John Harvey Kellogg - Proof Seventh Day Adventism is Diabolical

Masturbation is a moral failure, and medical practitioners have no reason to use their arts to curb it. His proposal of "curing" it as if it were a sickness, and as if maltreating the human body (different methods for each sex, but "medical" circumcision being preferred in case of boys) were curing the mind, is neither more nor less than diabolical./HGL

If I were a Pagan

I would per definition not be a Christian. But would I have any specific reason to reject Christianity?

In parts of the world where Paganism is prevalent, it seems the main objection to Christianity when it is met is "this is not the religion of our fathers". As a part of the Western world I could not make that objection. Indeed, the principle would turn in favour of Christianity: this IS the religion of my fathers.

But though that is true, Christianity is not just that, it involves claims that claim to oblige also those who do not have it as the religion of their fathers. Such claims of truth is why I could not stay with EXACTLY the kind of Christianity I met as a child - and I became a Catholic. Because one of the truth claims is Apostolic Succession guarding Apostolic Tradition in the right reception of the Books in the Scriptures.

So, what would my philosophical background be and how would it interfere with my accepting Christianity, if I were a Pagan? Note, not a Pagan of a certain school, like New Agers rejecting Christianity out of reverence for witches who were martyred for medical knowledge and such.

I would very probably if I were a Pagan without any definite antichristian prejudice conclude as Chesterton "if a Hill can be Holy - why not that Hill?" (Calvary) and "if a tree can be Holy, why not that tree?" (the Cross) and even if a man can be holy or divine (several Pagan gods are claimed to have appeared among the rest of us as men - Romulus, Odin and Thor and Frey, Krishna and Rama) why not that man, Jesus from Nazareth?

Not that I would want to try forgetting Christianity to be in a position to try this out, of course!

But if I had not yet accepted Christianity and was looking for answers, I would look quite as readily to Egyptian and Chinese and Sumerian claims the world was 40.000 years old as to claims by Vikings the world started and then we see a lot of heroes from around the Centuries following Christ (whom Odinism basically ignores, or its assessments of Him have not been preserved) and Caesar (whom Odinism did not ignore - East Anglia had a dynasty starting with 1) Woden - 2) Casere (=Caesar) - 3) Tydda, which unlike the Norse line looks less like Odin having actually lived "there"* and more like considering Caesar a "son of Odin" because he was an upstart). I would look at the Norse claim and see there was recorded history well before the Norse heroic saga begins. I would see the Egyptian claim and see there were lots of centuries for which we have no corresponding records of history. I am not sure how, without the light of the faith, my reason would have reacted on C14-method.**

But as we are dealing with a hypothetic Pagan I could recognise myself in rather than a real person, I might (though I came to these conclusions well after accepting Christianity, a full year or so, which is long time during a childhood, or for details even longer and with help from Creationist writer Edgar Andrews) that I would understand the problem of calibrating C14 in prehistoric times and reject as unwarranted optimism the solution offered "we know C14 content fluctuates and by how much". I could also hope I would be on my way to seeing how much better Hebrew line of history agrees with recorded history (especially after realising moot points about Egyptian and Babylonian chronologies), how it falls pretty much between Greco-Roman and Norse chronology on the one hand and Egyptian and Babylonian on the other hand, and how it is - as with Apostolic Succession for Catholicism beside the Protestantisms - adorned with a succession that if genuine warrants with high credibility though not mathematical certainty, the truth of its origins. Someone would then ask if I don't believe in Odin being a god and having created the world Marduk style? Well, his stay in Uppsala which is behind the Yngling Dynasty, involved no particular miracles of creation, no credible evidence he was what he claimed to be. Unlike the recorded life of Jesus from Nazareth. Which if believed involves a Creation which was not Marduk style at all.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Georges Pompidou Library
St Narnus of Bergamo***
27-VIII-2014

* Not meaning East Anglia, but where the settlers of East Anglia came from. Of course, not saying they were right in considering Tydda as son of Caesar either. Of course, Odin could have named a son Caesar after the contemporary, after seeing he was lucky, perhaps trying to capture his soul in his son by rebirth after the Ides of March. In that case Wodans - Kaisars - Tuddion (to wager an early Germanic reconstruction of Tydda's name) would be correct as a genealogy, but the Caesar in it a namesake rather than identical to the man who died on Ides of March. But it is more probable (or at least more prosaic, which does not automatically mean greater probabilty) that the Tydda in question was a nobody, known to be a nobody and as having left no record of his father and retroactively called son of Caesar because his family didn't stay nobodies. He is probably the reason why a genealogy site has placed Odin and Casere in the centuries after Christ, not recognising that Casere means Caesar. And if so, their date for Tydda's life may be roughly correct.

