Friday 31 March 2017

Are They Islamising Florida?


School suspends Christian student who challenged Muslim prof who said Jesus’ crucifixion is a hoax
Chris Enloe Mar 28, 2017 12:42 pm, theblaze
http://www.theblaze.com/news/2017/03/28/school-suspends-christian-student-who-challenged-muslim-prof-who-said-jesus-crucifixion-is-a-hoax/


Update, here is a salient quote:

In a letter obtained by the Post, Rollins College wrote to Polston on March 24 informing him that he was suspended from school. The college alleged that Polston is a “threat of disruption” and is “jeopardizing the safety and well-being” of the college, other students and himself.


Well, such an allegation about what a fairly obviously appropriate Christian response could constitute is an indirect admission that Muslims in general, not just Terrorists, are making some kind of threat to make trouble if they are contradicted, including of course the professor Areeje Zufari whom the college had itself been hiring./HGL

Wednesday 29 March 2017

Origin of Hinduism, a Christian Answer


Q
What is the origin of the Hindu religion?
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-origin-of-the-Hindu-religion/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl


Hans-Georg Lundahl
Studied religions as curious parallels and contrasts to Xtian faith since 9, 10?
Written just now
A tentative Christian answer.

Not claiming this is THE answer of Christianity about it, just one possible (I have seen other ones).

Before the Flood, there was a state founded by Cain. The land of it was called Nod and his son and the capital called after his son was Henoch.

The last thing the Bible tells us, we have two wives of Lamech and Tubalcain with one and Jabal and Jubal with other.

In Mahabharata, we have two sets of cousins, fighting each other. I think the Kauravas are sons of Tubalcain, the Pandavas possibly of Jabal, if Jubal (who invented flute playing) is Krishna.

The war involved very bad deeds “so that the good could not be dsitinguishe from the bad” before it was ended. And yet, it was worth remembering.

The Bible resumes it (and other worse things) under “all flesh had corrupted its way over Earth”.

The flood wiped it out. Survivors : Noah and his family, who were not Nodians, but of Sethite tribe. His three sons married, and Cham married a Nodian, probably Noema, daughter of Lamech, who invented textiles. The other two wives are not so important to origin of Hinduism.

The Chamites after the Flood preserved Mahabhrata lore as the family history of their mother.

One Chamite, Nimrod, became a world dictator, tried to build a “Tower of Babel” (whatever that is) and failed.

After his failure, one Chamite tribe after another got to countries far from each other.

I think Hindoos originated in such as had a nostalgia for Mahabharata lore and who also hated what Nimrod had become.

He was not always bad, I think Josephus says how he defended his brothers (one of them called in the Bible very roughly Rama), and I think Ramayana could be giving some detail. Not sure if Nimrod as young in Ramayana is Hanuman or Nala or both.

But the people who loved recalling Mahabharata and what good Nimrod had done to them when he was young (yes, I am speaking of the Chamites of Rama’s tribe!) also hated what he had become, and atheist claiming or accepting to be worshipped as a god and showing off divinity in more and more ruthless slave hunt.

The tribe of Rama partly forgot the Hebrew truth about God. They also willingly forgot both Flood (though not succeeding quite) and Tower of Babel. They retained less than the full truth about what God is, they also retained the memories of Mahabhrata and Ramayana (though these poems were later and were contaminated by their errors), and built a new identity around these, somewhat between the worst idolatries of Nimrodian type and the Hebrew truth.

I suppose the language of the tribe of Rama was originally something like Tamil, while Aryan language was imported somewhat later by either the Japhethite tribe of Madan (related to Medo-Persians in whom Medians would be the most pure version of tribe of Madan), or a tribe having lived on Crete, the Caphthorim, one which was Chamite.

But this is not important.

What is more important is that they identified memories of Nod with India - and geographically I think they were right. I also think the hero Bharat is a mixted memory of two heros Henoch in the Bible : the son of Cain who founded a city in Nod, the son of Jared who was lifted up to Heaven.

Monday 27 March 2017

Two points on Krishna : god or lord - no, man - yes (quora)


Q
What are your views on Lord Krishna?
https://www.quora.com/What-are-your-views-on-Lord-Krishna/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl


ARq
Answer requested by Mukesh Khatri

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Studied religions as curious parallels and contrasts to Xtian faith since 9, 10?
Written Mar 17
He is not Lord.

He was a man.

I have mostly said his role in Mahabharata indicates he lived before the Flood, and therefore, unlike Indian legend before Rama who was a son of Kush after the Flood, but today I had news there would have been a minor Flood (compared to that of Noah) after the ice age, in the days of Tower of Babel.

This means Krishna in Mahabharata would be double as to real life persons:

  • a charioteer of Arjuna (and previously a benefactor when they were persecuted by Kauravas) living before the Flood, possibly identical to the Biblical Jubal;
  • and also someone who in India after the Flood (and after Rama) predicted the minor Flood of that corner of India in NW.


He was not a god, and I hope for either persons sake they never said the things attributed to Krishna in Bhagavadgita.

Regis Chapman
I wonder at the motivation of such an answer, spoken as authoritatively as it is.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
I have a double one:

  • 1) I am a Christian and cannot believe he was God or a god;
  • 2) I am interested in tradition as a faithful instrument of transmitting history, I cannot believe the charioteer of Arjuna never lived.


One other answer or two

I
ARq
Answer requested by Mukesh Khatri

Mike Rommel
Retired
Written Mar 17
The Bible says that there is only one Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He alone came to earth as God in the flesh, died for the sins of all mankind, and rose again defeating death. Anyone can be saved by repenting of their sins and believing on the name of Jesus to save them. This is a promise from God. Now what exactly did Krishna do? Is there any proof he even existed? I think he is a made up god.

Jude 24:25 "All glory to him who alone is God, our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord. All glory, majesty, power, and authority are his before all time, and in the present, and beyond all time! Amen."
Acts 4:11 "For Jesus is the one referred to in the Scriptures, where it says, ‘The stone that you builders rejected has now become the cornerstone.’ 12 There is salvation in no one else! God has given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved.”

My comment to it here
I agree to everything except "Is there any proof he even existed?", I think the story of Mahabhrata, though involving a false theology, a denial of Flood between its action and the time of the poem, definitely errors in details does argue the main participants really lived and were men of renown.

II

ARq
Answer requested by Mukesh Khatri

Regis Chapman
Religion is a way of seeking Truth and explaining the available evidence.
Written Mar 18
Mostly, I am grateful for the Mahabharata and the Bhagavad Gita.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
I think Mahabharata may shed some light on details of what happened before the Flood, I do not think Bhagavadgita sheds a pure light on theology.

32 posts in 10 days, 31 posts in 24 hours, nearly 3000 readers over the blogs same time


The 32 posts were from 10 days, 16-26.III.2017, excluding 19.III.2017, St Joseph's Day and III Lord's Day of Lent in which I had no internet access.

1 Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : Other Answers, Where I do Arguing on Matters Not Persons, Crossing words with Iñaki Rodriguez under Two Answers · 2 New blog on the kid : Does the Bible Say That Emotions Are Deceitful? · 3 New blog on the kid : 450 ans et 470 ans ... · 4 New blog on the kid : No, I'm Not Going Gay Community ... · 5 New blog on the kid : No, Horvath, This is Not The Only Option · 6 Great Bishop of Geneva! : Barnes on Jewish Tradition · 7 HGL's F.B. writings : Magisterio de Todo Tiempo o Magisterio Vivo? · 7 bis HGL's F.B. writings : On Collective Infallibility of Church Fathers · 8 Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : ... on Genevieve von Petzinger's 32 late palaeolithic signs · 9 New blog on the kid : Pour honorer ma mère · 10 New blog on the kid : "Are We Required to Give to Everyone Who Asks?" - Answered by Fr. Michael Kerper - Link · 11 Creation vs. Evolution : Quora : Does the Bible, Torah and the Quran tell us how long humans have been on this Earth and where they first appeared? · 12 Creation vs. Evolution : Richard Carrier Refutes Certain Evolutionists · 13 somewhere else : Carrier on Tacitus · 14 HGL's F.B. writings : Continuing the Debate with RT · 15 HGL's F.B. writings : Dialogue with a Pre-Adamist (Not a Pre-Adamite, I think) · [14 and 15 really belong lower, under 21.III.2017 and some of following should get up two notches] · 16 Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : ... on Papacy · 17 Great Bishop of Geneva! : On "Works of Supererogations" · 18 Great Bishop of Geneva! : If Constantine had Founded the Catholic Church ... · 19 New blog on the kid : Dalaï-Lama a tort · 20 Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : Prehistory of France · 21 Creation vs. Evolution : New Fibonacci Calibration · 22 Creation vs. Evolution : What about Ussher and Kent Hovind? Checking with Troy · 23 Creation vs. Evolution : Around Five Thousand Years Ago, There was a World Wide Flood? · 24 Creation vs. Evolution : About 5300 Years Ago There was a World Wide Flood? Iffy ... · 25 Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : ... on Genevieve von Petzinger's view on human religion and symbolic behaviour · 26 Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : ... on CMI's Stone Age video · 27 New blog on the kid : Bonum Festum Annuntiationis beatissimae Virginis Genitricis Dei Mariae · 28 Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : Happy Ring Day, Tolkien Lovers · 29 Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : ... on Chesterton and Nietzsche · 30 Great Bishop of Geneva! : Salvation and Schrödinger's Cat · 31 New blog on the kid : Imaginez, si vous voulez, un hypnothérapeute fourbe

I had numbered them 1 to 31 after the following, and then saw that before number 8, there were not 7 but 8 on same date, so I added a "7 bis".

