Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere

Sunday, May 3, 2026

Conspiracy or Conspiracy Theory?

Fire Actually Saved Notre-Dame
Engineering The Impossible | 2 May 2026
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIuzjsJ5Lhg

So, let me review this.

1) Someone thinks the fire was useful.
2) The police ruled out arson bc no fuel or lighter found.
3) Electricity systems having an accident could never ever be arranged by someone who knows how they work, right?

Saturday, May 2, 2026

I Was Wrong (Which Proves Something Else, Which I Was Right About)

The West Got Hinduism Wrong — And I'm Done Being Quiet
Neo Dharmism | 29 April 2026
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2eD73ZLMyY

3:37 Hinduism is, by you, tracked to Upanishads, as first big step.

Interesting that you put it earlier than the Gita, which I thought was a part of Mahabharata.

Now, what I've read, Upanishads promote Pantheism: in you, it's Brahman itself which is your atman, and for some reason, what is more potent and knowledgeable than anything somehow enters into intellectual, not just poverty, Christianity admits this to a degree in the Incarnation, but actual error, unless you were never wrong in all of your life, which I find highly improbable as a fact, and highly improbable, you being an intellectual, that you are not aware of this.

Christianity says, God could ask "who touched me" or "my clothes?"
Hinduism seems to say, when I thought the First Christians were Evangelicals, "God" thought so.

6:54 A wave doesn't just depend on the water, it also depends on the sea bottom.

A wave in the mid Pacific is very unlike a wave in the Bay of Biscaya or in a storm in St. Malo.

Now, you my know, some Christians have decided the Ark of Noah was myth. Some even lost Christianity over that. Part of the reason is, the schooner Wyoming was destroyed completely, with loss of lives, in Nantucket Bay.

However, in Nantucket Bay, the water is just in medium 9 m deep.

And the reason this still worked as a refutation to their minds is, they had decided for a non-global Flood, against the obvious reading of the Bible, and in a large regional Flood, the depth would be sth like Nantucket Bay to North Sea. In a global Flood, it would be more like the Pacific.

The wave is in a mathematical and geometrical sense a circle segment. That segment can have the centre above sea bottom, in the Pacific, but it cannot have the centre below sea bottom, in Nantucket Bay. Hence a high wave was shorter, more abrupt, more violent, than a much higher wave than that would be in the Pacific.

Waves say more of the sea bottom than of the ocean. I think the ocean is a very bad metaphor for God.

9:06 The line Ekam sat etc, ... do you think this was from a time when Hindus or Proto-Hindus (whichever the Vedic religion actually was, I'd say Pre-Hindus) were speaking with people of other religions?

I find it likelier it's a kind of Ecumenism than a kind of Pantheism, as per Upanishads.

I find it likely Ecumenism led to Pantheism, either in Upanishads or in Buddhism and later imported by Gaudapada, for instance.

9:06 bis

I looked up, and here is what I found, whole sloka:

ekaṃ sad viprā bahudhā vadanti
agniṃ yamaṃ mātariśvānam āhuḥ.

Truth is one, though the wise describe it in many ways — as Agni, as Yama, and as Mātariśvan.

So, as I misstated it as being about outside religions, I was wrong in my guess.

Not necessarily Pantheism, but at least "unity of all gods" ...

So, if my atman were identic to brahman, why was I wrong?
v Rig Veda 1.164.46
https://www.sanskritica.com/shlokas/rig-1-164-46-ekam-sat

On CSL and Mike Schmitz

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: On CSL and Mike Schmitz · New blog on the kid: Did C. S. Lewis Publically Attack Catholicism?

“Fr.” Mike Schmitz (Ascension Presents) - False Theology Exposed
vaticancatholic.com | 19 April 2026
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v33YBiMgVGU

As you called C. S. Lewis not a Christian, which is true of any heretic from a strict p o v, would you mind taking a look at this quote and see if there is any error?

God has infinite attention for each one of us. He doesn't have to take us in the line. You're as much alone with Him as if you were the only thing He'd ever created.

Because, for a non-Christian, he seems to me to have written lots of things edifying to Catholics. Obviously also true of Virgil, so, doesn't prove him a Christian.

9:05 I'm noting that no Pope from Pius VII to Benedict XV overturned the Biblical proof texts for Geocentrism, or tried to.

They allowed discussion of the subject, not totally unlike Pius XII allowing some kind of discussion of the subject of Adam having non-human ancestors.

There is prima facie evidence for Geocentrism, according to Romans 1 that's evidence of a proving nature for God (no, he didn's speak of the flagellum of the bacterium, it hasn't been observed since God created Adam and Eve).

The only thing that could overturn the prima facie evidence for Geocentrism would be conclusive proofs against it, but such would need as a premisse at least a diluted form of Syllabus error 2 (Pius IX).

Friday, May 1, 2026

Are Muslims Talmudic?

Dogs and Beer and a Bad Religion · Muslims Do Have Things to Think Over · Are Muslims Talmudic?

The Talmudic Dilemma: How Jewish Folklore Shaped the Quran
Defending A Lion | 25 April 2026
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PuRmgN7DU4

Highlight:

in Surah 5:32, it says, "We ordained for the children of Israel." So this is law given by Allah to the Jews. And then it quotes Sanhedrin. It quotes the Talmud. So it says like, hey, this is in our scriptures that we gave to the Jews. And it's quoting something from the Talmud. ... So right away the author of the Quran seems to be mixing up the Torah and the Tallmud with its references. It doesn't seem to fully know the distinguishing difference between actual Torah and the oral Torah the Jews were practicing, preaching, and believing in at the time of Muhammad.

An excellent example of what can happen to someone who verifies things primarily by talking to people.

The Jews that the author of the Quran talked to would not all the time make a distiction between Torah and Talmud, and they even have a tendency to call all of it Torah.

Ergo, the author of the Quran would have heard sth presented as "Torah" and have presumed it was actually in the Pentateuch./HGL

PS, the following item actually is pre-talmudic, I left a comment under the video:

"Abraham conversion by looking at stars, stolen from the Jews."

Could be an actual tradition before Jesus, could go back to Abraham.

Why so? It's already in Josephus. Antiquities, Book I, Chapter 7, first paragraph, reads:

Now Abram, having no son of his own, adopted Lot, his brother Haran's son, and his wife Sarai's brother; and he left the land of Chaldea when he was seventy-five years old, and at the command of God went into Canaan, and therein he dwelt himself, and left it to his posterity. He was a person of great sagacity, both for understanding all things and persuading his hearers, and not mistaken in his opinions; for which reason he began to have higher notions of virtue than others had, and he determined to renew and to change the opinion all men happened then to have concerning God; for he was the first that ventured to publish this notion, That there was but one God, the Creator of the universe; and that, as to other [gods], if they contributed any thing to the happiness of men, that each of them afforded it only according to his appointment, and not by their own power. This his opinion was derived from the irregular phenomena that were visible both at land and sea, as well as those that happen to the sun, and moon, and all the heavenly bodies, thus:—"If [said he] these bodies had power of their own, they would certainly take care of their own regular motions; but since they do not preserve such regularity, they make it plain, that in so far as they co-operate to our advantage, they do it not of their own abilities, but as they are subservient to Him that commands them, to whom alone we ought justly to offer our honor and thanksgiving." For which doctrines, when the Chaldeans, and other people of Mesopotamia, raised a tumult against him, he thought fit to leave that country; and at the command and by the assistance of God, he came and lived in the land of Canaan. And when he was there settled, he built an altar, and performed a sacrifice to God.

Whether it is or isn't Abraham's motif, though I think he had an education as a faithful, from someone in his family, like Sarug lived to when he was fifty (at least in the LXX, except a modern edition) and Thare could have been dying spiritually, i e become an idolater, only when he was 75, the fact it is in Josephus is supporting evidence on this being a current understanding in 1st C Jews, which would mean St. Paul alluded to this (understanding, not necessarily story about Abraham) in Romans 1.

