, that's a modern thing, in the US from the Progressive era. France allowed girls of 15 to marry up to 2006. That had been higher since Napoleon, before that it had been 12, as per Medieval canon law.

4:24 ONE of his wives was older. TWO actually.

Hadidja. 16 years older. Sawdah bint Zam'ah was 4 years older.

Zaynab [bint Jahsh] was 20 years younger than Mohammed, born 590 resp 570 in the Years of our Lord.

Hafsa, Umm-al-Masakin, Umm-Salama, Juwayriya bint al-Harith, Umm Habiba, Safiyya bint Huyayy, Maymunah bint al-Harith, are all younger than Mohammed, one by as much as 40 years.

Rayhana bint Zayd and Maria al-Qibtiyya don't have birth years listed.

For Aisha, the common opinion is, she was born 44 years after Mohammed, the marriage contract was signed when she was 6 and consummated when she was 9.

I note that in Medieval Europe, she could have been engaged at age 7 and wed and consummated at age 12, so, this is not at all my main objection to Islam.

You object that she is listed as a convert, doesn't really fit with her father being Abu Bakr, one of the first companions, around 613, the year before she is usually believed to have been born, and her mother being Umm Ruman, the woman that Abu Bakr married after converting and divorcing his first wife who didn't convert.

You also pretend that Mohammed wasn't all that interested in having sex with his wives, let's take Hadidja, the oldest of them, sixteen years older than he:

The couple had two sons, Qasim and Abd Allah, and four daughters, Zaynab, Ruqayya, Umm Kulthum and Fatima. In the aftermath of Muhammad's first revelation, Khadija is credited to have been the first convert to Islam.


4:36 For Sawdah, you seem to have a point, she had six children before but none with Mohammed.

Nor, seemingly, had Aisha. Nor Umm Salama, who had children with her first husband. Nor Zaynab bint Jahsh. Nor Juwayriya bint al-Harith. Nor Umm Habiba who had a son with her first husband.

Nor Safiyya bint Huyayy, though a consummation is attested by hadiths about the idda.

Nor Maymunah bint al-Harith, nor Rayhana bint Zayd.

With Maria al-Qibtiyya, Mohammed had a son who died at age 2.

So, Ibrahim proves, Mohammed didn't run into an incurable fertility problem after Hadidja died. One explanation could be, Mohammed really had very Platonic relations mostly with his wives. Or not quite natural ones. Or, the children were simply not acknowledged by later Qalifs.

I actually do not know.




See also:

Shot by Family for Following Jesus — An Ex-Muslim Tells All
Son of the Most High | 16 July 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5priJf_Bie8

Ithaka: Ithaki or Leukada?


Φιλολoγικά/Philologica: If Aquinas had had to present the theory of Dörpfeld: Ulisses' Ithaca was Leucada · Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Ithaka: Ithaki or Leukada?

The Real Location of Odysseus’ Ithaca
Caleb Howells | 19 July 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWXPD8YICPw


2:19 what if you interpret "furthest off into the gloom" as "furthest west" if you consider the contrast with the other islands ("dawn"="east")?

2:30 To be more precise.

Kephalonia stretches further west on it's west point. However, another one is further west on the east point, when arriving from Pelopponesos.

One would pretty obviously want to sail inside the islands as they shield from winds outside.

It is also further off when arriving from the Pelopponesos.

Dörpfeld rejected Kephalonia, because he found it very convincing that traditional Kephalonia = Ulysses' Kephalonia.

[Tried* to add:]

My bad, Zakynthos = Zakynthos.

3:28 Ah, Leukada. Sounds much better.

4:39 Unlike you and like most, Dörpfeld accepts that Homer lived 3 to 4 C. after the Trojan War.

This means the harbour could be an anachronism.

On Dörpfeld's theory, the inhabitants of Ulysses' Ithaca were Ionians, and they fled to modern Thiaki when the Dorians arrived. On that view, it makes sense they would reconstruct the cultural environment, including a cave to Aphrodite.

