Jamma starts giving examples! Yeah!

1) ... on reality of existence of numbers (and on Pythagoreans and Bruno), 2) Reality of Numbers, but Not of Numeric Infinity, 3) Jamma starts giving examples! Yeah!

Continued from previous

jamma246

The modern approach has proven useless? I'm going to assume that this was a joke. For practical as well as philosophical application, the modern approach in unparalleled and subsumes those naive philosophies of which you speak.

Just because the methods in modern mathematics aren't instructive to you, that doesn't mean that they aren't instructive for others. The examples are endless. To take one, Lawvere found that the theory of metric spaces became much more elegant after allowing distances to become infinite. To someone like you, that wouldn't be 'allowed', since infinity doesn't 'exist'. You would never have progressed mathematics or logical thought like he did, as a result of your dyed-in-the-wool philosophies. But he didn't think in this way, thankfully. And there is nothing unintuitive about any of this: if two points are infinite distance from each other, then that is like one point just being unreachable from the other (in a sense, they are on distinct 'islands' of points). Metric spaces don't necessarily need to represent physical objects, they could represent theoretical objects too, so points at infinite distance could, for example, represent points where one can't be reached through a finite process to the other, such as a calculation.

Another example is given by the whole field of analysis. It is all intuitive, all elegant, all instructive. But it is basically essential to use the concept of infinity, in particular for sequences. The notion of a 'limit' is what took the field off the ground, this allowed Newton and Leibniz to make the great progress that they did, in mathematics as well as philosophy. Infinite sequences are something that you seem to take exception to in the video.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"The modern approach has proven useless? I'm going to assume that this was a joke."

Preliminarily, I hope?

Because, it was not.

For practical uses the modern approach to theory is useless since no practical needs of any value require infinite decimals or infinite continuousity of a fraction to be actually executed.

For theoretical uses, YOU just proved the modern approach useless, since it made you incapable of answering points that were just silly, while as a Thomist I could easily answer them.

"For practical as well as philosophical application, the modern approach in unparalleled and subsumes those naive philosophies of which you speak."

Being unparalleled for application is no guarantee of being very useful. Philosophical applications can namely be very wrong, like Kant and Krauss have shown. Practical applications that are provenly right are also, systematically something else than really applying the modern approach.

"To take one, Lawvere found that the theory of metric spaces became much more elegant after allowing distances to become infinite."

To St Thomas and to me, he is quite welcome to the elegance, and even of using infinity as a model (and never actually using it), as long as he doesn't take that for factual truth about infnite distances really existing. Btw, I didn't say infnity doesn't exist. I said that infinite magnitudes and multitudes do not exist.

"You would never have progressed mathematics or logical thought like he did, as a result of your dyed-in-the-wool philosophies."

You missed that St Thomas gave mathematicians quite enough leeway to do anything they wanted with fictional concepts in maths.

Two things I balk, one is taking "infinite distance" as a non-fiction mathematical reality, or "number line" or "numbers less than zero"; the other is taking solid concepts like finite numbers (and their always being rational) or like geometric figures (and their size ratios not always being rational) and call them fictions just because fictions exist in maths.

"And there is nothing unintuitive about any of this: if two points are infinite distance from each other, then that is like one point just being unreachable from the other (in a sense, they are on distinct 'islands' of points)."

In that sense there can be no infinite DISTANCE between them because a point in Archenland or Narnia or Elidor (supppsing God had created such worlds) has no spatial relation to our world at all.

A distance between the points implies a line reaching one point from the other point, and that means it is finite. As you just very correctly said "infinita non est pertransire" (as St Thomas applied in the Cosmological proof of God), where the distance or rather non-nearness of two points is infinite, it is no distance and where it is a distance it is not infinite.

"Another example is given by the whole field of analysis. It is all intuitive, all elegant, all instructive. But it is basically essential to use the concept of infinity, in particular for sequences. The notion of a 'limit' is what took the field off the ground, this allowed Newton and Leibniz to make the great progress that they did, in mathematics as well as philosophy. Infinite sequences are something that you seem to take exception to in the video."

Analysis is an art of approximation, thus of fiction, though useful such.

A limit implies a sentence like "if the sequence could go on to infinity, even so the result would not progress beyond, nor regress behind this limit."

I agree, especially about the use of the unreal mood. The value you get for a limit may be theoretically equivalent to the series going on to infinity, but it can never actually be had that way. The limit value is, essentially, one thing. The series is another and only by the impossible operation of making it go on to infinity (as opposed to St Thomas Aquinas' "as long as needed", check the quote above again) could one thinkably adjust it to the value called limit value without any use of approximation.

In other words, the series is and will always remain as distinct from the limit value as a series like:

3:1 / 4:1
31:10 / 32:10
314:100 / 315:100
3141:1000 / 3142:1000
31,415:10,000 / 31,416:10,000

will always fall on one or other side of the real value of π.

jamma246

"For theoretical uses, YOU just proved the modern approach useless, since it made you incapable of answering points that were just silly, while as a Thomist I could easily answer them."

Name some of those points, I'd like to hear them.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

The ones YOU named. Are you forgetful?

Let me help you out :

[Linking to this message]

jamma246

"A limit implies a sentence like "if the sequence could go on to infinity, even so the result would not progress beyond, nor regress behind this limit.""

This just proves that you don't understand how infinity is rigorously used in mathematics. This interpretation of what a limit is is completely incorrect.

There is no appeal to "if the sequence could go on to infinity". The sequence is an infinite string. And there is no issue with that whatsoever, no problems occur. And the definition of a limit of such a thing has a simple and well-defined definition.

If you would just see how real mathematics is done, I think that you would find that it is always logical, and there is usually an urge to keep things conceptual and intuitive. Often, using some notion of infinity is incredibly helpful and philosophically the 'correct' thing to do. You seem to take the position that, fine, this is useful as a trick, but has no application to the real world. But you have no justified reason for believing this. And mathematics, at heart, is simply a bag of tricks. It is the most "real" of the sciences, in that it is all based on purely logical reasoning, so its study is always applicable in that sense. But trying to partition the "real and non-real", I take exception to that. It is firstly very arrogant, since it implies that the human can know the distinction. Secondly, I think that it is a meaningless distinction. All concepts of mathematics are "non-real" in the sense that they are abstractions. So your bleating about how this and that are "non-real" or "don't exist" is not only arrogant, but also meaningless.

Please - I honestly and sincerely mean this - read up on some modern theory. Read a book about metric spaces or analysis or set theory. It will open your eyes. Mathematicians are completely aware of these philosophical issues. The ideas of constructivism are still thought about in areas such as topos theory. The axiom of choice is still an important and recognised issue. Read, and open your eyes - get out of the 13th century.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"The sequence is an infinite string."

Only potentially so.

"And there is no issue with that whatsoever, no problems occur. And the definition of a limit of such a thing has a simple and well-defined definition."

Let us take an example of limes and sequence, shall we.

Fibonacci sequence has for limes φ, right?

1:1 / 1:2
2:3 / 3:5
5:8 / 8:13
13:21 / 21:34

However long the sequence may go on in the operation of the mathematician, it will certainly converge with but never reach the limes φ.

Replacing the finite values of sequence with infinity-of-that-sequence is really stepping out of the sequence.

We don't need that, we don't need an arithmetic definition of φ to be rigourous, we already have exact geometric definitions.

"If you would just see how real mathematics is done, I think that you would find that it is always logical, and there is usually an urge to keep things conceptual and intuitive."

Oh, mathematics as done in the 13th C. is no longer real mathematics? Since when?

"Often, using some notion of infinity is incredibly helpful and philosophically the 'correct' thing to do."

And philosophically the incorrect thing to do, vide Sanctum Thomam.

[OK, exaggerated, since "some notion of the infinite" covers also the purely potential one, which is quite acceptable to St Thomas, but I got a bit flustered.]

"You seem to take the position that, fine, this is useful as a trick, but has no application to the real world. But you have no justified reason for believing this."

My justified reason is observation of mathematicians at every turn of their real practise.

In the sequence of fractions that man did not go on into infinity, he stopped at a very early level of execution of the series.

"And mathematics, at heart, is simply a bag of tricks."

Algebra may have given you that impression. Confusing arithmetic and geometry may also have given you that impression. But get INTO the thirteenth century, see them reason on maths or take me as a default, and we shall see if statements about maths can't be made to fit real mathematical realities of an obvious nature a good deal better.

"But trying to partition the "real and non-real", I take exception to that. It is firstly very arrogant, since it implies that the human can know the distinction."

Oh, my condoleances! You are a damned Kantian. Damned unless you repent that is.

Yes, one can know the distinction quite well, and your saying one can't is ANOTHER illustration on your part that the modern take is hurting your grasp on the philosophy of maths.

For instance, the squares of binomials. (a+b)² = a² + 2ab + b² both per se and as a mathematical convenience.

But (a-b)² = a² - 2ab + b² only as a convenience and per accidens. Per se it rather equals (the more cumbrous, I admit) a² - ab - (ab - b²).

"Secondly, I think that it is a meaningless distinction. All concepts of mathematics are "non-real" in the sense that they are abstractions."

That is misunderstanding what abstracting means.

Abstracting is not and should not be inventing mere placeholders. Three is indeed an abstraction, but of real (and imagined but realistically so) collections of three objects or of three events etc. Square is an abstraction of real (or imagined but realistically so) square formed surfaces. All through the real universe. Inventing counters and abstracting concepts correctly are two different things.

"So your bleating about how this and that are "non-real" or "don't exist" is not only arrogant, but also meaningless."

To your Gaussian barbarism from 19th C. Germany, no doubt.

"Read, and open your eyes - get out of the 13th century."

I have read and opened my eyes and landed IN the 13th century as far as mental furniture is concerned.

Thank God!

jamma246

"Only potentially so."

Meaningless.

"Let us take an example of limes and sequence, shall we."

What is a lime?

"However long the sequence may go on in the operation of the mathematician, it will certainly converge with but never reach the limes φ.

Replacing the finite values of sequence with infinity-of-that-sequence is really stepping out of the sequence."

