Fundamentalism and Anti-Catholicism Are Two Different Things

Answering Fundamentalist Attacks on the Eucharist
Catholic Answers, 27 Febr. 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQClrxNGXZE

0:08 That Protestants attack the Eucharist is one thing, but what's Fundamentalist about it?

3:16 Jack Chick can de described as Fundamentalist. He can also be described as Anti-Catholic.

Is it the Death-Cookie?

Any way, demonising Fundamentalism over that being one of Jack Chick's hats is like demonising Fascism over that being one of Hitler's hats.

Avro Manhattan is anything but Fundamentalist, not sure he was even a Christian. But Jack Chick printed Avro Manhattan just to attack the Catholic Church.

There is nothing specifically Fundamentalist in Bible reading over pretending the Vatican founded Islam. Even so, Jack Chick printed Alberto Rivera's story about this.

Alberto Rivera himself didn't claim to have derived this theory from a Fundamentalist exegesis of the Bible. He claimed to have it from a cardinal in a private briefing.

I forget what the cardinal's name was, but the guy was a father confessor of Pius XII. Anyway, appeal to bigwhigs and to private briefings are not the Fundamentalist exegesis.

5:40 Ah, yes, the Death-Cookie ...

By the way, Alberto Rivera's purported source was Agostino Bea.

And whether Alberto Rivera made that up, or Bea actually said such a thing, it's not Fundamentalist Bible exegesis, it's just swaying normal critical thinking in favour of "important people" and "inside information" to believe what Alberto Rivera said about the foundation of Islam.

4:15 "is there anything this man can't do?"

Distinguish Fundamentalism from Anticatholicism, perhaps?

7:53 You have hopes of Jack Chick getting to heaven?

Just before he died, he was blaspheming the visions of St. Ignatius of Loyola ....

8:22 "They did it in Ancient Egypt"

Is Jack Chick (in the person of the devil) leaning on Hislop?

Oh, hadn't heard of Massey, sorry ....

Either way, leaning on either Hislop or Massey is not Fundamentalist exesis ...

12:50 Sure, Bart Brewer is actually at least on some levels Fundamentalist ... why so?

"The Verbal Inspiration of the Scriptures" is on MTC's statement of faith.

But if Karl Keating got his idea that Fundamentalism is essentially Anti-Catholicism from Bart Brewer, he misses out on him being a failed priest vocation. Meaning one that failed after ordination. That may be more relevant for his Anticatholicism than his Fundamentalism is.

Let me cite some of Bart Brewer's autobiography for you:

"Mother was not shy in joining the discussions. She was a well-informed and intelligent person, and I greatly valued her opinions. I recall how appalled she was that evolution was being taught in Catholic schools and that Rome had established dialogue with the communists. She had long been disturbed over some of the conflicts she had observed between principles taught in Scripture and the lack of principles among many of our religious leaders. Many years before, Monsignor Cartwright had comforted Mother with the reminder that though there were many problems in our church, Jesus promised that “the gates of hell would not prevail against it.” Mother always expressed a tremendous respect for the Bible. Though she read it faithfully through the years, she was now becoming an avid student of Scripture. As I observed a general liberal trend among my colleagues, Mother was leaning in another direction. It was a mystery to me. While others discussed desires to see relaxation and loosing of traditional rules and rituals, Mother expressed her desire to see a more Biblical emphasis in the church—more attention to the spiritual aspects of life, and a greater emphasis on Jesus, even a personal relationship with Him."

This happened after Vatican II, which he had just mentioned.

Note, he mentions evolution long with dialogue with Communists as things his Catholic mother had not known from her youth ...

23:23 Your points are very good.

Except you single out Fundamentalism for the opponent. Protestantism of a certain sort is, and if what you cite comes more from Fundamentalists, it's not that other Protestants don't agree, it's that they are less flustered about Catholics potentially going to Hell over this. I have never seen Eric of Testify state his views, and if I'm correct he's Anglican, he might not be concerned, but take some other Protestant Apologist, he might well agree, but see less point in saying it.

I meant William Lane Craig.

Unlike Jack Chick, he would not state you damn yourself by believing the Eucharist, but like Bart Brewer, he would consider transsubstantiation an accretion, basically an invention of Radbertus Paschasius.

And it's no way you could squeeze William Lane Craig into the Fundamentalist box. He explicitly doesn't believe in Young Earth Creationism.

27:59 I don't think this view of the "Forbidden Book" is exclusive property of Fundamentalists.

I am not sure whether Craig Lampe is Fundamentalist or not, he's just radically Protestant.

I did write a response* to a video giving his book as a "dcoumentary" and it would seem the guys involved were very far from exclusively Fundamentalists.

29:36 Actually, "private interpretation" as you attribute to Protestantism is a fairly late comer in Protestantism.

The Lutheran view is more that the Church has a magisterium, which is always fallible even if authentic, to put it in terms that a Catholic can relate to.

This obviously means, the Lutheran could claim that while Lateran IV was authentic magisterium, it was still fallible, and actually failed. So, a new authentic magisterium is set up by Luther and his disciples to correct that. And the Lutheran idea of who decides over the magisterium is simply Caesareopapism.

32:01 Noting, anamnesis in the LXX translates lə·’az·kā·rāh in Lev 24:7 and lə·zik·kā·rō·wn in Numb 10:10 ... in each case a sacrifice is involved, so we have a very good case for Mass being a sacrifice.

38:16 Is that Vener. Fulton Sheen, holding up a host?

Either way, the laws about what to do to heretics and the laws about what is heresy are absolutely distinct, and with no large swathes of population Catholic and isolated from non-Catholics, there is not much to protect by executing heretics.** The Inquisition has had its run, but it's not a viable option for today.

39:55 You have done yourself and your intended audience a disservice by equating this type of Anti-Catholicism with Fundamentalism.

Meanwhile, one piece of refutation, whether to the "Death Cookie" or to "Forbidden Book" that I missed is, asking such people the question "where did the real Church go in the meantime?"

* Great Bishop of Geneva! : Answers about "The Forbidden Book"
https://greatbishopofgeneva.blogspot.com/2013/01/answers-about-forbidden-book.html

** As I said already in 2013 - apparently in response to Jack Chick's paranoia about Jesuits, already alluded to:

Triviū, Quadriviū, 7 cætera : I do not agree with religious liberty in all cases for all religions
https://triv7quadriv.blogspot.com/2013/07/i-do-not-agree-with-religious-liberty.html

Some Right Wing Christians Don't Understand Eastern Europe - to Me, that Includes Vigano

Why Should I Hate Russia??
THE FRONTLINE TV, 15.III.2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVlc2DDdD0M

4:16 Zelensky makes some token simping for woke values, or rather for communities of states where they tend to get support.

But you make it sound as if Ukraine were kind of a gay hellhole and Russia a firmly traditional Christian country.

Last stats I looked on, Ukraine had fewer abortions per 1000 live births than either Sweden (where I'm from) or France (where I am now staying). Russia had more.

Gay marriage is not allowed in Ukraine, and gay couples are not allowed to adopt or get insemination. Sex changes are not allowed in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, in Russia, Ukrainean Byzantine Catholics do not have a legal existence, and house churches and JW's are persecuted by the state. Yeah, it was a Protestant house church I heard the story from, but you can perhaps see how Ukrainean Catholics might like the idea of using a private home if they cannot have a Church.

I asked Mearsheimer on the status of Creationism in Russia, if its liberties had gone down, like those of house churches and JWs, so far no answer.

Putin has in all official speeches involving Christianity treated Christianity as a value system, not as an actual creed with actual statements about the world, Who made it how long ago and on what conditions He allows us it. He has arguably said "Hristos voskrese" in Church, but he has never mentioned the Resurrection as either a fact or a turning point in history.

And the guy who's persecuting house churches and calling their pastors "spies" has no qualms about allowing freemasonry in Russia. Pretty late in November or perhaps October, Putin's admirers decided the "special operation" was a war against Satan, and pretending Ukraine was run by a gay maffia, but a few month earlier he was bragging about "Sarmat" as "Satan II" ...

As far as Crusades go, the last time there was such a phoney crusade against an actually Christian country, it ended in what the German crusaders called Tannenberg and Poles call Grunwald, while Lithuanians refer to the locality and battle as Zhalgiris. That was in 1410. The NEXT time the Teutonic order made any big row was by becoming Protestants in 1525. Not all of the order, but the parts stationed in the region.

"The Battle of Grunwald, Battle of Žalgiris, or First Battle of Tannenberg, was fought on 15 July 1410 during the Polish–Lithuanian–Teutonic War. The alliance of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, led respectively by King Władysław II Jagiełło (Jogaila), and Grand Duke Vytautas, decisively defeated the German Teutonic Order, led by Grand Master Ulrich von Jungingen. Most of the Teutonic Order's leadership were killed or taken prisoner."

What was that "Crusade" about?

Well, Poland-Lithuania was not forcing the remaining Pagan minority in Samogitia to convert to Christianity. Hence Ulrich von Jungingen concluded that Poles were not real Christians, were not really baptised, had no real priests and so on, and needed a real conversion by sword.