Now, here are the top 31 posts by viewers last 24 hours, ranging from 18 to 10:

I 18 Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : ... on Chesterton and Nietzsche · II 16 Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : Answering Steve Rudd · III 15 Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : Have these dialogues taken place? Yes. · IV 15 Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : Copyright issues on blogposts with shared copyright · V 15 Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : I think I wrote a mistaken word somewhere on youtube - or perhaps not · VI 15 Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : What is Expertise? Some Things It is Not. · VII 15 Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : Dialoguing Mainly with Adversaries · VIII 15 deretour : Atapuerca - 80.000 (ou encore 800.000) ans de vieux? · IX 15 deretour : Cardinal Lustiger (RIP) - vraiment "apostat"? · X 15 deretour : Ordo Missae of Paul VI per se valid, probably · XI 15 deretour : Sir George Darwin corrected Galileo Galilei on tides, you know ... · XII 15 deretour : FAQ Fr/Eng · XIII 15 deretour : Conscience: cerveau-ordinateur ou âme? · XIV 15 deretour : M. Onfray et St. Thomas d' Aquin · XV 14 deretour : Terre et Soleil - laquelle est stabile? · XVI 14 deretour : Réponses à "aimerjesus" · XVII 13 Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : It Seems Apocalypse is Explained in a Very Relevant Part · XVIII 11 Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : Norse Myth, Commenting on Jackson Crawford · XIX 10 Creation vs. Evolution : Around Five Thousand Years Ago, There was a World Wide Flood? · XX 10 Great Bishop of Geneva! : Salvation and Schrödinger's Cat · XXI 10 Great Bishop of Geneva! : On "Works of Supererogations" · XXII 10 New blog on the kid : Imaginez, si vous voulez, un hypnothérapeute fourbe · XXIII 10 New blog on the kid : St Augustine was - Literally - a Young Earth Creationist and Geocentric, and he was Right · XXIV 10 New blog on the kid : Malfaisance de "Sécurité" · XXV 10 New blog on the kid : Fatima - Bad News and Good News - the latter provided by Pope Michael · XXVI 10 New blog on the kid : Have I Done Ill Speaking Against the Real Pope a Few Years Ago? · XXVII 10 New blog on the kid : A Relevant Quote from J. R. R. Tolkien · XXXVIII 10 New blog on the kid : Panthéisme ? Non. Trinité ? Oui. · XXIX 10 New blog on the kid : Sur le concept de l'ésotérique et sur les sociétés secrètes · XXX 10 New blog on the kid : Hans-Georg Gadamer was of the "Frankfurter Schule" - get Inklings for me please! · XXXI 10 New blog on the kid : Would Gay Marriage Allow them an Authentic Life?

In both lists, I have avoided to include posts which just link elsewhere in multiple links, like this post right here. And here are the readers, numbers. 2725 readers in 24 hours, 63.38 % Russia:

Russia 1727
7 310 41 84 125 309 42 4 42 84 13 209 63 42 42 41 42 42 185
United States 700
34 3 1 161 1 2 1 1 1 52 1 1 225 6 1 14 1 1 182 11
Ukraine 77
10 6 7 16 13 7 6 1 11
Indonesia 54
2 52
France 51
6 1 5 1 3 1 2 32
Poland 34
6 4 1 4 1 1 17
Netherlands 19
3 1 1 3 2 4 2 1 2
Ireland 13
6 2 5
Germany 9
1 1 3 1 2 1
United Kingdom 8
2 4 2
Belarus 7
Norway 6
1 2 1 1 1
China 4
1 1 2
Portugal 2
1 1
Spain 2
Sweden 5
2 1 1 1
7 * 1 view only:
Switzerland, Turkmenistan, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Brazil, Japan, Singapore.

Sunday 26 March 2017

Imaginez, si vous voulez, un hypnothérapeute fourbe


Il ne demande pas les buts de son sujet, mais décide souverainement sur les suggestions post-hypnotiques, sans de tenir compte de ce que veut son sujet en se posant volontaire à être hypnotisé.

Prenons une bourde faite par une hypnothérapeute qui semble honnête. Un sujet avait demandé une suggestion contre le chocolat quand elle suivait un régime. La suggestion fut de ne pas goûter le goût même du chocolat, mais juste la qualité de gras, comme du beurre pur. Des mois plus tard, elle avait fini son régime, mais n'arrivait plus à manger du chocolat quand elle voulait.

L'hypnothérapeute corrige.

Mais imaginez que des hypnothérapeutes se décident que tel ou tel à besoin de faire un régime, même s'il ne l'a demande pas. Ou besoin de finir le chocolat parce que ce serait pas suffisamment macho par rapport à une certaine culture. Quel mal ils pourraient faire!

Or, l'état alpha n'est pas pour rien dans certains actes religieux.

Un père confesseur est quelque part comparable à un hypnothérapeute. Et j'ai eu affaire avec des pères confesseurs qui ont abusé vastement.

Pour se procurer du plaisir sexuel, comme dans les actualités récentes? Non, je ne le crois pas.

Pour me priver de ça, plutôt.

Comme on sait, dans la religion catholique, le plaisir sexuel n'est licite que dans le mariage (fidélité exclusive, fertilité au moins en intention sinon toujours en réussite).

Comme on peut deviner, donc, si un catholique ne s'en passe pas, s'il retombe en des péchés contre sixième et neuvième, ça serait en soi une bonne idée de se poser la question si ce catholique ne devrait pas se marier.

J'ai eu DEUX pères confesseurs, les DEUX ont dirigé mes pénitences et choses à éviter et choses à faire dans un sens qui n'a pas aidé au moins pour que je me trouve marié. J'ai quitté les DEUX après en chaque cas un an. Et chez les DEUX je m'étais confessé environ une fois par semaine.

Je n'ai pas la patience de gaspiller un an sur un père confesseur qui se pose surtout la tâche de me garantir le maximum de chasteté et le minimum de contact avec des filles, qui veut surtout que j'évite des occasions prochaines de ces péchés, même ceux qui sont nécessaires quand on cherche une femme.

L'un est décédé. L'autre est curé. Dans l'église ou la secte Novus Ordo ou "de Vatican d'Eux", même s'il célèbre en forme extraordinaire. Au moins DEUX, sinon trois ou quatre fois, ai-je essayé d'aborder avec lui le fait que je ne voulais pour l'essentiel pas poursuivre une éventuelle vocation religieuse. Et au moins deux fois, après que j'avais commencé une conversation qu'il avait la liberté normale à transmettre à qui que ce pourrait concerner, il redirige la conversation en confession et donne une absolution, ce qui implique que ça devienne une chose sub rosa confessionis.

À St Nicolas du Chardonnet je ne risque normalement pas qu'une conversation devienne insensiblement une confession sur l'initiative du prêtre. Par contre ils sont bien capables de me bloquer chaque conversation avant que je m'eusse confessé.

Un hypnothérapeute ne doit pas réagir de la même manière sur la consommation de calories si le sujet veut faire de l'athlétisme ou s'il veut suivre un régime pour maigrir. Peut-être un hypnothérapeute ne devrait pas être impliqué dans ni l'un ni l'autre cas, mais s'il l'est il doit au moins savoir dans lequel il est impliqué.

Un prêtre qui reçoit une confession sur péchés contre sixième et neuvième mandements doit réagir de manière diverse aussi selon ce qu'il s'agit d'un célibataire qui doit le rester (par exemple ayant fait des veux éternels de chasteté) ou s'il s'agit d'un célibataire qui veut (et légalement peut) se marier.

Sinon, il remplit la triste prophétie de St Paul; je la cite d'après Douay Rheims:

Forbidding to marry, to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving by the faithful, and by them that have known the truth. 1 Timothy 4:3

Ou selon Crampon:

1 Timothée 4:3 qui proscrivent le mariage, et l'usage d'aliments que Dieu a créés afin que les fidèles et ceux qui ont connu la vérité en usent avec actions de grâces.

Une bourde pareille peut bien-sûr surgir si le pénitent confesse des péchés de haine et de colère à propos des gens qui lui bloquent la possibilité de vivre de son écriture, et le prêtre imagine que le fait même qu'il le veuille constitue un péché, si le prêtre imagine être bienveillant envers le pénitent s'il présume qu'il aura voulu confesser ça aussi.

Comme un péché.

Certes, si un pénitent volontairement offre sa liberté dans les mains du prêtre, c'est une autre chose. Il peut laisser libre au prêtre s'il doit se marier ou non, et quel sera son métier. Mais de présumer ce genre d'acte, en soi vertueux, mais pour beaucoup pénible et donc rare, comme précondition pour la pastorale, c'est aussi abusif.

Et malheureseusement, à St Nicolas du Chardonnet je viens de trouver des prêtres qui veulent risquer la validité de la confession de cette manière. Pour Monseigneur Lefebvre, la raison d'être pour la fraternité, c'était de garantir des sacrements, dont des confessions valides.

Pas des gens qui disent à un pénitent, comme le fit Xavier Beauvais "je vous donne l'absolution sous une condition, mais je ne dis pas laquelle" ou "si vous faites une résolution, mais je ne dis pas laquelle". Et si la résolution que je pris, à savoir d'essayer de trouver une femme et une occasion de vivre de mon écriture et de ma composition était celle qu'il excluait de la validité de l'absolution? Il me demandait de jouer Roulette Russe à propos de mon âme!

Jusqu'à présent, je ne trouve pas que l'Abbé Gainche (un chapelain) ou l'Abbé Patrick de La Rocque (qui fonctionne comme curé après Xavier Beauvais) eût corrigé les choses.