** I might have rejected it on similar lines as Christian creationists even while bargaining more for Norse Paganism.

*** If anyone is looking for St Monica, she is celebrated 4th of May.

Cornelius and Assisi Meeting

A statue of gigantic dimensions, imitating the crooked cross of Wojtyla (a k a John Paul II) was being erected in honour of the latter and his theology (radically opposed, perhaps, to that of triumphal crucifixes so often seen in pre-Gothic, Romance or Byzantine, Church Art) and fell over and broke and killed a young man.

When some of his relics - blood from him kept in tin foil, I think - were brought to Lourdes, it was as if water nymphs said they did not want the man of Assisi meeting and of the crooked cross there. Lourdes was flooded. Even for weeks, I think I recall. At least for days.

Dave Armstrong, however, defends Assisi meeting.

Dave Armstrong

Let's imagine asking a primitive biblical Canaanite; "which idea of God are you attributing to your idols?" What could he answer? Could he answer "ipsum esse subsistens," "esse per se et non per partecipationem"? (I don't want to say that there were not also truly pagan gnostic mythologies). We can understand biblical maledictions against idolatry, to preserve true religion among Jews. But we must believe that God also loves the Canaanites and othersunbelievers and that he also offered salvation to them.

There were no Satanists at Assisi. Obviously the acts of natural religon that can prepare for grace must be compatible with all natural law; so we must exclude sexual or magic practices etc. But in Assisi the issue was the prayer.

My Comment

If you ask FSSPX critics, certain of the Pagans were in Assisi precisely doing magic.

Now, if we get to Canaan, it is true that Paganism was worse than certain later ones.

I have been saying things like "perhaps Homer introduced a less evil Paganism, perhaps the Achaeans were not so much praying to Zeus the Kronide, but to Kronos of the crooked minds and he changed that for Zeus the Kronide" or "perhaps Hindoos behind forgetting of Flood" (attempted such, I think, since later Puranas - or Puranas I consider later than Mahabharata - talk of a flood where Vishnu previously to the Krishna Avatar was in a Fish Avatar) "perhaps Hindoos behind attempt of forgetting the flood had some excuse that all the Flood story they knew distinguished Enlil the Flood perpetrator and "god of worder" from Enki the Flood saviour and "god of wisdom" ... in other words they were moving away from clearly evil Paganisms.

But if Homer and Vyasa could have such excuses, nevertheless their overall theology was still full of errors, like making a seemingly good Zeus be, not indeed the first rebel, but still a rebel against that rebel, or like making Destruction rather than Sanctification the work of a third person of a pagan trinity concept. And so also Kabbalah while retaining the primary Hebrew tradition of the Trinity (a secret up to the Incarnation of God the Son) also taints that truth with things like the 22 or the eleven times two sephiroth. And with Antichristianity. And Homer reserves ascension of souls into Heaven for the souls of demigods or secret gods (like Hercules or Castor and Pollux or Saturn of Italy or Romulus), and Vyasa preaches an ultimate recompensation for detachment which is "beyond reward and punishment". But if these men were excused, by being before Christ and far from Israel, nevertheless, their followers today may not have such excuses.

The followers of Vyasa are usually not Christians. The followers of Homer or Plato - or rather former such - usually are. On what exact ground must we suppose that the followers of Vyasa are all and singly excused? None as far as I know.

But Canaaneans, they knew the right religion before they mostly fell away to idolatry. Rabbis will say that Melchisedec was Shem and not a Canaanean. Haydock comment calls that a foolish position. I have not checked longevity charts based on Septuagint for feasability. Now, Melchisedec had the true religion, or Abraham would have been guilty for participating in it. Melchisedec had the true religion, or King David would have been a false prophet for admitting as his Lord (and shepherds of Bethlehem adoring Him on his behalf also admitted Him as their and as David's Lord) one who was priest according to the order of Melchisedec. Melchisedec was of the true religion, or St Paul or St Barnabas (whichever of them wrote Hebrews) would have been wrong to attribute this priesthood to Christ. And yet Melchisedec was priest in Salem which was a city of the Canaanean Jebusites.