So, with all my taste for Crusaders in general, I'm not a fan of Ulrich von Jungingen. But hey, to be fair, he started the war as a Crusader. He didn't start a war to get more castles in Poland, and then feel faint about the outcome and start to call it a Crusade midway through.

4:35 You can't be dragged into court for not supporting a gay wedding in Russia OR in Ukraine. There aren't any gay weddings either country.

In Putin's Russia, you could - perhaps not as a baker, or perhaps that too, but - certainly in lots of other small businesses, according to diverse regions, be dragged to court over trying to be open during the lockdown. And unlike France, there were no handouts for compensating, the small business who were ruined were facing actual ruin.

Small business is simply not a value to Putin. He prefers big factories, where corrupt executives are happy as long as he favours them and tremble when he points out the corruption.

Dito for lesbian weddings, either country ....

5:00 I don't know how the relation is between sports coaches and religion in Russia.

In the Soviet era, the coach would have been fired. Now, he might perhaps in some places make a real success, if he invites the Russian Orthodox priest for a blessing, but he would get kicked out if it were instead a Ukrainean Orthodox priest (the ones who split from Moscow a few years ago) or if it were a Byzantine Catholic priest.

5:59 "whom the media and the oligarchs tell me I need to hate"

You are talking about how Zelensky is portrayed by Russian media and oligarchs?

In the US, Joe and Joe can get away with openly not hating Putin. What would have happened to you in Russia for openly not hating Zelensky?

6:25 In Russia, abortions are conducted in gynaecological parts of the hospitals. By the same guys who deliver other babies. Putin regularly wishes a happy new year to all state employees, including in hospitals, including both tasks of obstetricians.

Try to stop an abortion in Russia or Sweden by sidewalk counselling? Doesn't work, you are not allowed into the hospital. My mother's favourite speciality at med school was gynaecology. Why did she only practise her second best choice in hospitals after nine terms, that being geriatric medicine? Well, in Sweden, a gynaecologist in a hospital is not allowed to refuse an abortion. A geriatric intern was way less likely to be drafted into an abortion, not even likely at all. Russia has the same deal as Sweden.

Heros like Mark Houck don't exist there. If they did, they would soon end up in prison or mental hospital.

You are aware that the guys who fought Hitler did so allied with the Red Army? Or that parts of the US (Lynchburg, for instance) had eugenics? Or that the US was going through the process where Supreme Court interpreted I Amendment in a very non-originalist sense, inspired by the Christianity persecutor Clemanceau?

Would that have been a case for not fighting against Hitler? No. And I say that as a Fascist, mainly Austro-Fascist and Franquist / Carlist persuasion. Vivat Patton!

6:41 Mark Houck would in Russia have faced at the very least the same kind of consequences as Pussy Riot faced for the "Feminist Moelieben" ... the law paragraph is not about condemning blasphemy (though there is belatedly one now), but for condemning "rabulism" - disrespecting the societal structures you live in.

And probably, in Russia, Mark Houck taking along his son would have a visit from CPS.

7:36 Fighting Putin is per se not a pinch of incense.

There were Christian legions. Have you heard of the Legio Fulminatrix, forget what number? I heard the story from Richard Carrier.

A pagan author said the legion had an accompanying Egyptian magician. Christians claimed the legions were Christians and praying.

BOTH agreed that they were facing Marcomanni on the other side of the Danube and didn't even have to fight, since a heave rain defeated the Marcomanni.

8:41 "we know Zelensky's values in Ukraine"

That he has such bad values personally is possible.

They are not yet the values of the Ukraine as a society or as a state with laws.

And the society and the state with laws, not Zelensky's personal opinions, is what the Ukrainean forces are fighting to defend.

8:47 "against someone who didn't do anything to me?!!!"

So, all Christians who got in trouble in Russia are nothing to you?

9:13 NATO provoked this?

If you want to know the Russian interest in Ukraine, check out a city called Sevastopol, on Crimea. It's the largest and best naval base of the region, possibly of all the Black Sea.

Russia started to get really excited in favour or separatists suffering in Ukraine when a certain lease, leaving Russia the military access to Sevastopol, was going to expire and the new régime in Ukraine was lots less likely to let them continue the lease.

And in fact, as Mearsheimer was stating the other day, a certain time ago, NATO and Putin were friends.

11:22 If Putin wins more international influence than he has, he will not defend you against the Left.

The Left is the strong guy over your side of the Atlantic? Well, Putin's not interested in being ally of the weak guy.

If Putin is beaten, there may come a time when he "repentant" energises the Left. Either of US or of Europe. But probably not the very next day.

11:22 bis One vote of distrust about Vigano.

His views on how the war happened is basically what you are pushing and on his document he linked to an anonymous document from ... Russia.

Do you recall vaccination debates?

Pfizer and Moderna isolated certain proteins from viruses and then made these into genetically modified bacteria to get bacteria to reproduce these proteins. OR ARN for making body cells produce them. Bacteria are cultivated on petri dishes on glucose. Nothing immoral about cultivating bacteria. However, viruses are cultivated in live body cells. In this case, those of an aborted baby, a genetically modified cell line.

That abortion taint is there at the initial virus production for every new version of the vaccine, and also for viruses used to test the vaccine.

In the case of Astra Zeneca and Sputnik V, the abortion taint is there in exactly every dose, since all doses are dead viruses (if it isn't weakened viruses) and, as said, all the dead viruses are first "live" viruses and cultivated in live cells. From exactly the same abortion.

But Vigano condemned Pfizer and Moderna, while saying no bad word about Sputnik V.

Guess what Putin did? He required exactly every health care provider in all hospitals in Russia to take Sputnik V. A Christian hospital worker stating "no those vaccines were produced (indirectly) by abortion" would have been persecuted for that in Russia. Not sure if there were any. Meaning, it is possible the kind of Christianity Putin favours in Russia is a doctrinally and morally woolly headed one. A decade or a little more ago, US Christians who wanted to get abortion away were caricatured by Putin's spiritual father Kirill as "desiring Christian shariah" ...

So, I think if anything, when it comes to Russia, and Ukraine, it is Vigano who isn't really sober.

Appendix on Christian nations:

Russia		Ukraine
47.4% Christianity 41% Russian Orthodoxy 6.4% Other Christian		87.3% Christianity
38.2% No religion		11.0% No religion
6.5% Islam[b] 2.4% Others (including Buddhism[5]) 5.5% Unanswered		0.8% Others 0.9% Unanswered

See also Russia and US - Abortions where two of my complementary comments read:

Wait, perhaps the statistic is rather "per 1000 live births"
737,948 / 1,888,700 * 1000 = 391 in 2016 in Russia
623,471 / 3,945,875 * 1000 = 158 in 2016 in US

In 2018, the same type of statistics gave:

Bulgaria 380, Georgia 375, Moldova 364, Romania 359, Russia 353
Hungary and Sweden come between 350 and 300, with 327 and 317

Croatia had 67 and Poland 3

https://www.statista.com/statistics/866423/abortion-rate-europe/

Ukraine (2018) had less than above worst 7 offenders, namely 247 abortions per 1000 live births.

Let's correct the stats for Russia, namely from "per pregnancies" to "per live births".

2016 stats as cited above give 737948 / 1888700 * 1000 = [390.71742468364] 391

2018 this was 353. But still more than 100 more than Ukraine.

I Really Insist : Göbekli Tepe was Babel, and My Re-Calibration is Reliable (Given that the Bible is)

Search for the Tower of Babel
Expedition Bible, 3 March 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYc_VgjJfw8

1:53 I think that flat extent has a problem if it's about matching Genesis 11.

It's not a plain inside Mesopotamia, i e the space between the two rivers. It's a plain around Mesopotamia.

Where you are looking, Euphrates and Tigris are fairly close, and the plain extends on both sides outside them.

10:21 Where God came down would rather be in a place where a plain was more narrow than the distance between Euphrates and Tigris.

It was excavated by Klaus Schmidt.

11:47 I disagree on that "definitely."

Babylon was known as Agade, and renamed after a king of Agade (I think Sargon himelf) had conquered a distant place up in what's now Turkey which had previously been known as Babylon.

I would consider even that city a stand in for a city somewhat further West, namely Göbekli Tepe.

No Ziggurats, but possibly a rocket project.

13:42 In Göbekli Tepe, they stopped building the city totally. It's still abandoned.

The irony some have mentioned about Isaiah and Jeremiah prophecying about abandoned Babylon, it was already a fact in Göbekli Tepe, and the tense of prophecy is not future, but perfect.

I Answer Your Burning Questions About Ancient History
World of Antiquity, 2 March 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IszdlMn3Yb4

15:52 Carbon 12 by definition is stable.
Carbon 13 is a very recent addition to the "palette"
Carbon 14 is what is basically measured in relation to usually carbon 12.

16:11 "Libby used carbon 14 dating as a check on carbon 12 dates"

There is no such thing as "carbon 12 dates" since carbon 12 is stable.