Here is part of Dörpfeld's argument:

η πoυ τις νησων ευδειελoς ηε τις ακτη
κειθ' 'αλι κεκλιμενη εριβωλακο ηπειροιο;


Ulysses asks "is this an island or a cape"?

6:13 You have a point. I'd have taken "sun and dawn" as hen dia dys, but take them as two separate directions, Leukada still remains an option.

8:01 According to Dörpfeld, the inhabitants fled from Ithaka to Dolichion.

So, modern Ithaki = Ulysses' Dolichion.

Or that may be my bad memory, it's thirteen years since I read Dörpfeld in a library, and wiki attributes to Dörpfeld the idea that Same was modern Ithaka rather than modern Kephalonia. In that case modern Kephalonia would have been Dolichion.

9:09 What do you do with Dörpfeld's argument that Homer's Ithaka had some reminiscence of a peninsula as per:

η πoυ τις νησων ευδειελoς ηε τις ακτη
κειθ' 'αλι κεκλιμενη εριβωλακο ηπειροιο;

Dörpfeld thought it referred to the area between Leukada and the mainland with so little water Ulysses was unsure if it could count as making it a separate island?

I thought that Dörpfeld's strongest argument. Along with Dolichion not being a small island but one comparable to the other ones mentioned.**

* All of my comments disappeared.
** Ithaki has two major part joined by an Isthmus, which could explain the lines, they do not explain the disappearance of Dolichion.

Saturday, July 19, 2025

A Few Ineptitudes in Protestantism


Do Catholics Worship Mary? Trent Horn said YES (Is He Right?)
Douglas Beaumont | 18 July 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G212Ah3QzPo


In fact, Protestants are so disingenious, as a certain man on "needGod" site shows himself, I'm not sure it's Trent giving occasion, it's more like them taking occasion for scandal.

Did Trent Horn Admit Catholics Worship Mary?
NeedGod․net | 7 July 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZj4sPn5Sbo


1:10 In the etymological sense, yes.

1:46 In Vietnamese theology, are the ancestors really interceding?

I would find it probable they are considered to have acquired a kind of spiritual power of their own by the transformation of death.

In Catholic theology, saints, and even Mary, use the power of intercession, exception for exorcisms and when angels are actually carrying out God's mission on earth. With powers God gave them when He created them.

Now, a priest in the Maccabees family actually did place his trust in Jeremias.

Now the vision was in this manner: Onias who had been high priest, a good and virtuous man, modest in his looks, gentle in his manners, and graceful in his speech, and who from a child was exercised in virtues, holding up his hands, prayed for all the people of the Jews 13 After this there appeared also another man, admirable for age, and glory, and environed with great beauty and majesty 14 Then Onias answering, said: This is a lover of his brethren, and of the people of Israel: this is he that prayeth much for the people, and for all the holy city, Jeremias the prophet of God 15 Whereupon Jeremias stretched forth his right hand, and gave to Judas a sword of gold, saying [2 Machabees 15:12-15]


As I reread, I think it means Onias had also died.

Now, it doesn't matter if you think 2 Macc is canon or not. If it is historically accurate, or even thought to be so, by the time Jesus was born, this position was a known one among 1st C Jews of Judea, and Jesus never explicitly rejected it, so he could be assumed to have accepted it.

We Catholics do not base our definition on idolatry on the presumption that everything idolaters do is the definition of idolatry. So, if the Vietnamese pagans really thought the ancestors were actually interceding, that wouldn't mean that honouring someone who intercedes is idolatry, their act would be idolatry because they would believe their ancestors interceded with something else than the true God ... as examplified by their presumption ancestors are mostly in a position to do so. I e, no fear the ancestor could actually have gone to Hell and have his prayers rebuffed because he is on the damnation side of a great chasm (Luke 16:26).