A Canaanean worshipping Ba'al would have had as much excuse for it as a previously Catholic Eichmann for - not indeed joining the Nazi party as such but for - apostasising to certain cults popular in certain Nazi circles. Such as divinisation of the Swedish king Odin.

Jebusites did not do that. And they were close enough neighbours to less decent Canaaneans. Og of Bashan was evil, but Balaam was not an idolater, perhaps. What excuse had Jericho? None, as far as I can see.

Dave Armstrong

We don't forget that God doesn't give impossible orders. If natural law orders man to be religious, we have two solutions.

• A) God tolerates vain oservance of a lot of ignorant people, substantially not idolatrous.
  
  
• B) God orders to be religious without giving the means to be religious.

But we cannot admit B.

My Comment

God gave the population of Jericho the means to be religious by their neighbourhood with Jebusites. God also offered them the time to repent while Joshua had gotten back the spies hid by Rahab. They stood as one man behind their King who forbade them all contact with Israelites.

Now Jericho was close shut up and fenced, for fear of the children of Israel, and no man durst go out or come in.

Sounds like Albania under Enver Hoxha. One person had no part in this iniquity. Her name was Rahab. She was spared. And her situation was pretty close to a that of a secret Christian in Albania.

Was Wojtyla alias John Paul II sure that none of those he invited to Assisi, on friendly enough terms with him, was to his own community an obstacle to the faith, like Enver Hoxha or like that King of Jericho?

Was he sure all of them were named Cornelius? How come he did not baptise all of them then? Was he sure none of them was an evil Pharao to whom he should have said "Let my people go!"

How could he be sure of such a thing?

Ordinarily, God gave each and every religion present in Assisi the means of conversion, either by Christians among them or by Christians close by them.

A pure soul will be given the means proper for his case. We cannot say beforehand that such and such a religion is the former religion of some convert saint who did some part of his or her sanctification under it and THEREFORE it is ordinarily speaking a proper means for sanctification of a non-Christian.

I can give a Hindoo (if I come across one, per internet, I am not seeking for them) the history of Mahabharata as an approximation of pre-Flood history - Moses not giving the details for what happened after Tubal-Cain's time (and it is not very probable he "remained in office" or even alive in Nod up to the Flood either) but resuming as "all flesh was corrupt" and a few things like that. But I am not giving him Bhagavad Gita as an approximation of Theology, nor "aoom" as an approximation of Amen.

Wojtyla on his part seems to have been certain God was accepting the invited Hindoo's belief in Bhagavad Gita spirituality and practise of Hindoo mantras as precisely that, and not just for some particular Hindoo, but in general for a Hindoo who has not decided to become a Christian.

God has given them the means to be religious. But they have not taken it. Not visibly so we can say they have taken it. Visibly, they have taken another road, one which we must dread as leading to perdition, and Wojtyla was inviting them to take it.

Dave Armstrong

We must not forget also that God dispenses his grace to this concrete man after original sin: and God knows the difficulties of building a natural theology.

My Comment

It is very much less easy if you deny Geocentrism. Assume earth is as still as it looks like.

For one thing this confidence in the truthfulness of the Creator is a real part of natural theology. For another thing, the mechanism behind Universe swirling around us each day and including detachable pieces (like Sun, Moon, Jupiter and so on not being glued to specific spots on the Zodiac, and even α Centauri shows some detachment by zero point 76 arc seconds between extremes), very clearly argues a might and a mind behind this order in speeds that would doom our handiworks to explosion.

One can be very sure this is not a destroyer. One can be very sure this is not first cousin of whatever spirit guides the movements of the sun (daily or around zodiac, both models are there for you). One can be very sure it is spirit, not body. Ordered and not chaotic. Awake and not dreaming.

There was a time when St Paul said of philosophers (worded as of Pagans generally, but often understood as of specifically philosophers) that they were without excuse. And of each sect, it was precisely the philosophers that were invited to Assisi.