Who says that it will "reach" φ? What is "infinity-of-that-sequence"? What is "stepping out of the sequence"? It's like you are inventing things that no mathematician does to justify your stupid position.

"My justified reason is observation of mathematicians at every turn of their real practise."

Well then, you seem to have little experience of working with mathematicians.

"In the sequence of fractions that man did not go on into infinity, he stopped at a very early level of execution of the series."

What do you mean by "execution of the series"? You are talking meaningless, non-rigorous babble.

"...and we shall see if statements about maths can't be made to fit real mathematical realities..."

Exactly. Mathematics is always made to "fit" reality when one wishes to apply it, it isn't actually reality. It is abstraction. So your distinction is meaningless. All mathematics is abstraction, it's just that some concepts have simpler connections to reality than others.

"But (a-b)sqrd = a^2 - 2ab + b^2 only as a convenience and per accidens. Per se it rather equals (the more cumbrous, I admit) a^2 - ab - (ab - b^2)."

Under what rules? This is a preposterous sentence, utterly hilarious.

Continue enjoying living in the 13th century, and adding nothing of value to knowledge or understanding.

Hans Georg Lundahl

[Only potentially so.]

« Meaningless. »

Again, to your barbarous and clumsy modernity of thought. No, quite meaningful. God knows the whole potentiality into infinity of the Fibonacci sequence – but He also knows very well which of the ratios He did and which He didn’t give actuality by creating things with sizes or numbers or timelengths etc with the ratio.

[Let us take an example of limes and sequence, shall we.]

“What is a lime?”

Limes is the Latin nominative singular for a stem which goes “limit-“ in all other cases - and in English it seems the loan word identical to the [Latin] stem is as such used. In German or Swedish you can’t quite do that. “Grenze” or “gräns” is limit or frontier. It is not a Mathematical term. In Maths you either say “Grenzwehrt” or “gränsvärde” or you use the word as in Latin, not as in English. Limes. Too bad for English Mathematicians if they can no longer use the Latin term.

Lime is a fruit I was not alluding to either in singular or in plural, even if the English plural of lime is homographic with the Latin singular limes.

[However long the sequence may go on in the operation of the mathematician, it will certainly converge with but never reach the limes φ.

Replacing the finite values of sequence with infinity-of-that-sequence is really stepping out of the sequence.]

“Who says that it will "reach" φ? What is "infinity-of-that-sequence"? What is "stepping out of the sequence"? It's like you are inventing things that no mathematician does to justify your stupid position.”

Well, if you admit it is not reaching φ, you have admitted the sequence is never drawn out to infinity in actuality. Which is you have admitted my position as correct.

In that case my attack is not on what modern Mathematicians are doing, just against the shortcuts of their terminology which camouflages it to non-Mathematicians.

But when Kant could believe Universe was a round disc infinite in two dimensions and limited only at straight angles to it, well, you can see how the wording you used may have done mischief in other fields. Which are my main concern.

[My justified reason is observation of mathematicians at every turn of their real practise.]

“Well then, you seem to have little experience of working with mathematicians.”

This video justified it again. I hope I have missed no video of numberphile dealing with “infinity” and my empiric evidence of watching those seems to point to St Thomas having very accurately observed geometricians in his day and mathematicians have not changed practice since, just gone sloppier in terminology.

[In the sequence of fractions that man did not go on into infinity, he stopped at a very early level of execution of the series.]

“What do you mean by "execution of the series"? You are talking meaningless, non-rigorous babble.”

If by rigorous you mean translatable into formulas using symbols without words, you are right about my talk, except in calling it babble (unless you are the businessman of Athens who called Socrates a babbler when he condemned usury – in which case you are right from your point of view). But if so, I hate to have been so late in bringing this to you, but you have a wrong sense of what logical rigour means.

The series could have been executed, taken out, performed, brought to actuality, explicitated etc. another step. And another step. And so on, POTENTIALLY into infinity but NEVER ACTUALLY reaching it.

The problem with your trying to express everything in symbols is or includes that there are no symbols for the distinction between potential and actual. There are however Thomistic concepts of it.

jamma246

You just prove that it's impossible to reason with a religious person. If people kept holding to your views, we would still be in the dark ages.

I can't be bothered to talk about this anymore, or read your huge ranting posts.

Keep reading!

Hans-Georg Lundahl

My so called rants are answers in detail to what you wrote.

Glad my last one stopped at 618 words.

And glad you show your colour as not interested in maths as such or mathematical truth, but in promoting secularism.

If it is impossible for you to reason with a "religious person", it may be because you are yourself not very worth reasoning with.

I started enjoying the thing when you gave examples, and was planning to satisfy you on the "according to what rule" question too if rechallenged.

There used to be a time when infidels were worth either running a sword through OR reasoning philosophy with. You are not promoting a preference for the second alternative.

jamma246

"And glad you show your colour as not interested in maths as such or mathematical truth, but in promoting secularism."

I am extremely interested in maths and mathematical truth. That is why I reject your non-rigorous mumbo-jumbo. And, by the way, secularism is about allowing all relevant positions to be heard. That doesn't mean that one has to accept irrelevant antiquated opinions that are not rooted in logical sense.

"I started enjoying the thing when you gave examples, and was planning to satisfy you on the "according to what rule" question too if rechallenged."

That's the point. The constructions work within the confines of the theory. For example, there is a world of maths where the Axiom of Choice holds. There is one where it doesn't. But neither is "real" or "non-real". At that point, where you are segregating "real" maths from "non-real" maths, you jump from mathematics to pseudo-science, and that is precisely what you are doing. And mankind has made great progress since it dropped such naive techniques.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"I am extremely interested in maths and mathematical truth."

Just the other day you said mathematics is at heart just a bag of tricks.

To me that is a very true obervation of ALGEBRA, but not of ARITHMETIC, nor of GEOMETRY.

"That is why I reject your non-rigorous mumbo-jumbo."

I am not sure exactly what kind of rigour you demand, I hope it's not rigor mortis. I suggested you meant by rigour sth which can be shown using symbols of mathematical convention ideally without using words, except the initial ones explaining each symbol.

If that is so, you have a very different attitude - a really superstitious, fetischistic mumbo-jumboish - to what scientific stringence or rigour ought to mean. From what St Thomas had (in his time to make an addition you had as yet no +, you used a. = adde), and from what I have.

"And, by the way, secularism is about allowing all relevant positions to be heard. That doesn't mean that one has to accept irrelevant antiquated opinions"

In other words, secularism as you define it is about allowing all positions about a thing to be heard except the one which is most relevant, because the true one.

Old does not equal antiquated. 2+2=4 is as old an observation as Adam and Eve, way before any mathematicians did things. Does this mean it will one day be antiquated? Of course not!

You show off the relevance of the Thomistic position, not by admitting it verbally, but by harping on its irrelevance (to your set of mathematicians that is no doubt a subjective truth) rather than using arguments why it should be considered faulty.

"that are not rooted in logical sense."

The Thomistic positions as a collection in general and those I gave on mathematics are on the contrary very well rooted in the logical sense.

You see, Arithmetic does deal with a central Thomistic concept, namely one, taken as an undivided whole, as opposed to its multiples.

And Geometry deals with another side of same concept, namely one, taken as the whole and divisible.

It is on the contrary algebra which is not rooted in the logical sense.

Saying that "-b" * "-b" somehow "= + b²" is very right per accidens in certain contexts, but very wrong if taken as a general rule.

(a - b)² per se = a² - ab - b(a - b) - and sorry if I gave the wrong amount of subtraction for the second one last day, I was a bit flustered - but only per accidens does it = a² - 2ab + b².

You see, - is simply a new sign for "s." as in "subtrahe". And by subtracting from a subtrahend you end up subtracting less from the minuend, that does not mean you actually add to it. Some have, with very shallow grasp of logic or very subtle disregard for this reality considered the algebraic rule of "-b * -b = +b²" as being a truth in its own right rather than an aspect of the larger truth which per se is expressed "(a - b)² = a² - ab - b(a - b)". And a minor aspect at that, since a - b = c, a subtraction must leave a difference. A real subtraction can never have zero or "less than zero" as such a difference.

Up to about 1600 there was no unity among mathematicians (whatever unity there was afterwards, up to now) on treating zero as anything but a place holder in positional Arabic numerals. Between 1500 and 1600 (very roughly) there was a debate. It ended, alas, on the wrong note.

"The constructions work within the confines of the theory."

Saying even "(a - b)² = a² - 2ab + b²" is not so much theory as convention.

"For example, there is a world of maths where the Axiom of Choice holds. There is one where it doesn't."

I do not know what the "Axiom of Choice" means even. It may be a very basic truth or a very obvious non-truth, but one of the worlds of math you refer to is not real.

"But neither is "real" or "non-real". At that point, where you are segregating "real" maths from "non-real" maths, you jump from mathematics to pseudo-science, and that is precisely what you are doing."

I have no shame in having my very defensible positions labelled pseudo-science by a modern academician whose own activity is hardly strictly logical.

As to your last words, "progress" is vastly overrated.

I came into Creationism (maximum six literal days and probably that maximum as diverging from the option given by St Augustine in De Genesi ad litteram books V and VI), into Geocentrism, into Angelic movers of the celestial bodies and into Flood Geology before I came to start debating with mathematicians or their adherents among my opponents about more than ten years ago.

So, if you think you can intimidate me by indignation outbursts about my doing "pseudo-science", you are barking up the wrong tree.

Take the debate on grounds of shared mathematical facts and logic, or leave it. But lecturing on "progress" and on "pseudo-science" is simply just annoying.

jamma246

"Just the other day you said mathematics is at heart just a bag of tricks.

To me that is a very true obervation of ALGEBRA, but not of ARITHMETIC, nor of GEOMETRY."

This seems to be my point. I don't actually regard mathematics as a bag of tricks, that was a bad explanation, but what I meant is that it is all abstract, there isn't abstract vs. non-abstract mathematics, that is a useless and ill-defined philosophy. Mathematics is all about logical deduction. Your position seems to be that some mathematics is "real" (e.g., it seems algebra) but that some is not (e.g., arithmetic and geometry).