Sunday, April 26, 2026

Palestinian Genetics

Here Are My FULL DNA Test Results* As A PALESTINIAN
Wally Rashid | 25 April 2026
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97m_keg0OUE

3:28 Arguably it's less about "Roman mixing" than about matches with Jews over the Roman Empire.

The Christian Palestinians are an older population than the Muslim ones, in the same sense that Bosniak Muslims are more recent than Serbs and Croats. Now, the ancestry of Christian Palestinians would, in the 1st C AD, have been Jews and Samarians. Of these, Jews were better at getting around to different places in the Roman Empire.

Christian Palestinians start the day that a Church in Jerusalem is joined by a Church in Samaria. Same Christianity, even if their ancestors a generation earlier would have been Second Temple Jews (not same thing as Rabbinic** ones) or Samarians. Acts 2 and 8.

If you want to know how relations were between Jews and Samarians prior to Jesus, John 4 and John 8 would be helpful. Like Luke 10 and Luke 17.

* Wally Rashid is using the site My True Ancestry. ** Rabbinic Judaism has some roots among Second Temple Pharisees, but is also defined by rejecting Christ and by losing the Temple.

That Galileo Was a Jerk Doesn't Matter (Unless if You're Praying for His Repose), and Didn't Matter as to the Process

The Truth About the Inquisition, Galileo & the Flat Earth Myth | Dr. Thomas Madden | Last Call Ep 11
Matt Fradd | 24 April 2026
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8qy5pV1u2U

3:45 Four arguments.*

The one he considered most secure was a mistake, but the argument if not the fact is replicated by Magellan.

5:25 "which is true"

You just made the bans of 1616 and renewed because applied to Galileo, 1633, applicable to you.

Besides, you don't believe the Sun is centre of the Universe, you believe it's centre of the Solar System, which is a further departure from classical Christian Cosmology.

Galileo, unlike Bruno, didn't do that, as I recall. He still believed the Universe had an identifiable centre and a periphery in the sphere of the fix stars.

5:36 You're forgetting that in order to not get censored, Copernicus waited to the death bed and even than just stated it as a hypothesis, to make calculations easier, not as a fact about the universe.

6:28 St. Robert Bellarmine actually did have other objections than purely scientific ones.

And I think his proposal to Galileo, if any, was not "look at the sky more carefully, we don't see the Copernican model" but "you know, Tycho and Copernicus give us the same visual effect on the sky, what about Tycho Brahe?"

6:46 I think you are getting this from the Pro-Heliocentric side in 1822.

Father Olivieri could say this kind of things, because noone in Rome could check, the archives were in Paris where Napoleon I had stolen them to.

"Tutti i francesi, sono ladroni?
- Non tutti, mai buona parte"

7:28 Sorry, but he was in fact not free to promote Heliocentrism as science, as physical fact rather than mathematical shorthand, since the theology by Dominicans involved Joshua's miracle and Sun and Moon ceased to move.

Not Earth. Sun and Moon.

Galileo's theological and unacceptable response was "non-overlapping magisteria" ...

8:01 Howeversomuch Galileo may have been a jerk, the Inquisition doesn't give people abjurations and lifelong house arrest for that.

He was given that for doctrine, not character.

And as "Simplicio" took an argument that the Pope, while still a cardinal, had used, it is significant the Pope (who could be insulted) abstained from being among the judges, and his relative, among them, abstained from voting.

The argument, by the way, is this: God could create the world any way He wanted, and God could make the world look anyway He wanted. Now, on some level, this could be considered a sceptic argument, namely if the world looked Heliocentric. But as it looks Geocentric, it's an appeal to God's honesty.

8:26 It doesn't mean just he had to spend time at home, rest of his life.

It means he had to abjure.

The Dialogo is what he was being judged on. It's fiction, not everything said in it is his own view. It's as if Dan Brown would have been given an opportunity to abjure the Bloodline of Jesus theory after writing The da Vinci Code making him vehemently suspect ...

8:33 While his villa was different to a dungeon, like Liparic Islands are different from Siberia, he was denied social life, except with his spiritual caretakers and very close, including a daughter who was a nun.

An author whom Stalin didn't like could go to Siberia and hard work. One whom Mussolini didn't like to Liparic Islands, and a state pension while he was there. Both would be denied normal social interaction with their previous surroundings.**

Roddy Cavin
@roddycavin4600: If Galileo had written anywhere else in Europe at that time belittling the countries monarch and remember Urban viii was an absolute monarch, he would have been at best beheaded or in some states hanged drawn and quartered. I think he got away with it quite well.
Hans-Georg Lundahl
@hglundahl: @roddycavin4600 You are confusing apples and oranges.

First, the argument by then cardinal Barberini was given in private by the not yet then Pope Urban VIII.

The character Simplicio was not a politically transparent insult to the monarch as such, it was a privately wounding way of dealing with old discussions.

BUT second, there is a juridical difference between trial by the Inquisition and trial for political treason. Galileo was tried for heresy, not for treason or rebellion.

* Aristotle against a Flat Earth. ** Again, it's a punishment, not for being a jerk, but for what he suggested.

Saturday, April 25, 2026

Final Minutes of a Video with Melissa Dogherty and Stephanie Potts

Richard Rohr, Karl Marx, Psychedelics, and Putin. What’s the Connection?
Melissa Dougherty | 17 April 2026
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTNnjGGtav0

Dugin and Putin are in fact right that the katekhon is not the Church.

Simple reason. Acc. to Matthew 28:20, the Church will not be taken out of the way.

Again, I think the katekhon was, specifically in Russia and Austria, taken out of the way in 1918.

Antichrist being with Secular Jews or Antichrist being with Religious Jews, there are arguments for either.

But Putin is not an heir of Nicolas II, he's an heir of a preliminary Antichrist, who had some Jewish heritage, and some Swedish, a certain Vladimir Lenin.

Do Putin and Dugin believe the Millennium is upcoming?

Jesus founded the Palestinian nation post mortem et resurrectionem.

Christian Palestinians are a population since Jerusalem and Samaria belonged to the same Church, Acts 2 and 8.

If you want to retroactively call Him a Palestinian, it's a bit like calling Clovis a Frenchman. But it's not wrong.

He did cross a border when fleeing from Herod, since Judaea at this time was a Protectorate, not a Province.

Friday, April 24, 2026

Muslims Do Have Things to Think Over

Dogs and Beer and a Bad Religion · Muslims Do Have Things to Think Over · Are Muslims Talmudic?

Is Allah the pagan idol Baal?
Eleftheria Apologetics | 27 Dec. 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Fv_3j4-VaY

Thursday, April 23, 2026

No, Evolution Isn't True and Isn't Catholic

Genesis 6, Archaeological Confirmation · Jimmy Akin on Genesis 1—11 and the Magisterium · No, Evolution Isn't True and Isn't Catholic

Stephen C. Meyer joins the show tomorrow to tackle matters of creation and evolution. Don't miss it!
@pintswithaquinas | 20 April 2026
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/hs1_4cTC1dM

Evolution is dead in science, but still has a good thriving as a religion.

Including by Syncretists in the Vatican II sect.

Daniel Krcmar
@danielkrcmar5395: We've literally observed evolution happening.
Hans-Georg Lundahl
@hglundahl: @danielkrcmar5395 Oh, you mean things like Ateleryx Algirus and Erinaceus Europaeus having a common ancestor?

I meant things like pretending ape and man have one.
ochem123
@ochem123: @danielkrcmar5395 Selection of traits via breeding practices includes an intelligence making any adjustments. We have never observed evolution of species as described by atheists. “Theistic evolution” is an ad hoc intermediate position. 🐬⚜️❤️‍🔥🇻🇦🇺🇸⚕️
Daniel Krcmar: @ochem123 Except, we have.