World of Antiquity

I worded that wrong.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@World of Antiquity You certainly did.

16:52 "according to current science"

Which you are obviously not a huge expert on, given you spoke of "carbon 12 dates" ...

"the dating is useful for up to 50 000 years"

I've actually found claims the limits are up to 55 000 to 60 000 years.

Now, there is some probability, this has to do with how low amounts of carbon 14 can be detected.

I would disagree.

It is not a question for Young Earth Creationism to accept a ten times more recent limit for detectability. Rather, what's uncertain as one goes back is how much the original carbon 14 content was. Let's say the original content in a sample dated to 50 000 BP was 100pmC, well, then, it is probably 50 000 years old. On the other hand, if it's radically younger, it had a radically lower original carbon 14 content. If it's a bit further back than 5000 years ago, its original content was arguably around 0.432 pmC.

This in turn means that if something is dated 5000 years ago, it's actually younger. If you ask me, 3500 and 4000 BC would both be from Abraham's lifetime, him born in 2015 BC.

World of Antiquity

What is your evidence for there being uncertainty about the “original content” of carbon 14?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@World of Antiquity It is the certainty that needs evidence.

And my evidence for a certainly lower carbon 14 in 1935 BC, leading to a carbon date of 3500 BC is, Abraham was c. 80 in Genesis 14, which involves the chalcolithic of En-Geddi, which ends in carbon dated 3500 BC (Abraham born 2015 BC as per the Biblical chronology of the Christmas Proclamation).

World of Antiquity

@Hans-Georg Lundahl What is the material link between Chalcolithic En Gedi and Abraham? And why are you giving the Christmas Proclamation such a high authority on historical matters?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@World of Antiquity "What is the material link between Chalcolithic En Gedi and Abraham?"

I owe this to The Times of Abraham, by DR. A.J.M. OSGOOD.

In Genesis 14, we find that verse 7 says this of the Mesopotamian invaders:

And they returned, and came to the fountain of Misphat, the same is Cades: and they smote all the country of the Amalecites, and the Amorrhean that dwelt in Asasonthamar.

Now, where is Asasonthamar? II Paralipomenon, 20, 2 says:

And there came messengers, and told Josaphat, saying: There cometh a great multitude against thee from beyond the sea, and out of Syria, and behold they are in Asasonthamar, which is Engaddi.

As it happens, after the chalcolithic occupation of En Geddi, there is no occupation at all prior to the iron age, which is defintely too late.

So, the chalcolithic of En Geddi = the Amorrheans in Asasonthamar.

"And why are you giving the Christmas Proclamation such a high authority on historical matters?"

Because I think the Ussher chronology (which would be appropriate for Vulgate text) would give too short a time between the Flood and Abraham, considering the carbon 14 level at the Flood gives "39 000 BP" and that in 1935 BC only gives 1565 extra years. Hence I go with the LXX, and the Christmas Proclamation gives a handy outline of years in that one.

34 000 extra years is 1.636 pmC in the atmosphere, 1565 extra years is 82.753 pmC.
292 + 80 = 372. 942 + 80 = 1022.

I think 1022 years is more adequate time for the carbon 14 level to rise from 1.636 to 82.753 pmC than 372 years would be.

16:56 If it's dated to 20 000 BP, the arguable real date would be 2834 BC.

The original carbon 14 content would be between 14.5681 and 17.2045 pmC. Pretty close to 15.8863 pmC.

Original 15.8863 pmC will give 15 200 extra years, like sth having 15.8863 pmC now is dated to 15 200 years ago. 15 200 + 2834 = 18 034 BC = 20 034 BP.

17:35 It would seem, between 1750 and 1950, the carbon age of samples should be going from 200 years old to 0 years old, but are really going (carbon dating wise) from 0 years old (1750 has a raw carbon date like 1950) to 200 years old (1950 has a raw carbon date like 1750).

18:19 Dendrochronology, for the last 3000 years, has not given an exact match with carbon dates.

The original pmC values, and hence the carbon age to real age discrepancies, wiggle around a bit ... in such cases, dendro is considered the more certain.

Beyond c. 3200 years ago, I consider the Bible as more certain than either.

Resources I used:
(own) http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2020/08/new-tables.html
and
(other's) http://earthsci.org/space/space/geotime/C14/Carbon%2014%20Dating%20Calculator.html

Enemies of C. S. Lewis

deretour: Notes on Asimov, Isaac · Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Enemies of C. S. Lewis

Q

What are some reasons why some people dislike C.S. Lewis and/or his works?
https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-reasons-why-some-people-dislike-C-S-Lewis-and-or-his-works/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1

Hans-Georg Lundahl

avid reader back when I had better sleep than now

5.III.2023

1. Some are not Christian at all and hate Christianity and hate him for being (in identifiable, though incomplete ways) Christian;
2. Some are Puritan and believe he was too lax on certain questions (including but not limited to writing fantasy);
3. Some are very woke, and believe he was wrong for endorsing monarchy and traditional gender roles - some Leftists who are strongly “Anti-Fascist” would class him as “Fascist” or “Fascistoid” on such issues - even though he didn’t even support Franco - and this would also include Freudians, because he attacked Freudianism;
4. Some object to fantasy and science fiction in principle;
5. It seems there are Catholics who would not just disagree with him on certain issues (he was not Catholic, but Anglican), but actually dislike him, but in these cases it seems to be about certain misunderstandings. Some mistrustful of Jews think Lewis means Levi, when it means the same as French Louis or German Ludwig. Some have heard his works were on the Index librorum - they were never on the Index librorum of the Catholic Church, but have been on similar lists used by Leftist Librarians’. Some have concluded that the Inklings were some Masonic Lodge, when they were a group of friends. Or that Inklings wrote with a secret agenda, when they simply agreed to write as Christians.

I

1 year ago

Ian J. A. Green

Woke has lost all meaning of it is being used in an answer about C. S. Lewis.

Will Massey

i would second what Ian J.A. Green said about woke culture had lost all meaning when it come down to CS Lewis because technically there was no such thing as woke culture in the 40s, 50s and 60s there was only women`s suffrage, feminism and the hippie movement

19.XI.2025

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Did you notice the “dislike” present tense in the question?

It’s why some dislike him now!

II

St. Cecilia

22.XI.2025

B. K. Neifert

What do you mean by “Lewis didn’t mean “Levi” or “Jews” and he meant Luis or Ludwig?”

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Here are my exact words, with explanatory insertions:

Some [people who are] mistrustful of Jews [and like to detect them]
think
“Lewis means Levi,” [so they would go “(((C. S. Lewis)))”]
when [in fact] it means the same as French Louis or German Ludwig.

I mean some Rad Trads (am one myself), who actually have basically said so to me. It’s a known fact, I am an age old fan of CSL, so, they have made this a grief against me.

B. K. Neifert

What would be the problem if he were Jewish?

24.XI.2025

Hans-Georg Lundahl

To some Catholics, that implies a Jewish agenda.

Like Talmudic and perverted and so on … I think they even connect Lewis Carroll in this connection.

B. K. Neifert

That’s anti semitic.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Some anti-semitism in the sense of anti-Judaism is inherent in Catholicism, since they are rival religions, rival claimants to continue or fulfill the Law of Moses and up to Second Temple Judaism.

That attitude is however a bit over the top.

B. K. Neifert

I don’t know. You might know some people like that. They’re trying to corrupt you with stupid ideas. Not many Catholics are like that. If any at all, you might know a few lunatics.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

It’s more like they boycott me with stupid ideas.

I’m Rad Trad and of partly Jewish extraction, and well, in France most Rad Trads have a nostalgia for Pétain, including, which I don’t, the second half, from 1942 to 1944.

I tend to draw the line in 1942, before Vel d’Hiv.

B. K. Neifert

I don’t even know what that means. It sounds like you got connected to some bad ideas, there. Just remember what you knew at first. Don’t lean to the left or the right.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Vel d’Hiv or Vélodrome d’Hiver is the scene and nickname for the first deportation of French Jews to the camps.

I knew from the first that, before that, because of the Free Zone in the South, Pétain had actually helped to save Jews, whether he intended it or not.

I don’t have that from Rad Trads, I have that from an encyclopedia called Bonniers Konversations-Lexikon, which I read well before becoming Rad Trad or even Catholic. And Bonniers are in Scandinavia pretty much what Springer is in Germany etc — a concern run by people with Jewish background which is wildly successful.

Pétain also had (this time with certain intention) the good quality of banning freemasonry.

B. K. Neifert

You got too many disorganized stories in you. Breathe, and find the basics. And build from that foundation.

Rad Trad, Holocaust Liberationists, Jew Hunting… I don’t understand what you’re talking about. None of it is coherent. I don’t know the link between any of it.

So, know World War II was evil, and Hitler persecuted the Jews and other minorities, and some people helped liberate the Jews. And that was a good thing. And of course Catholics were persecuted, too, in the Holocaust.

25.XI.2025

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I’m sorry, but your ignorance doesn’t equal my incoherence.

I’m not disorganised because you are ignorant.