Dave Armstrong

[Quoted St Thomas]

St Thomas on Cornelius

Objection 3. Further, when that which precedes is corrupted, that which follows is corrupted also. Now an act of faith precedes the acts of all the virtues. Therefore, since there is no act of faith in unbelievers, they can do no good work, but sin in every action of theirs.

On the contrary, It is said of Cornelius, while yet an unbeliever (Acts 10:4-31), that his alms were acceptable to God. Therefore not every action of an unbeliever is a sin, but some of his actions are good.

...

Reply to Objection 3. Unbelief does not so wholly destroy natural reason in unbelievers, but that some knowledge of the truth remains in them, whereby they are able to do deeds that are generically good. With regard, however, to Cornelius, it is to be observed that he was not an unbeliever, else his works would not have been acceptable to God, whom none can please without faith. Now he had implicit faith, as the truth of the Gospel was not yet made manifest: hence Peter was sent to him to give him fuller instruction in the faith.

My Comment

So, Cornelius, like Nathanael while reposing under the fig tree, was not quite instructed in all apsects of the faith. But he was not an unbeliever.

Quoting Bible and Haydock

1 Now *there was a certain man in Cæsarea, named Cornelius, a centurion of the band, which is called the Italian,

2 A religious man, and one that feared God, with all his house, giving much alms to the people, and praying to God always:

Ver. 1. A cohort, with the Romans, was a body of infantry 500 strong. There were ten cohorts in each legion. There were, generally speaking, two centurions appointed to the command of each cohort. (Bible de Vence)

Ver. 2. A religious man, and one that feared God. He was not a Jew, yet believed in one God. — Always, that is, frequently praying, and giving alms. In the Rheims Testament we find this note: "Hereby it appeareth, that such works as are done before justification, though they suffice not to salvation, yet are acceptable preparatives for the grace of justification, and such as move God to mercy. ... though all such preparative works come also of grace." These Douay divines did not hold with the Quenellists that a true faith, or the habit of faith, must needs be the first grace. (Witham) — Cornelius religiously observed the law of nature, and the principal points of the Jewish moral law, though he did not profess Judaism. (Calmet) — He was an admirable example of virtue before his knowledge of Christianity. He feared God, and brought up his family in the same holy fear. He was leader of the first band, and consequently had the eagle, the Roman ensign, carried before him. Four hundred men were under his command. (Tirinus) — "His former goodness could no longer avail him, unless he were, by the bond of Christian society and peace, incorporated with the Church; he is therefore ordered to send unto Peter, that by him he may learn Christ, by him he may be baptized." (St. Augustine, lib. i. de bap. chap. 8.) — Alms. Nothing is more efficacious than the alms of a man, whose hands have not been defiled by injustice. It is a clear stream, refreshing in the heat of day, and imparting verdure to every plant that is near it. It is a fountain springing to eternal life. It is a tree, whose branches reach even to heaven, and which produces its eternal fruit in abundance, when death has removed from you all that is temporal. Waste not, then, your treasures in selfish gratifications, the fruit of which is sorrow; but feed the poor, and the hungry. Plant and sow in their hands, and your produce will be great; no soil is more fertile. (St. Chrysostom, hic. hom. xxii.)

Further comment on Cornelius

So, he was to the Old Testament what Noahides are to latter day Judaism. Or what para-Christians, aconfessional, perhaps Mormons and Baptists like Kent Hovind, are to Catholic Christianity.

Anima naturaliter christiana. Kent Hovind had no help from Roman Catholic tradition when speaking of the drunkenness of Noah, and yet he greed with Haydock rather than with Calvin. But Cornelius was, to the Old Testament religion, even more than Kent Hovind is to Catholicism. Kent Hovind has a historical prejudice against Catholicism. He believes Foxe. Cornelius had no prejudice against the Temple - which was an Old Testament image of the Body of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

So, why was Kent Hovind not invited to talk about where the true Church is and why were people as far from him as dedicated Jove and Apollo worshippers would have been to Cornelius invited not even to debate on where the truth is, but to pray according to their false traditions? Dave Armstrong gave an answer, but I think I have already refuted it. Will look, maybe some point I forgot ... not really for the moment, but I will deepen the answer a bit.