Il devrait le faire socialement, même si pour des raison ecclésiales je ne vais pas me confesser à des prêtres de la Fraternité de St Pie X.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris XI
Dimanche Laetare
26.III.2017

Tuesday 21 March 2017

Dalaï-Lama a tort


Je sais, ce n'est pas exactement une nouvelle! Il a tort depuis le fait d'être Bouddhiste, consciemment!

Mais ce qui est une actualité à propos ça est que son tweet - ou un de ses tweets - vient d'être republié en Direct Matin, aujourd'hui, Mardi 21 Mars 2017.*

Je le cite:

Toutes les relgions ont le potentiel de créer de meilleures personnes - mais aucune religion ne peut clamer sa suprémité au-dessus d'une autre.


D'abord, le but de la religion, un but qui est atteint par la vraie religion chez ses adhérents vraiment observants, et qui ne l'est pas chez les adhérents observants ou pas de tous d'une fausse religion, ce n'est pas de "créer de meilleures personnes".

En fait, créer une personne, c'est un acte de Dieu, avant que cette personne aie le contact avec une religion.

Et encore, améliorer une personne (déjà créée par Dieu, comme dit) n'est pas le but ultime de la vraie religion. Le vrai but est d'honorer Dieu.

En dessous de ce but ultime, le vrai but est de sauver des âmes humains pour le Ciel, pour qu'elles puissent être éternellement unies à Dieu.

Car Dieu est mieux honoré par le félicité des sauvés que par les souffrances des damnés.

Et dans les deux buts, il peut très bien y avoir une vraie religion, et il y en a, qui conduit chez ceux qui l'observent à ces deux buts : qu'ils honorent Dieu et qu'ils sauvent leurs âmes, leur éternité.

Car, Dieu veut dire le Tout-Puissant. Vu qu'Il est Tout-Puissant, vu qu'Il s'occupe de nous, vu qu'Il connaît tous nos circonstances, Il est aussi en position de nous donner une religion qui est la vraie et qui donc a une suprématie sur les autres. Et une religion qui commençait par reclamer ceci et qui cesse de le faire, qui se met d'accord avec le tweet de Dalaï-Lama, c'est une religion qui se dénature, qui n'est plus la même religion.

Un Catholique qui est Catholique ne peut pas être d'accord avec Dalaï-Lama.

Un Catholique qui est d'accord avec Dalaï Lama n'est plus Catholique, il est devenu Apostat.

Hans Georg Lundahl
BU de Nanterre
St Benoît de Nursie
ou Mardi après
III Dim. du Carême
21.III.2017

* C'est sur page 6, et le numéro est 2041.

Monday 20 March 2017

Work on Three Blogs & Readers on Five Blogs


Work of the writer today:

Great Bishop of Geneva! and two other :

On "Works of Supererogations"
http://greatbishopofgeneva.blogspot.com/2017/03/on-works-of-supererogations.html


If Constantine had Founded the Catholic Church ...
http://greatbishopofgeneva.blogspot.com/2017/03/if-constantine-had-founded-catholic.html


FR : Répliques Assorties : Sur le scandale pédophile d'Australie
http://repliquesassorties.blogspot.com/2017/03/sur-le-scandale-pedophile-daustralie.html


Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : ... on Papacy
http://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/2017/03/on-papacy.html


Some well read messages on well read blogs, last 24 hours:

Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : The City Lights Went Out, Did They?
http://filolohika.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-city-lights-went-out-did-they.html


Creation vs. Evolution : Richard Carrier Refutes Certain Evolutionists
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2017/03/richard-carrier-refutes-certain.html


somewhere else : Carrier on Tacitus
http://notontimsblogroundhere.blogspot.com/2017/03/carrier-on-tacitus.html


New blog on the kid : A Catholic Opposes Christian Zionism (Link)
http://nov9blogg9.blogspot.com/2017/03/a-catholic-opposes-christian-zionism.html


Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : Norse Myth, Commenting on Jackson Crawford
http://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/2017/02/norse-myth-commenting-on-jackson.html


Pageviews+today 468 : 176+104+84+81+23
Pageviews+yesterday 854 : 82+156+202+145+269
Last 24 hours, 1067 :

United+States 598 : 6+13+171+220+188
France 126 : 6 2 116 2
Ukraine 24 : 4 1 12 7
Netherlands 21 : 11 1 6 3
Germany 20 : 1 1 16 2
Russia 2 2
India 3
Spain 1 2
Romania 3
Bulgaria 2
Lithuania 2
China 2 : 1 1
United Kingdom 2 : 1 1

1 only : Denmark, Italy, Estonia, South Korea.

Friday 17 March 2017

Pour honorer ma mère




Lien:

Défendons la liberté de conscience des médecins !
http://petit.io/petition/droit-de-naitre/defendons-la-liberte-de-conscience-des-medecins


Une réserve contre une seule clause de ce que je viens de signer? Pas vraiment, à part que la phrase

Et les Français n’accepteront jamais que le Parlement les adopte en catimini alors que la fin du quinquennat de M. François Hollande approche à grands pas.


me paraît un peu optimiste, mais peut-être c'est la perspective sur les Français de Paris qui me rend pessimiste ...

Hans Georg Lundahl
BU de Nanterre
St Patrick
17.III.2017

Thursday 16 March 2017

No, Horvath, This is Not The Only Option


Citing :

"If we truly desire the B-option, then let us not withdraw from modernity, for strategic retreats easily turn into routs. Let us rather engage our neo-barbarian culture by both cultivating our Benedictine identity when projecting Boniface’s strength. It is the only option."


Your "only option" has the fault of everyone having to do the same thing.

Let "us" not do this, let "us" do that.

We may need both Benedicts and Bonifaces, both Placids and Patricks.

But St Patrick didn't learn to be the missionary in Ireland. He learned it in a monastery in Gaul.

St Ansgar (bowing) did not learn to be missionary in Sweden or Denmark or North Coast of Germany, he learned it in Bec and Corbey - sorry, Bec was St Anselm.

I have been a cultural warrior in a very unsheltered position, and am inefficacious due to exasperation and lack of charity.

Any time I have sought any kind of shelter against the tides of my harassers, I have been thrown back.

It may even continue for a while, but I am sure more sheltered people are better able to pray.

Now, the option you on the one hand describe as a good thing in itself and on the other as insufficient, is not a sheltered monastery.

It is a sheltered village, with married men and women bearing thirty-fold fruit.

It can be protected by missionaries (I am not likely to be one, except very indirectly through my writings, like Chesterton and C. S. Lewis, though not as indirectly as Tolkien, who forbade himself to be openly "everyman's theologian" and was perhaps forbidden also by his priest), it can be protected by crusaders. But in order to be protected it must exist.

It is a total mistake to imagine everyman can be drawn to the faith by sheer strength of grown men who renounce shelter. Even the first 280 years of the Church, the conversion came also because of people like St Barbara who genuinely liked being sheltered. The defense of Poland was by a Black Madonna in the hands of monks whose patron Saint was St Paul the First Hermit.

And Our Lady Herself was a sheltered woman. Our Lord and His disciples and at Her burial God Himself did not want it otherwise (Her grave was of course empty, I am not saying or suggesting She is dead).

She was not totally sheltered, she was often harrassed by the Jews, but not physically, and she was given shelter from them when needed.

The Day when the Church only has defenders and no one left to be sheltered is a dark day. It is not sure she will survive for long then without Our Lord returning.

Not doing villages of crunch conservatives is also a non-defense of economic good sense, a non-return to the order you claim to want to return to, a condemnation to either very jejune life or the hectic consummation you claim is at the back of the economic problem.

It poses the little question, is your loyalty with Christ, His Church and our models in it reaching back to the Middle Ages and beyond?

Or with businessmen who don't want to feel inferior for being hectic in production, or in demands of interest on monetary loans?

Is your moral theology Roman or Americanist?

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
Thursday after
II Lord's Day of Lent
16.III.2017

No, I'm Not Going Gay Community ...


I saw a little list ... well to some people I have lived with, liking of music such as Gilbert and Sullivan, when age peers preferred ACDC and Iron Maiden and highways to hell and stairways to heaven (the latter is musically good, but doctrinally insipid).

Quotes from Thom Senzee in Italics.

Other quote, or quotes if more than one, indented. Even in relation to general indention.


Own comment straight. No more indented than the text in Italics.

I give upper case Roman Numerals (I, II ...) for those I do not agree were "queer" and lower case Roman Numerals (i, ij ...) for those I agree were so.

I Alexander the Great
Although historians point out ad nauseam the so-called inappropriateness of applying modern constructs such as "gay," "bisexual," "homosexual," or "queer" to an ancient king like Alexander, no serious historian doubts that history's penultimate warrior-monarch was attracted to men.

Right ... not one single indication he was committing sodomy with anyone, only that there was a per se non-sexual context in which he liked male company. An indication he was "gay"? No, an indication the writer is rabidly suspicious of contexts in which men gather together.

II Hatshepsut
Transgender because in Egypt "ruling queen" is expressed as "female king"? Who not "Emperor Eirene" (genuine Byzantine title of the Empress who helped defeat Iconoclasm, but in doing so was barbarious enough, though a Saint, to blind her own son, which was why Charlemagne considered East Rome had fallen into Barbarism)?

III Leonardo da Vinci
Acknowledgement of Leonardo' gayness is almost universal.

Almost. Especially among the sex role "fundies" who consider androgynity as necessarily homosexual.

There is a little village of unreducable Gauls, however ...

i Alan Turing
Without looking at text : yes, I know. He was also bright enough to feel guilty about it.

He was also non-Christian and fatalist enough to feel incapable of getting out of it. His way out was suicide.

Who but a computer geek royal would give Alan Turing as an example to set before men?

My source is of course not this gobbledigook by Thom Senzee, but straight old wiki!