Please note, while Abraham was interceding, as a soul in the netherworld, he didn't rebuff the soul of the rich man because there was a great chasm between dead persons and those who walk on earth, but there is a great chasm between the saved and the damned. Both Abraham and the rich man had already died, neither has so far risen to an undying body, glorified in the case of Abraham, or if Abraham has since then, it was when Jesus died (Matthew 27:53). After this dialogue took place.

Ancestors on the damnation side are both out of reach to receive benefits and out of reach to intercede. And the Vietnamese don't seem to realise that. Hence their act is idolatry, even if they think it's intercession, but not because they think the ancestors intercede, but because of the divine they are thought to intercede with not matching the God of the Bible, not matching a God who may have damned some of the ancestors.

2:04 I've just explained the difference fairly in depth.

With Mary we have the assurance of faith She is in Heaven and so able to intercede. With Mary we know it's the Triune God, especially the Second Person, Who is Her Son, the God-Man, that She intercedes with.

I don't diagnose idolatry because of likeness with an idolatrous worship, but because of divergence from the Christian one.

By the one, the soul of the rich man gave Abraham a title:

And he cried, and said: Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, to cool my tongue: for I am tormented in this flame [Luke 16:24]


2:22 "often surpassing the emotional attachment they even have to Jesus"

How do you know?

But if so, the love we have for God is not purely "emotional attachment" ...

2:35 In Hebrew the titles do not match.

Admit that Jesus is King of Heaven, and that Mary is physically with Him, that makes Her "Gebira" of Heaven. Confer the title of the King's Mother in Jeremias' time, Jeremias 13:18, and the powers that King Solomon's Mother should have held 3 Kings 2.

The false goddess is referred to as (li) "Mleket" of Heaven in Jeremias 7.

But even with a not quite matching title, God could have taken a special horror for a demon taking false worship under a title reminiscent of the one He was preparing for His Mother. Wouldn't you have taken it as an insult to your mother, if a drag queen had posed with something reminiscent of her?

2:45 Advocate, given to the Holy Spirit ... and therefore also to the created person most filled with the Holy Spirit, which is Mary. (Jesus is created as a Man, but that doesn't add another person, so He is not a created person).

Mediatrix omnium gratiarum ... to individuals and individual situations. Jesus is the collective mediator of man with God. But whenever someone comes to Him, there is some mediation of prayer or preaching from some created person, and the mediation of prayer is never without Mary.

3:31 God dispenses the gifts by His power and sovereignty, Mary by Her prayer.

And she said to him: I desire one small petition of thee, do not put me to confusion. And the king said to her: My mother, ask: for I must not turn away thy face [3 Kings (1 Kings) 2:20]


Mary is to Jesus, Who is God, what Bathsheba was to Solomon.

4:04 Well, apparently you are as clueless about blasphemy as about idolatry.

Gabriel told Mary that Satan feared Her like Sisera feared Jael and like Holophernes feared Judith. That's the exact meaning of "blessed among women" in the wider Biblical context.

Even before She was pregnant with Jesus (scrutinise the order of events in Luke 1:28 and 31 "thou shalt conceive"), She had won a victory over the serpent, like Jael over Sisera.

And if "with one prayer thou wilt appease Him" is supposed to be blasphemy, what do you do of the idea of "accepting Jesus as saviour" and after that never fearing Him as judge?

4:41 Interesting.

The Dimond brothers who accept Pius XI actually argue against the title Coredemptrix, so, do you have a reference?


I found one:

Marians of the Immaculate Conception: Teachings of the Popes: Pope Pius XI



4:58 Yes it is — "all generations" in Luke 1:48 = "all generations of Christians" μακαριοῦσίν, now Strong only gives the meaning "count as blessed" but here is a wider Greek lexicon, Liddell Scott:

μακαρίζω = bless, deem happy or pronounce happy, congratulate

The first reference with tina is Odyssey 15:538

.... ὡς ἄν τίς σε συναντόμενος μακαρίζοι.
... so that any one who met thee would give thee joy


In other words, Mary is not just saying we are going to credally believe that She is blessed, but that we will greet Her as blessed.