I simply don't understand how or why you make this distinction. Why, for example, is Euclidean geometry something which you see as "real" mathematics, that "exists" and not algebra? It is very likely that the world that we live in isn't even based upon Euclidean geometry, so your position seems to be meaningless.

Anyway, you have proven yet again how religious thought can lead one astray. I cannot be bothered to comment any longer.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"I don't actually regard mathematics as a bag of tricks, that was a bad explanation"

If anything a bad statement of your position, not sure your positions is fixed enough for you to know it.

"but what I meant is that it is all abstract,"

I agree, whereever it becomes concrete like a geometric figure in a construction or a geometric occurrence to be studied, it is no longer pure but applied mathematics.

A 3:4:5 triangle is abstract, make one on a paper and it may be for instance 9.42 cm : 12.57 cm : 15.71 cm, which is its concrete size adding nothing to the abstract concept of a 3:4:5 triangle.

So, yes, mathematics as such is always abstract.

"there isn't abstract vs. non-abstract mathematics, that is a useless and ill-defined philosophy."

I have never said there is abstract vs. non-abstract mathematics, unless now if by non-abstract you mean the concrete sample studied.

I have said some abstractions are from real concrete objects having something in common, and some of these objects are of mathematical nature, like multitudes and magnitudes, and so we get real abstractions like arithmetic and geometry.

Other abstractions are rather from the universally observed "behaviour" of the concrete objects and, though licit, rather constitutes fiction than science.

Never said you can't have a numberline (with zero and "minus numbers"), but just that unlike the series 1, 2, 3 it does not accurately depict a series of multitudes.

So, not "some mathematics is abstract, other is concrete" (excepting of course distinction of discipline from its samples), but that some abstractions are based on reality and others, more or less usefully, are fooling around with it.

I am not into denying anyone the pleasure of fooling around with reality, love reading Tolkien myself, but you seem to be taking:

• either x=5-7 for as real (though as abstract) as x=7-5
  
  
• or x=7-5 for as abstract (and hence as unreal?) as x=5-7.

THAT is bad philosophy. The counterpart would be to take either LotR for as real as Anglo-Saxon Chronicle or Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for as fictional as LotR.

"Your position seems to be that some mathematics is "real" (e.g., it seems algebra) but that some is not (e.g., arithmetic and geometry)."

On the contrary. Euclidean geometry is real (except the fiction - useful as it is - that lines are infinite), so is Pythagorean arithmetic, so is their tête à tête in Boethius and in his inheritor St Thomas.

"Why, for example, is Euclidean geometry something which you see as "real" mathematics, that "exists" and not algebra?"

I have given examples of how algebra uses rules and in some cases end up with concepts having no concrete counterparts in reality - i e constituting malformed abstractions. (sqrt of minus 1 is a favourite example).

You defend your position they make as much sense as Pythagorean theorem if you like, but you changed the subject to make a tirade, a frontal attack ad hominem about my attitude to mathematics.

One thing you may have said very truly! You "simply don't understand how or why you make this distinction," that may possibly be true, you may possibly have bent your reason to disregard obvious distinctions that much.

Not my fault, not my problem.

[Unless someone tries to make it so? Then that kind of acting would be my problem.]

"It is very likely that the world that we live in isn't even based upon Euclidean geometry, so your position seems to be meaningless."

That likelihood is a very moot point.

It is for instance possible that modern maths is deluding modern physics and modern physics is deluding modern maths.

Even so, Euclidean geometry is a phenomenon which very obviously does occur in the world as we see it.

It is just that Euclid analyses examples which are so simple they do not really occur, because these simple examples illustrate what does occur.

"Anyway, you have proven yet again how religious thought can lead one astray."

You are proving again you are pushing secularism rather than logically defending your take on maths.

There was NOTHING in my reasons for this position which you could pinpoint as religious. Saying my preference for maths understanding of Boethius and St Thomas is Catholic biassed is like saying someone else's preference for Einstein's physics is Jewish biassed.

In fact Boethius and St Thomas share their understanding with two pagans (Euclid and Pythagoras) each of whom also had a different religion not just from the Catholics but even from each other.

"I cannot be bothered to comment any longer."

Is that a promise?

Reality of Numbers, but Not of Numeric Infinity

1) ... on reality of existence of numbers (and on Pythagoreans and Bruno), 2) Reality of Numbers, but Not of Numeric Infinity, 3) Jamma starts giving examples! Yeah!

Video commented on

Infinite Fractions - Numberphile
Numberphile
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpwUVExX27E

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"Infinite Fractions" - no such thing.

Potentially infinite serial fractions [what I meant is called "continued fractions], like ways of writing π as a sequence, yes. But are never actually executed.

And the relation of perimeter to diameter is not per se infinite, just not adequately numerisable for its accurate value.

For an approx value, that's another matter.

jamma246

So is there such thing as a fraction?

Honestly, these pseudo-philosophical arguments about what kinds of mathematical objects exist and which don't always end up being silly.

sibtain ali

There are infinite numbers so infinite fractions

Hans-Georg Lundahl

A finite fraction very certainly exists, like 1/3 or 2/5. It is very certainly also executed.

Certain ratios also exists which could be reinterpreted as infinite series of serial fractioning. but those serial fractionings are never executed any more than a geometer ever executes "take a line of infinite length".

So, no, what kinds of mathematical objects exist and what kinds do not exist is a very legitimate philosophical - not pseudophilosophical but really philosophical question which very much interests me.

Oh, by the way, the kind of ratios that cannot be expressed accurately and exactly as finite fractions but only as infinite serial fractions, like π, are never number-to-number ratios but more like domain of size-to-size ratios or similar mathematical continua outside arithmetic proper.

sibtain ali, no, there is no such thing as a number which is infinity and there is no such thing as a fraction which contains fraction within fraction up to infinity being reached.

The series of different numbers like 1 2 3 4 and of different fractions like 1/2, 2/2, 3/2, 4/2 ... 1/3, 2/3, 3/3, 4/3 and so on are potentially infinite in so far as mathematicians cannot know when the next number or possibly even the next fraction ceases to count or account for something in the universe in its mathematical aspect.

jamma246

"A finite fraction very certainly exists, like 1/3 or 2/5. It is very certainly also executed."

I'm sorry, I have no idea what you are talking about. What do you mean by "executed"? What is your criterion for a certain mathematical object "existing", what does that even mean?

Does the square-root of 2 make it onto your list of mathematical idealisations which "exists"? Does the set of natural numbers "exist"?

Honestly, what you are saying is total nonsense:

"The series of different numbers like 1 2 3 4 and of different fractions like 1/2, 2/2, 3/2, 4/2 ... 1/3, 2/3, 3/3, 4/3 and so on are potentially infinite in so far as mathematicians cannot know when the next number or possibly even the next fraction ceases to count or account for something in the universe in its mathematical aspect."

There is no claim that this quantity "accounts for something in the universe"; how would one even define what that means? That seems ridiculously subjective for me, and yet you speak about it with such authority.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"What do you mean by "executed"? What is your criterion for a certain mathematical object "existing", what does that even mean?"

I mean that the mathematician overlooks every "number" of the fraction and its fractionality.

It is executed by the fact of writing it. [By writing it out in full.]

While a serial fraction is never executed, never written out in full, never given a fully accurate simplification if it is "infinite".

That is what I mean.

"Does the square-root of 2 make it onto your list of mathematical idealisations which "exists"?"

As a piece of geometry, yes.

As a piece of arithmetic, no.

It is comprehended as for instance "hypotenuse of any right angled triangle of which both kathetoi (not sure what that is in English) are same length, relative to that length taken as one".

It is not a numerical execution, but a comprehensible one. Of a piece of geometry.

"There is no claim that this quantity "accounts for something in the universe"; how would one even define what that means?"

I might say I am not Kantian. I do not believe the universe is infinite.

Number of atoms is limited.

Number of conglomerates of atoms is limited.

Number of events are limited.

Some numbers handled theoretically in Arabic numerals and perhaps with a "*10ⁿ" may be beyond any finite number of finite things or events to count.

But the meaning in which numbers are "potentially infinite" is that we have no mathematical way in which to decide what that greatest de facto real number would be.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

The only sense in which I am "subjective" is the fact that I refuse to be intersubjective with people attributing infinity to the creation and doing that in mathematcial ways.

I am no more subjective than any other serious believing Catholic.

jamma246

The philosophy of mathematics is an interesting subject, but many of these observations have already been answered and, to be honest, you are speaking a load of gibberish.

There are certainly interesting foundational questions; what things can and cannot be proved in mathematics, which constructions are or are not permitted... given the initial axioms!. For example, it is perfectly acceptable to say that one has different results or methods depending on whether or not one assumes the truth of the Axiom of Choice. Constructivist mathematics has a different flavour to non-constructivist mathematics. But it is pointless to ask whether or not the AoC is true or "exists". It is simply an axiom. Similarly, it is meaningless to declare some mathematical object or another as "existing" in a real sense. All mathematical constructions are idealised constructs, by definition.

We've moved past the time where people would shun, for example, the complex numbers for not being "real". Our understanding is now far more sophisticated than that. Number 2 is no more "real" than π or sqrt(-1) is, but one may still work with initial axioms which do or do not permit certain constructions. There is great generality with which one can extend these ideas, see for example Topos Theory.

[2 and π are both real. But in diverse disciplines, see a previous commentary. But sqrt(-1) and even "-1" if taken as a number rather than as a "relative number" or "numeric relation", if taken as "sth less than zero" is not. Nor is zero.]

Hans-Georg Lundahl

My axioms and the common sense ones are:

• number means either one single or one single several times over.
  
  Start arithmetic from there;
  
  
• size relations can be like relations between numbers (e g number 3, 4, 5 can have the same relation between them as the 3, 4, 5 sides of the Egyptian triangle);
  
  
• size relations can also be NOT like relations between any numbers (e g a triangle with two sides equalling each other and having a right angle could call that equality a 1:1, a 2:2, a 3:3 equality, whichever they liked, but either way the relation of the third side, of the hypotenuse, to each of the others would be sqrt(2) which is simply NOT a number).