Scientists have observed, or identified through genetic tracking, the evolution of several new species and distinct populations in modern times. Key examples include the Big Bird finch lineage on Daphne Major, Pod Mrcaru lizards evolving new digestive traits, and numerous insects developing resistance to pesticides.

@ochem123 We have but I'll leave your ignorance to you to correct yourself.
ochem123: @danielkrcmar5395 Do not confuse mutation and natural selection for “evolution.” Observing mutations and natural selections in observations of animals is not evidence of the origin of humanity. One must read Scripture and pray in order to know that.

What is the origin of the animals? Just as the Book of Genesis says. 🐬⚜️❤️‍🔥🇻🇦🇺🇸⚕️
Daniel Krcmar: @ochem123 Mutation and natural selection are quite literally the mechanisms by which evolution occurs.

We have observed the evolution of new species.

Evolution was from the book 'The Origin of Species' not 'The Origin of Life'. Evolution does not negate the possibility of a creator as it doesn't not address what caused life.
ochem123: @danielkrcmar5395 All mutations are bad. Did you not know that? Mutants are worse than the non-mutants. You claim that mutations lead to improvements?

Hybrids of animals, humans, and angels have been formed by intelligent beings to create monsters with mixed characteristics, but that is not a random process.

God’s hand guides all things, but you think randomness produces order? ️️‍🇻🇦🇺🇸️
Daniel Krcmar: @ochem123 Okay, this is clearly pointless. You are wrong. Science has observed this happening. I never said God's hand wasn't involved. Genesis 1-13 are historically read as allegory and not literal history.
ochem123: @dan @danielkrcmar5395 The Bible is literal, and allegory can only be applied under that lens. Do you read Genesis 1-13 to argue with the plain sense of the text? Or do you read it to understand what happened before you were born? Big difference. ️️‍🇻🇦🇺🇸️
Daniel Krcmar: @ochem123 The Bible os a massive collection of literary works with historical records, laws, allegory, poetry, songs, etc.

You can't read literal as allegory as they're opposite definitions.

The early Popes, Church Farthers, thinkers and modern Popes read 1-13 as allegory and not literal history.
ochem123: @danielkrcmar5395 If one reads the Bible with an open heart, one can see the Truths contained therein. Can you give a specific example you say is not literal? You cited thirteen chapters, rather than a specific idea. What concept are you saying is not literal? The Creation account? Six days? Why would you believe a secular “scientist” over a prophet of God? 🐬⚜️❤️‍🔥🇻🇦🇺🇸⚕️
Daniel Krcmar: @ochem123 Why would you believe a lay person over The Pope and early Church Farthers?
Hans-Georg Lundahl: @danielkrcmar5395 "Genesis 1-13 are historically read as allegory and not literal history."

You are historically wrong.

They are historically read as literal history with an added layer of prophetic (meaning Christological) allegory.

@danielkrcmar5395 "Mutation and natural selection are quite literally the mechanisms by which evolution occurs."

That's a bit like saying sound laws, analogy, word swaps, borrowings are the mechanism by which languageS evolve.

That doesn't remotely mean that they could explain how language evolved from sth non-human. And what you propose cannot explain how man evolved from sth non-human or even how fish evolved into mammals.

@danielkrcmar5395 "Why would you believe etc"

You are misrepresenting, very gravely, the early Church Fathers.

And if by "the Pope" you meant Wojtyla or any of his successors, you are mislabelling him or them.
Daniel Krcmar: @hglundahl We have fossil records of fish turning into mamals and land mamales returning to the water.

It is, that's just how it is.

We know that Whales speak and use language, as well as having unique names for each other. Language is not unique to humans.

@hglundahl
- Origen of Alexandria (c. 185–254)
- Augustine of Hippo (354–430)
- Clement of Alexandria (c. 152–217)
- Philo of Alexandria (1st Century)
- Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335–395)

- Pope Pius XII
- Pope John Paul II
- Pope Benedict XVI (Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger)
- Pope Francis
Hans-Georg Lundahl: @danielkrcmar5395 "We have fossil records of fish turning into mamals and land mamales returning to the water."

No, we don't. We don't have proof of descent in these series.

"We know that Whales speak and use language, as well as having unique names for each other."

No, we know they have unique names for each other.

They come as close to language as song birds, which is closer than apes do.

Neither whales and songbirds, nor apes, have double articulation or three levels, but song birds and whales at least has one articulation or two levels, namely different sounds combining for a name or a song.

In apes, it's one sound or gesture that means one message. That one not being a unique name. One level, no articulation.

@danielkrcmar5395 "Pope Pius XII"

Not mislabelled, but didn't call the chapters "allegory".

Origen, Augustine and I dare wager the other ones as well did affirm historicity of the narratives.

Augustine misunderstood Origen as having affirmed Christological allegory only and no history, he did make such a comment on the Ark, but it was just one sentence in desperation over what he saw as problems about it.

The fullest treatment of the chapters in Church Fathers is St. Augustine, City of God, and it is clearly affirming literal history.
Daniel Krcmar: @hglundahl We do, but I'll let you love in ignorance if you don't want to do your own research.

You can't argue against them having language by saying they have a more basic level of language than humans. Of course they have a more basic language but language, is language and proves that it's not unique.
Hans-Georg Lundahl: @danielkrcmar5395 "if you don't want to do your own research."

I did. That's what I'm telling you.

"a more basic level of language than humans."

No. A one level communication system and a three level communication system are not "more basic" or "more elaborate" they are functionally distinct.

There is no possible overlap.

There is a world, not just a degree, between having about as many messages as you can distinguish sounds and gestures and the messages helping you to convey emotions and what needs to be done, and having sounds with no message, combining to "words" or "endings" that are so to speak "message modules" but not yet full messages, and these then combined to full messages on the lines of predicative logic. Able to convey any subject of curiosity.
Daniel Krcmar: @hglundahl It is just more basic. A 3 year old has basic language skills but they can't communicate in the same way a 20 year old can, but you wouldn't say they don't have language.

One level communication is fundamentally a language structure because it uses structured symbols to transfer information.
Hans-Georg Lundahl: @danielkrcmar5395 A three year old or even a two year old has all three levels of human language.

Maybe not all the sounds of his language (some take longer in pronouncing R), certainly not all the words or endings (that takes to c. age 5), possibly no more complex phrases than subject + predicate with or without negation.

But that's still all three human levels.

That's still a totally different structure from ape communications.

If you don't get it, you don't know what language is.

"it uses structured symbols to transfer information."

So do traffick signs and emoticons. Apart from making some of them stand for letters they are similar too (cheating), that won't get you to conveying even "I ate yoghurt today" ... (not yet true, by the way).

Wednesday, April 22, 2026

Jimmy Akin on Genesis 1—11 and the Magisterium

Genesis 6, Archaeological Confirmation · Jimmy Akin on Genesis 1—11 and the Magisterium · No, Evolution Isn't True and Isn't Catholic

What Does the Church Say About Early Genesis? | The Jimmy Akin Podcast
Jimmy Akin | 20 April 2026
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwU7FLfIgqc

You do admit chapter 14 as fully historic in the normal sense?

Here is the thing for Deep Timers. IF the world is 100 000 or millions or billions of years old, the atmosphere is old and Carbon 14 is arguably in a kind of equilibrium.

So, c. 100 pmC. So, carbon dates should roughly match real dates.

However, in Genesis 14 you have an Asason Tamar inhabited when the chapter begins. It doesn't state that but also doesn't deny that the place was abandoned after the attack. However, Asason Tamar is En-Geddi, as we know from Chronicles (not looking it up, could it be II Chron. 20:2 or sth?).