Persecution of Jews and Gipsies, mercy killing of handicapped and eugenics were clear evils.

But before you go to persecution, you have some mistrust.

Now, certain people had a distrust of Jews, these had (as had others) a loyalty to Pétain and some of their heirs are the demographic basics of French Rad Trads. They have since 1945 been persecuted, which is also evil.

I can’t demonise someone for liking Pétain, since he helped to save Jews. I can’t renounce being Rad Trad, because it makes doctrinally sense.

B U T … some French Rad Trads have, and this is the bad news for me, a capacity of the same mistrust for someone for just Jewish origins, as their parents or grandparents had in 1940.

I can’t build from a non-extant foundation just because you think it exists. Pétain and Franco were basic to my conversion to Catholicism.

B. K. Neifert

It does exist. I just am not making the connections you want me to make.

I get that the holocaust was bad, and that Pétain saved Jews, but why would Lewis being Jewish matter to a Catholic?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

To a specific type of Catholic.

Pétain saved Jews, but he also discriminated against them. After the Germans left, Pétain people got persecuted.

So, Rad Trads in France are basically all for Pétain, but some go so far as to be wary, not just of Jewish confession, but of Jewish origin, like what Pétain collaborated with.

Resuming with Pismenny

Alex Pismenny

Catholic Christian

shared on Catholic Apologetics, Feb 18, from

Faith, Nation, Beauty

Posted by Alex Pismenny, Feb 18

Catholic Views on Creation and Creationism

The Evolutionary Theory suggests that life developed randomly from DNA copying errors during reproduction. It doesn’t mean life forms (species) are random as their formation follows the logic of survival of the fittest. The copying errors are indeed random, but errors that reduce survivability of the mutant kill the mutant and the error doesn’t spread. Errors that enhance survivability, on the other hand, produce offspring and are no longer errors. This is, obviously, at odds with the Catholic understanding of life: God created all forms of dead matter and life following His purpose. Error and death of the unfit cannot be His building blocks, love is. God created species at once or nearly at once. In fact, we don’t have a scientific proof that one species came from another in the realm of advanced species. We only see evolution inside a certain genetic perimeter, e.g., we can find frogs that evolve separately because a single pond became separate ponds due to some geological event. We don’t see frogs becoming fish. We only see bacteria mutate and speciate. Maybe macroevolution is possible, but we haven’t observed it. It is tempting, however, to construct a theological hypothesis that invites the evolutionary theory into Catholic Theology. Indeed, the thinking goes, the scientific method is not antithetical to the teachings of the Church; it was, in fact, invented by the Church. I would like to examine the various claims at that synthesis closely and separate plausible claims from implausible. I’ll begin by offering this generic proposition. It is not a fact that we understand God and His purpose with any clarity. Rather the opposite is true. For example, often we hear that God must have been an evil killer for commanding the Israelites to wage brutal wars. It takes a careful examination of the purpose of Israel of old existing and culminating in the building of the Church in order to discern the Divine Purpose of love in the destruction of Paganism. So, perhaps, endless creature dying so that to give room for improved creatures, -- was a manifestation of Divine Love as well? We also see allusions to a complex and gradual process of creation in the account of the Creation in the first chapters of Genesis. The “days” of the creation generally follow the order as astrophysics and paleontology propose it, from electromagnetic fields to verdant farmland. Man is made not from nothing but “of the slime of the earth” (Genesis 2:7). While the Bible does not propose that species of animals were created one out of another, it is in keeping with the general style of the Books of Moses using simple language of farmers and herdsman to describe events a scientist would struggle to explain to a child today. Likewise, there is nothing in the text to suggest that the “days” of creation were 24-hour days. Much the opposite: a literal day is produced by the Earth’s rotation, but Moses starts counting “days” way before the luminaries and planets were made. This is, I think is commonly held Catholic view on the Creation is today: that random evolution through DNA copying errors and regulated only by the survival of the fitness cannot be discerned from observable facts any better than a process of gradual creation of astrophysical matter, plants, and animals by God, on His own schedule. Scientific discovery results in better understanding of the Divine works, never disproving it. Literal reading of the Old Testament ignores clear poetic patterns in many books, the complexity of the subject matter, and the inability of ancient men to comprehend modern astrophysics. The reader must discover points that the divine inspired writer is making underneath the limitation of primitive language and unschooled audience. For example, that the Universe is created from nothing but Man is created from the “slime of the Earth” is hardly an accident; that “light” and “firmament” precede the creation of the luminaries is something that only a modern reader who knows of electromagnetism can grasp, but there was something in Moses’ vision of the Creation that separated the generic matter of the early Cosmos from the astronomical order that we can observe. That, by the way, also shown that Moses was not composing a tale but rather he was given an insight into fundamental physics beyond his rational comprehension. Well, that compromise between the Evolutionary hypothesis and the account of Creation is, however, full of illogicalities that surround the creation of Man. Let’s postulate that the creation of inanimate matter, plants, and animals corresponds well with astrophysics and paleontology, given the leeway in interpreting ancient Hebrew texts written for Moses’ contemporaries. In other words, “days” are eons, the order in which life appears is really a process of one species evolving from another, apes appearing on the evolutionary scene and learn to use tools and communicate. Macroevolution, to be sure, has defects as a scientific hypothesis regardless of any true or imaginary divine revelation, but we want to proceed to the main focus of this essay, the Catholic Anthropology. We have several immutable theological facts that the Church teaches infallibly. Man, and shortly after, Woman are created from the “slime of the earth”. Seeing an evolutionary progression from primitive life to man here is a mistake: if animals had been the building blocks of human race, there was no need on day Six to go back to slime when apes were available. The evolution of animals could not have anything to do with the creation of man. Man is created in the image of God; animals aren’t. No matter how it is interpreted, -- usually, as the presence of rational soul and free will, -- again, if man came from apes, he would have born the image of an ape. The building material for man is purposely lacking an image as slime has none. Man is loved by God. The rest of the creation is pre-built to be man’s home. Man is called to subdue the creation made for him. Even when Adam and Eve sin, God protects them insofar that it is possible and, apparently, slaughters some animals to make them clothes. Later, God likes the sacrifice of Abel, wo is a shepherd, and condemns Cain who is a vegetarian. Animal life is evidently of no particular value to God. Death of an animal is a part of its existence, whereas Adam is sternly warned to avoid the forbidden fruit because disobedience will cause him to “die the death”, -- the death he was not to ever taste. Man is also given the “paradise of pleasure”, whereas the animals are merely provided so that “they may have to feed upon”. Man is master of all the animals as he is the one giving them names. Finally, God commands the animals to “be fruitful and multiply”, but the Book of Genesis does not explain how the animals are to do that. But man is given a woman that is his wife and partner and is a source of joy: “This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh”. Human reproduction is, therefore, cardinally distinct from animal reproduction. We have to conclude that, perhaps, some form of evolution pertains to the animal kingdom; we certainly know from observation that closely related species evolve, like dogs evolve from wolves. Also, primitive forms of life, such as viruses and bacteria mutate and evolve. The hypothesis that all species evolved from a single form of life is not provable of observable, but since the Bible is silent on whether the order of creation of animals also implies macroevolution, a Catholic should be free to believe either way. However, Man’s evolution from apes is wholly inacceptable. The Bible makes it clear that Man’s creation was a distinct act of God. The popular in modernity idea that at some point in evolution from Ape to Man God saw one particular couple of apes and made humans out of these two by giving them rational souls does not only contradicts the clear text of the Bible, it contradicts the entire Catholic anthropology of Man as the only creature elected for eternal life. Another area of encroachment of theology by science is cosmogony. The Catholic, and generally mainstream Christian understanding is that the universe was made for Man. We have already dealt with the evolutionary view of genesis of men and found it incompatible with the Christian understanding. In the spatial domain, likewise, the view of the universe being exceedingly vast, created by no one, without purpose, and containing the Earth at its periphery, possible one among many planets suitable for life, -- seems problematic. Let us discuss this aspect further. The Gentle Reader need not panic. I am not about to propose that in fact the world with its stars and galaxies rotates around the static Earth. I am merely pointing out that when discussing spatial phenomena, the choice of the reference point is determined by the nature of the phenomenon under consideration. As Galileo realized, the best reference point for the study of the movement of planets is the Sun. With modern astronomy, we probably should choose the centers of galaxies as reasonable reference points, etc. However, even a modern man uses left and right, up and down relative to himself when he is riding a bicycle. He was heliocentrist when he was looking for Venus in the sky, but he is egocentrist as he navigates a bike path. What coordinate system does a Christian believer use? His primary concern is his actions. What are my duties? Did I live my day right? What behaviors of mine require amendment? But man doesn't judge himself alone. God also judges, justifies, gives strength for the next day, and loves. That is a domain of heaven above. The fact that the Earth's atmosphere is a rotating ball of gasses enveloping the Earth has no bearing on that. Heaven is above, and it is a Kingdom. The Church Triumphant is up there. Heaven is as real as Andromeda Galaxy; it is just not accessible with telescopes. Then there is Hell. It is below us, again, no matter what rotates around what. It is useful to think of the Christian "above" and Christian "below" not as spatial directions but as measure of sanctity and of beauty. Angels are from above. Demons are from below. Angels are beautiful. Demons are ugly. And people are around us. They form the plain of our existence: those that we love, those that we are supposed to protect or to teach or to shun. Other people are the geography of our daily life. In antiquity, the spiritual view of the cosmos was also the scientific view because for the tasks the primitive man had to do, flat earth with rotating Sun and Moon was all the science he needed. Today, the spiritual view did not change, but the scientific view changed quite a bit. What are we to do? We are to recognize that these are unrelated views and switch between them as needed. There is nothing wrong with the spiritual view exactly as it was thousands of years ago, today. We still love the sky and fear crevices in the Earth. In our daily life, Flat Earth is the operational theory. But why is the world so big if it had been made for us? It seems, a section of the world with the Sun and the Moon and a few planets whirling around would be quite enough. There is no answer. We don't know the entire purpose of God. It is enough to know that the immenseness relates to the immense power of Creator God. To us as spiritual beings, all the stars and galaxies are Heaven, which has no dimensions. And it is very big. Similarly, another question comes up, why are we on a periphery even of our galaxy? And again, we are not on periphery of anything. We thrive on Earth where it is. Therefore, the location of the Earth is best for us. In general, the confusion that astrophysics bring is psychological and not real. We think that if we are so important to God, then we should be in the center of the universe. That is incorrect and childish psychology. Place God in that center and remember that you were made from mud. Not from gold, not from a diamond, -- from mud. I am grateful to Hans-Georg Lundahl, whose line of questioning inspired this essay. See his comments on Catholic Apologetics [better link : Catholic Apologetics [sharing] Catholic Views on Creation and Creationism