Meaning, it is perfectly Biblical that Marian devotion is an integral part of Christian worship.

5:15 And we did so* since 2nd or 3rd c. Egypt, times of persecution.

Sub tuum praesidium confugimus
Ύπò τήν σήv εύσπλαγχνίαν καταφεύγομεν Θεοτόκε.


Attested on John Ryland Greek manuscript P 470.

Hans Förster pretends it isn't very ancient, but then he has a strong Protestant bias. He is professor of NT theology on a Protestant faculty, while Lobel is an actual papyrologist.

5:25 I would not count "Paul VI" as Pope, but the words you said before, "God, not Mary" ... they are pretty absurd if you take into account that body cells of God Himself in the flesh remained in Her body. Fetal microchimerism, look it up.

5:56 Montini's admission is irrelevant to a Catholic who doesn't count him as Pope.

As said, devotion to Mary is in Luke 1:48.

This is the problem. As 5:59 soon as you depart from having scripture 6:01 as your ultimate authority, you then 6:03 have all these extra man-made traditions


Neither of them is a fair description of Catholicism. Both are very fair descriptions of Protestantism. The latter obviously visibly so, from the Reformation. Even the former for people aware of Luke 1:48 and Matthew 26:26. But more and more over centuries.

It's not "Ligoori", it's "Ligoo-awri" or "Ligwawri" ... and 6:54 no, Mary complements Jesus. Luke 1:42 mean in the light of Judges 5 and Judith 13 and of Genesis 3:15 that they are together in defeating Satan.

7:51 yeeees we usually do owe our mothers something because they bore us.

Honour thy father and thy mother, that thou mayest be longlived upon the land which the Lord thy God will give thee [Exodus 20:12]


Part of the point of incarnation was, Jesus took it on Himself to fulfil the law. Including the debt we usually owe both to human father and mother, but in His case exclusively to the human Mother. Or not quite exclusively, since He certainly honoured also His stepfather, Joseph.

It's not blasphemy to say God has a debt to Mary unless it's blasphemous to say Christ is God. Go to Muslims or JW-sectarians if you like, I prefer remaining Catholic, confessing it is God Himself Who owes this debt to Mary.

8:10 St. Paul has not said "no one has given a gift to God" but asked "who has given?" ... to God as Man, Mary has given the utmost and Joseph has given pretty much.

8:32
Jesus has made every human nature insofar as He is God.
He also received His own from Mary insofar as He is Man.

What status does Scripture give Mary?

And she said to him: I desire one small petition of thee, do not put me to confusion. And the king said to her: My mother, ask: for I must not turn away thy face
[3 Kings (1 Kings) 2:20]


8:58 And Mary clearly does possess the title Gebira. In precisely the Kingdom of Heaven, where Her Son is King.

If I called Her "queen of pagan Carthage" that would be disrespectful, Her Son never reigned over that evil society, and it went to its perdition when the Romans came. But in Heaven and also in every Christian nation that acknowledges Christ is King, She is Gebira, which we usually translate as Queen.

9:08 The Catholic titles are in the Bible if you know how to read it. Not all do.

And Philip running thither, heard him reading the prophet Isaias. And he said: Thinkest thou that thou understandest what thou readest Who said: And how can I, unless some man shew me? And he desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him [Acts Of Apostles 8:30-31]

The unreal "if she could" dismisses that μακαρίζω implies some kind of face to face, if only through God's omniscience clearing up what belongs to Her glory.

9:26 Mary advocated in textual visibility for the host of a wedding feast and mediated Our Lord's first miracle.

Which by the way was fermented wine, not grape juice.

9:47 You'll admit King David was a man after God's heart (like the heart that started beating in Mary's Blessed womb)?