Dave Armstrong

[Quoted St Thomas]

St Thomas on faith of Gentiles

I answer that, As stated above (5; 1, 8), the object of faith includes, properly and directly, that thing through which man obtains beatitude. Now the mystery of Christ's Incarnation and Passion is the way by which men obtain beatitude; for it is written (Acts 4:12): "There is no other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved." Therefore belief of some kind in the mystery of Christ's Incarnation was necessary at all times and for all persons, but this belief differed according to differences of times and persons. The reason of this is that before the state of sin, man believed, explicitly in Christ's Incarnation, in so far as it was intended for the consummation of glory, but not as it was intended to deliver man from sin by the Passion and Resurrection, since man had no foreknowledge of his future sin. He does, however, seem to have had foreknowledge of the Incarnation of Christ, from the fact that he said (Genesis 2:24): "Wherefore a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife," of which the Apostle says (Ephesians 5:32) that "this is a great sacrament . . . in Christ and the Church," and it is incredible that the first man was ignorant about this sacrament.

But after sin, man believed explicitly in Christ, not only as to the Incarnation, but also as to the Passion and Resurrection, whereby the human race is delivered from sin and death: for they would not, else, have foreshadowed Christ's Passion by certain sacrifices both before and after the Law, the meaning of which sacrifices was known by the learned explicitly, while the simple folk, under the veil of those sacrifices, believed them to be ordained by God in reference to Christ's coming, and thus their knowledge was covered with a veil, so to speak. And, as stated above (Question 1, Article 7), the nearer they were to Christ, the more distinct was their knowledge of Christ's mysteries.

After grace had been revealed, both learned and simple folk are bound to explicit faith in the mysteries of Christ, chiefly as regards those which are observed throughout the Church, and publicly proclaimed, such as the articles which refer to the Incarnation, of which we have spoken above (Question 1, Article 8). As to other minute points in reference to the articles of the Incarnation, men have been bound to believe them more or less explicitly according to each one's state and office.

Examples in ad 3

Reply to Objection 3. Many of the gentiles received revelations of Christ, as is clear from their predictions. Thus we read (Job 19:25): "I know that my Redeemer liveth." The Sibyl too foretold certain things about Christ, as Augustine states (Contra Faust. xiii, 15). Moreover, we read in the history of the Romans, that at the time of Constantine Augustus and his mother Irene a tomb was discovered, wherein lay a man on whose breast was a golden plate with the inscription: "Christ shall be born of a virgin, and in Him, I believe. O sun, during the lifetime of Irene and Constantine, thou shalt see me again" [Cf. Baron, Annal., A.D. 780. If, however, some were saved without receiving any revelation, they were not saved without faith in a Mediator, for, though they did not believe in Him explicitly, they did, nevertheless, have implicit faith through believing in Divine providence, since they believed that God would deliver mankind in whatever way was pleasing to Him, and according to the revelation of the Spirit to those who knew the truth, as stated in Job 35:11: "Who teacheth us more than the beasts of the earth."

My Comment

Does this sound like Hindoos or Muslims present in Assisi? No. They were not just outside the full confession of the faith as not having heard about it, they were opposed to confessing certain truths of the faith, since they had heard of these and had refused to abandon the errors opposed to them.

It sounds very much more like what Tolkien and probably the Beowulf poet believed about Beowulf: he did not know the true God, but neither did he actively worship the false gods. Nowhere in the Beowulf poem does it say he divinised such kings and royalty of Uppsala as Odin, Niord, Frey (all on King list) or Thor. Nowhere does it say he himself sacrificed to them, although he did not either actively distance himself from Heathen worship if there was such among Danes in his presence or even among his people. THAT is the kind of character of whom one can reasonably hope he has implicit faith. There is less hope for his uncle Hygelac if instead of listening to Monks in Christendom he plundered them. That is, if he is identic to Chlochilaicus. But it does not say Beowulf was part of that raid - neither in that chronicle, nor in the poem. Neither in the text about himself, nor in the text about his uncle.

Now, it is theoretically possible there are Hindoos and Muslims who do so - that is oppose themself to confessing truths of the faith, as said - because they have not heard the Gospel with ENOUGH support. Without taking sides in the Feeneyite controversy, one can say some are already justified before abandoning such and such an error. Whether or not such can remain justified if not abandoning these errors before they die.