Comments

are on Catholic Apologetics, where he shared the answer.

Intro

Hans-Georg Lundahl

26.II.2023

Quadragesima

Ah, found it - do you mind if I post several comments, for several threads, about different aspects?

Alex Pismenny

Quadragesima

Sure, and I will highlight on which share your comments are.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

27.II.2023

I have started out with three threads about the theory of Evolution. I’ll come back later on cosmology.

I

Hans-Georg Lundahl

27.II.2023

I "The Evolutionary Theory suggests that life developed randomly from DNA copying errors during reproduction."

Ambiguous.

• 1) "life developed" can refer to abiogenesis, which is an impossibility, you don't have reproduction before you have life and you don't have viable life before you have reproduction;
• 2) "all variety of life developed" would be more proper to the Synthetic Theory of Evolution - which says man and mice and mango trees had a common one celled ancestor, and developed from it by copying mistakes;
• 3) "each life form that is develops and so far developed" is fairly consistent with what Young Earth Creationists usually share of Evolutionary Biology. Please note, in related forms you can have not just locus mutations, but also chromosome mutations. In placental mammals, at least, trisomy exaggerated to tetrasomy is not a viable way to augment the number of chromosomes. However, Robertsonian fusion in the right moment is a viable way to reduce them.

"The copying errors are indeed random, but errors that reduce survivability of the mutant kill the mutant and the error doesn’t spread. Errors that enhance survivability, on the other hand, produce offspring and are no longer errors."

Functions cannot arise through one error - or at least not all can. A function usually (at least one of the ones I think of) involves a cell type, something we have never observed evolve, and it involves more than one specific gene producing more than one specific proteine. Each gene usually has hundreds of loci, hundreds of codons composed of three loci or base pairs. Assembling a new function codon by codon, gene by gene, from zero by copying mistakes is a structural impossibility.

"This is, obviously, at odds with the Catholic understanding of life: God created all forms of dead matter and life following His purpose. Error and death of the unfit cannot be His building blocks, love is. God created species at once or nearly at once."

While errors are indeed not what God started from, God can, after Adam's fall make use of them. And as the kinds of Genesis 1 need not the least be identic to the taxonomic level in Linnaean taxonomy called species, there is not even a problem in accepting that jackals and wolves / dogs, Atelerix and Hemiechinus, had common ancestors on the Ark. The hedgehogs on the Ark were arguably one couple, but since then there are five genera (two of which have been mentioned) and 17 species.

However, Atelerix algirus and Hemiechinus auritus having common ancestors, with each other and with other hedgehogs, or jackals having them with wolves does not involve new cell types, just minor differences of functionality within the ones existing. Perhaps loss of some. It is no proof that Atelerix and jackals (which very clearly have different functions and different cell types) ever had a common ancestor. Apart from that being against the Bible, it is also against common sense observations from the evidence.

Alex Pismenny

27.II.2023

I didn't want to go into specifics on what the Evolutionary Theory is. Thank you for the detailed comment.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

27.II.2023

Do you not even want to go into specifics of what you meant?

How much is this like giving Donald Prothero or Stephen Jay Gould or Kenneth R. Miller a blank cheque?

Alex Pismenny

28.II.2023

Correct, I don't. It is interesting to do so but I don't want to dilute the main message: that God driven replacement of one species with another is permissible to a Catholic, and God creating whole species out of nothing is also permissible, but random evolution without Divine plan is not permissible.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

28.II.2023

“God driven replacement of one species with another is permissible to a Catholic”

1. Not before Adam sinned
2. and what about checking whether there is any kind of scientific necessity rather than just presuming there is?

It sometimes gives me the very irksome impression that you consider me as having one theological scruple, no theological good case and also no scientific good case. And that you are very content with presuming this to be true without even checking.

Alex Pismenny

28.II.2023

1. Why is that? God was creating animals. Some of them went extinct. Then God created Man and led the animals to Adam to get named.
2. Yes, scientists should be good scientists and check for necessity.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

28.II.2023

1. The animals that went extinct did so after Adam sinned and sometimes after the Flood
2. Why do you not live up to that?

Alex Pismenny

28.II.2023

That is acceptable position. Not the only acceptable though.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

1.III.2023

You were specifically challenged to provide an idea on how another one would be acceptable.

II

Hans-Georg Lundahl

27.II.2023

II "It is not a fact that we understand God and His purpose with any clarity. Rather the opposite is true."

This sounds more like Moses Maimonides than St. Thomas Aquinas.

But all these things they will do to you for my name's sake: because they know not him who sent me. / John 15:21

"For example, often we hear that God must have been an evil killer for commanding the Israelites to wage brutal wars. It takes a careful examination of the purpose of Israel of old existing and culminating in the building of the Church in order to discern the Divine Purpose of love in the destruction of Paganism."

Those wars were not just the destruction of Paganism in general, but destruction of a specific Paganism. Scipio also waged war against Canaanean Paganism, and Roman historians mentioned what they did to firstborn male infants, in times when "sacrifice" was needed.

"So, perhaps, endless creature dying so that to give room for improved creatures, -- was a manifestation of Divine Love as well?"

Before sin, there was no death.

"Man is called to subdue the creation made for him. Even when Adam and Eve sin, God protects them insofar that it is possible and, apparently, slaughters some animals to make them clothes. Later, God likes the sacrifice of Abel, wo is a shepherd, and condemns Cain who is a vegetarian. Animal life is evidently of no particular value to God. Death of an animal is a part of its existence, whereas Adam is sternly warned to avoid the forbidden fruit because disobedience will cause him to “die the death”, -- the death he was not to ever taste."

Stating that animal life is of no particular value to God makes the idea of animal sacrifice nonsensical.

The just regardeth the lives of his beasts: but the bowels of the wicked are cruel. - Prov 12:10

Whose beasts were the beasts before Adam was created? God's. Is God just? Yes. The one reason why beasts die is, Adam sinned. This is not common ground to all Church Fathers, but it is in early Church Fathers.

Please note, even if this argument were possible about the goodness of God to beasts, if you admit Adam was created directly, the idea that beasts died to make men come into existence is non-sense, and furthermore, if you don't, there are much more important questions about God's goodness to Adam before he sinned.

Alex Pismenny

27.II.2023

The one reason why beasts die is, Adam sinned.

Beasts didn't sin. It explicit in Genesis that beasts are to be used by man. One way to use an animal is to kill and eat it; another, to kill it and forego eating it in sacrifice to God. I think that animals were made that way, mortal and without a rational soul. The idea that animal death is a consequence of human son is, I think, pure speculation.

Of course, the goodness of animal and therefore its value consists in their usefulness to man, direct or indirect usefulness.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

27.II.2023

“The idea that animal death is a consequence of human son is, I think, pure speculation.”

Wherefore as by one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned. - Romans 5:12

At least consistent with no animals dying before Adam sinned.

But do you know what? I saw Church Fathers a few decades ago, who did think carnivorousness would have existed even without Adam sinning. However, drawn out senseless suffering wouldn’t.

“It explicit in Genesis that beasts are to be used by man. One way to use an animal is to kill and eat it; another, to kill it and forego eating it in sacrifice to God.”

Both of those uses are posterior to Adam’s sin. Abel’s sacrifice is in Genesis 4, ordering carnivorousness is in Genesis 9. Both come after Genesis 3.