IV Michelangelo
Before looking : let me guess, he scultured a David as a nude ... in his day that was convention.

Not quite wrong, not quite right. Pietro Aretino, an atheist, had "suggested pederasty", and we are left wondering whether the allegations of Aretino about contemporaries were true and that drove him to atheism, or whether his atheism and misanthropy drove him to allegations simply over unreasonable suspicious.

Apart from that, the University of Illinois has an expert assessment of where his erotical interests lay:

"None the less, the physical beauty of many of his monumental male nudes ... gives a clear indication as to where Michelangelo’s erotic interests lay."


OK, if he had been in love with women, all his male nudes had been ugly? Would that have made him straight or just incompetent as a workman?

"In addition, in 1532 Michelangelo met and fell in love with a young Roman nobleman, Tommaso de’ Cavalieri, described by the humanist Benedetto Varchi as possessing ‘not only incomparable physical beauty, but so much elegance in manners, such excellent intelligence, and such graceful behavior’. Tommaso married in 1538 and had two sons, but Michelangelo remained devoted for the rest of his life, dedicating numerous poems and several presentation drawings to him (e.g. The Rape of Ganymede, 1532)."


Supposing there was an "affair", Tommaso is proof homosexuals can marry - a thing I have been saying for quite a while.

The scientific article is not citing very precise evidence "fell in love with" is an accurate description of what happened to them.

"However, when Michelangelo’s nephew and namesake eventually published over one hundred poems in 1623, any suggestion of homosexuality was effaced by altering the gender of the poems’ subjects and addressees."


OK, so the published version has female adressees?

"John Addington Symonds‘s translation of a selection of the poems, together with his biography of the artist, sought to redress this suppression of Michelangelo’s homosexuality which, even if largely unknowable, was none the less a key aspect of his art."


I sense a lack of epistemic coherence.

If it is unknowable whether Michelangelo was homosexual, or whether something else was going on, it is also unknowable whether "his homosexuality" or something else is a "key aspect" not of his art, but of his making of the art.

You see, a work of art is distinct from the artists personal secrets about its fabrication and guesses on the latter is not a valid form of art criticism.

If his art strikes some moderns as homosexual, that may furthermore be their modern outlook, not that of Michelangelo who lived in the Renaissance.

Also, it seems we must rely on Symonds to know that original adressees were indeed men, Tommaso and others. And that they were so tender the intention must have been erotic.

I suppose the foreword of his translation does explain why he has other gender than original published adressees. If he did find these in preserved original manuscripts, that would be explained in Symond's foreword. Or footnotes or endnotes.

It is at least not explained in the page I am looking at.

"Increasingly recognized as a notable literary achievement in their own right (despite their density of language and often complex construction), Michelangelo’s poems also provide useful insights into his beliefs and aesthetic precepts such as the broadly Neoplatonic notion that physical beauty could be a conduit to transcendent spiritual beauty, for example ‘beauty … moves and carries every healthy mind to heaven’."


Fine enough, as long as he is not primarily meaning that of male nudes.

"However, while Neoplatonism was part of the culture of the Medici circle, and of Michelangelo himself, and may also have fostered an emergent homosexual identity (see Saslow), ..."


OK, why should I believe Saslow on it?

They don't even give the reference, they presume Saslow is a known name in "queer studies" or sth.

Here we should however look at the rest of the story, I'll give it in full:

"... claims that Michelangelo’s art illustrates a fully developed Neoplatonic system (see Tolnay) have been downplayed in recent scholarship. Neoplatonic influences upon Michelangelo should also be placed within a broader framework of Christian belief affecting his art, particularly from the late 1530s; indeed, the contrasting moral codes of Neoplatonism and Catholicism may partly account for Michelangelo’s ambivalent sexual feelings. In his later years Michelangelo also witnessed the emergence of the austere spirituality of the Counter-Reformation, especially in Rome, where he had settled permanently in 1534. His Christian faith was reinforced by his friendship with Vittoria Colonna, the Marchesa di Pescara, whom he met in 1536 and with whom he remained in close contact until her death in 1547. Her dedication to Catholicism strongly influenced his own devout religiosity as expressed, for example, in his sacred poetry that gave voice to a growing preoccupation with death and salvation.

In 1563 Michelangelo was elected an academician of the Florentine Accademia del Disegno and, despite his old age, he continued to work on a number of projects (principally architectural) until his death in Rome(“The Gay 100”, p68)."


ij Barbara Gittings
She was a lesbian and did half of a good job : 1973 American Psychaitric Association revoked its designation of homosexuality as a disorder.

Good.

Sodomites should be punished, or not punished, preferrably punished.

Cyprus had a good law up to 1998 or sth.

But Homosexuals should not be brought to mental institutions for evaluation. Especially not when the mental institutions are evaluating whether they are Homosexuals or not.

iij "Christine" Jorgensen
No, his name is George Jorgensen. He had fought the Nazis. He's American, not Danish, check out Jorgensen (Statten Island spelling) versus Jørgensen (Danish spelling of his ancestors' name.

Also, a Dane is responsible for committing the crime. You know, the nation which, unlike Sweden, resisted the Nazis.

He "literally became a guinea pig for Dr. Christian Hamburger, already a renowned Danish endocrinologist."

A Scandinavian medical doctor ...

iu Sally Ride
A proof positive homosexuals can marry.

"Although she had been married to a man until the mid-1980's, by thetime of her death in 2012, Ride had been in a 27-year old relationship with a female partner, Tam O'Shaughnessy."

"Ride only came out as a lesbian posthumously. But that had more to do with her very private nature, according to her sister, Bear Ride, than it did with a lack of being gay. Bear Ride is also a lesbian and, as an activist and an ordained Presbyterian minister ..."


Say. No. More.

This just confirms my prejudices against astronauts male and female, NASA or its counterpart in Baikonur, and against female ordination, and against Presbyterian ministers.

Just mentioning, the Swedish Church I was into for about two years after rejecting Evangelicals was close enough to these Presbyterians - among my surroundings, but not on my part. Such people tend to invoke what the Reformation was about and believe they frighten conservatives into compliance by telling them "if that is how you feel why not as well become Catholic".

u Harvey Milk
I am in favour of the Briggs Initiative if it was about people who openly identified as gay themselves. I am against it if it also includes people just suspected of being so.

If he was assassinated, could it be because he staved off the Briggs Initiative and gave one man the opportunity to approach one boy whom his murderer had reasons of family to care about?

uj Tammy Baldwin
She agreed multiple causes were involved in Orlando. Obviously her priority was about freedom for gay nightclubs, not freedom for normal people to have guns.

Or, perhaps not quite:

The focus is on legislation introduced by Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California “that would allow the attorney general to ban gun sales to suspected terrorists, including those on watch lists, if there is ‘reasonable belief’ the weapons may be used to carry out an attack,” as USA Today reports.


However, as with being stamped as gay so also being stamped as a potential terrorist.

A mental patient who would use a gun in legitimate self defense would perhaps be barred from buying a gun? Or, perhaps that is nothing new ...?

So, if she would not disarm normal people seen as normal people, she would perhaps encourage more and more discriminations about who was seen as normal and not.

How about closing down gay nightclubs, as police tried in Stonewall?

uij Wachowski sisters (?) have come out as transgender
Does that mean they are really Wachowski brothers?

uiij Ellen DeGeneres
She and Obama (on same picture) are really an incitament for me to believe that LGBT community does recruit members.

My situation seems to indicate they have wanted to recruit me, for very long. God help them to failure if so, and to seeing it quickly!

So far, they have fooled psychiatrists or had accomplices who were so, the psychiatrists have fooled Catholic Church men about me. And these have fooled girls in their parishes I had fallen in love with.

ix Barney Frank
Wants openly homosexual people to be not discriminated.

Do they really want to suggest he had an ulterior motive?

x James Baldwin
Seems to have suggested it as openly as Jonas Gardell did in Sweden. Except Jonas Gardell is blond and blue eyed. And not working class.

Much as I like reading, they are not on my reading list!

xj Bayard Rustin
Proof Martin Luther King was sometimes in bad company. And I don't mean because he was black.

xij Troy Perry
Before looking at text. The "minister" on the picture wearing a rainbow stole reminds me of the fact that God's next action about sodomites won't be a world wide deluge. Doesn't mean there isn't coming any at all.

Looking, yes, Troy Perry is that "minister", he is styled "Rev". I am not likely to visit the Metropolitan Community Church, even apart from the fact that as a Catholic I can't.

xiij Harry Hay
"In order to earn for ourselves any place in the sun, we must work collectively ... for the first-class citizenship of minorities everywhere."

Sorry, but Geocentrics and Gays won't work collectively for each other's first-class citizenship.

Perhaps you are too much of a Commie to appreciate that "collectively" doesn't rule every human endaveour.

Or were.

xiu "Laurence Michael" Dillon
No, Laura Maud Dillon.

Buddhist "monk" and author of two books about spirituality ... I don't feel like emulating her in any respect.

xu Oscar Wilde
God grant his repentance was valid! RIP!

V Deborah Sampson
If she was a tomboy, that doesn't make this hero lesbian. Even though it seems she had an episode.


In the article "20 LGBT People Who Changed the World" By Thom Senzee which I am not linking to, I am glad I didn't find Queen Christina, even if the person linking to the page mentioned her in connection with the people on this one.

"This is changing now and people can read all they want about Oscar Wilde's or Queen Christina of Sweden's homosexuality."


Except, she arguably was a tomboy but not lesbian.

I'll check with a friend who is historian, just to be sure, but as I recall, her evaluation (and she did some research, since Christina of Sweden was also a post-Reformation Swedish convert to Catholicism and a very famous one) was that lesbian she was not.