But such justification is before the eyes of God. The Church judges about non-believers (not directly judging* unbaptised, which is why Hovind is probably no heretic in the full sense, since probably not validly baptised, but judging about - as in judging them to be outside the Church, and as judging them unfit to receive the Sacraments) according to their visible acceptance or rejection of truth. And the guests of the Assisi meeting were in that sense not judgeable as having access to Sacraments of the Church. Nor did they come, like a still unbelieving Augustine, to hear the Rhetoric of an Ambrose. In ways that could convert him. They were invited precisely as leaders of false religions.

But here I come to some substance again:

Dave Armstrong

We have now to deal bravely with a decisive issue, because HERE is the difference between Assisi and modernism, false ecumenism, panchristianism etc.

The issue is about the contents of implicit faith: any faith, more or less explicit, must have contents - more exactly, supernatural revealed contents -, otherwise it would not be faith, but human thought. According to modernists, religion is the emerging of religious feelings: for modernists, the content of this feeling is not important: a good existential outcome of this religious sentiment is sufficient. So they reason: "Are you contented or satisfied to be a Buddhist or to practice Your homemade religion? Let this sentiment emerge! If you let your religious sentiment emerge, you are a Christian, even though you are not conscious of being a Christian."

What is the difference between implicit faith, as we have learned by St.Thomas, and this modernist conception? The differences concern dispositions of the subject, and the object itself. Man knows, by natural reason, that he must pursue his utimate end; man knows this end is good, lovely; so he desires to pursue his ultimate end. Grace manages to get into this natural desire, and so this natural desire becomes supernatural; this is the psychological beginning of the act of faith. There are already important differences between the Catholic and modernist conceptions of faith.

God himself reveals the means of act of faith, the objective contents, even though this knowledge may be not completely explicit. Gods acts in two manners:

• 1) with his natural providence; an unbeliever can admire the creation (Rom. 1:20: ever since the creation of the world, the invisible existence of God and his everlasting power have been clearly seen by the mind's understanding of created things) and believe (but he may also not believe); or God sends a missionary to the unbeliever.
  
  
• 2) with an immediate supernatural inspiration: we can read the autobiography of some convert, and admire their reflections. But we cannot exclude mysterious inspirations in the hearts of a lot of umbelievers: may we think that a poor primitive in Amazonia or in Asia is forgotten by God?

In both cases, a truth, a content, a supernatural - implicit or explicit - revelation, is proposed to man. A good will wants, "chooses," all these means God revealed to her.

My Comment

True enough as far as it goes.

But any concrete organised non-Christian religion contains a lot of things NOT revealed by God at all (that includes Judaism and non-Catholic Christianities).

This means that a belief in what is revealed by God in a non-Christian religion is not the same thing as believing all of it.

In the Protestant religions I left**, "the Bible is the word of God" is indeed revealed by God. Tenets such like "Albigensians were true Christians persecuted by the Catholic Church" or "the Bible has ONLY 66 books, Maccabees and Tobit are no part of it" or "the true Church is invisible, hence you must get out of the Catholic Church claiming to be a visible Church and you must do that VISIBLY in communion with our or a similar but not identic sect" are very much not revealed by God and were very much not believed by me even when I was pro forma a Protestant.

Obviously, I could not without changing my tenets for more anti-Catholic errors have become a Pastor.

And as obviously, the ones invited to Assisi were in their false religions precisely pastoral functionaries.

But here endeth my attempt to refute Dave Armstrong, and I hope readers will get on and think about it.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Nanterre University Library
St Marc, Easter Octave Friday
25-IV-2014

* Judging - like condemning or forgiving or acquitting about faults those who are unbaptised, that the Church does not.

** Calvinism as denial of freewill or of Real Presence or of both is rather a Protestant religion I never believed in. Not as if I omitted profitng from such parts of my heritage, rather it was not even part of my heritage.

Erreurs de Bruno

Agora : Giordano Bruno, le mécréant religieux
http://agora.qc.ca/documents/giordano_bruno_le_mecreant_religieux

L'auteur de l'article est:

Pierre-Jean Dessertine

Professeur de philosophie à Aix-en-Provence. Il a publié des articles dans diverses revues. Il a écrit plusieurs ouvrages de pédagogie de la philosophie. Il est l'auteur de "Pourquoi l'homme épuise-t-il sa planète ?". Il anime le site de philosophie : www.anti-somnambulique.org

Maintenant aux citations qui sont à mon propos dans l'article:

Encore aujourd’hui, alors que Galilée a été récemment réhabilité par Rome, Bruno demeure toujours proscrit, sous le coup des jugements infâmant prononcés il y a plus de 400 ans par le Saint-Office.