“Of course, the goodness of animal and therefore its value consists in their usefulness to man, direct or indirect usefulness.”

Since developing man from animals would at best have been only one option, and considering Adam’s language, even a non-option, this cuts out the possibility of animals living millions of years before man - they would not have been even indirectly useful to man.

Alex Pismenny

27.II.2023

Right, the Bible records even animal death only after the Fall, but it doesn't follow that it didn't occur. Certainly, plants were killed before the Fall since they were food.

I don't think God-driven evolution of animals is precluded by this. Surely, the Bible puts animal death in a different category that human death, directly linked to sin.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

28.II.2023

"plants were killed before the Fall since they were food."

In Hebrew terms, plants and invertebrates are not nephesh khaya (breath of life).

Other solution, grass blades and fruits are not whole organisms. The seeds that can grow, and which are, could have passed unhurt through the digestion tract to make a new plant. But either way, plants were eaten before the fall.

"Surely, the Bible puts animal death in a different category that human death, directly linked to sin."

Whatever the case about death of animals, wastefulness ("vanity") is linked to sin.

Romans 8:19-23
For the expectation of the creature waiteth for the revelation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him that made it subject, in hope: Because the creature also itself shall be delivered from the servitude of corruption, into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. For we know that every creature groaneth and travaileth in pain, even till now. And not only it, but ourselves also, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption of the sons of God, the redemption of our body.

The part on "every creature groaneth" cannot refer to every human creature, since right next verse it is added "and we too" - and another reason we can't use it of men only is, when Christ says to preach the Gospel to every creature, we Catholics think this applies to blessings of domestic animals and of salt, and Easter blessings on food. These being obviously non-human creatures.

If you had found me the place in St. Augustine where it says that animals would have been eaten by other animals before the fall, I would have shown you how he also states this would have happened in an ordered way and not a wasteful way.

You have not answered this challenge: Since developing man from animals would at best have been only one option, and considering Adam’s language, even a non-option, this cuts out the possibility of animals living millions of years before man - they would not have been even indirectly useful to man.

So, God killing animal after animal, over millions and millions of years, when He was able to and even had to (considering the Biblical statements about God and man) create man with no bestial ancestry, would have been a cruelty to animals, sth which God forbids men. Again:

The just regardeth the lives of his beasts: but the bowels of the wicked are cruel. - Prov. 12:10.

Proverbs isn't saying that beasts cannot be killed at all for a good purpose serving man. But he is saying that he cannot allow predators to serve themselves in his hen coop or among his sheep. Now, whose were the animals prior to Adam's creation? God's only. Is God just? Yes. Does He follow His own laws? He even stepped down to a manger and a cross to do so. Ergo, a Tyrannosaur with bone cancer can safely on this ground alone be dated to after when Adam fell.

Alex Pismenny

28.II.2023

Good point about plants.

Back to animals, I don’t know why God created so many animals that went extinct and some that did not. Same as I don’t know why there are so many galaxies. Somehow, it serves us.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

28.II.2023

Extinction of T Rex has served us very well since the fall of Adam made them a danger to us.

You do not know that there are “many galaxies” or even that there is one.

Alex Pismenny

28.II.2023

I don’t know why God allowed dinosaurs to go extinct, or when.

We’ve seen galaxies in telescopes.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

1.III.2023

No.

You can see in telescopes that Andromeda, Hercules A and Maffei 1 exist.

You cannot see in telescopes that we have a Milky Way galaxy extending far beyond the Solar system, and you also cannot see in telescopes that Andromeda, Hercules A and Maffei 1 are parallels to the supposed Milky Way galaxy.

III

Hans-Georg Lundahl

27.II.2023

III "Let’s postulate that the creation of inanimate matter, plants, and animals corresponds well with astrophysics and paleontology, given the leeway in interpreting ancient Hebrew texts written for Moses’ contemporaries. In other words, “days” are eons, the order in which life appears is really a process of one species evolving from another, apes appearing on the evolutionary scene and learn to use tools and communicate."

Apart from the absurdities in the text, and the patronising attitude against Moses' contemporaries, you have a major even scientific impossibility in the last part of what you said.

"apes appearing on the evolutionary scene and learn to use tools and communicate."

Apes communicate. "Hello" - "How are you?" - "We're fine!" - "Enjoy your meal!" - "Let me have my meal!!!!!" - "You stop that nonsense!" and some more like that are perfectly fine to postulate about what apes already have. What they do not have is concepts. Without concepts to make truthful or false judgements about, communications are very much fewer. There is no need and therefore no reason to develop and also no known means to develop a language capable of expressing concepts and their combinations or separations. Language origin is as dead an end in research as abiogenesis.

In order to have infinitely more possible communications than apes have, men have:

• sentences composed by morphemes (it doesn't matter all that much whether a given sentence is a sentence word, combining the morphemes in one fixed order, like ид-у, or combines it into separate words where something may come between Я большой, я очень большой, or combines the procedures, like Я ид-у)
• morphemes composed by phonemes очень = о+ч+е+нь

In "ape," a sentence is more like a specific phoneme, perhaps with a specific intonation or rhythm.

No non-human, no being that is not the image of God, can have developed human speach from bestial communications.

If you hear anything about Language development, that's another issue. One language may develop into another, like a trouser that is worn and torn is repaired and re-repaired and ends up being a very different trouser than it was. One house may develop into another by constant reparations and other improvements to counter the degradations. But you don't make a house into a trouser or a trouser into a house by such a procedure.

This is the precise and adequate reason why Adam cannot have non-human ancestry without God having been cruel to him on some level before he sinned. His "immediate ancestry" (Pius XII rightly forbids to call non-humans "parents") could not have taught him to speak, so he would have grown up a feral child. Which is a handicap. This is not about God's goodness to beast lives, but about God's goodness to His own image. Feral children, very rarely, exist now. Don't think of the girl who got kidnapped and then rescued by monkeys when she was five - she had already learned how to speak. Not perfectly, but she knew the procedure. If she had been taken away from human company when she was between 6 months and 2 years, she could never have learned to speak. There are some cases like that too. Adam cannot have been one.

Alex Pismenny

27.II.2023

I didn't imply all that much into “communicate". I could have said “grunt and gesture".

I agree that Adam did not come from apes.

It is not patronizing to pour out that Moses' contemporaries could not understand astrophysics and did not need to.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

27.II.2023

A statement like “you see the sun move because we move” would definitely have been understandable in Moses and Joshua’s time.

Thank you for the agreement. As for human anatomies grunting and gesturing, that is definitely much less that we must credit beings for who were dated by carbon 14 to 40 000 BP or earlier. See more on the next comment, the dating question.

IV

Hans-Georg Lundahl

27.II.2023

IV “However, Man’s evolution from apes is wholly inacceptable. The Bible makes it clear that Man’s creation was a distinct act of God. The popular in modernity idea that at some point in evolution from Ape to Man God saw one particular couple of apes and made humans out of these two by giving them rational souls does not only contradicts the clear text of the Bible, it contradicts the entire Catholic anthropology of Man as the only creature elected for eternal life.”

Very good.

This is Orthodox. However, does it fit with the ideas you call discoveries of modern science? Or that § 283 (of the CCC) call that?

Suppose you accept the Synthetic Theory of Evolution. Then you presumably accept the time scale. Then you presumably accept the carbon dates for Neanderthals or the Cro-Magnon population as given.

Where do you put Adam in this timescale?

Late? 10 000 - 6000 years ago?
Early? 600 000 to 40 000 years ago?

Don’t bother about in between since that will only combine the problems of each approach.

Early = Adam can be ancestor to all, including Neanderthals, but cannot have transmitted Genesis 3 the way Catholicism presupposes. I’ll quote the Haydock comment on Genesis 3, attached to the comment on verse 24 in it.

// Concerning the transactions of these early times, parents would no doubt be careful to instruct their children, by word of mouth, before any of the Scriptures were written; and Moses might derive much information from the same source, as a very few persons formed the chain of tradition, when they lived so many hundred years. Adam would converse with Mathusalem, who knew Sem, as the latter lived in the days of Abram. Isaac, Joseph, and Amram, the father of Moses, were contemporaries: so that seven persons might keep up the memory of things which had happened 2500 years before. But to entitle these accounts to absolute authority, the inspiration of God intervenes; and thus we are convinced, that no word of sacred writers can be questioned. H. //

With a LXX based chronology (Eastern Rite for Sept 1 or Roman martyrology for December 25), the distance is somewhat greater. On the other hand, I consider it probable already Abraham wrote it down, as a separate piece or along all of Genesis 2 - 11 (Genesis 1 and a few verses into 2 is a vision given Moses), and Moses collected such writings along with the vision he was given into one book. With an early placing of Adam, this is out.

Also, with an early date of Adam, you pretty blatantly contradict God’s care for mankind up to the time of Abraham. A point in Dei Verbum § 3.

So, you might be tempted to a late date. Would you be fine with that?