I see a little problem with the list. Maria Supplisson linked to.

It seems to have the intention of giving "great men of renown" as role models for budding homosexuals. Such an idea is at least one type or degree of recruitment of homosexuals.

If I hadn't had other ideas about who the great men of renown were (see Mahabharata, the heroes of which are very renowned in India, some even accepted as gods, at least Rama and Krishna, though they were men), the compilation of such a list as this would have given me an idea, if not of who, at least of what kind.

Most of them, including Sally Ride, I had no idea about anyway. They weren't great men of renown to me.

Most of those I did know, I don't think the writer presented very credible evidence for homosexuality.

Most of them I accepted as homosexuals were nobodies before I read to me and after I read became moral equivalents of cold coffee heated without milk. I spared my readers some of the worst. If you want to read the article in full, which I don't recommend, you are free to google it.

Two homosexuals I do like, despite this, Oscar Wilde (who I hope is where such things are no longer relevant, beyond Purgatory, in Heaven) and Gittings. Her fight against psychiatry was a good deed, if not totally without ulterior motives. Not because homosexuals are specially good, but because psychiatry is too bad even for them.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
Thursday after
Second Lord's Day in Lent
16.III.2017

450 ans et 470 ans ...


Normalement, ça serait davantage normal de célébrer les 450 ans, du début du Concile de Trente en 1547 ou de sa fin en 1563.

En 2013 j'étais à Paris et je n'avais pas l'impression que la fin du Concile de Trente en 1563 intéressait tellement que plus tard (aussi à Paris), 2015 les 50 ans depuis la fin du Concile de Vatican II ou plutôt Concile Brigand de Vatican d'Eux. À moins que c'était en 2012, les 50 années depuis son début en 1962.

Bon, en 2017, c'est quand même 470 ans depuis le début du Concile de Trente. Et à Paris et en Angleterre, donc dans la plupart des États-Unis comme en tout Canada, exceptés juste les états qui s'appelaient Flórida, Téjas, Nueva Méjico, California la Alta, on a un jubilée des 740 ans depuis le syllabus de l'évêque Tempier.

Je viens déjà de donner un lien à propos ceci.

Les textes du Concile de Trente sont davantage accessibles sur internet que ceux de l'évêque parisien.

Parfois, quand même, un canon a besoin d'une annotation. Ce que j'ai fait il y a quelque temps:

New blog on the kid : Grammatica et Logica de Canone Celeberrimo Concilii Tridentini
http://nov9blogg9.blogspot.com/2014/07/grammatica-et-logica-de-canone.html


Aujourd'hui, j'ai eu occasion de m'y référer, puisque j'ai fait une observation sur ce que dit le "KatéKisme de l'église Katolique", KKK (bon, on abrège aussi CEC en français, mais ça serait d'orthographe correcte pour une œuvre très incorrect : KKK c'est l'abbréviation suédoise : "Katolska Kyrkans Katekes").

Je ne l'avais pas noté avant, puisque j'avais rejeté ce Bestellwerk de Ratzinger déjà les premier paragraphes, quand il dit qu'on ne peut pas avoir une preuve scientifique de l'existence de Dieu.

Aujourd'hui, oui, un hispanophone nous a quasi bravés, à nous catholiques, parce que nous ne comprenons rien dans la Bible si nous ne sommes pas pape ou évêque, paraît-il.

Or, il avait très mal compris Trente, et il avait encore assez mal compris même l'erreur exact en §85 de KKK:

HGL's F.B. writings : Magisterio de Todo Tiempo o Magisterio Vivo?
http://hglsfbwritings.blogspot.com/2017/03/magisterio-de-todo-tiempo-o-magisterio.html


Bonne lecture!/HGL

Does the Bible Say That Emotions Are Deceitful?


I saw a little passage on CMI, which seemed to suggest that, including a Bible quote which late Westerners are perhaps not the best equipped to understand.

Gary Bates
Now, the point of this article is not to say that these ideas are in themselves necessarily right or wrong. Some might actually be very good at initially meeting people’s needs, or overcoming the perceptions of old-fashioned stuffy churches, and thus, be relatively successful at getting heads in the door. But one often finds that if this becomes the ‘main’ focus of the church, their teaching ministry tends to lose emphasis. For example, many churches (whether conservative or charismatic) have huge choirs or a contemporary band with correspondingly many musical items. This reduces the usual teaching or sermon time—meaning that the focus is not on teaching.

The reality is that many large churches, in particular, suffer a high exodus rate and many leaders have honestly told me the struggle to keep their youth once they start college/university. That is, there is an ongoing turnover. An entertainment-driven focus can obviously help people to feel good about coming to church. It can be fun and give them a bit of a ‘spiritual high’, but we all know that such highs don’t last. Once it becomes the norm, the tendency is to move on to somewhere else to try and experience the next ‘high’. In fact, the Bible has warnings about following the heart too closely. Jeremiah 17:9–10 says:

Quote
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? I the LORD search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways … ”,


In context, Gary Bates is suggesting that Jeremiah is describing emotion as deceitful.

But Jeremiah does not say "emotions", he says "the heart".

This is in Biblical language a wider concept than emotions - just as emotions is a wider concept than passions, if anyone should cite St Thomas Aquinas against "giving emotions free reins". No, one should not give passions free reins, but they are not the whole substance of emotion, this latter also includes the reason and will which is reining them back from certain things.

And reason in St Thomas is not what 19th C. describes as "cold reason" or "sober reasoning" either.

Certainly, a syllogism should be unclouded by any passion of individual love or hatred or anger which sways the judgement on the truth of premisses.

This is especially true about history, where partisan moods are likely actually to achieve the swaying of good judgement, from time to time, which is why Thukydides or if it was Herodotus used a phrase which I think it was Tacitus who translated as "sine ira et studio". Without being angry at Nero or rooting for Agricola ... not sure if he achieved that.

It should not be "unclouded by emotion" as if the premisses or methodology were likeliest to be truest and surest which have the least emotional appeal.

Mathematics should not be shunned, even if they have little emotional appeal to many, but prior to mathematics, there is a judgement on what one is to count about.

After being displaced as temporary teacher of Swedish and German at a school for 7 to 9th graders, I was given hours in maths.

One student (a good young man, but not very apt for studies, and I love having participated in giving him hours off from schoolwork and to be spent as apprentice cook, hope he is a chef now) had failed to get the answer right on a problem involving the area to be painted on a rectangular door with a round window. I suppose he simply didn't like the idea of counting that, since in common life, he would not need to, he would have so much paint to start with and if anything was left after the door was painted, he would save it for next task.

Or he could have been tired. Not for me to figure him out, that is for God and for his wife (hope he's married now). I am suddenly afraid I even cofused two different students, one who went chef, one who was in that class, but I don't think so, even if it is 20 years ago. Well, perhaps doesn't matter. I am not teacher there anymore.

Anyway, he got the answer wrong : he asked, I looked at his work, and saw the problem.

Say the door was 7 ft 6 in by 4 ft 8 in. Say the window had a radius of 4 in.

(7 ft 6 in * 4 ft 8 in * π) - (4 in * 4 in).

What is wrong here?

He has calculated first the area of an elliptic object with narrower width 9 ft 4 in and wider width 15 ft. Then he has deducted from that the area of a tiny square, 3.14 to 3.15 times smaller than the round window should be.

What he should have done was of course:

(7 ft 6 in * 4 ft 8 in) - (4 in * 4 in * π).

I don't think it is very emotionally exhilarating to figure that out in the first place, but there is some emotional high in pointing out what he had been calculating.

Does this emotional high mean I am likely in the least to be wrong in saying that the "* π" belongs to the round and not to the rectangular simpler area, before he makes a complex one by deducting one from other?

Of course not.

Well, I may get a much higher kick out of pointing out the intellectual errors of Heliocentrics and Darwinists than of pointing out his. There may even be an obvious reason for this, those things being proned by people making a living out of proning these things, while he is certainly not making a living out of painting elliptic giant doors 15 ft by 9 ft 4 in on occasion with very small square windows of 4 in * 4 in. And if on occasion he does gain sth from painting a door 7 ft 6 in by 4 ft 8 in with a round window 8 in across, he probably doesn't need to calculate the amount of paint in advance, since he can save what is left in the tin for next time, which in that area is probably soon.

Now, that I am getting this emotional high from proving "learned men" or men who should have been learned wrong, does not prove I am reasoning wrong about the matters on which I think them wrong.

Nor is that the case for the fact that I prefer reasoning before calculating rather than accept the reason behind someone else's calculation just because he calculated right : he could have reasoned wrong, and calculated on the wrong things, as calculating the wrong type of door surface.

Nor does the fact that the conclusions I come to are more exhilarating than materialism. I am not sure which materialist, it could have been Hume, said that in order to support his philosophy he had to cease thinking about it and play backgammon instead. C. S. Lewis made a remark about philosophies which are so terrible they can only be supported by increasing doses of backgammon ...

The intellectual appeal of heartlessness in science "not letting emotion get in the way" is a false one.

Because, what the 19th C. would have called a heartless man, Jeremiah would have called a man whose heart is currently being actively deceitful, not just generally and habitually so. And in Jeremiah, "heart" includes the kind of calculations even in pure mathematics which you believe in.

Lest I be deceitful about credits, here is the article by Gary Bates:

When the emotions are gone, what’s left?
Engaging the mind as well as the heart is vital
By Gary Bates | Published: 16 March 2017
http://creation.com/emotion-gone


As I just explained, Jeremiah is using heart and mind as synonyms, and not as the antonyms Gary is used to from modern culture.