However, the latest habitation in En Geddi prior to the Iron Age is carbon dated to ending in 3500 BC.

And if Abraham was born 2015 BC, given he was c. 80, the real time was 1935 BC.

3500 - 1935 = 1565 extra years, or the actual carbon 14 level had to be 0.5 to the power of (1565/5730), or c. 83 pmC.

If Abraham was born later, like an Exodus in the time of Amenhotep II would imply, even more extra years, even lower pmC, like 82 sth ...

"doesn't endorse either of these approaches"*

In the early world of PBC, there was no decision that would have gone against the idea of a video camera catching a good match for the wording in Genesis 1 to 11.

I'm obviously not counting 1992 under a non-Pope.

"in his preface"

Ah, so Joseph Ratzinger didn't write The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church but he wrote a preface to it.

How much does the preface endorse that horrible document?

It badmouths "Fundamentalism" horribly ....**

"at the time these documents had magisterial authority"

As in, no more, same documents?

That's not consistent with "sensum quem sancta mater ecclesia ... tenuit atque tenet" ...

[Letter to Cardinal-Archbishop] "Suhard"

Looking it up.***

"It is therefore impossible to deny or to affirm their historicity as a whole without unduly applying to them norms of a literary type under which they cannot be classed."

Sorry, but either one finds a loophole in the term "historicity as a whole" (like the historicity is not the same type) or one admits that Pius XII approved a faulty reply to part of the Church.

Or says, this means he was not Pope. That would make the election of Michael I one after at least 42 years of sedevacancy.

Tradition has always held Genesis to be a historical book.

Or, he was for the moment leaving the question open for discussion.

"overly enlarged the area of certainties that the faith can guarantee"

First, he shows he is not in continuity with that actual magisterium. Not Catholic. Not Pope.

Second, if anything, it overly diminished the area, left things open for discussion that could have and now after the discussions even more can now be affirmed with certainty.

"about the methods and limits of historical knowledge"

Well, more like what he affirmed as new understanding thereof is fake understanding thereof, the kind of faking of epistemology that Chesterton fought against (he had no Ratzinger to show him an example of such a sceptic pretending to wield cardinalic or papal dignity).

"where later Popes, such as John Paul II and Benedict XVI contradicted them"

Oh, they contradicted the Magisterial PBC in its binding judgements?

You see it as the judgements no longer being binding. I see it as they not being Catholics and therefore not Popes.

Just to mention, the authorship of the Fourth Gospel is by "early" PBC not explicitly tied to the Son of Zebedee, so Jean Colson is not falling afoul of it.

There is a big difference between early Church knowing two Johns and later conflating them, and early Church knowing one John and misattributing an authorship to him. The latter is condemned, the former, providentially, isn't. I say providentially since saying "John the Apostle" came close, but didn't hit it, as "Apostle" is not absolutely limited to "The Twelve" ... (where the only John is a Son of Zebedee).

"very abbreviated"

I'd agree. My reason to conclude that they were transmitted orally to Abraham, before he had a beduin caravan.

And that Abraham wrote down other things, and presumably these too.

You see, Sagen aus Österreich contains stories of an often historical or dubious nature, not meant as fiction, though in some cases, probably, tongue in cheek, and they are very abbreviated compared to stating such historical facts as articles or (when invented) as novellas.

The very abbreviated nature is a good signature for oral transmission. WHETHER Genesis 3 (for instance) was orally transmitted all the way from Adam to Abraham OR (for instance) Sarug possessed a book about it, was dispossessed of it by an idolatrous son and grandson (Nachor and Thare) and had to orally summarise what he could no longer verify in detail.

I'd go against the latter scenario, as it is possible or even probable that Thare didn't commit idolatry until Abraham was already 75 (i e he left Ur or Haran, whichever, on the spiritual death of his physical father).

"much more extensive sections"

Indeed. Suggesting these parts were originally written down by Abraham and the rest and came to Egypt when Jacob arrived, apart from what Joseph had already written himself in Egypt.

Clay tablets or papyri are insecure possessions of a lone traveller, can be stolen from a resident, but are a very secure possession, on par with tents and clothes, for a Beduin tribe. Which Abraham started to be head of in chapter 12.

"anthropomorphic language about God"

In Genesis up to chapter 3, Adam can walk with God and can describe a theophany, basically of pre-Incarnate Christ.

In Genesis 11, whoever saw what God was up to (perhaps in a dream) was also given a hint of the upcoming Incarnation of God.

"cosmic ramifications"

Not all of them. If Jubal (presumably recalled with additions and bad theology by Hindus as Krishna, though the actual Hebrew for that would be Kush) invented music instruments, that's a cultural, but not actually a cosmic ramification.

And if his half brother invented siderurgia along with chalcurgia, not only is the ramification non-cosmic, but to Abraham it would have been an incomprehensible fact with no ramification.

"from obscure ... to well known"

Indeed.

Genesis 1 to 11 spans pre-Flood events, with lower Palaeolithic giving us some, Mahabharata other, details. And the Neolithic, which had recently turned to Chalcolithic before Abraham was born, and the Upper Palaeolithic before Babel but after the Flood.

"history in the classic or modern sense"

OK. History comes in two genres. Thukydides and Mommsen. Got it. Every single other literary genre is "not fully historic" ...

I think this could be the last act of the PBC magisterium in a sense that parallels Deicide being the last act of the OT Cohen Gadol magisterium.

"non-historical if evaluated in terms of the modern methods"

By such evaluation, every single line of dialogue in a Classic work of history is non-historical, as the Classic view was that historians could not change what was said, but were free to present how it was said as they liked.

I would contend that modern standards, or at least the latitude about dialogue in Classic standards actually is met in Genesis 1 to 11. If we go on a few lines, here is sth nearly good:

The first duty in this matter incumbent on scientific exegesis consists in the careful study of all the problems literary, scientific, historical, cultural, and religious connected with these chapters; in the next place is required a close examination of the literary methods of the ancient oriental peoples, their psychology, their manner of expressing themselves and even their notion of historical truth the requisite, in a word, is to assemble without preformed judgements all the material of the palaeontological and historical, epigraphical and literary sciences.

Apart from "psychology" which is chimaeric about absent and therefore about past peoples, and "even their notion of historical truth" ... the investigations proposed are now very fruitful and precisely for Fundamentalists, for Creation Science, for Flood Geology.°

I've done my contributions°°, like verifying no fossil find anywhere has a whale above a plesiosaur. Or that Babel was Gobekli Tepe. Or that carbon dates match up very well, if the Biblical chronology is presumed (I'm using that of Roman Martyrology Christmas Day and presuming an Exodus ending the 13th Dynasty). Or that the breaks in generation overlaps from Genesis 3 to Abraham are comparable to from Trojan War to Homer.

"later ... pertain to history, but that it's expressed in a symbolic or figurative way"

1) Thank you for admitting this approach is indeed later than 1948.
2) I'd have appreciated you not using "the Church" as name for that entity making such statements.
3) I hope you'll be telling me in a moment how much later.

"we can't read ... without a careful story of how people thought and wrote at the time Genesis was composed"

This is a way more stupid thing than the 1948 document actually said.

1) Because it invalidates all reading prior to 1948 and some time past, which is contrary to "sensum quem ecclesia ... tenuit atque tenet"
2) Because it assumes the Hebrews and hagiographers had the same "mentality" to use the word in a loose way as idolatrous contemporaries
3) and because it assumes we can get closer to what the contemporaries did than guess-work, extrapolation from bragging (a certain Sayce on genealogies), and even wishful thinking ("we" wish the Flood wasn't supposed by Moses to have happened in actual fact as presented, so "we" assume a Babylonian writing about Enlil or Marduk and Tiamat didn't really mean it ... excluding my actual self from this "we" obviously).

hope of attaining

In other words, the need for an open mind is temporary.