It is only:

• on such grounds unlikely that Adam is ancestor to all now living or even more that he was so when white people arrived to the four corners of the earth (where they are not indigenous)
• unexplained why we would have also in that case “ape” ancestry (Homo Sapiens older than Adam, and Neanderthals, and Denisovans not being image of God, hence apes)
• unexplained how “apes” could do things that would very clearly seem to require language.

The one scenario in which neither difficulty arises is, no man or manlike creature at all existed prior to Adam. By now, unlike 1950, before carbon dating was a thing, that is only feasible with a dismissal or recalibration of dating methods. Which is my position, but hardly that of § 283 of your CCC.

Alex Pismenny

27.II.2023

All I am saying is that man is not an evolutionary product of apes. Theological difficulties disappear. The Bible stands as written. Scientific difficulties remain and unanswered questions emerge, but at least the Ape-Man hypothesis is destroyed.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

28.II.2023

Good to destroy that.

How about resolving the “difficulties” and “unanswered questions” even if it means ditching § 283?

Alex Pismenny

28.II.2023

I don’t mind Canon 283. Knowledge indeed is an increasing thing.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

28.II.2023

Things are supposed to be increasing knowledge in it, which are incompatible with the data we agree on.

Do you insist, once again, to skirt away from the difficulties of your position?

Alex Pismenny

28.II.2023

Yes I do. I don’t see any difficulties and you did not highlight any.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

28.II.2023

You have basically forgotten all of the dilemmas I gave in the previous debate - is your memory selective?

Papal Divisions

Alex Pismenny

28.II.2023

I remember you presented what you saw as dilemmas, and that my time is valuable.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

1.III.2023

OK, dilemma in logic has a very specific meaning. Let me brief you on a sudoku, to help you out.

Imagine in column I, square iv from top could be 2, and square v from top could be 6. But you still cannot have 2 in sq iv and 6 in sq v, for instance because only possibilities in sq vi are 2 and 6, meaning you can’t have both 2 and 6 in other squares of the column.

Denying Adam from ape and affirming deep time would be like trying to have both sq iv as 2 and sq v as 6, when sq vi only allows 2 or 6.

If your time is valuable, set some aside to read though what I actually wrote, instead of taking 5 minute snippets you can just barely spare and then you make a total mess of your arguing skills.

My time is valuable too, you know.

I was challenging you for a scenario that could overcome the dilemmas in some at least tentative way, not a confessio fidei to prove you are really, truly, honestly fine both with an absolute necessity of theology and with § 283. You let me wait for weeks, and you absolutely didn’t provide it.

V

Hans-Georg Lundahl

27.II.2023

V "In general, the confusion that astrophysics bring is psychological and not real. We think that if we are so important to God, then we should be in the center of the universe. That is incorrect and childish psychology. Place God in that center and remember that you were made from mud."

You seem so painfully eager to be the adult and to tell the other guy what he really means and why that is childish psychology.

Your priest arguably did learn "psychology" as one of the subjects in seminary. It's been in vogue for quite a while now. St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine didn't. Nor did Pope St. Pius X.

How about you forget about your priest and his trauma from seminary days? Freudians in France are willing to stamp one as having a childish psychology if at adult age one still enjoys the Chronicles of Narnia or anything by John Ronald Reuel Tolkien. That kind of nincompoop busibodies are the guys uncautious bishops and pseudopopes allowed to train your priest. When salt loses its savour ...

"It is useful to think of the Christian "above" and Christian "below" not as spatial directions but as measure of sanctity and of beauty. Angels are from above. Demons are from below. Angels are beautiful. Demons are ugly."

Sed contra est:

• a) spirits other than God are finite, and they are therefore in one place rather than in another, hence above or below us, in precisely spatial dimensions
• b) Heaven involves at least two human bodies - Our Lord's and Our Lady's. Probably it will also involve the risen bodies of the blessed. Therefore, Heaven is a specific place, where human bodies can survive.

"And people are around us. They form the plain of our existence: those that we love, those that we are supposed to protect or to teach or to shun. Other people are the geography of our daily life."

People who use psychology instead of argument, and speak of childish psychology as if it were an argument against a proposal or perceived relation, are among those I have a duty or at least interest to shun. Or argue strongly against in debate.

"In antiquity, the spiritual view of the cosmos was also the scientific view because for the tasks the primitive man had to do, flat earth with rotating Sun and Moon was all the science he needed."

This patronising of antiquity won't do. You are even conflating geocentrism with flat earth, which are two very different proposals. No Bible passage can be pinpointed as expressing a flat earth. Quite a few as expressing a usually rotating sun and moon, most notably Joshua 10:12-13.

Add to this that cosmic distances and sizes and implications from star light travel time only start off really with the Heliocentric scam:

New blog on the kid : Have you heard the expression "von Neumann chain"?
https://nov9blogg9.blogspot.com/2022/08/have-you-heard-expression-von-neumann.html

Alex Pismenny

27.II.2023

I am not replacing physics with psychology at all. Man on a bike is adequate coordinate system when on a bike. Geocentrism is adequate coordinate system when praying.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

28.II.2023

Your reformulation is not an excuse for the initial statement “childish psychology” …

Before we do astrophysics, how about doing astro-geometry? It used to be called “planar astronomy” back in Laplace’ days, and it so happens, his transition from planar astronomy to the Heliocentrism of his “physical astronomy” was badly argued then, and if you don’t want to go on and on patronising me, talking down to me, it is about time you start arguing why you prefer a physical astronomy which puts either God’s throne room billions of light years away, or into the position of a space ship or in no place at all, contrary to Christ, who is bodily risen, being there, and Mary, who is assumed body and soul, being there.

Especially as billions of light years also make it awkward to have creation 7222 years ago, and far stars still visible.

For instance, you pretended that we observe “other galaxies” - that’s like saying we “observe parallax of alpha Centauri as 0.76 arc seconds” … has it occurred to you that other interpretations of Andromeda than being “a galaxy like our own” or even of the stars “of our own galaxy” being sth else than a galaxy? Has it occurred to you that an angel could with each star and exo-planet in the Centaur be performing a dance to the glory of God, which is also poking fun at astronomers analysing the movement as “aberration, parallax, proper movement”?

What would the consequences be if Andromeda were only one light day up? Which one of them would deny the kind of reality a Christian can live with? Obviously, angelic movers are outside what atheists accept, but you are not agreeing to be called an atheist, are you?

Jacques Arnould in Paris wrote a book in which he lauded the progress of science to where a Universe “has its centre everywhere and its periphery nowhere” … are you aware this is quoting a statement of Nicolas of Cusa about God? “God is a circle who has its centre everywhere and its periphery nowhere” …. if the universe is infinite, it is inheriting God’s attributes, as if God had died for good instead of rising on the Third Day. If, as it should, the universe has a periphery, it also has a geometric centre, not just the centre of a coordinate system.

Alex Pismenny

28.II.2023

God is not a galaxy, not on the physical throne anywhere. God is not a part of the creation.

When praying or contemplating God is it best to think of Him in heaven above. That is all.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

28.II.2023

“God is not a galaxy,”

I did not say He was.

“not on the physical throne anywhere.”

Do you deny that Jesus is true God and true Man and truly risen and living forever?

Marcel Lefebvre - a new St. Athanasius or a new Martin Luther?

Michael Lofton Heard of Quo Primum Long After I Did · Ecclesiology of Mgr Lefebvre - Compared to Pope Michael · No to 1988 Consecrations = Yes to 1990 Emergency Conclave · Marcel Lefebvre - a new St. Athanasius or a new Martin Luther?

Any Lutheran reading this or watching the video, brace yourself, we Catholics use Martin Luther as a cussword ...

SSPX Founder's Distorted Theology on Tradition & the Church - Nov 16 - Homily - Fr Terrance
franciscanfriars, 16 Nov. 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnUj56vLRbg

Three or four of the issues raised by Fr. Terrance (Franciscans of the Immaculate) will be answered here.

• should one compare Lefebvre to St. Athanasius or Vatican II to Nicaea I (you can't do both)?
• did Mgr Lefebvre treat Tradition like Martin Luther treated the Bible?
• did Mgr Lefebvre deny the indefectibility of the Church?
• did Mgr Lefebvre define jurisdiction in the Catholic Church in a Lutheran way, as "derived from the people"?

Here are my comments:

3:47 "which in certain respects is even more important than that if Nicaea"*

Well, a good question to ask is, was "Vatican II" like Constance 1414 or like Pisa 1409?

Council of Pisa (1409) attempted to solve the Great Western Schism.
The council is not numbered because it was not convened by a pope and its outcome was repudiated at Constance.

As Mgr Lefebvre did not go to the Sedevacantist conclusion about validity of Popes residing in the Vatican after 1958, he was not in a position to make the parallel very clear ...

4:04 Who clearly condemns that comparison?
"Paul VI" - according to those who number Montini as a Pope, which is not the case with the late Pope Michael or with his followers
"now a canonised saint" - according to those who number Bergoglio as a Pope, which is not the case with the late Pope Michael or with his followers.

7:48 What if "Paul VI" had, if not immediately stepped down, at least stepped aside?