Geometry needs more axioms than these to work, but these are two basic ones so as not to confuse it with nor over separate it from arithmetic.

Unlike arbitrarily chosen axioms, these are rooted in the nature of the kind of things that mathematics actually studies. Or used to study.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

After actually watching the video:

• a man can go on with the Stern Brocot sequence and the fractions it generates as long as he likes or can manage, but that is a VERY finite amount which is executed, like on the triangular form he executed down to x/4 and x/5 but no further;
  
  
• God can execute all of the sequence at once - but He has also chosen how much of it which corresponds to meaningful and correct information about any relations of quantities in the universe and which other ones do not.

I thought we were dealing with something else, a but more complicated.

π Continued Fraction
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/PiContinuedFraction.html

Continued Fraction
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/SimpleContinuedFraction.html

In these case each fraction itself by being infinite is never fully executed.

jamma246

Please stop.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

People who are as uninterested in philosophy as you might do well to leave maths alone as well.

But I am stopping as I have made my point.

jamma246

I can assure you that people in mathematics often love philosophy. But they don't enjoy meaningless pseudo-philosophical ramblings.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Nothing in what I said was pseudo-philosophical and nothing in what I said was meaningless.

codediporpal

The universe disagrees. Just because you can't compute it doesn't mean the universe isn't doing it all the time.

jamma246

Hi[s] reasons depend on dogmatism and "God". I wouldn't bother trying to argue with it - meaningless waffle, the antithesis of mathematics.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Oh, no.

An "infinite distance" is for example an oxymoron.

Any distance is between two points, any point at the end of a distance ends it there, any distance ended in two points is finite.

So, no such thing as an infinite distance.

So, I have full rational backing for my observation - it's you atheists who have none.

Summa Theologica I P, Q7, A3
Article 3. Whether an actually infinite magnitude can exist?

"Objection 1. It seems that there can be something actually infinite in magnitude. For in mathematics there is no error, since "there is no lie in things abstract," as the Philosopher says (Phys. ii). But mathematics uses the infinite in magnitude; thus, the geometrician in his demonstrations says, "Let this line be infinite." Therefore it is not impossible for a thing to be infinite in magnitude."

And skimming over rest of objections and skimming over his systematic answer we get the answer to this one:

"Reply to Objection 1. A geometrician does not need to assume a line actually infinite, but takes some actually finite line, from which he subtracts whatever he finds necessary; which line he calls infinite."

The mathematician in this video proceeded no differently. He only executed the sequence to a not just finite but even very low magnitude. We were only dealing with x/4 and x/5 here.

The point is not just that these are finite, but that however much greater he had executed it to, he would still have executed only a finite sequence and its last items would still be finite.

Here is the whole article, and note the next one:

First Part Q7. The infinity of God
Article 3. Whether an actually infinite magnitude can exist?
http://newadvent.com/summa/1007.htm#article3

Ibidem : Article 4. Whether an infinite multitude can exist?
http://newadvent.com/summa/1007.htm#article4

The next one concerns us even more. There is no such thing as an actually infinite multitude.

jamma246

Hahaha, from 'The Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas'.

Well, have fun continuing to base your philosophies on your religion. In the meantime, mathematicians and scientists will continue making fundamental and important contributions to the real world, using actual mathematics, which can perfectly well cope with infinities, and has done for centuries.

There's a reason why logic and science always say a lot more about the real world, and are a lot more useful than philosophical prejudice.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"Hahaha, from 'The Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas'."

I quite agree, except on the "hahaha" part.

I am as said not BASING my philosophy on my religion.

I am ACCEPTING religion as a corrective to philosophy whenever faulty, but in this case, the case for the Thomistic position is very clear independently of Catholicism.

"In the meantime, mathematicians and scientists will continue making fundamental and important contributions to the real world,"

As a Thomist, I like observing and understanding it correctly before making a contribution to it.

"using actual mathematics"

So did St Thomas. Here.

"which can perfectly well cope with infinities, and has done for centuries"

"Cope with infinities" is something other than using infinity, other than as a concept verging on fiction.

St Thomas' example with the Geometrician whose "infinite line" is just a line from which he can deduce as much as he needs is pretty close to what mathematicians do to this very day.

"There's a reason why logic and science always say a lot more about the real world, and are a lot more useful than philosophical prejudice."

That's a nice philosophical prejudice on your side!

Now, philosophy and science are normally coterminous. There is a correct and logical way to do it, like St Thomas did, and there is a prejudiced way, like you do.

Mathematicians have and use some kind of concept of "infinity" - your prejudice is that their terminology is correct and complete. My observation is one would at least need to add "potential" to "infinity" before it makes any sense.

jamma246

Well, I'm sorry, but the ideas of Thomas Aquinas have been almost wholly demolished by this point. He had nothing useful to say about reality whatsoever. Welcome to the more enlightened 21st century.

He was clearly an intelligent person, but his religious convictions lead him to naive and unreasoned statements about reality. It is no coincidence that when we stopped pretending that mathematical concepts were physical ones, the subject leapt forward and we started making real progress. It doesn't matter whether negative numbers 'exist' or complex numbers 'exist' - they are useful and well-defined tools (and asking whether such things 'exist' is meaningless anyway). The same goes for infinity.

Can you tell me any actual contributions that philosophers such as Thomas Aquainas made to science or mathematics? Anything to back up the claim that they saw the world more clearly than a pure mathematician such as, say, Grothendieck? What useful mathematics did Thomas Aquinas ever come up with? The mathematicians with fewer prejudices (such as against infinity) who saw the subject for what it is, as abstraction, were the ones who proved actual rigorous results with real world consequences. Take any list of the greatest mathematicians of the last thousand years, and they wouldn't have had these silly prejudices against mathematical concepts just because they couldn't cook up something from the real world which seemed to resemeble the mathematical concept. There were a couple of construtivists, such as Brouwer, but most of these seemed to understand that doing constructivist mathematics is simply to study a different branch of mathematics, where certain axioms aren't assumed, rather than to claim that the other approach was 'wrong'.

Infinity pervades mathematics. Even in subjects such as combinatorics it is useful to use infinity. It is simply a tool, just as any concept of mathematics is, and is as well-defined as any other mathematical concept. Talk to actual mathematicians and they will have no idea what your "potential" infinities are, and these are the people who understand infinity most clearly. You are talking a load of nonrigorous nonsense, in a subject that is now easily understood for someone who wants to take the time to study it.

Your line, for example, infinite in length or not. How many points does it contain? Do right-angled triangles 'exist'? Does a right-angled triangle with two sides of length 1 exist? If so, then irrational lengths exist, since the square root of two does. But to express the square root of two, one needs something like a non-periodic infinite decimal, or an eventually periodic infinite continued fraction. Do you have any reason for thinking that space is only made up of finitely many points? Even if it is, do you not think that it is useful to approximate it by something of infinitely many points?

All of these silly points can be avoided by simply not holding to these petty convictions about what does and doesn't 'exist' in mathematics, and instead take the modern approach. Mathematics is about axioms and deductions that follow from them, which in themselves are subject to the reality of logic. Not placing arbitrary restrictions is the best way. Your ideas are 10 centuries out of date.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"He was clearly an intelligent person, but his religious convictions lead him to naive and unreasoned statements about reality"

"Naive" perhaps to the over sophisticated. Unreasoned? Never.

"It is no coincidence that when we stopped pretending that mathematical concepts were physical ones, the subject leapt forward and we started making real progress."

In making more and more complex calculations, yes.

In understanding them properly - definitely no.

"It doesn't matter whether negative numbers 'exist' or complex numbers 'exist' - they are useful and well-defined tools (and asking whether such things 'exist' is meaningless anyway). The same goes for infinity."

It matters for our understanding.

I am not denying they are useful as fictions. So is reading Tolkien. Or C. S. Lewis. Some might even cite Isaac Asimov, though I wouldn't. But do not smudge out the difference between mathematical realities, which are one side of physical realities, and mathematicians' fictions.

"Can you tell me any actual contributions that philosophers such as Thomas Aquainas made to science or mathematics?"

His doctor while a student at Sorbonne, St Albert, was a great zoologist, and laid grounds for geology and palaeontology.

The latter's philosophical opponent Roger Bacon gave us eye-glasses and laid the grounds for optics.

In geology St Albert was not really superseded until Steno, in optics Roger was not really superseded till Newton.

"Anything to back up the claim that they saw the world more clearly than a pure mathematician such as, say, Grothendieck? What useful mathematics did Thomas Aquinas ever come up with?"

What use have we had of Grothendieck's mathematics, when it comes to that?

"The mathematicians with fewer prejudices (such as against infinity) who saw the subject for what it is, as abstraction,"

Abstraction and fiction are different concepts.

Three is an abstraction from such things as three apples, three Graces, three goddesses, three dimensions, three parts of time, three parts of mind (memory, understanding, will), Holy Trinity - some of which are fictional (not the last one).

Infinity is - in mathematics - either a short way of saying "potentially infinite", as St Thomas took it, or, when forgetting that, a fiction, the usefulness of which varies depending on context.

In pixar repeating a smoothing out "to infinity" means repeating it till it looks smooth. A fractal is never drawn out to infinity. Neither by computer nor by anyone else - the zooming in to thousand times smaller at the same time zooms out the original picture, every version of a fractal is finite and operated by a finite number of steps by the computer.

In understanding of the universe "infinity" played as bad tricks on Kant as "zero" and "minus" is playing on Krauss. Prenamed Lawrence. Famous for being part of film The Principle, for saying things like "a star died so that you can live", or for calling the universe a "quantum fluctuation in absolute nothing".

Zero is a useful fiction even with a fictiionally negative side on the other side of the positive side, but taking that sense of the word and mixing it with the other meaning as "nothing", like Krauss does, is catastrophic.

"were the ones who proved actual rigorous results with real world consequences."

A fiction can have real world consequences.

JRRT's fictional characters have lots of real world consequences in paper, ink, films by Peter Jackson, students of Quenya, live role players and - partly at least - in a new understanding of communal ethics and in some cases conversion to Catholicism. Not to mention giving me a hint of angelic movers theory also found in St THomas Aquinas.