Now, some would say, it is past, and it's results have confirmed the traditional (pre-PBC) readings. I'm of these.

adapted to the understanding of mankind at a lower stage of development

That one hasn't aged well.

* Text matching a video camera with a time machine and complete fiction.

** Ten years and some ago, I took him for the author of it, and wrote Apostatic Rejection of "Fundamentalism" in 1994

*** Found it cited last on this page:

Documents of the Pontifical Biblical Commission Translated
July 7, 2022 | Admin
https://creationtheologyfellowship.org/2022/07/07/documents-of-the-pontifical-biblical-commission-translated/

° Creation Ministries International, Answers in Genesis (the latter unfortunately good friends with anti-Catholics, like Ray Comfort and Todd Friel) °° Creation vs. Evolution

Tuesday, April 21, 2026

Biblical Israel is the Church. Christian Palestinians are an Ethnically Israelite Part of Her

Is modern Israel a fulfillment of Biblical prophecy? #theology #doctrine #christian #bible #christ
@DrJordanBCooper
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/l8Z8z4DjpNs

Apocalypse 11 says there is a time when earthly Jerusalem is spiritually Sodom and Egypt ... sounds like being fulfilled?

Alex Estrada
@alexestrada1788: Out of context and wrong!
Hans-Georg Lundahl
@hglundahl: @alexestrada1788 Egypt in Jewish tradition means "house of oppression", look how they treat Palestinians. Note that the official capital is not Tel Aviv, but Jerusalem, now.

Sodom to any BIblically literate person means the consummation of homosexual perverted desires, Jerusalem has a Pride Parade since 2002.

What is not in context? Oh, sure, Henoch and Elias haven't come yet, but I think they might be round the corner.

Wednesday, April 15, 2026

Answering Testify Cafe on Catholicism

Beginning a Video by Shad M. Brooks (To Prove I'm Not a Mormon) · Being Un-Catholic is Not a Solution · Answering Testify Cafe on Catholicism

Who Decides the Gospel That Saves: The Bible or Rome? | Cornerstone
Testify Cafe | 4 April 2026
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rsb9YtH5uI8

Hans-Georg Lundahl
@hglundahl: 9:40 Constantine did NOT try to unify all religions.

Antipopes Prevost, Bergoglio, Ratzinger, Wojtyla, and you can arguably add Montini and perhaps Roncalli, do not represent the Catholic Church and do not represent the Constantinian peace.
Testify Cafe
@TestifyCafe: Hi there, thanks for sharing your views. Despite Constantine legalizing Christianity under his rule, he was still allowing religious tolerance of Roman pagan practices in order to unify the Roman Empire. Mixing Christian and pagan practices, even initially, was a dangerous melting pot for false teaching and is one point we bring up about why the RCC has adopted practices not found in Scripture.
Hans-Georg Lundahl: @TestifyCafe "he was still allowing religious tolerance of Roman pagan practices"

Not in the Catholic Church.

He did allow the c. 50 % still pagans to continue being pagans.

"Mixing Christian and pagan practices"

False claim.

"the RCC has adopted practices not found in Scripture."

Witnessing about what Jesus did in your life (when it's not a medical miracle) or holding a sermon after the Bible readings of the faithful is not found in Scripture.

@TestifyCafe "religious tolerance of Roman pagan practices"

You do understand this means, he didn't close the temple of Delphic Apollo and things like that?

The one banning Paganism (or Pagan worship in public) was Theodosius.

"It was shut down during the persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire by Theodosius I in 381 AD."

Wikipedia on "Delphi" references Grecia. Guida d'Europa (in Italian). Milano: Touring Club Italiano. 1977. p. 126.

Hans-Georg Lundahl: 10:09 Mike Gendron is also probably lying about his story:

Correspondence of Hans Georg Lundahl: Contacting Jane Gendron and Others About Mike Gendron's Uncle the Priest
https://correspondentia-ioannis-georgii.blogspot.com/2024/10/contacting-jane-gendron-and-others.html

and Certainly wrong about the Deformation:

New blog on the kid: Claims by Gendron
https://nov9blogg9.blogspot.com/2024/10/claims-by-gendron.html

Hans-Georg Lundahl: 10:26 For someone who had an uncle who was a Catholic priest, he's noticeably off on Catholic theology.

Hans-Georg Lundahl: 10:40 And for someone who pretends to take up the cause of the Bible, he's noticeably off on Matthew 26:26.
Testify Cafe: In Matthew 26:26, Jesus was with the disciples, He had not died yet, so the elements are shown right from the start as symbolic. Jesus was not in the elements just like when Jesus says, "I am the door"(John 10:9), the Lord is not a physical door, He is the way to salvation. Jesus doesn’t need to be repeating His sacrifice for sin in the mass, as He proclaimed on the cross, “it is finished”, the debt of sin has been paid. (ref. Hebrews 9:25-26) John 6:56 in context also speaks of “the words I speak to you are spirit and life,” which indicates the elements of communion aren’t to be taken literally, but symbolic.
Hans-Georg Lundahl: @TestifyCafe "Jesus was with the disciples,"

Yes.

"He had not died yet,"

Yes.

"so the elements are shown right from the start as symbolic."

No, does not follow.

All your arguments about there existing passages where Jesus uses metaphors fail, unless you can show how it follows from His not having died yet that the elements are symbolic.

By the way, before you try, how about reviewing not just John 6 (Lizzy Reezay has a funny but very apt video on the verb "trogo"), but also:

For these things were done, that the scripture might be fulfilled: You shall not break a bone of him
[John 19:36]

You see, the OT passage referred to isn't a Messianic prophecy, it's Mosaic law about how the Paschal Lamb is eaten. John just called Jesus our Paschal Lamb in a way featuring His being eaten as such.

Hans-Georg Lundahl: 11:10 He totally forgets the unity of Calvary and altar.

Hans-Georg Lundahl: 11:16 And as to his argument.

Do you have to accept Jesus in order to be forgiven? Because you arguably did so some time after 1968. You are younger than I and I was born that year.

But on Gendron's view, your sins were forgiven in AD 33 (or thereabout, some debate about the exact year).
Testify Cafe: God is not limited by time and space, the cross was ever planned from the beginning. Genesis 3:15 tells us what God will do through Christ on the cross, Jesus will crush Satan. Praise God for His plan and saving power. We are being put to death because of our breaking of God's law (1 John 3:4), and without the shedding of blood, sinless blood, there is no remission of sins (ref. Hebrews 9:22). Christ is our unique sinless Saviour, there can be no other, as we all have fallen short of His glory (ref. Romans 3:23).
Hans-Georg Lundahl: @TestifyCafe "God is not limited by time and space"

And therefore God can also make the sacrifice of Calvary present whereever a priest turns bread into His body and wine into His blood.

And God does precisely that:

For as often as you shall eat this bread, and drink the chalice, you shall shew the death of the Lord, until he come.
[1 Corinthians 11:26]

Hans-Georg Lundahl: 11:54 Come on!

Whereunto baptism being of the like form, now saveth you also: not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the examination of a good conscience towards God by the resurrection of Jesus Christ
[1 Peter 3:21]

This doesn't exclude infant baptism.

And given the unity of Calvary and altar, this is not against the Catholic Mass:

Because Christ also died once for our sins, the just for the unjust: that he might offer us to God, being put to death indeed in the flesh, but enlivened in the spirit
[1 Peter 3:18]

If we taught the Mass were a different sacrifice from Calvary, you might have a point.