The actual point of the article is more about another matter, on which I will be shorter. Evangelicals have not quite understood "thirty-fold, sixty-fold, hundred-fold fruit" of the "good soil". To Catholics "thirty-fold" means married and using marriage in a Christian way. Sixty-fold means widowhood (St Thomas shows a typological reason why this number should have been chosen, in Beda's hand one finger is oppressing another in the sign for sixty, and widowhood is oppressive). Hundredfold means virginity. This latter part is probably the most unwelcome one to Evangelicals.

As a result, their way is that all should be married, but all should have as un-fun lives as widows (there may be a security related reason for saying they are right if not in general at least perhaps about last century), no wine, no secular music, hospitality is allowed, but who sneaks off with whom is supervised, the marriages are as supervised with them as the priesthoods with us Catholics.

And, as a result, Evangelical life is more like signing up for, if not being a monk, at least being a Franciscan Tertiary, than simply signing up for being a Catholic. It puts tough pressure on the will, and a will that does not get sufficient emotional support will probably break.

He is right that the mind should be armed against heresies like Old Age and Evolution, he would have been right if adding against Heliocentrism as well, because it gives a highway to the distant starlight problem, but he might do well to consider what the exact demands are Evangelical "Churches" puts on Evangelical Christians and ask if this is only what Christ actually demands of every Christian. I think not, that is why I rejected Evangelicalism even as an option at age 14.

One of the reasons this is so is perhaps the misreading about "heart"="emotion" and "emotional highs"="deceitful heart".

Without the Rosary, I have survived as a believing Catholic, but hardly as having charity toward God and Neighbour or Forgiving my Debtors.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
Thursday after
Second Lord's Day of Lent
16.III.2017

Wednesday 15 March 2017

740 et 470 ans


À Paris, ça fait 740 ans depuis le syllabus de l'évêque de Paris, Étienne II Tempier.

Tard en 1276, puisque avant le 25 mars (dans ce système nous serions encore 2016), ou tôt en 1277 (selon notre système).

Le dimanche de Laetare.

Je viens de faire il y a quelques ans, une version annoté, d'après une version d'Angleterre sur les propositions qui sont "interdits à Paris et en Angleterre" (c'est à dire dans tous les diocèses d'Angleterre, d'après la condamnation à Paris des mêmes thèses, ceci bsr à l'époque quand Angleterre était catholique).

Index in stephani tempier condempnationes
http://enfrancaissurantimodernism.blogspot.fr/2012/01/index-in-stephani-tempier.html


Et 470 ans depuis le Concile de Trente./HGL

An Unpleasant Debate with a Scandinavian


New blog on the kid : A Yogi was Very Sure of "Science" · Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : Two Quorans answering "What is the best answer to someone who says the universe is only 6,000 years old?" (quora, obviously) · New blog on the kid : An Unpleasant Debate with a Scandinavian · Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : Other Answers, Where I do Arguing on Matters Not Persons, Crossing words with Iñaki Rodriguez under Two Answers

Q
What is the best answer to someone who says the universe is only 6,000 years old?
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-best-answer-to-someone-who-says-the-universe-is-only-6-000-years-old/answer/Vidar-%C3%98ier%C3%A5s


Vidar Øierås
Written Mon
You can tell them that Moses and his followers was not astronomers and that they was wrong and modern science is right.

However, some people believe in things that is obviously incorrect. You can’t change them. Because, ignorant people has throug their childhood learned and accepted incorrect information without questioning any obvious mismach between reality and what they have learned.

Such people are mainly called religious or crackpots. Religion and common sense is sometimes far, far apart.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
"You can tell them that Moses and his followers was not astronomers and that they was wrong and modern science is right."

Moses was probably as good at planar astronomy as any Egyptian nobility.

If he wasn't, that does not change God spoke to him.

The rest of your diatribe reminds me that your country's school system produced one Breivik's disrespect of Fundies and thereby exaggerated his appraisal of disadvantages with having Pakistanis in your country (one of them was pulled out of your country some time ago by his father and then killed the mother in law of a shrink).

The rest of your diatribe in other words reminds me to be thankful neither to be in Sweden nor with "søte bror".

Vidar Øierås
God spoke to him? How do you know that?

Reading the Bible doesn’t enlighten our knowledge about the age of the universe.

God is a man made idea that has for thousands of years been used to control primitive people. It has been learned through generations. And more people has been killed in the name of God than any other reason.

If the bible told you that 1+1=3 because God told us so, would you deny that 1+1=2?

The universe is older than 6000 years. The Bible is wrong, science is right.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
"God spoke to him? How do you know that?"

  • 1) He said so, Israelites heard him;

  • 2) If he said so, he was lying, or delusional or speaking the exact truth;

  • 3) If he had been lying or delusional, God would not have made miracles for him;

  • 4) God did make miracles for him, all the way from the Burning Bush to the last piece of mannah;

  • 5) Therefore it is true and a known truth (reasonably) that God spoke to Moses.


"Reading the Bible doesn’t enlighten our knowledge about the age of the universe."

It doesn't enlighten Breivik’s or yours, but that is because you are not the most reasonable men in the world.

Both of you look like bad "Norge-vitsar", he has more dignity as having been unduly mistreated in prison.

Note, if he had been executed, as death penalty, that would not have been undue mistreatment, but isolating him simply to break him down is undue mistreatment.

"God is a man made idea"

If mind is prior to matter, how does that not spell out "God is"?

If matter is prior to mind, how can mind produce ideas like "God"?

"that has for thousands of years been used to control primitive people."

Apart from the fact that primitive people are sth you look down on, what exactly does the phrase even mean?

"It has been learned through generations."

Yes, like A, B, C, like 2+2=4, like water is wet, grass is green, heaven is blue ....

"And more people has been killed in the name of God than any other reason."

You forgot that Marxism and other versions of evolutionism (National Socialism was arguably more pantheist than strictly atheist) has killed more in a century than men have killed in previous five or ten centuries put together.

"If the bible told you that 1+1=3 because God told us so, would you deny that 1+1=2?"

If the Bible told anyone 1+1=3 (apart from fertility, man plus woman equalling three in the first pregnancy and similar), it would not be the Bible.

"The universe is older than 6000 years. The Bible is wrong, science is right."

You seem to believe that if I believe the Bible I have no mind and no sense of believing anything except what I am told, and so telling me that sufficient many times might get me around to evolutionism. No, I am not that and it will not and your manners are odious.

Vidar Øierås
Just have in mind that the Bible was written by humans. Humans makes mistakes all the time, and still people believe in them. If God still exist, he would have no problem making us 100% sure he is present outside our own imagination.

Hearing voices is a diagnosis. It’s called schizophrenia.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
"Just have in mind that the Bible was written by humans."

Physically written, yes.

Sometimes however dictated by God (as with Moses part time, as with St John on Patmos) or given by automatic writing (as with St John's Gospel).

"Humans makes mistakes all the time, and still people believe in them."

Humans making mistake include scientists. If they made mistakes "all the time, everyone, everywhere" we would have no reason to believe scientists either.

If "all the time" either is "someone some place" or exaggerated, that is no argument the Bible would be mistaken.

"If God still exist, he would have no problem making us 100% sure he is present outside our own imagination."

He hasn't.

He won't make it troublesome at all on Doomsday.

And He didn't make it troublesome to Israelites witnessing Moses' miracles in the thousands.

He didn't make it troublesome to Christians, those witnessing St John's miracles either.

"Hearing voices is a diagnosis. It’s called schizophrenia."

If Moses or St John had been delusional, God would not have validated their claims to other people in their presence by miracles worked for them.

I don't believe the diagnosis either.

Some cases of "hearing voices" involve no actual hearing of sound where no sound is there physically, but involve emotional relevance of imagination to someone answering loud.

That is not delusion, it is a neurosis of solitude, as with Benn Gunn. A diagnosis of schizophrenia would usually make solitude worse and thereby turn on a vicious circle socially.

Some when a person is really and truly convinced of having someone speak to them is God, other times the Devil. Too bad for them if the Devil can have shrinks of the modern type to punish such a man for even being honest.

And some cases are fever.

There is really no need to posit a diagnosis like schizophrenia, but it keeps money rolling in from tax payers to medical institutions, and pharmaceutic companies.

Have Women at Work Lowered Men's Wages, or Men's Relatively Lowered Wages Driven Women To Work? (quora)


It could be both:

How could 1950s families afford to have only a working father, but a stay-at-home mother?
Dakota White, B.S. Psychology & Biochemistry, Southern Illinois University Carbondale (2016)
Written Mar 5
https://www.quora.com/How-could-1950s-families-afford-to-have-only-a-working-father-but-a-stay-at-home-mother/answer/Dakota-White-4

How could 1950s families afford to have only a working father, but a stay-at-home mother?
Robert Horvick, Principal Engineer at MaxPoint Interactive (2015-present)
Written Mon
https://www.quora.com/How-could-1950s-families-afford-to-have-only-a-working-father-but-a-stay-at-home-mother/answer/Robert-Horvick

Valid points
Dakota White
First off, I’ll compare the differences between minimum wage then and now. In 1950, the average income per year was $3,210. Since the minimum wage was $0.75 an hour (on January 25, 1950), people working the minimum wage the average number of hours a week (43) made $1,677 a year. So, by working the average number of hours and making the federal minimum wage, you could make 52% of the average wage. In 1950, The estimated price of a new car or truck sold in the U.S. was $1,510, less than what minimum wage workers made a year. In 1950, a new house cost $8,450. So, if you never spent a penny of the money you earned, it would take roughly 5 years at the federal minimum wage to save the amount equal to that of a new house.