"Take any list of the greatest mathematicians of the last thousand years, and they wouldn't have had these silly prejudices against mathematical concepts just because they couldn't cook up something from the real world which seemed to resemeble the mathematical concept."

That would be 1014 to 2014 ... the list would include at least Thomas Bradwardine, a scholastic who stumbled on the concept of logarithms, i e of geometrical ratios (logoi) that shadow numbers (arithmoi), when discussing physics. Obviously he wasn't the one who worked it out.

Zero was not accepted as anything but a fiction until 1500-1600 sth.

"Talk to actual mathematicians and they will have no idea what your "potential" infinities are, and these are the people who understand infinity most clearly"

They consistently use it as meaning a potential or a fiction. Even when not using the terminology.

And St Thomas understood infinity clearer.

"Your line, for example, infinite in length or not."

Only finite is possible. Any line between two points is ended in both ends. I e finite.

"How many points does it contain?"

A malformed question, or the answer is, so far, two.

If you draw a midpoint, it has three actual points. And so on.

There are infinitely many points at which one CAN divide the line, so the number of points is POTENTIALLY infinite. But there are not infinitely many points at which it is actually DIVIDED, so the number of points is not infinite.

Any of the "infinite number of points" between the end points would simply be a kind of endpoint to an "infinite number" of other lines, smaller than the one we are looking at. But these other lines are not as yet realised any of them, so these infinities are just ... potential. Again, some of these potentialities can be realised. You can draw a midpoint, for instance. That augments the number of actual points to three and the number of actual lines to three also - the whole, the one part on one side of mid point, the other part on other side of mid point.

"Do right-angled triangles 'exist'?"

Certainly. SOME of them even, exotically or emblematically enough for geometry, have size relations that MIMIC number relations.

Like the Egyptian triangle.

But 3:4:5 means one thing when applied to three apples, four apples, five apples and another thing when applied to the Egyptian triangle. In one case we talk about number, in another case about relative magnitude.

Magnitude and multitude are not the same.

"Does a right-angled triangle with two sides of length 1 exist?"

Indeed, and less exceptionally this involves a size relation which cannot be parallelled in number relations.

Triangle sides AB=3, BC=4, CD=5 has for each side an exact parallel in apples.

Triangle sides AB=1, BC=1, CD=sqrt(2) have a size relation which functions only as a size relation, but not when counting apples. That is true for any "irrational number" and that is exactly how they were treated in the Middle Ages. As belonging to geometry but not to arithmetic.

Same is true of π.

"If so, then irrational lengths exist, since the square root of two does."

Lengths always have ratios to each other, it is just that not all of these mimic number to number ratios.

"But to express the square root of two, one needs something like a non-periodic infinite decimal, or an eventually periodic infinite continued fraction."

To express the sqrt of two you can write sqrt(2).

Any decimal expression is an approximation forever inexact of this in successive numeric ratios.

In itself the lengths are not numbers and their ratio is no number.

"Do you have any reason for thinking that space is only made up of finitely many points?"

Space is NOT actually made up of points at all. Any actual point is a division of a line, any actual line of a surface, any actual surface of a body.

Remember the line with only two points? One end point - other end point.

"Even if it is, do you not think that it is useful to approximate it by something of infinitely many points?"

Approximations are fictions. Very useful fictions in some contexts, but fictions.

Sqrt(2) is an exact expression. 1.414 is an approximation. Useful enough for calculations (how much paper do I need for a square with twice the surface - multiply by 1.414), but less useful for understanding what sqrt(2), since giving a false impression it is kind of a number.

"All of these silly points can be avoided by simply not holding to these petty convictions about what does and doesn't 'exist' in mathematics, and instead take the modern approach."

The points are not silly.

The answers are instructive - if taking the Thomistic approach.

jamma246

Exactly, if taking the Thomistic approach. Which has shown itself to prove useless in talking about mathematics.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

As said, take the Thomistic approach and you get instructive answers. Take your approach and you found the questions or points silly yourself. In other words, your modern approach was not able to get an instructive answer out of them, it is your modern approach which has proven useless, not in applying mathematics, or rather even there, since applications don't strictly depend on taking it, but very much in talking about it, in doing the philosophy of mathematics.

Very few comments on a talk by Fr Malachi Martin

Video commented on

Malachi Martin Masterfully Murdered Meticulously, Maliciously & Mysteriously Martyred Many Moons Ago*
Occult Revelation Method
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUgAOaT-a2s

I 5:38

- John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul II?

What about Pius XII? Especially his friendship with Augustin Bea, and his endorsing of a new view of the Bible?

Or was the Bull of 1950 free of all doctrinal and historical error from one end to the other?

Or Humani Generis, 1950 too, was he right evolutionism could not yet be simply condemned? Or its less well known follow up more directly endorsing positions contradicting those of St Pius X, 22 Nov 1951, allocution to scientists of some sort?

II 17:40 sth

Since 1960? What about since 1950?

III Around 29:00

Three signs:

• 1) problems insoluble with present wisdom and technology
• 2) one man having the solutions
• 3) one will turn to him as divine.
  
  
• A) Apart from the last part, which I could cite Bible verses for, Apocalypse 13:12, I do not see Biblical evidence for the other two signs.
• B) Problems can seem insoluble without being so. A man can have very obvious solutions without being antichrist.
• C) I think I am such a man, and I have NOT yet allowed people to worship me.

I am afraid (or was) that if Catholic Church men do all they can to hush up my solutions, and in the process ruin my life as a Christian, I might end up agreeing to play that role in order to get the kind of life I want (I have NOT chosen to live this life of something seeming a monk without being so, nor to become a real monk) and in order to do what I can to reply to the problems.

Or that once I am put out of the way, my solutions hushed up as mine, Antichrist will plagiarise them and get honour for them while I rot in prison or mental hospital or slave camps.

That is the problem at present as I see it.

Parts 1 and 2 are not such as to point directly and exclusively to Antichrist. Nor am I really sure Antichrist will have such wisdom. People could turn to him for very much flimsier reasons than that. He can seem to have solutions to what seem to be problems. Or he can plagiarise someone having real solutions, but reject some of them by a catastrophic stupidity, like at Babel.

Generally

God has given us two thousand years.

Sure. But it is not our job to tear down a Catholic Civilisation, is it?

Footnote

* Not sure if title of video is true.

... with the Bengali and "deadlock", on Jesus and on Apocryphon called Gospel of Thomas

1) Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : ... Debate against a Blasphemous Hegelian Bengali. Part one, Education of Jesus Christ. And education in general, 2) Debate against a Blasphemous Bengali Hegelian : Part two, His evil ideology of Progress, 3) ... with the Bengali and "deadlock", on Jesus and on Apocryphon called Gospel of Thomas, 4) HGL's F.B. writings : Debates on "Gospel of Barnabas" and Fifth Sourate, at the end with a Muslim, 5) Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : Remember the Buddhist Aussie?

deadlock

We don't know that he was a disciple of Buddhist monk - it's a speculation. There's no rigorous historical evidence that supports this claim - the honest thing to do is to say "we don't know". Over the course of history there were many cases where multiple people independently discovered the same thing. For instance, the ideas of Epicurus and his concept of ataraxia are also quite similar to Buddhism. Also, mystic schools within each religion just use different language to describe the same experience. An example of this is the Gospel of Thomas from Nag Hammadi library. There are still disputes about its age but the teachings described there portray Jesus more like mystic - his teachings there are not elaborate doctrines but koans and Jesus is the guru/initiator.

Naimul Haq

+deadlock

It is not a matter of whether he was the disciple or a friend of a disciple, but when he uses Buddhist Dogmas means he endorsed them.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

+Naimul Haq

He endorsed those He used. Not the other ones.

Now, there are two ways in which he can have known about the Buddhist dogmata He used:

• He was a disciple of a Buddhist monk;
  
  
• He was God.

Actually, if He had been a disciple of a Buddhist monk, why did He condemn others by saying their opposite as dogma?

Oh, third possibility, these "Buddhist dogmas" were actually Hebrew dogmas. Perhaps Siddharta knew of them because he had read some Hebrew Scrriptures as a prince? Perhaps he neglected other Hebrew dogmas because he had forgotten them or because he had had the bad idea of rejecting them?

Either way, there is no such thing as anything being "wrong on every turn" - I heard a computer program for calculating Indo-European language relations described so, but it was at least partially right in saying that Romani was in some sense further off the common root of Indian languages than any else, rather than close to Hindi - this is wrong as to how older Neuter nouns redistribute as Masculines and Feminines, and therefore of the HISTORY, but it is right about vocabulary, since Romani has picked up quite a few words that are not found anywhere in India, since Gipsies left. So, though the computer model was described as "wrong on every turn" it was not.

Nor is Buddhism. It is only wrong, like any non-Christian religion for which one rejects Christianity, but not wrong on every turn.

The Buddhist dogmas which Our Lord used were those where Siddharta was right.

+deadlock

Gospel of Thomas is a forgery.

deadlock

+Hans-Georg Lundahl

In the same way as Gospel of John - these documents were not written by John/Thomas but by people belonging to different schools of thought trying to make sense of who Jesus was. Oxyrhynchus Papyri date back to circa 250 a.d. and represent some our earliest known New Testament fragments. Surprise surprise, they also contain fragments of Thomas and other documents. We can dispute about the origin/theology etc. but the document itself is well-attested historically. And since the teachings overlap with the NT and in many ways are simpler, the core of the document (not all of it) might date even before Mark.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

The Gospel of St John is not a forgery. It was received as genuine and by him - my patron Saint, along with the Baptist (John = Johannes = Hans) - that is by the Disciple of Jesus, one of the first four called, one of the Twelve, son of Zebedaeus, by the Church and by the tradition of the Church - to which Saint Thomas also belonged.

Whatever community called the "Gospel of Thomas" written "by Thomas" was not of that Church and St Thomas can therefore not have been him.

I am not disputing it was early. I am saying it is NOT a document of the Catholic Church, which Jesus founded, and therefore not one document a very prominent member of that Church, like St Thomas can have written for common edification.