As to Romans 16, if Paul and Peter were next door on that occasion, that would have shown why the former didn't salute the latter. Equally if St. Paul wasn't yet aware Peter was in Rome, since St. Peter had for long been in Antioch (some presume he was the "Niger" mentioned in Act 13) and again if Peter actually arrived later (2 Peter 3 shows Peter wrote after many of Paul's epistles, probably wrote in Rome after Paul had written to Romans).

Currently, the true Pope, Michael II, is a married man (he was already married before his Episcopal consecration).

Hans-Georg Lundahl: 12:16 Where in the Bible is either believer or duties of one defined as to include "witness what Christ has done in his life"?
Testify Cafe: "And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death." Revelation 12:10
Hans-Georg Lundahl: @TestifyCafe Their testimony was arguably not and was certainly not defined as being "what Christ had done in their lives" ... try again.

More probably "Christ is risen" or "Christ is King" or "I can't deny He rules and I dare not disobey Him just for you guys"

@TestifyCafe Or, "I'm the King's loyal servant, but God's first" (St. Thomas More on the scaffold)

Hans-Georg Lundahl: 12:32 Misrepresentation.

Baptism, belief, freedom from other excommunications than for heresy and apostasy as well. Not just baptism.

Hans-Georg Lundahl: 13:19 The sin of Adam was, given his freedom from original sin up to committing it, a mortal sin.

We teach that mortal sins do cause death.

Here is Bible for venial sins:

For in many things we all offend. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man. He is able also with a bridle to lead about the whole body
[James 3:2]

A voluntary direct breaking of God's undoubted command cannot be venial.

St. James is talking of justified persons, not of sinners who need to repent and get right with God.
Testify Cafe: The payment for sin is always death (Romans 6:23), there are no degrees of sin, but praise God, Jesus can deliver us from the power of sin and death by His atonement on the cross.
Hans-Georg Lundahl: @TestifyCafe "The payment for sin is always death"

St. Paul is talking of mortal sin and also of original sin.

"there are no degrees of sin"

That's not what St. James said what I just quoted. See also:

He that knoweth his brother to sin a sin which is not to death, let him ask, and life shall be given to him, who sinneth not to death. There is a sin unto death: for that I say not that any man ask.
[1 John 5:16]

So, the argument "there are no degrees of sin" fails.

Hans-Georg Lundahl: 13:42 One cannot die "in" venial sin, it's not a state, one can die "with" venial sins not yet fully forgiven.
Testify Cafe: The Bible says we must be born again (John 3:3) in order to have a new heart and see God. We all die in sin unless they are covered by Jesus' atonement. "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." - Romans 8:1
Hans-Georg Lundahl: @TestifyCafe Justified and born again are synonyms.

They are opposed to original sin and to mortal sins, which are a state.

You can die in mortal sin, and if you do, you go to Hell ... unless God raises you to give you a second chance, it's eternal.

Atonement doesn't just cover, it vivifies. Christ is not just a camouflage before the Father, He's alive inside the justified person.

That's why their good deeds have merit, because it's ultimately the merits of Jesus.

Eph 2:8—10 makes it clear this happens once we are justified, and nothing we do before justification could earn us justification.

So, venial sins don't take away justification, that's why they are not a state and you cannot die "in" venial sin. If the moment you die you have venial sins, but no mortal and not original sin, you die in Christ and not "in sin."

Hans-Georg Lundahl: 13:44, have you ever read this one?

If any man's work burn, he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire.
[1 Corinthians 3:15]

Hans-Georg Lundahl: 14:01 Indulgence for almsgiving:

For alms deliver from all sin, and from death, and will not suffer the soul to go into darkness
[Tobias (Tobit) 4:11]

For sacrifices of the OT and obviously even more so for the one of the NT:

And making a gathering, he sent twelve thousand drachms of silver to Jerusalem for sacrifice to be offered for the sins of the dead, thinking well and religiously concerning the resurrection (For if he had not hoped that they that were slain should rise again, it would have seemed superfluous and vain to pray for the dead, And because he considered that they who had fallen asleep with godliness, had great grace laid up for them It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins
[2 Machabees 12:43-46]
Testify Cafe: Helping others is good, but God judges the motive of our hearts. Thinking we will gain deliverance from sin from doing a good deed is not the heart of the Lord and says our offering could even come close to His sacrifice on the cross. Only Jesus is worthy of making a once for all offering for sin on the cross:

“Truly no man can ransom another, or give to God the price of his life”
- Psalm 49:7

We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
- Isaiah 64:6
Hans-Georg Lundahl: @TestifyCafe "Thinking we will gain deliverance from sin from doing a good deed is not the heart of the Lord"

Would you mind trying to substantiate that?

The arguments you offered are not about alms leading us to an occasion of repentance and therefore to the Cross or about blotting out venial sins while you are already justified by the Cross, they are about the parodic idea that alms were to deliver us from sin instead of the Cross, which is absolutely not how we view alms or other indulgenced deeds.

Tuesday, April 14, 2026

Sharing on Baptism and on the Old Covenant

Jesus' Descent Into Hell & The Baptism Of The Good Thief
vaticancatholic.com | 11 June 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBpm_ipT9Sk

If Anyone Thought that "Leo XIV" was the Good Response to Trump ...

Monday, April 13, 2026

Genesis 6, Archaeological Confirmation

Genesis 6, Archaeological Confirmation · Jimmy Akin on Genesis 1—11 and the Magisterium · No, Evolution Isn't True and Isn't Catholic

They Ate Their Children Inside the Oldest Cave in Europe
Buried Earth | 27 March 2026
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOmOOLbATgM

And the earth was corrupted before God, and was filled with iniquity And when God had seen that the earth was corrupted (for all flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth, He said to Noe: The end of all flesh is come before me, the earth is filled with iniquity through them, and I will destroy them with the earth
Genesis 6:11-13

Being Un-Catholic is Not a Solution

Beginning a Video by Shad M. Brooks (To Prove I'm Not a Mormon) · Being Un-Catholic is Not a Solution · Answering Testify Cafe on Catholicism

Thinking of Converting to CATHOLICISM? Don't Do Anything Before Watching This!
BiblicallyMotivated | 13 April 2026
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ha1bckkwcQ

2:24 Yeah, exactly!

Caerularius could claim he was just following in the steps of Photius (who died in peace with Rome) and was continuing the immediate predecessors.

Luther could absolutely not claim that. He was a Roman Catholic clergyman of Wittenberg before being the Deformer there.

3:56 Novus Ordos aren't in communion with Pope Michael II.

5:53 What exactly did Christ promise to the 11 in Matthew 28:16 to 20?

Pretty clearly something that has the power to impose the analogy of faith.

You can pretend Roman Catholicism doesn't meet that claim. But you can't pretend the claim as such is anti-Biblical or even extra-Biblical. It's a solidly Biblical claim, for the Biblical or NT Church and its direct successor in this day.

Michael II or* Peter III or Leo XIV or Bp Pivarunas or Revd Pagliarani or Bartholomew of Constantinople or Kirill of Moscow or Nicholas of Eastern America and New York or someone actually has such a claim. It's not Dallin H. Oaks bc of the gap between Moroni and Joseph Smith, which contradicts the text.

8:40 Trinitarian Christians? Orthodox?

Bec wars are sometimes recommended by the Church, but not fought by them.

Waldensians were nearly as orthodox (adjective, not denomination) as Evangelicals, and usually I think Trinitarian, but they were also deniers of the Bodily Resurrection. They were also in the bad company of the very heretical Albigensians, who disagree with the first verse of the Bible, claiming that different entities created Heaven from who created Earth. Which is blasphemy.

BiblicallyMotivated
@BiblicallyMotivated: You must be thinking of the Cathars, whom the Waldensians resisted. Waldensian statements of faith, such as the Confession of 1120, declared that Christ "rose again for our justification" and that they looked forward to the "resurrection of their bodies at the day of judgment".
Hans-Georg Lundahl
@hglundahl: @BiblicallyMotivated I'm aware that the confession is dated to 1120 (after just looking it up), but can you get scholars to agree? Not specifically Protestant ones.