Oui. Et, comme dit auparavant dans l'article, par les Luthériens et les Calvinistes aussi, directement. J'imagine que le sobriquet pour les astronomes ayant contribué au nouveau calendrier, dit le Calendrier Grégorien, quand les évêques de l'Orient en schisme d'avec Pape Grégoire le condamnent, les qualifiant d'astronomes athées, a bien pu être une condamnation indirecte de Bruno qui était lui aussi un astronome occidental.

Pourtant son œuvre est extraordinairement riche et généreuse. Si le cœur en est l’exposition de sa philosophie, elle traite des sujets les plus variés – astronomie, mathématiques, physique, mnémotechnique, magie, astrologie, etc. –, comme elle se décline en de multiples formes – traités, dialogues, discours, satires, comédies, poèmes.

Mais les Hadithes et les Ayah des Sourates sont très riches aussi! Et comme Suédois je me rappelle d'un autre intellectuel très riche fondateur d'une religion condamnée par l'église, à savoir de Wodan! N'avez-vous pas lu Hávamál? Les nouveau baptisés doivent-ils vraiment abjurer son auteur? Oui, dans la mesure que Wodan était faussement adoré comme quasiment un Mardouk nordique. Et la richesse intellectuelle de Bruno ne dit rien sur son orthodoxie.

Bruno anticipe plusieurs idées qui allaient devenir importantes dans l’histoire ultérieure de la pensée comme l’idée d’infinité de l’Univers,

Où alors si situe Le Ciel? Traditionnellement audelà des Étoiles Fixes. Mais s'il n'y a pas un audelà des étoiles fixes?

la gravitation universelle (voir la citation dans ce document),

Qui pourrait être une erreur à moins qu'elle n'ait été confirmée par Armstrong ...

l’idée de monade (atome de réalité doué de vie, reprise par Leibniz),

Une âme et un atome de matière (tel que St Isidore l'aurait pu considérer, sans de verser dans les absurdité d'Épicure) sont certes deux choses différentes.

l’idée de relativité générale dans l’Univers (reprise par Einstein),

Idée suspecte d'erreur pour le moins et liée à l'erreur à propos le Ciel.

l’idée d’amoralisme (il n’y a pas de Mal absolu, reprise par Spinoza puis Nietzsche),

Le thomisme aussi dit qu'il n'y a pas de mal absolu, puisque le mal est un déficit du bien, et puisque le déficit peut épuiser le bien dont il est un déficit, mais pas celui dans lequel il est un déficit. Être aveugle peut épuiser la vue, mais pas l'œuil. Être sourd ne signifie pas de ne pas avoir d'oreilles du tout - et un être qui n'a pas d'oreilles du tout ne peut pas être sourd. À la limite être sourd peut épuiser l'ouie dans l'oreille. Et ainsi de suite. Ce qui vaut aussi pour la morale.

Ceci ne signifie pas qu'il n'y ait pas des interdits absolus, ou qu'il n'y ait pas de transgresseur absolument pire que les autres transgresseurs. Par exemple le diable parmi les êtres angéliques ou l'Antéchrist parmi les hommes.

etc. La pensée de Bruno nous interpelle. Comment a-t-elle pu amener l’institution catholique à commettre un de ses actes les plus lourds de conséquences quant à l’avenir de la pensée et à sa propre crédibilité ?

Si l'on parle de crédibilité devant les nostalgiques de Bruno, condamner celui-ci est lourd de conséquences pour sa crédibilité. Si l'on parle de crédibilité en tant que telle, ça aurait été pire de ne pas condamner Bruno.

En défendant l’idée d’un Univers infiniment étendu occupé par une infinité de mondes, Bruno chasse Dieu de cette place. Mais sa véritable audace est ailleurs, dans la manière dont il justifie l’infini spatial. Traditionnellement, l’argument était logique : que devient la flèche de l’archer lâchée à travers la sphère des fixes ? Bruno propose un nouvel argument qu’on pourrait appeler « l’expérience du déplacement d’horizon ». À première vue l’horizon se donne comme une couture entre la voûte céleste et la surface terrestre qui enclot l’espace humain. Mais si je me déplace, l’horizon se déplace et de nouveaux espaces apparaissent.