It can have been written while he was still alive - if it was when he was safely away in India. But it was written by people who made sure he could not be there and contradict their claim and it was written to impress people who thought well of him and tried to abuse it.

It can not have been written to divulge any secret doctrine to specially chosen members within the Church either, since the time for secret doctrines was over and - excepting things kept as secrets from persecutors - everything was "shouted from the rooftops".

So, it cannot be by St Thomas. But it can be as old as when he was alive, that is not what I dispute.

"the document itself is well-attested historically."

One of the attestations being that the Church condemned it over and over again as spurious, very early on.

"And since the teachings overlap with the NT"

Any teaching overlaps somehow with the full teaching of truth, normally. No teaching that has no truth can be attractive, so anyone deceived by the devil or wanting himself to deceive needs to have some overlap of doctrine with NT.

"and in many ways are simpler"

Lies are in many ways simpler than the truth.

"the core of the document (not all of it) might date even before Mark."

That remark presupposes one of the very spurious idiocies of modern Academia - made by Christians who did not relaly want to be Christians and started to feel hampered by what was actually in the Gospels.

Their story goes that one doctrine developed into another clearly non-identcial one over time and that this development can be traced over the course of the Gospels, no doctrine being there before it is written and writings not accepted in order traditionally thought to be written - St Matthew first - but in an arbitrary sequence according to as how the series best reflects a gradual invention of Christian teaching (so that these guys can say of such and such a Gospel passage "we don't need to observe it, it is later, not by Christ"), generally starting with Mark first among Gospels since shortest and Pauline letters all - except Hebrews and Titus and Timothy - previous to Mark. No, no ... one should observe, if one puts any credence at all in Christ, the order of writings that is given by Tradition. Those that believe Christ must believe He founded His Church and that it is the pillar of truth. Those that believe Him not will not be obliged by even one of the so-called "early writings".

deadlock

+Hans-Georg Lundahl
I was afraid to step into these waters - I'm not here to question anyone's religious or theological beliefs (and naturally, biases when it comes to interpretation of such texts - including mine). I think it's fair to say Thomas was in early circulation and contains some genuine sayings of Jesus, although I wouldn't go as far as to say all of them are genuine because of the nature of development of these documents (this can be said even of canonical ones). But, for instance, it would be unusual for a 2nd century forger to make a reference to James the Just as the leader of the church etc. The books, commentaries etc. are out there for a discerning reader. But back to my earlier point - mystic traditions developed even within the "regular" Christianity (not just within Thomasine school) and even Islam (Sufism). In my opinion they represent perennial philosophy (just expressed in different terminology) that shares many similarities with Eastern philosophical traditions.

Naimul Haq

+deadlock
I have followed a few exchanges you had with Lundahl. They are very interesting, although I will not comment, as I am not qualified to do so. Nevertheless there is one interesting chapter in all these topics you are discussing, that I would like to know, if possible.

Around early 90's a smuggler of antiquities was caught by the Turkish customs, and the haul was kept in a safe in the treasury (perhaps), in which one item was a Bible written in Aramaic, and just about the oldest and was seen by a British authority only, and his findings made known to the Pope. It was the media's opinion(Newsweek) that all or many Christian practices comes into question with answers suspected to be humiliating.

I would like to know more about what happened next, and what did it contain.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"I think it's fair to say Thomas was in early circulation"

Sure, no prob.

"and contains some genuine sayings of Jesus"

Any forger would include some.

Clarification on "any forger would include some" = from the real Gospels.

I actually do not know if this one did.

"But, for instance, it would be unusual for a 2nd century forger to make a reference to James the Just as the leader of the church"

If the forger was near Jerusalem whose first bishop was St James the Just, he would have no problem even if only half competent.

"The books, commentaries etc. are out there for a discerning reader."

They are banned.

"mystic traditions developed even within the "regular" Christianity (not just within Thomasine school)"

If you want mystic, leave off pseudo-Thomas and get to Saint John of the Cross!

He's a guy for no weaklings (tougher than I can take).

"In my opinion they represent perennial philosophy (just expressed in different terminology) that shares many similarities with Eastern philosophical traditions."

The real perennial philosophy is not the Eastern one.

"Around early 90's a smuggler of antiquities was caught by the Turkish customs, and the haul was kept in a safe in the treasury (perhaps), in which one item was a Bible written in Aramaic, and just about the oldest and was seen by a British authority only, and his findings made known to the Pope."

I wonder if that was "Gospel of Barnabas"?

I consider old texts are best transmitted by a broad tradition, like Mahabharata or Homer, and not by a single find of a very old manuscript which differs from other ones, either in collection or in text version.

It is not the tradition of the Church, as far as I know, especially not if containing "Gospel of Barnabas".

I gave

links to the three parts (so far extant) here.

deadlock

+Hans-Georg Lundahl The temple was destroyed in 70 a.d. therefore a late forger would be unlikely to make such "obsolete" reference. Even more so because the early church tradition relied on Paul and there are hints that Paul and James weren't exactly on good terms (Acts). So, if a forger wanted to increase the authority of the document, why choose a person who's authoritative role had been actively downplayed? I'm not saying it couldn't be a forgery but to me it doesn't seem that likely. And of course another question is, would you be willing to subject canonical documents to the same rigor? But some bias I can understand because you're an evangelical Christian and it's your active choice, which I respect. So, let me leave this discussion with peace :) I think though that being too hung up on theology basically teaches divisiveness.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"The temple was destroyed in 70 a.d. therefore a late forger would be unlikely to make such "obsolete" reference."

The succession of bishops of Jerusalem in the Christian Church was very much NOT a secret known only in the Temple.

"Even more so because the early church tradition relied on Paul and there are hints that Paul and James weren't exactly on good terms (Acts)."

What exact part of Acts are you referring to?

Here is link to first chapter:

Acts, chapter 1
(links to following and previous chapter on top of each page, under links to following and previous book)
http://drbo.org/chapter/51001.htm

"So, if a forger wanted to increase the authority of the document, why choose a person who's authoritative role had been actively downplayed?"

It hadn't.

And the forger may well have deliberately upplayed the role of St James as authoritative not just in Jerusalem but everywhere, because admitting Peter remained chief after quitting Jerusalem and leaving it to James (who was its first single-man bishop, but succeeded after the collective episcopacy of St Peter and the Twelve) would have been too much of a referral to Rome where Sts Peter and Paul had died.

"And of course another question is, would you be willing to subject canonical documents to the same rigor?"

I am doing it by the fact that I distinguish canonic from forgery on the line of where tradition is.

Suppose that Gospel of St Thomas had really been by the disciple Thomas. That would have meant the Catholic Church was either lying about its Theology or lying about St Thomas being part of them. That would mean the other Gospels are forgeries.

BUT if that had been the case, where would the wisdom, power and goodwill of God be, if He allowed forgeries to take over right after Jesus lived and let the genuine message get buried? Impossible, if you believe at all that Jesus was God.

An Atheist stepfather said about the Blessed Virgin Mary "if there is something special about Jesus, there is something special about Mary". Same thing can be said about Jesus and the Church that preserved the Four Canonic Gospels. If Jesus is God or even anywhere near from God, God saw to it the Church He founded would keep the real Gospels not false ones and condemn false Gospels not a real one. If on the other hand Four false Gospels were accepted and a real Gospel lost, then one would have to conclude Jesus was not God or even a propeht in the first place. Either way the Gospel of Thomas is worthless. If Jesus is God, He knew how to preserve His Church and preserved it, and the Four Gospels are true and it is a forgery. If it is genuine, the fact it was condemned and on most parts forgotten for so long proves Jesus is not God so a Gospel of Jesus has no value anyway. Logic.

"But some bias I can understand because you're an evangelical Christian"

I am a Roman Catholic.

"I think though that being too hung up on theology basically teaches divisiveness."

According to the genuine Gospels, Christ said He had come to be occasion for much division.

Matthew 10:34-35
http://drbo.org/chapter/47010.htm

Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword. For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.

Challoner comment:

[35] I came to set a man at variance: Not that this was the end or design of the coming of our Saviour; but that his coming and his doctrine would have this effect, by reason of the obstinate resistance that many would make, and of their persecuting all such as should adhere to him.

deadlock (had also written)

+Naimul Haq
It was an apocryphal Gospel of Barnabas written in Syriac that, just like the recently discovered Gospel of Judas, portrays Judas in a different light. The nature of these texts is that they might contain certain elements of actual history but many things are simply made up and represent late theological developments. There are certain methods how these texts can be evaluated - do we have old fragments, is the text referenced in ancient records, do we have multiple attestations, does textual criticism reveal inconsistencies or heavy redaction etc. Not all ancient texts stand up to these tests equally well.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

+Naimul Haq, deadlock wrote you:

"There are certain methods how these texts can be evaluated - do we have old fragments, is the text referenced in ancient records, do we have multiple attestations, does textual criticism reveal inconsistencies or heavy redaction etc. Not all ancient texts stand up to these tests equally well."

There are certain methods to evaluate oldness.

One is palaeography, and there I am as useless in Syriac as I could do rather well in Latin or even Greek. Shapes of letters have changed by fashions, and unlike Arabic script the most ancient letter types have not been preserved as a calligraphic alternative, but rather by being reserved in certain documents of the imperial office of Constantinople for headings. But in Syriac, I can basically not tell. But there is also the codex form of the book.

I thought it was II C., but actually it was already invented in the first one.

"Developed by the Romans from wooden writing tablets, its gradual replacement of the scroll, the dominant form of book in the ancient world, has been termed the most important advance in the history of the book before the invention of printing. The codex altogether transformed the shape of the book itself and offered a form that lasted for centuries. The spread of the codex is often associated with the rise of Christianity, which adopted the format for the Bible early on. First described by the 1st-century AD Roman poet Martial, who praised its convenient use, the codex achieved numerical parity with the scroll around AD 300, and had completely replaced it throughout the now Christianised Greco-Roman world by the 6th century."

Wikipedia : Codex
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex

"There are certain methods how these texts can be evaluated - do we have old fragments, is the text referenced in ancient records, do we have multiple attestations, does textual criticism reveal inconsistencies or heavy redaction etc. Not all ancient texts stand up to these tests equally well.”