What if he had tried to name a commission with the express task to judge him on the accusations of people like Mgr Lefebvre or Georges de Nantes?

10:45 How many dead have anti-lefebvrists raised?

I know one miracle attributed to Paul VI. Oh, two, by now.

The first miracle involving Pope Paul VI took place in California in the 1990s. It also concerned an unborn which was found to have a serious health problem that could mean brain damage. Doctors advised that it be aborted, but the mother entrusted her pregnancy to Paul VI. The child was born healthy.

If the child was diagnosed months before birth, the healing could be natural. As to no brain damage, there was no diagnosis of brain damage having actually occurred.

This second miracle attributed to Pope Paul VI concerned the healing of an unborn in the fifth month of pregnancy. According to the Catholic News Agency the mother, from Verona in Italy, had an illness that risked her own life and the life of her unborn and was advised to have an abortion.

A few days after the beatification of Paul VI by Pope Francis in October 2014, the mother prayed to the now Blessed Paul VI at a shrine in Lombardy and the baby girl was later born in good health.**

I had read previously a more detailed news on the second miracle, it involved premature rupture of amniotic liquid, and while the baby was born healthy, the remainder of the pregnancy was without the aid of amniotic liquid and so, though the life was saved, an abnormality remained for some time.

In other words, two cases were the miracle would not have been attributed to the Blessed Virgin if it had occurred in Lourdes.

12:35 His actions cannot be compared to Luther's action about the Bible, because, Luther had not know the Biblical Church of the New Testament, first hand, but Lefebvre definitely had known pre-conciliar Tradition first hand. And been approved for knowing it.

Places of confidence like :

• ordination to priesthood 1929
• doctorate of theology 1930
• professor of theology at Libreville, Gabon
• Vicar Apostolic, later Archbishop of Dakar
• bishop of Tulle
• head of Holy Ghost Fathers

and the last of these up to 1968 ... this definitely means, he did know the pre-Conciliar Tradition very well.

Now, Luther obviously also knew the pre-Reformation Tradition first hand. But the problem is, he broke with it. And before you state "Lefebvre broke with it too" - well, certainly he broke with nothing in relation to obedience to the Pope until the perceived Pope had committed at least a perceived break with pre-Conciliar Tradition himself, the New Mass. Luther absolutely had no such excuse.

Since Luther had a more strict stance against interest taking than Pope Leo X, one could have imagined Luther might have gone into schism over Leo X officially allowing Montes pietatis to take a moderate interest to pay for the upkeep of the commodity (and not for making the upkeepers a kind of businessmen, mind you) ... but he didn't. This disagreement was never cited in the 95 theses, never cited in Exsurge Domine, which I have actually read, never cited when Luther spoke at the Diet of Worms, as far as I've been told (I haven't read detailed protocols, I only know the "history teachers' story" of it), never cited as far as I know in Luther's explanation of burning Exsurge Domine, and never cited in Decet Romanum Pontificem.

So, the one exact item where Luther could just possibly have been compared to Marcel Lefebvre, was totally irrelevant for the Reformation, even so much so, that Lutherans since his day disagree with Leo X on the other opposite, stating that interest taking is licit.

At least on the side of the understanding of tradition, so far there is no excuse for comparing Marcel Lefebvre to Luther.

12:56 "for all practical purposes, he cancelled 1500 tears of Church History"

Specifically with a New Liturgy, right? Now, look at 1969, who was making a New Liturgy which was at least accused of cancelling more than a millennium of Liturgic History? It was not Marcel Lefebvre.

13:33 He analysed the dogma of the indefectibility.

According to a theologian of the 19th C involved in Vatican "I" the Church stays Herself as long as there is at least one bishop still alive and faithful.

No one can deny Marcel Lefebvre had episcopal consecreation, no one can deny he was alive when what you talk of happened, so, Marcel Lefebvre did not deny being faithful, ergo, on that criterium, the Church had not defected - therefore, Marcel Lefebvre had not denied the indefectibility of the Church.

I wonder if the name of that theologian was "Mura" - it was probably not Antonio Mura, though ...

13:43 Stating that a given social body is no longer Catholic does not equate to denying that the Catholic Church has ceased to exist, as long as one affirms that the Catholic Church actually does exist outside that specific body.

This is obvious, for a social body the size of the pre-Reformation Church of for instance England or Sweden, and it is at least arguable that it could happen on the level of the Church universal, insofar as it is socially perceived as such while the real remaining Church universal remains as a remnant, and being socially perceived as extremists.

Does exist - and that there never was a meantime when it didn't exist, that is.

13:59 Nice move of equivocation. Also known as lying.

Luther heretically stated that ordinary jurisdiction came from the faithful people ...
Lefebvre stated that the jurisdiction the society claimed after the suspension a divinis and so on was a case by case emergency jurisdiction, derived from faithful individuals who would otherwise be deprived of correct pastoral.

Suppose a man in 1980 had said "I don't need to go to Lefebvre's Masses, I am fine with the priests the diocese provides" - well, in that case, the response would properly have been, on this principle "we have no jurisdiction over you, since you are not in an emergency" - there would be cases where one would not have said this, because one would have considered that man as being in an illusionary safety, but that is what the principle means.

Luther's principle pretty much means the opposite, it means that "since we are the people here and you are one of us, you need to submit to the priests whom the people here have given jurisdiction, you cannot apply to Rome, even for emergency" ... - and that's also historically how remaining Catholics were in fact treated after the Reformation, in Sweden or England - as defectors having to leave or outright traitors and rebels having to die.

Now, Pope Michael has a somewhat different criticism. He doesn't deny the concept of emergency jurisdiction - but he considers it inadequate to stay put with that for years, see no repentance from presumed Popes, continue to treat them as Popes, or see the See as "occupied by a material but no formal Pope" - rather, while a layman, he took the initiative to make an emergency election - to restore ordinary jurisdiction.

14:19 I found the letter you refer to very quickly.

Remarks with Respect to the New Bishop to Succeed His Excellency Bishop de Castro Mayer,
Marcel Lefebvre, February 20, 1991.
http://www.archbishoplefebvre.com/bishop-mayer-replacement.html

He very much does not say that jurisdiction in the Catholic Church comes from the people and in fact, the word "people" does not even occur in it. Here are two paragraphs which contrast the two types of jurisdiction:

First of all, it must be noted that his situation is not exactly the same as that of Bishop de Castro Mayer. This latter is Bishop Emeritus of Campos, after having been its residential bishop. Hence, one could conclude that he kept, if not a juridical power, at least a moral power, which given the present circumstances, could justify a pastoral action with respect to his former priests and faithful.

This is not the case with the new bishop, who has no other basis for jurisdiction than that which comes from the requests of the priests and the faithful to take care of their souls and those of their children, and who have asked him to accept the episcopacy so as to give them true Catholic priests and the grace of the Sacrament of Confirmation. Thus it is clear that the jurisdiction of the new bishop is not territorial but personal, as becomes also the jurisdiction of the priests.

Please note, the concept of "personal jurisdiction" and of it applying because of a personal choice is there in canonic practise. Fr. Terrance is not under the local bishop, but under Fr.Immacolato M.Acquali, FFI. Opus Dei has extended the possibility to laymen. And all the FSSPX is doing, along with in the case of the Fraternity of the Curate of Ars, is extending this to "jurisdiction of emergency" .... while this is not a durable solution, it is simply calumny to call this Lutheranism.

14:34 The two miracles attributed to "St John Paul II" could not have passed in Lourdes.

A) The French nun seems the remission had relapses
B) The Latin American woman seems the remission, though remarcably quick, was not instantaneous.

* True or False Pope : Letter of Pope Paul VI to Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre
http://www.trueorfalsepope.com/p/lefebvre-june-29-letter-from-paul-vi.html

** Irish Times : Vatican approves second miracle needed for canonisation of Pope Paul VI
Patsy McGarry, Tue Feb 6 2018 - 19:09
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/religion-and-beliefs/vatican-approves-second-miracle-needed-for-canonisation-of-pope-paul-vi-1.3382583

No to 1988 Consecrations = Yes to 1990 Emergency Conclave

Michael Lofton Heard of Quo Primum Long After I Did · Ecclesiology of Mgr Lefebvre - Compared to Pope Michael · No to 1988 Consecrations = Yes to 1990 Emergency Conclave · Marcel Lefebvre - a new St. Athanasius or a new Martin Luther?

Was Marcel Lefebvre Condemned by His Own Study?
Reason & Theology,1 March 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjVfYg9PZiw

0:51 Confer the fact that 1988 is much closer to when David Bawden concludes it is inadequate to not elect a Pope (to get back ordinary jurisdiction for tradition) that to January 1976, when an exorcist noted a demon's words about Lefebvre.

Pope Francis' Eucharist HERESY is in Canon Law and rebuked by Marcel Lefebvre
The Kennedy Report, 14 Oct. 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAfNRMaoNNw

A very good reason, either for the consecrations, or for an emergency conclave.

David Bawden proceded to the latter measure, 2 years or so (not sure of the exact date) after the consecrations.