And Bethsabee bowing with her face to the earth worshipped the king, saying: May my lord David live for ever
καὶ ἔκυψε Βηρσαβεὲ ἐπὶ πρόσωπον ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν καὶ προσεκύνησε τῷ βασιλεῖ καὶ εἶπε· ζήτω ὁ κύριός μου ὁ βασιλεὺς Δαυὶδ εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα. [3 Kings (1 Kings) 1:31]


I think you may recognise the verb in the phrase:

καὶ προσεκύνησε τῷ βασιλεῖ


The first phrase, I'm not sure what ἔκυψε means, my Greek is rusty, but the other words seem to indicate King David received a more humble gesture than we Catholics usually afford to Mary.

9:58 Noting the same verb: προσεκύνησεν ... the reason that Peter refused was that Cornelius was a recent convert from Paganism and therefore could have meant the worship as an act of adoration.

Or one could even say that Peter followed a tradition since Mardochai interpreted a commend to imply a necessity of refraining from worship gestures towards men, something clearly not present in the time when King David died. Look also at what his daughter did:

And not content with these things, she fell down at the king's feet and wept, and speaking to him besought him, that he would give orders that the malice of Aman the Agagite, and his most wicked devices which he had invented against the Jews, should be of no effect [Esther 8:3]


10:25 Note that the angel, unlike John who was a priest, has no power to make Jesus present on the altar. John still is a priest, by the way.

10:50 The two verses you showed show no such thing, because other verses show, worshipping someone human is not always forbidden.

11:25 God is certainly a jealous God, among other things jealous of the glory due to His Mother.

11:55 I'm sorry, but your advise is blatant disregard for Luke 1:48. Again, Strong mistranslates, makarizo means congratulate and is an expression of affection, like congratulations always are, if sincere.

12:18 Once I accept the fruits of Calvary by Baptism (already done) or, if sinning after Baptism, by Confession, I am however bound to good deeds, notably avoiding mortal sins, to retain my salvation.

For by grace you are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, for it is the gift of God 9 Not of works, that no man may glory 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus in good works, which God hath prepared that we should walk in them
[Ephesians 2:8-10]

Wherefore, my dearly beloved, (as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but much more now in my absence,) with fear and trembling work out your salvation 13 For it is God who worketh in you, both to will and to accomplish, according to his good will
[Philippians 2:12-13]


Now, why the fear and trembling if God does all independently of our cooperation?

And grieve not the holy Spirit of God: whereby you are sealed unto the day of redemption
[Ephesians 4:30]


In other words, if the Holy Spirit doesn't feel welcome, He removes Himself. Salvation is lost.

12:55 Again, if "accepting Jesus as my Saviour" guarantees He will never judge me, I don't have to fear Him as judge, if that isn't blasphemous, how is depending on the prayers of Mary blasphemous?

In either case, we are not fearing Jesus as judge.

So, you admit, that in and of itself isn't blasphemous.

But what did someone do and who, that this fear should pass?

On my view, Mary prayed. Mary prayed for me even when I was a sinner. She did something, I have nothing to boast about.
On your view, I did something, "accepted" ... Which fits Ephesians 2 better? The Catholic view, I'd say.

13:04 Instead of just having to repeat the 13:05 same prayers over and over and over 13:07 again, which often happens like in the 13:08 rosary,


Jesus said nothing against repeating a prayer over and over again. Including very specially Matthew 6:7 which you possibly mistranslate even (as Geneva Bible, Bishops' BIble and King James do) and certainly misinterpret. Repeating sth, anything, over and over again, in Greek is "thrallein" ... "battalogein" literally translates as "stutterspeak" and refers to Greco-Roman pagans having a hard time finding the right divinity to adress oneself to and the right title for the divinity, and therefore varying a request in several different wordings, hoping that one of the versions at least may be a hit.

When I prayed the rosary, regularly, I had peace.

My worst obstacles to praying the rosary are:
  • severe stress
  • a problem with saying "as we forgive those who trespass against us" (because of the people exposing me to severe stress).


13:26 It** hasn't improved.

* Flee to Mary. **My prayer life.