Because once upon a time, Cathars or Albigensians were also falsely credited with a creed or confession that agreed with Protestantism (actually Calvinism).

The Church from 1200 + sth (IV Lateran, I think) required of returning Waldensians to confess "I will rise in the same flesh that now I carry" (changed, but not exchanged for another).

Perhaps that was because it was also used for Albigensians, not sure.

However, the one you quote is from a work** by this man:

Pasteur des vallées piémontaises, témoin des massacres, Jean LEGER vit ses biens confisqués et sa maison rasée sur ordre du Duc de Savoie, il se réfugia à Leyde où il fut nommé pasteur de l'Eglise Wallone en 1663.

Exactly the kind of period in which a Protestant would claim Medieval Albigensians / Waldensians for their own, as Protestantism was already more fashionable than Catharism and as modern historic scholarship was not yet a huge thing.

@BiblicallyMotivated I did find a reference*** on it:

The beliefs of the Waldensians should be found best expressed in their confessions of faith, but those which we have leave much to be desired. The confession dated 1120 by Morland and Leger, is really much later. The second that he prints is undated; the only other dated before the Reformation is the one presented to King Ladislaus of Bohemia in 1508, but it is given in a later form, as “amplified,” in 1535.

9:05 Yeah. Jesus was, unlike the lie of Caiaphas, not a heretic to Second Temple Judaism.

Jesus spoke of sin in the sense of miscarriage of justice, not as overstepping the authority, which actually involved an authority to stone blasphemers.

9:19 "Pope" who?

I don't think Michael II recognises antipope Wojtyla as Pope. Nor did Michael I.

9:58 "Protestants don't claim authoritative infallibility."

Therefore relinquishing the claim to be the Church to which Matthew 28:16 to 20 was adressed.

Also, not strictly true of early Magisterial Protestantism, like Luther or Calvin.

BiblicallyMotivated: Why would that be?
Hans-Georg Lundahl: @BiblicallyMotivated The task given to the twelve was teaching everything He had told them.

The help in that task was Jesus Himself, already identified as almighty even as Man and the time for that help was every day, no breaks.

Like God the Father turning the Sun, Moon and stars around us, God the Son helping His Church doesn't take Saturdays off.

The Apostles knew this and the real successors of them know it.
BiblicallyMotivated: @hglundahl But where does this establish the principle of apostolic succession? What about this tells us that their unique authority as "witnesses to his resurrection" (Acts 1:22) would be given to others beyond them?
Hans-Georg Lundahl: @BiblicallyMotivated I was not citing Acts 1:22, I was citing Matthew 28:16 through 20.

The twelve are the first bishops.

In the NT era, there was probably no single term for bishop, the Apostles (12, 70, 500) were one of the categories of bishops.

That the succession is episcopal can be gathered elsewhere than Mt 28 and Acts 1:22 is only part of it.

Barnabas perhaps, Titus and Timothy certainly were not witnesses to the Resurrection. But they were part of a succession. In Antioch, Paul and Barnabas became bishops in Acts 13. Paul made Timothy and Titus bishops before the letters. If "bishops" in the pastorals means "priests" these establish that priests must be ordained by someone (reaching back to the Apostles) and that Tim and Tite were meant to carry on, also eventually consecrating bishops.

But I think I already said. No, wait, that was to Shadiversity, not to you. The verses I cited could have been compatible with many different ways of continuing the Church, but they state the Church has to continue and do so with infallibility, and I could have been fine with any way of continuing it that I actually find.

And obviously, if the disciples in Antioch who consecrated Paul and Barnabas didn't include any of the twelve, though some have identified "Niger" as Peter (Peter > Ater = Niger, as a code name), they got their episcopal consecrations from the twelve.

Beyond the task of witnesses to the resurrection, there is the task of simply continuing to teach what one has been taught, even Paul (who was partly taught by Christ personally) says "I have handed on that which also I have received" and the principle is not limited to the context of St. Paul.

11:20 Unlike the cherubs on the Ark of Covenant and unlike the face of Jesus on the Shroud and the Sudarium, the idols of the pagans were just the craftsmanship.

If the pagans were lucky. In Delphi, they were even worse off.

That's the point Isaias is making. Not about statues being involved in worship.

11:39 The God of Israel also had an Ark which was carried in a manner physically reminiscent of idols' being carried.

12:09 It so happens, the Golden Calf was a heretical image of God.

We do condemn heretical images. Some fights between Catholics and Orthodox are about which ones are and aren't heretical.

13:00 The presence of God is dwelling in human flesh, since c. 2000 years ago.

That suddenly made God Himself, as He actually is, and not heretically is thought of, depictable.

13:43 I'm actually NOT genuinely searching.

I get recommended more than one video like this. Gavin Ortlund had a similar title.

I already converted when I was c. 20 (19+). I'm 57.

And I respond to video after video like this, and some people still want to treat me as if I were "considering" to convert and hadn't already done so.

Here is my reply to your call to viewers' conscience. Imagine you stand on judgement day and say "yeah, I know the succession seemed to match, outwardly looked like matching, what You said in Matthew 28, but I didn't trust it" ... Luke 10:16 says something about those who don't trust Apostles (or, by extension, successors).

* Note, I'm saying "or" not "and" — they exclude each other.

** Histoire générale des Eglises Evangeliques des Vallées du Piemont ou Vaudoises
https://www.info-bible.org/histoire/vaudois/histoire-generale-leger.htm

Original printing of the work: A Leyde: Chez Jean le Carpentier, 1669.

*** The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 1
https://m.egwwritings.org/en/book/956.5585#5591

It's actually a 7DA source making this admission.

The World is Going to Hell "in a Handbasket"

A Good Reason to Not be National Socialist, an Even Better One Not to be Communist, and an Excellent One to Make Peace with God · The World is Going to Hell "in a Handbasket" · If Anyone Thought that "Leo XIV" was the Good Response to Trump ...

Trump Attacks Pope Leo XIV - Here's What Happened
Cross Examined with Michael Lofton | 13.IV.2026
https://www.youtube.com/live/A-Gl1Us9LzA

"and I don't want a pope who criticizes the president of the United States because I'm doing exactly what I was elected in a landslide to do"

What was a certain man who should have remained a painter saying about German elections and Mit brennender Sorge?

"Leo XIV" is arguably not the Pope, unlike Pius XI, but at least he gets it that a pope can judge a politician, like in a pretty harsh way Pope Pius V did with Elisabeth Tudor (or Boleyn, as some have termed her).

Actually, the question need not be rhetorical.

On EWTN, I found this* on what happened after Mit brennender Sorge:

It was said that, in fact, Hitler was so beside himself that for three days he did not want to see or receive anyone.

So, he kind of had the decency, as kind of part still Catholic, to remain silent.

9:55 Did Hitler ever try to tell Pope Pius XII "if I hadn't been here, they would not have taken a former nuntio to Germany"?

I don't think so.

But some people in the business world are prone to overdoing the concept of gratitude, as it applies to men, very vastly.

I mean, Putin once showed incompetence about Indonesian pork consumption (there is a Christian minority and there are tourists).

Trump's showing some less than full competence about what the job of a Pope is.

* The Encyclical That Infuriated Hitler
ROME, 4 APRIL 2007 (ZENIT)
https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/encyclical-that-infuriated-hitler-2844

Saturday, April 11, 2026

A Good Reason to Not be National Socialist, an Even Better One Not to be Communist, and an Excellent One to Make Peace with God

A Good Reason to Not be National Socialist, an Even Better One Not to be Communist, and an Excellent One to Make Peace with God · The World is Going to Hell "in a Handbasket" · If Anyone Thought that "Leo XIV" was the Good Response to Trump ...