In this art, some criteria are more subjective than others. Inconsistencies to one may not be inconsistent to the other. "Heavy redaction" may be presumed on good grounds in some cases, like when giving anachronisms of a well known type (does Dictys from Crete really capture the Mycenean form of shields at all, even as much as Homer?), and I presume Mahabharata is a post-Flood poem from India showing very heavy redaction of memories from pre-Flood world, calling "the black" Krishna instead of Kush being one of these.

But someone who believed Kali Yuga had taken place when Krishna died and no world wide flood happened THEN (Hinduism places the world wide flood much earlier) would presume I was wrong on Mahabharata material being heavily redacted in "Indian post-Flood" manners, because he would assume I was wrong to reconstruct the Mahabharata War as a Nodian war taking place between Cainite factions after Lamech.

When we are dealing with Higher Criticism dealing with such and such a Canonic Gospel "showing heavy redaction after a late theological development", we are also dealing with reconstructions - by men who refused to believe Christian theology was once and for all given by Christ to the Apostles.

And of course, Gospel of Thomas being referenced very many times as apocryphon, i e as forgery, by the Church, is a criterium of the "many early references" type, but not a guarantee it is really by Thomas, rather the contrary.

As to Gospel of Barnabas, let us not confuse it with the proobably apocryphal Epistyle of Barnabas, which is another work. The "Gospel" we are talking about was referenced very late, namely 7th C., first reference I know of. I e it appeared after or around the time of the Hegirah.

Naimul Haq

+Hans-Georg Lundahl
Thank you for the interesting detail of what I call "acceptability" problem. Legends, epics, commentaries, scriptures, etc. often refer to historical events that are datable, and the context is better and believably understood. The epic of Gilgamesh can be understood, among others, as a realization that all of god's creation must die, and man is mortal, and cannot claim equal footing with the divine power.

The Sumerians were great story tellers, a quality that also proved a powerful weapon. The Greek epics of Homer reflected the same theme as did Mahabharata and Ramayana in India, when ancient legends about Krishna, who was the builder of Dwaraka( that was recently dated as a continuous occupation from 32,000-9500 bp), were craftily employed to create the reality of a Semitic god Rama replace Sanatan Dharma of Krishna, by helping the evil Kuru to destroy the Jadu people and establish Hinduism(Persian coinage), cloaked in Semitic traits (like ULU).

"The Greek epics of Homer reflected the same theme as did Mahabharata and Ramayana in India,"

Same themes. But different stories.

"The Sumerians were great story tellers, a quality that also proved a powerful weapon."

They were even willing - it has been proven by comparing versions - to use variation on a story as a tool for example for flattery. That is why I rely less on them than on Hebrew story of Flood and of what was before Flood.

I even think pre-Flood conditions are better preserved in Mahabharata than in Gilgamesh, Atrahasis etc. The geneaology of Cain in Genesis 4 ends with Lamech having two wives, and three sons and a daughter. Mahabharata is a war between cousin factions. Cousins are sons or daughters of different persons who were between them siblings. Plus Krishna predicting a local Flood may be a way to minimise the memory of the global one previous to when epic was written or its stories originated rather.

"Dwaraka( that was recently dated as a continuous occupation from 32,000-9500 bp)"

Catholic as I am, I think Creationist Evangelicals have a point about carbon datings. Anything carbon dated 50,000 - 20,000 bp can be from the Flood.

As to Krishna, his traditional death date is close before Flood:

"According to the Surya Siddhanta, Kali Yuga began at midnight (00:00) on 18 February 3102 BCE in the proleptic Julian calendar, or 14 January 3102 BC in the proleptic Gregorian calendar. This date is also considered by many Hindus to be the day that Krishna left Earth to return to his abode."

Wiki : Kali Yuga
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kali_Yuga

"a diluvio autem, anno bis millesimo nongentesimo quinquagesimo septimo"

From Roman Martyrology of Christmas Day.

3102
2957
_________
0155

Krishna died 155 years before the Flood, if he existed, and Kali Yuga was set as a new era by very early Hindoos or pre-Hindoos, because they refused to accept Global Flood as division, wanted to forget about it. But somehow could not ignore it either.

Bible about pre-Flood conditions:

Now giants were upon the earth in those days. For after the sons of God went in to the daughters of men, and they brought forth children, these are the mighty men of old, men of renown. And God seeing that the wickedness of men was great on the earth, and that all the thought of their heart was bent upon evil at all times,

Mahabharata on result of the war mentions it ended with both sides doing so much evil that even the good guys could not tell themselves apart from the bad guys.

Apart from that, I consider Mahabharata contains also a lot of Pagan error, specifically when Krishna is said to have his soul enter Heaven and be received like a god, but this is not seen by any man, this is the vision of a poet in a dream.

Ramayana was probably post-Flood. There is a Raman son of Kush in the genealogy of Ham [in the Bible].

And the Hindoo "god" Rama has two sons, one of them named Kusha - who could have been named after his grandpa Kush.

And in Hebrew, Kush has the same meaning as Krishna in Sanscrit - black. I don't think the Biblical Kush is Krishna, but I think Krishna might have been ancestor or even father of Ham's wife, of whom the Biblical Kush was born.

War of Troy happened later, a bit before the time of King David.

Probably while both Greeks and Trojans were part of Hittite Empire, pretty certainly Trojans were.

Naimul Haq

+Hans-Georg Lundahl So the battle of Kurukhetra (1200bc) and the Trojan war happened around the same time.

Hans Georg Lundahl

I know very little of Kurukhetra.

But Trojan war was approximately as old as that, yes.

If it is included in Mahabharata, I would have to conclude the poem mixes matters from different past times.

[It is THE main action of Mahabharata - the battle in which Krishna is Arjuna's charioteer!]

Probably the same is true of Homer, but an opposite thing is true as well : he deliberately forgets (or is inheritor to people who deliberately forgot) all about the Hittite Empire as such.

That is why I think episodes from Battle of Kadesh, between Hittites and Egyptians, may have made it into legends about Troy, even if that was another war.

I can also have been totally wrong about when Mahabharata is from.

But if Kurukhetra was around 1200 B.C. it is impossible that Krishna who was charioteer to Arjuna died 3102 B.C., 155 years before the Flood.

One of the dates is off and by millennia.

That is also true of Greek chronology up to the War of Troy, generally. It was millennia after the Flood and they put it just five or ten generations after it.

I looked up Kurukshetra (redirected from Kurukhetra, both versions apparently exist of the word), and Kuru seems to have founded it around Sarasvati nadi which one thinks dried up in 1900 B.C. ... if I am right Mahabharata action took place pre-Flood, it is possible Sarasvati was a pre-Flood river which showed banks even after Flood but it is also possible all was relocated. If I am wrong, Kuru living before 1900 B.C. hardly allows you to be right that his grandsons Kauravas and Pandavas fought about his land in 1200 B.C. - They are just his grandsons, right?

Naimul Haq

+Hans-Georg Lundahl
Historically the Kuru were based around the Swaraswati and were a consortium of central Asian tribes who entered India after the fall of the Harappan civilization around 1900 bc.

The Jadu were a leading Vedic tribe based in Dwaraka, who were the leading resistance to this encroachment that got legal status not with the destruction of the Jadu by the Kuru in the battle of Kurukhetra, but with the subsequent spread of Hinduism, through the theatrics of the epics Mahabharata and Ramayana, making semitic gods Brahma, Rama, replace Krishna (recently dated to about 12,000 bp) and the Jadu rule with Ram's Kingdom.

This became possible by introducing Rama as Krishna's brother as two hair, one white and one black, of Vishnu, and dramatising the Kuru as cousins of the Jadu, and many other manipulations, over 1600 years when at the end of the Maurya, Hinduism routed the Buddhists from power along with the Sanatan religion of Krishna. The Bengali people, a distant branch of the Jadu people still preserves the Sanatan, as in many other places, and the Brngali Mahabharat is considered the genuine version by H.H.Wilson.

Manipulating sacred script was rampant and easy in those days in all religions , like in your gospels, or in Hadis many of which are openly declared to be redundant.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

+Naimul Haq "Manipulating sacred script was rampant and easy in those days in all religions , like in your gospels, or in Hadis many of which are openly declared to be redundant."

There is no easy way in which Gospel text can have been largely manipulated after writing and publication, since the Church watched very jealously over copying. While at same time each Sunday Gospel was read, short portion after short portion, all over the Christian world. Original Church very clearly was rivalled by factions with other Christology, but they had same text for all four Gospels.

OK, one Syriac manuscript says Emmaus was 160 stades (32 km) rather than 60 stades (12km) from Jerusalem. Actual distance of Amwaz.

Even for hadiths, I trust Islamic tradition got the content right. They are just not from God.

The West had practise from keeping Homer intact.

Gospels were also written to soon after events by people too close first or second hand, to be manipulated before writing.

Also, the Church had training in avoiding post writing manipulation from its Hebrew past.

Samarian, Hebrew and Septuagint versions of Books of Moses are extremely close. Nothing like difference between Bengal Mahabharata and other versions.

And there too, the closeness in time between events and writing prevent manipulation before writing. Usually, probably for diverse parts of Genesis too.

Moses' Exodus is reasonably as accurate as Xenophon's Anabasis.

The Four Gospellers reasonably give as accurate accounts of Jesus - even humanly speaking, even if He were not, as He is, God - as Xenephon and Plato of Socrates.

Some even think Plato inserted dialogues that Socrates never made according to his own philosophy. That would be the kind of forgery behind "Gospel of Thomas" - except that the different Master of the Disciples would not have allowed the real St Thomas to be behind such a lie.

As to the rest of what you say - I know very little about it, how much is history recorded in the times and how much is reconstruction afterwards?

Naimul Haq

+Hans-Georg Lundahl
You will notice how both Jews and Christians claim to have championed a monotheistic god, while both missing the truth and resorting to "make belief" stories. The main gate of David's capital Jerusalem was adorned with pagan figures of a snake, bull, fire etc. while the Christians had to settle for the Trinity.