In 2015, the average income per year was $55,775. Since the minimum wage in 2015 was $7.25 an hour, people working the minimum wage the average number of hours a week (34) made $12,818 a year. So, by working the average number of hours and making the federal minimum wage, you could make 23% of the average wage. The estimated price of a new car sold in the U.S. in 2015 was $33,560, roughly 3 times the amount made by federal minimum wage workers in a year. The average sale price for a new house in January 2016 was $365,600. So, if you never spent a penny of the money you earned, it would take 29 years at the federal minimum wage to save the amount equal to that of a new house. Do those seem equal to you?

Secondly, in the 1950s, productivity meant more money went into workers pockets. Here are two graphics from the Economic Policy Institute.

[Graphs on his post. As well as continuation.]

Valid points
Robert Horvick
If the cost of housing and education is so much higher relative to income, then isn’t the problem that pay is too low?

Well sure - making more would be great, right? But that doesn’t address the other side of the problem.

Today we own 2 cars instead of one. Our houses are twice as large, education cost substantially more and more than twice as many people are paying for it.

Our spending growth has outpaced our income and instead of slowing down, we look back on the past with nostalgia and wish things were like they used to be.

Except we don’t actually want to live like we did in 1950.

We don’t want to have only one car. We don’t want to live in a smaller home. We don’t want to tell our children that we won’t take on debt for their education. We want a 2017 lifestyle on a 1950 budget.

It doesn’t work that way.

[Some previous explanations to his post.]

What Both Miss
Feminism has driven women into the workplace.

This means that some women have driven others into the workplace too.

This also means they have been driven to university studies and families have been driven to having two cars.

This also means they have been driven out of homes where they were experts of thrift.

I think a certain "Friend" was right when she share the meme "women at work, lowering men's wages since" (whatever the year, but I think it was 1950).

Losers have been people on minimum wage. Winners have been shareholders.

And women in typical modern high status female works, often financed by the state.

A point
"This video covers the income inequality that really got rolling in the 1976." (dixit Dakota White)

This Is The Income Inequality Video CEOs Don’t Want Americans To See
The Young Turks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_ymNmttW34


1976 was the year when my grandpa died. He was a syndicalist.

Too bad that The Young Turks are also promoting atheism, but that is not on this video./HGL

Answering Yuri Maximov on Tolkien, on the Lord of the Rings


Here we have had a Russian who somehow has had gotten into his head that Silmarillion has a Gnostic view of Creation (an error of Russia which has been seen later too and in more Catholic and Western contexts), but who nevertheless has obviously read Lord of the Rings, or if not himself, relied in a fairly good informer.

"The Lord of the Rings" and Christianity
http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/7153.htm
*

It is well known that Tolkien as a thinker and as a writer had a number of ideas doubtful from the point of view of Christianity. The Gnostic concept of the Creation presented in "Silmarrilion" is one of the examples.


I don't think Yuri Maximov has read Silmarillion at first hand, or he does not know what Gnostic means.

If an angelic being had sovereignly created even a blade of grass, that would be Gnostic. But they don't do that in Ainulindale. It is more like one of them sings what she - Yavanna being a female angelic being by character - would like blades of grass to be, and Eru sovereignly grants the angels their wishes.

What St Thomas Aquinas says about "ministerial creation" is not that it cannot happen, not that it is Gnostic to say it happened, but that the creature would be God's creature and that the minister would be ministerial only in chosing what God creates, not in the act of creation itself.

In Ainulindalë Tolkien never says angels (ainur) are creating, they are only going to take care of creation once it is created, and God (Eru) is allowing them to modify exact shapes of less than human and less than elvish creatures, and some about human and elvish too, by the variations they make on His theme. The material creation itself comes after that. It is an act of God alone.

This is a very far cry from Gnostic or Manichaean ideas that God created only a spiritual world and that making it material was the Devil's or the Imperfect Demiurge's idea.

To a Gnostic, material creation as such is the fall, the most essential one at least. To Tolkien, deviating from the intentions of the Creator was the fall.

Melkor had been singing variations which were not in tune with the theme given. I e, he had rebelled. He was not able to create matter then, and was not able to create matter later. He was not able to create biology then, and he was not able to create biology later.

So, saying Silarillion presents a Gnostic view of Creation is simply wrong, and if Yuri thinks, as I interpret his two sentences, that Silmarillion doing so is one of the examples that are "well known" of Tolkien having "a number of ideas which are doubtful from the point of view of Christianity", then Yuri is repeating a mistake which had already been made, perhaps elsewhere too, but at least in Russia, before 27 / 01 / 2003, when Yuri Maximov wrote his essay.

Well, on the one hand it would be very strange if in the work meticulously being created during years by a person who sincerely considered himself a Christian there would be nothing Christian. On the other hand neither it is worth expecting hundred percent pure dogmatic views from a secular western writer of XX century.


It is a problem that Yuri is Orthodox, rather than Catholic.

If by secular he means not a monk, I think both Tolkien and Chesterton have proven very good. Or perhaps they are silver, with Hilaire Belloc as possible gold (though he was not a very attractive novelist, unlike the other two).

Nevertheless, when he admits that Tolkien sincerely considered himself as a Christian (which is probably as far as Yuri will go for a Catholic, whom he would consider Latin heretics), that is better than the smudge which is being spread later on pravdareport by Nicolas Bonnal (2012).

Thus in the work of Tolkien there are views close to as well as remote from Christianity. Let us start with the latter.


I'll start with what I consider incorrect : possibly and probably at least from a scholastic point of view, incarnate angels. St Raphaël in book of Tobit would be analysed differently by St Thomas Aquinas than by the man who wrote about Gandalf.

But this could be a poetic liberty.

Further, Tolkien did believe the modern geologists claiming that earth has been around much longer than the last two millennia added to either 5199 or 5508 years of Roman or Byzantine liturgic chronologies.

This said, if one were to defend either a day age theory or a gap theory, it would more probably do to do it with the Silmarillion scenario than with the evolutionist scenario most Christians subscribe to when doing either.

Related is a kind of relation between Atlantis and Northern European, more Scandinavian or French or British than Slavic traits with an Atlantis story.

While Atlantis can have existed, it was destroyed either in a minor deluge before that of Noah or in a minor deluge after that of Noah - and in the latter case, there would hardly have been time for a race to develop on Atlantis. As to a pre-Flood race, it would not have survived in purity the deluge of Noah.

The Atlantis theme has been expressed in detail in Akallabêth in Silmarillion and hinted at in Lord of the Rings.

That said, while the Atlantis theme has appealed to mystagogues and to National Socialists, in very bad ways, Tolkien treats it in a very good way, if you look away from its historical impossibility on that extent.

Mystagogues would have Atlantis being a part of human "development" and would have man raising himself above his origins in development. None of that in Tolkien.

National Socialist mystagogues thought that being Atlantean gave Germans special rights against other peoples, and only special duties against each other. They even hypothesised in one novel (I am glad not to have read it) that Atlanteans came to Atlantis from outer space, not very unlike the gods of von Däniken, except they came as a seed, not as fullfledged beings and astronauts and scientists and engineers. In other words, they would be superhuman.

In Tolkien, they are the same human race as any other, metaphysically, and different only in variety of talents and in history. Being Atlanteans and having superior resources of tradition and biological equipement of their bodies (Aragorn fighting at age 80 reminds of Abraham who fought battles after 75, if you check Genesis 12 and 14) give them special duties. Übermensch, nein. White man's burden, in a certain sense, yes.

Being better equipped is making the good ones of them nobler - but also helps the bad ones of them fall deeper.

The main crooks after Sauron, who has some traits of Koschei, are nine other Koschei like figures, all of them Numenoreans, that is Atlanteans. They turned to the purely demonic Koschei in order to be human versions of Koschei, and got it.

Also, Akallabêth is one of the best meditations I have read on the theme of the rise of Antichrist and the persecution of Christians in his time.

Along with The Last Battle by C. S. Lewis and That Hideous Strength, also by C. S. Lewis, and along with Brothers Lionheart, by Astrid Lindgren, which however is marred by the heroes giving themselves death in a truly pagan fashion, something which Tolkien clearly condemns.

Now, I have stated what I see as problematic in Tolkien; let's got to Yuri's point of view.

One problem with old age is that it means suffering before Adam, and one solution which Inklings embraced, if not as a doctrine, at least as a possible solution, that animals suffered due to the fall of Satan before there was a fall of Adam is half Gnostic. But the problem is not worse with them than with people claiming that cannibal Neanderthals (aas they were in Belgium, but not Spain) or non-agricultural Cro-Magnon were non-human pre-Adamites, which I have found (for the latter explicitly) in an ex-Seminarian of Flavigny (SSPX).

The first problem is that emotionally in the book evil is presented much more vividly than good and therefore more attractive.


I think that is rather a problem with Dostoeyvski than with Tolkien!

I had to put down Crime and Punishment after half the reading, because I was obliged to take a break, but I never resumed reading, because pain and indignation and rebellion and pains or remorse and so were too emotionally exasperating.

In essence, evil in the book looks and is much more significant power.


More significant visible power.

In the last days, the Church will look defeated. God will still be mightier than the Devil and Antichrist, but the Antichrist will look much more powerful to those seing only with their eyes.

The ultimaterly most significant power is the Providence of God.

And we see from the novel that in the hands of providcence, a good and merciful act of the very weakest is good enough to defeat the most powerful of the evil ones, or at least to contribute.

But it is also true that evil persons are more passionate than good ones. Perhaps it is a question of temperament, perhaps to a Slav the good ones are not passionate enough, they are too sober?

It is almost all-mighty, it can not be escaped from, there is no shelter from it.


False.

There are shelters, which while not capable of holding out on their own, are nobler and emotionally more appealing than Sauron.

There is Providence, very present all through the work.