"This Generation Deserves to be Annihilated" — Jesus’ Chilling Warning at Heede, Germany
Jerome Chong | 10 April 2026
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgUHq98-7SQ

[I passed nearby in 2004:

29-VII-2004, Osnabrück - Reine, 30-VII-2004, Reine Emsland, 31-VII-2004, Emsland Bad Bendberg]

Holy Hill and Keaton Halley Discuss Jesus' Words About Adam and Eve at the Beginning of the Created World

Creation vs. Evolution: A Dispensation is Usually Not an Obligation · Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Holy Hill and Keaton Halley Discuss Jesus' Words About Adam and Eve at the Beginning of the Created World

Was Jesus Wrong About a Young Earth?
Creation Ministries International | 9 April 2026
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klMlMDzE_rE

I have heard one cop-out, which as a Catholic I disagree with.

I'd like to know how you stand to it.

If so ye continue in the faith, grounded and settled, and immoveable from the hope of the gospel which you have heard, which is preached in all the creation that is under heaven, whereof I Paul am made a minister.
[Colossians 1:23]

Some would say, Paul was only preaching in human creatures. Good angels didn't need him, devils couldn't be helped, but animals, plants and minerals also can't be saved. Therefore, they would say, Romans 8:22, Mark 10:6 and Matthew 19:4 need only refer to human creation, to the creation of mankind.

So, they would say, it's enough if Adam and Eve were around when mankind was created.

My view on Colossians 1:23 is, the Gospel is actually preached in good angels, who hear the Apostles and their successors attentively, in devils, who need to obey them, and in animals, plants and minerals, at least every time they are being blessed. A Catholic family with a dog or cat will get the animal blessed by the priest, and whether the house is wood or stone, the door is likely to get each Epiphany a "Christus Mansionem Benedicat" with the year from the priest.

Water and salt come in blessed versions. So, St. Paul here literally does mean all creation under heaven.

6:33 Moses was using that wording to point to the one Who came down from Heaven and then went up again on Ascension Day.

7:41 Genesis 2 long afterward?

Sounds like the racism of Isaac La Peyrère, possibly endorsed by some Christ rejecting Jews and certainly by the KKK (one recent imperial wizard).

Catholicism condemned that, as any other direct racism (not everything an Antifa would say "that counts as racism too" however).

8:24 What's your take on the "days of Noah" passage?

Is Jesus talking of wordliness (carefree enjoyment of the good things of this world) or were some people right back when Obama made a turnaround, that Jesus used euphemism?

Cannibals. Vampires. Gay "marriage". Lesbian "marriage".

I take it we have found pre-Flood people because of cannibalism. I take it we are in the end times, because some Goth circles are dabbling in serious vampirism.

In Atapuerca, people who looked like we butchered a ten year old child (who certainly looked like we) and treated the bones as discardable, same as with animal bones. The dating in a lava layer above this, I presume, seems that the lava flowed during the Flood, whether the explanation be that excess argon was trapped or that potassium 40 decayed quicker so that the heat "problem" could solve the "mud problem" (making sediment into rock quickly).

9:31 Romans 1:18—20. A good prooftext against Earth or Universe being loads older than man. AND against Heliocentrism.

When God each day turns the Heavens around us, He shows His power is inexhaustible, in a way that Adam and Eve could observe without any microscope or telescope. Unlike that "image of a likeness of a fallible man" referred to as "Hercules" who needed to get Antaeus (according to the Pagan story of his defeating this giant) off the ground and magically quick-exhausted before his own powers were exhausted.

Hercules was the deity associated with male homosexuality which St. Paul specifically mentions as a punishment for idolatry.

9:32 "we know there's a creator from looking at creation"

The fact God had created was not specifically mentioned by St. Paul as a thing one could conclude, that His power is inexhaustible, however, is specifically mentioned.

St. Ambrose says "Deus Creator omnium" ... known from revelation "polique rector vestiens / diem decoro lumine / noctem soporis gratia" ... known from observation.

11:34 To Hebrews 9:26 one can add:

And all that dwell upon the earth adored him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb, which was slain from the beginning of the world.
[Apocalypse (Revelation) 13:8]

While He didn't suffer many times, Adam actually did slay Him (as his kinsman) by eating the fruit of death.

20:13 This attitude:*

“Jesus didn’t know as much science as we do today.”

Is it only Jesus as God incarnate it's inappropriate about, or should we avoid this about hagiographers and miracle performers too?

Joshua (which in Hebrew is the same name as Jesus) didn't order Earth to stop rotating. He ordered Sun and Moon to stand still, as if they are the ones usually moving.

I'm aware of "phenomenological language" about verse 13, an explanation about the words that describe the result. But in verse 12, Joshua first prays, then, inspired by God, tells Sun and Moon to stand still.

His recorded words were certainly not identic to his prayer, since Sun and Moon are not names of God.

22:25 Here is a resumé of St. Thomas' position.

Jesus in His human nature had a triple conscience:

as a normal wayfarer (who touched me?)
as a prophet
as one already enjoying Heaven and the vision of God.

The reason we can be confident that Jesus died for each one of us who is saved, is, on the Cross, as already in the Bliss of Heaven, He was above time and space and knew each one of us, the same thing is true of His being already our Judge.

But when He taught anything specific, we should apply, He was acting as a prophet. Far more than a prophet, but at least that. God gave Him even in His human mind knowledge that cannot be factually wrong.

28:34 Just confirming that Greek has this double meaning too.

Yes, Jesus uses in Mark the word "ktisis" which is also what St. Paul uses in Colossians 1:23.

32:25 Ah, yes.

This one** is the one that Catholics of a more conservative type lean into. Paradoxically, if using Colossians 1:23, since we believe ... as stated ... the Gospel is even preached in water and salt, creatures under heaven, but not human creatures under heaven. Ever time a priest makes the appropriate ritual for blessing salt or water, the Gospel is preached in these elements, not just in man as consuming them or in contact with them.

38:21 I find your walk through carbon dating incomplete.

If carbon 14 is, in relation to carbon 12, more plentisome now than when a sample is from, it should in principle be possible to make a calibration.

I did one. Perhaps it needs reworking if Amenhotep II was the pharao of the Exodus, but that doesn't affect Genesis 14 or carbon dates before that. Or more than it needs to displace the Biblical and correct age to about a century more recent than in my tables.

And Genesis 14 by carbon dating of reed mats in a cave outside En-Geddi (Asason-Tamar) also argues a young earth. At least for anyone who says the chapter, as Biblical history, is free from anachronism.

Not a totally unimportant chapter for Catholics like me, since it features Melchisedec.

If the world were to have been several tens or hundreds of thousands and more years old, carbon 14 would already have been around 100 pmC. But for a reed mat from 1935 BC or perhaps a century later to carbon date as 3500 BC, the carbon 14 would need to be around low 80's (c. 83 pmC in my tables).

* Citing MD Carl Wieland's article about the reply he got from a Christian Old Earther, his article being: Jesus on the age of the earth ** The copout that Mark 10:6 means "since the beginning of human creation" ...

Friday, April 10, 2026

Dogs and Beer and a Bad Religion

Dogs and Beer and a Bad Religion · Muslims Do Have Things to Think Over · Are Muslims Talmudic?

The Queer Origins of Muslim Hate for Dogs: A Prophet, a Gay Lover, and a Puppy
Raymond Ibrahim | 14 June 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXCYh7TcKUw

Is there a similar story behind the animus against alcohol?

I mean, some tend to (unconsciously or perhaps not) keep a man who's taking alms in consuming non-alcoholic things known to be bad for gout, and then use the gout as proof of alcohol abuse and as an incitation to abstinence.