India with Dwaraka, a 100 square mile settlement was an important port city trading with Sumerians and also Egypt, and exchanging belief soon realized the power of their monotheistic god Vishnu, that impressed Abraham (1750 bc) and Akhenaton, both smashed their establishment to promote the concept of one god. Moses, David, Soleman all toiled hard without success, ultimately Mohammad, much later, did succeeded,but again opposed vehemently by both Jews and Christians.

The same thing happened in Egypt, where all marks of one god were erased after the death of Akhenaton. Later though Hatshupset sent a delegation to Punt (India), not to collect gold but plants to be used in religious functions, the details being lost.

Again if you notice how Abraham went to Egypt (knowingly gave his wife to the Pharoe,to gain favor) and claim the promised land, failed like one of his sons later, the Jewish establishment under Moses, David etc.manipulated god's promise, and changed the venue from Egypt to Palestine on the plea that the Palestinians are themselves occupiers, therefore deserve to be ousted, and convinced the Jews that all tribes around Jerusalem are children of Abraham. And as soon as the Assyrians struck around 800 bc, 10 of the 12 tribes changed allegiance.

Sometimes made up stories hide hard truth. Like the story of Sindbad the sailor (that perhaps inspired the Greek legend of Jason and the golden fleece)speaks the truth of a brave sailor who frequently sailed up the Shindhu river flowing by the state of Sind, many times bringing valuable goods to Sumeria, that made him a hero and became legendary.

Deceit and manipulation, happens right under your nose, remember how Bush wanted you to believe Saddam had nukes?How truth is faked or manipulated, and how to identify them is a necessary skill without which black becomes white, or blue turns red.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"You will notice how both Jews and Christians claim to have championed a monotheistic god"

I notice how you shift subject from how much less well Mahabharata was transmitted than Homer, Books of Moses and the Four Gospels to quite another issue.

Btw, we do not claim we champion God. We claim God champions us.

"while both missing the truth and resorting to 'make belief' stories."

A bit thick that coming from one who resorted to a make believe story Christ had been disciple to a Buddhist monk a bit further up on the discussion.

"The main gate of David's capital Jerusalem was adorned with pagan figures of a snake, bull, fire etc."

How do you know? What if?

Adornments on gates are not usually set out as objects of worship.

But I am not taking your word it was, unless you direct me to a Bible quote on it.

"while the Christians had to settle for the Trinity."

Yes, we have to settle for the real God.

False gods, including false forms of monotheism won't champion us against devil and wordly tyrants like the real God.

"India with Dwaraka, a 100 square mile settlement was an important port city trading with Sumerians and also Egypt, and exchanging belief soon realized the power of their monotheistic god Vishnu, that impressed Abraham (1750 bc) and Akhenaton, both smashed their establishment to promote the concept of one god."

You presume there are no traditions among Christians why Abraham took his distance from idolatry?

Or you presume I am so emptyheaded so as to believe your just so story about it instead?

I may have been wrong to consider Krishna was a pre-Flood character misnamed in your tradition. Maybe he was an Aryan and a false prophet and misdated instead of misnamed and misinterpreted.

If your theory is right that he lived and took part in Arjuna's battle around the time of the Trojan War, he must have been very much put back in history if he arrived from then to dying 155 years before the Flood.

And when I put it to you that your traditions are not reliable you try a "tu quoque" which is baseless in fact. Our traditions necessarily omitted things that happened, no tradition can recall each and every event of the past, and the Greek traditions were also falsified by idolatrous and superstitious interpretations and by deliberate omissions, like never saying "Hittite". But neither Jew nor even Greek added century on century between the generations we remembered accurately.

"Moses, David, Soleman all toiled hard without success, ultimately Mohammad, much later, did succeeded,but again opposed vehemently by both Jews and Christians."

Mohammad claimed to correct Jews and Christians who supposedly had forgotten what Moses and Our Lord really said. THEN he also claimed to supply the corrections from "hearing of divine voices" ... Not a credible source from which to correct tradition, especially since not backed up by miracles.

"Again if you notice how Abraham went to Egypt (knowingly gave his wife to the Pharoe,to gain favor) and claim the promised land, failed like one of his sons later, the Jewish establishment under Moses, David etc.manipulated god's promise, and changed the venue from Egypt to Palestine on the plea that the Palestinians are themselves occupiers, therefore deserve to be ousted"

What kind of lie is that?

Palestinians a a Christian and partly Islamised people did not exist yet. They descend from Israelites, from Jews and Samarians.

[Jewish and remains of Samarian sect do so too, but either never adopted or rejected with Chosroes Christianity.]

Philistines came from Crete. They were later absorbed into the Jewish tribe, and thus into Jews as much as Christian/Moslem Palestinians.

The guys that Joshua ousted according to God's promise were neither Philistines (who came later) nor Palestinians, but idol worshipping Canaaneans, so bad as to make Kali worshipping Thuggees and Suttee look nearly decent by comparison.

"Deceit and manipulation, happens right under your nose, remember how Bush wanted you to believe Saddam had nukes?"

The one who is manipulated right now seems to be you.

The fake accusation against Saddam was about Chemical weapons, undestroyed reserves of poison gas.

I am a Christian now, was a Christian then and was no supporter of Bush's why or how to conduct a war.

As the why was back then. ISIS is another matter.

Naimul Haq

+Hans-Georg Lundahl Actually I did not shift subject, if you remember we were on the subject of deceit, manipulation prevalent in all scriptures.

Yes I deliberately touched the Israeli string to see if you agree. But you kept silent. Though the pagan symbols seems to have your attention. The source I quote is believable to me, then again we come back to acceptability.

However I have no intention to hurt your belief and I was trying to understand what "manipulation" does, giving some personal observations, you are at liberty to disagree.

I agree Palestinians came later, but targeting the Canaaneans was gods promise cannot be true because of a Jewish propaganda video in U tube clearly showed Abraham trying to claim gods promised land in Egypt not Canaan, which also showed him giving his wife to the Pharoe,knowing.Does it mean I am manipulated.

I agree satee, and the rest are the perverted side shared by every religion, like Krishna was manipulated to resort to double standard for the sake of implanted Hinduism to succeed.

Surely god wants us to know the truth. I expect you to give me the truth you have.

Hans Georg Lundahl

"Actually I did not shift subject, if you remember we were on the subject of deceit, manipulation prevalent in all scriptures."

You were before my answer.

I corrected you on the "prevalent in ALL scriptures" part, you ignored that.

"The source I quote is believable to me, "

You probably know it won't be to me, since you did not bother to cite it.

"I agree Palestinians came later,"

You didn't "a moment ago", when misnaming Canaaneans "Palestinians".

"but targeting the Canaaneans was gods promise cannot be true because of a Jewish propaganda video in U tube clearly showed Abraham trying to claim gods promised land in Egypt not Canaan, which also showed him giving his wife to the Pharoe,knowing."

I am not gullible enough to believe everything a youtube video clearly shows. Unlike you apparently. Nor hysteric enough to disbelieve everything coming over internet. I test it against tradition as I know it.

And I have given reasons why the Hindoo tradition and similar ones, with Mahabharata and Bhagavadgita, are less creedible than Hebrew or even Pagan Greek one.

"I agree satee, and the rest are the perverted side shared by every religion,"

No, not EVERY one.

God has given His truth to His people. He had a people called the Hebrews, he still has a people called Catholics.

"like Krishna was manipulated to resort to double standard for the sake of implanted Hinduism to succeed."

If memory of Krishna was manipulated, how can we consider it probable he was a man of God?

A true prophet of God has his memory correctly preserved at least by some.

All who recall Krishna as Krishna recall him as having - as we Christians know falsely - said in Bhagavadgita "everything is the same". So, under that name he cannot have been a man of God.

I recall from Bible a man named Kush, which means, like Krishna in Sanscrit, "black". He was born after flood and could be grandson or greatgrandson of one who died 155 years before the Flood (people lived lots longer before the Flood). So, Krishna could have been a hero before the Flood. However, if he participated in any war like the Kurukshetra battle, he may have been Nodian, Cainite, and he may have been remembered by his own - the family of Ham, especially Kush's son Raman whom I consider as your Rama and as your ancestor and who named his own sons - if Raman was also hero of Ramayana - Kusha and Lova, as more pious than other Cainites, but since the line of Rama missed out on Abraham, since they became idolaters, they manipulated the memory wrongly, long before Hinduism and overdid, exaggerated, the holiness of that man. That is the truth that you can get out of me. Your tradition was manipulated, ours was, by God's grace, preserved and perfected.

Naimul Haq

+Hans-Georg Lundahl
My point was not to attack any belief, but attack the fact that all religion, besides teaching moral values, invariably resorts also to deceit, manipulation etc and are instrument of domination.

Only Boddhiswatta can provide with a suitable mind set, and helped evolve the world as we know now, not Christianity, Judaisn, Islam etc.

Even Buddhism has aspects the are not consistent and rational (like detachment), or refraining from eating meat or believing in rebirth.

I had no idea you were a devout Jew, I gave examples of manipulation as part of all religion, and I did not intend to hurt you.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"My point was not to attack any belief, but attack the fact that all religion, besides teaching moral values, invariably resorts also to deceit, manipulation etc and are instrument of domination."

My point was that you are wrong there.

"Only Boddhiswatta can provide with a suitable mind set, and helped evolve the world as we know now, not Christianity, Judaisn, Islam etc."

My point was that you are wrong there too.

If you are yourself willing to make an exception, as you do for "Boddhiswatta" (I have seen it written Boddhisattva), you have no reason to critique anyone else for also making an exception.

But I have a further point here.

YOUR exception is inaccessible. Your "Boddhiswatta mentality" is not accessible as identical to Buddhism, but inaccessible.

MY exception is accessible. It is Catholic Christianity.

"I had no idea you were a devout Jew, I gave examples of manipulation as part of all religion, and I did not intend to hurt you."

Hurting me is less important than that you were hurting truth and even good sense, even good logic.

And I am not a "devout Jew", I am a devout Roman Catholic Christian.

Unless devout is saying too much for me, of course.