There is the bungling and quarreling of so self aggrandising powers as Sauron and Saruman and the Orcs of the one and the Orcs of the other.

There is the constant seeking of spying, interrogation and if that fails empathy, and a constant failure of getting empathy right with the good ones. Sauron and Saruman are as "bad psychologists" as psychiatrists, as they have been since at least and on top of that there is a community of states not subjected to them.

They say that Tolkien's friend C.Lewis, having finished reading half of "The Lord of the Rings" threw it off with the words: "You can't write so long about evil!"


Since he had been reading chapters of different versions of Lord of the Rings to the Inklings over the years it took him from 1937 to 1954 to finish the book, I can't see how C. S. Lewis could possibly have been coming to the novel as a new reader.

(However, we heard another version, according to which Tolkien himself having read half of "The Screwtape Letters" by Lewis threw it off with the same words).


Also unlikely, since The Screwtape Letters are actually Tolkien's favourite work by C. S. Lewis, along with Space Trilogy part II, Perelandra.

By power and greatness there is no alternative to the personality of Sauron in the world of "The Lord of the Rings".


Did Nimrod have a rival? Was Christ born back in his day? Do not all the stories about Abraham and Nimrod meeting (probably untrue, since Nimrod would probably have died before Abraham was born, but they are even so considered pious stories) depict Nimrod as having the most visible and obvious omnipotence in the world of his day?

A mighty hunter before the Lord? It means against the Lord : and it means a slave hunter. Hebrews not wanting to participate in his Tower of Babel project whatever it was were hunted men, surviving by keeping discrete.

And one day he had trouble giving orders, he spoke one language, those he spoke to spoke another. A bit like the troubles Sauron ultimately had. Though not identic.

And it is difficult to consider such world-outlook as Christian.


In the Christian view, there has been such a situation, there will be a similar situation. In the Middle Ages of Austria, a hermit could save a very unwise and passionate knight who had sold his soul to the devil, and did not even need to do it for anything looking like survival. In the future, which perhaps is near, people will be selling their souls to the devil even just to survive, to buy and sell, to not be regarded as fools. They will do so in a way probably involving their physical hands and foreheads, unless the manner of speaking is metaphoric, in which case the horror is perhaps already here.

And Christ will not be as near as in that hermit whose soul was filled with Christ and with wisdom. Getting shelter from the devil may be impossible.

Except that for God nothing is possible.

Is this a Christian outlook to you?

Well, there have been Orthodox monks who were careful enough to make a statement on video and the video was not published until they had died and gone buried, the burial also being on video.

Does this look like a man who is afraid even Athos may not shield all the way to Doomsday from Antichrist?

To me, that attitude is a very Tolkien attitude. Perhaps to you it is not a Christian attitude.

If anything, the end of Lord of the Rings, a time of peace and prosperity after defeating Sauron, may be less than perfectly Orthodox : it may be the Millennial or Chiliastic error.

The next problem is that in general life of all Tolkien's creatures (elves, dwarves, humans, hobbits etc.) looks rather senseless.


I start to wonder whether the problem with a Christian world view is on Tolkien's or on Yuri's side.

They struggle heroicly, it is described very vividly and breathtakingly but all of them dream of peaceful life, they struggle for it and die.


Both the Old and the New Covenant describe the good life as a peaceful one.

In their struggle there is sense. But the peaceful life as their purpose looks extremely wan and senseless as an old faded picture stuck onto the wall.


I don't see how a struggle can have sense if the purpose of it is senseless.

I think Yuri's aesthetics about old faded pictures stuck onto walls is stuck, senselessly, in contemplating their fadedness, not in the things they show.

I think Yuri might do very well, if he can still be redeemed, to learn to look past the fadedness and to look instead on the picture what it is writing.

A picture of peace is a picture of the good life, a picture of how man should live.

If you find a faded icon, do you throw it away? Do you note the saint and resolve never to honour him? Don't you try instead either to restore the icon with new paint, or write a new icon before honourably burying the old one?

Creating his world "before Christ", Tolkien created the world "without Christ"


Like another Yuri, namely Gagarin, this Yuri has come to a place where he could find God if he knew how to look, and has not known how to look.

On the contrary, Christ is very present in so far as He could be present in a pre-Christian world, here deliberately not a pre-Christian world of the Covenants, but one which had ethnics who nevertheless refused to be idolaters.

Tolkien had a predeliction for virtuous Pagans. He loved reading of them in Beowulf. He wanted to recreate the same atmosphere.

And I think another Anglo-Saxon loved the virtuous Geats too, after hearing Beowulf recited. His name was Sigfrid, he was first bishop among Geats, in Wexioe. He was martyred and is a Saint.

But Tolkien was also holding up a model of humanity for those who are Pagans anyway. A Pagan who is humane Tolkien style is far better than a Secular Humanist. And Tolkien has contributed to Pagans changing that direction.

and for a Christian it is rather onerous to plunge oneself in this world


If Christianity has affected your imagination that way, you are perhaps not well advised to read Tolkien.

Lots of other Christians have made another experience.

though not to the extent as other fantasy authors are concerned, for example, Tad Williams, with his open parody for Christianity.


I do not know Tad Williams. I checked, it seems he is a Pagan, who explores religious themes for fantasy. I don't think he meant it as parody.

I also do not think Yuri knows all there is to know about fantasy outside Tolkien and Williams.

GRRM would be genuinely painful for me. He seems to be an evolutionist, not just when believing seriously in his life what he believes about the real world, but also when inventing a world which, like Sweden has a Westeros.

I haven't tried Williams.

Ursula LeGuin describes a genuinely Pagan world view, because she is a Pagan. She is not an apostate. Her family had apostasised before her.

While Tolkien writes about "good Pagans" as people who lack certain Christian assets, like Christ being born and them knowing it, Ursula Le Guin writes about Pagans practising some kind of Paganism. Idolatry or not? Certainly superstition. The proper thing for an exorcist to do is not to give his own name to a demon who is plaguing him. Yet that is what Ged does ... as if demons were redeemable. Nevertheless, she is worth reading. But not to all.

I don't think Shamanism is the correct religion, but it is closer to it then certain more elaborate Paganisms - and the Paganism of Earthsea is actual Shamanism.

Her father, no longer a Christian, probably even born himself in an already un-Christian family, studied the religion of people who were simpler than the Christians of the civilised world, as an ethnologist, and Ursula grew up with Pagans Shamans of Amerindian type, or at least one of them. She also married a non-Christian.

If you want genuine Paganism, to study or for worse purposes, Ursula is more than John Ronald.

I stuck with John Ronald and found Ursula at times too painful to read. I don't think I reread a Wizard from Earthsea, while I did return to Tombs of Atuan.

Now passing over to detecting Christian thoughts in "The Lord of the Rings" we will make a remark that we will not consider in general good and positive moments but only those which can be clearly specified as Christian and not "humanistic".


And you found too few.

What did Scipio and what did Caesar defending Gaul from Druids or still Pagan and already Prussian style expansive Germans know of Christ? Humanism, they were unfamiliar with the Jewish Scriptures.

And yet, there is far more specifically Christian and incompatible with the Humanism of a Scipio and a Caesar in Tolkien than you chose to enumerate.

Melchisedec was a figure of the Blessed Eucharist.

If there had been a similarly enigmatic figure about Baptism, what would he look like?

Hey ring ding a doll ... yes, Tom Bombadil is really an exorcist (in a much more Christian fashion than Ged of Earthsea!) and he and his wife look a bit like Adam and Even unfallen still in paradise. If they have no children yet, it is probably because they are not mortal, not having bitten into the forbidden fruit, and can keep on discussing a few centuries more what to name their children.

Or, because Tolkien, having grown up among also non-Catholics, had an un-Christian aversion against the idea of making children "all the time".

Of course, one shouldn't make them Friday nights or during Lent ideally, nor on Sunday or on Christmas day ... but one should not usually marry and spend years or decades before actually making some either. For Tom Bombadil and Goldberry, it is another matter, because they are clearly not quite human. Therefore also not subject to human passions.

And though they cannot shelter themselves from Sauron should Sauron win, providentially he doesn't and they are sheltered from him, and provide shelter to Frodo.

The not last or least of Christian themes in Tolkien is : "what would mankind look like if Adam and Eve had not fallen?"

This seems to have passed Yuri totally by.

And, no, he is not denying the fallenness of man in doing so either, he is explicitly contrasting man, as tempted, as greedy (true of the dwarves as well, a race fallen and redeemed before even making it to life), as weak, sick and subject to mortality and as having shorter traditions and knowledge than if unfallen.

But, as he grew up in Victorian times, he was probably underestimating the real span of human tradition too. And I mean even of Pagan ones. If the story of Hercules contains elements which no Christian can accept as true, it was probably not in very many cases due to bad memory of tradition, but due to misconceptions in his own lifetime, sometimes fannned by his megalomania.

But, all the examples you do give, do count.

Only, "Orcs, invisible to all, are elves who used to be the most wonderful of all creatures in Tolkien's world, but mutilated by evil." There is nothing invisible about them, and Tolkien teaches love of enemies in a more perfect way in his Letters, where he says "in the real world, there are no Orcs, no beings biologically programmed for evil".

Some comments made me wonder if you really read the book yourself, or if you left the task to someone whom you are starets of, and who may have expressed opinions more according to what he hoped you would like than according to his real experience, and who may have been inattentive. On the other hand, the inattentiveness might be that of yourself, if you are a monk. Or did you think "invisible" (Невидимый according to google) means "inimical" (Враждебный)?

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
Wednesday after
II Lord's Day of Lent
15.III.2017

* I was not told, but it seems Yuri Maximov removed the article. Thank you!