Normalement non pas parce que la voûté céleste ou la surface terrestre ou les deux soient illimitées, mais parce que leur contiguité simplement est une illusion optique.

Il n'y a pas une infinité de nouveaux horizons, si l'on se déplace droitement, tôt ou tard on revient, tel Innocent Smith, au même horizon.

Il y a donc une loi qui rend le champ de l’espace visible relatif au point de vue du spectateur. Si j’applique cette loi à la vision des astres, il s’ensuit que si je pouvais me déplacer très loin dans l’Univers, je pourrais sans cesse voir apparaître de nouveaux espaces avec de nouveaux astres ;

Sans cesse? Non. Les nouveaux horizons peuvent paraître incessables pour Rahan dont les moyens de se déplacer sont inadéquats, mais non pas pour Innocent Smith. Ceci aussi peut très bien être applicable pour le parallèle de Bruno sur les nouveaux astres.

On pourrait par exemple arriver audelà des Étoiles Fixes dans le Ciel avec les Chérubims et les Séraphims, et dans un moment qu'on regarde autre chose que le Bon Dieu on voit les moindres astres qu'il y ait en dessous le Jérusalem Céleste. Et les plus loins de la Terre.

en particulier, les constellations d’étoiles que je vois depuis la Terre se déformeraient à en devenir méconnaissables :

Avec une sphère des "Fixes" - mauvaise expression après 1838 si par exemple Alpha Centauri se déplace en temps avec le Soleil - mais avec une "Sphères des Fixes" sans épaisseur, les constellations doivent rester les mêmes jusqu'à l'arrivée des âmes (ou des corps après la résurrection, je parle de ceux des justes) audelà qu'on puisse les regarder à l'invers.

Avec par contre quelque épaisseur, il se peut que cette déformation vaille jusqu'à une certaine limite, mais après s'arrête. Comme on sait, la première sonde spatiale a cessé de nous envoyer des images ... on en a un signale qui montre que la batterie et l'émetteur fonctionnent, mais on n'a plus d'images. Si c'est parce que NASA avait vue un point qui se conformait plutôt à un univers limité, à la St Thomas, qu'à un Universe Infini ou d'extension de 13 milliards d'années-lumières et quelque plus?

il n’y aurait plus de « sphère des fixes » !

Ce que son raisonnement ne prouve pas.

Ainsi : « Dès que l’on a reconnu que le mouvement apparent du monde est dû au mouvement diurne réel de la Terre (lequel se trouve aussi dans les autres astres semblables), aucune raison ne peut nous contraindre à accepter que les étoiles soient équidistantes de nous ». Bruno, De l’univers infini et des mondes – 1584.

Bon, ça serait peut-être pour ça que Pape Urbain VIII aurait vu en Galilée un menace - inconscient pour l'homme de Pise - d'un scepticisme plus au moins absolu, un scepticisme pour lequel finalement il n'y aura pas d'interdits absolus, un scepticisme pour lequel finalement Kant pouvait conduire Eichmann à une modification de sa morale connu par un tribunal et ayant choqué l'autre Kantienne qu'était Hannah Arendt?

L’intérêt de cet argument est qu’il est d’expérience vécue : on a une preuve de l’infini par la simple démarche rationnelle d’une extrapolation de notre expérience perceptive.

Mais on n'a pas une preuve et l'extrapolation n'est pas rationnelle telle que la fait Bruno à partir de l'expérience perceptive. Innocent Smith (et son auteur Gilbert Keith Chesterton) viennent de corriger l'idée aberrante d'un déplacement de l'horizon infiniment continué et additif sans limite. Et, de manière additive nous avons l'expérience d'Innocent Smith ou de Filéas Fogg et Passepartout en assez bonne supplémentation pour affirmer que le déplacement de l'horizon sur la terre à une limite, à savoir le retour au même horizon. Le νοστον αημαρ d'Ulysse. Si cher à Homère, à Chesterton et à Tolkien. L'image terrestre de l'arrivée in patria pour ceux qui arrivent. Et, puisque c'est le retour d'un roi qui n'aurait pas dû être remplacé par des prétendants, et une révanche sanglante sur leur impiété, aussi une image prophétique sur l'Apocalypse chapître 19 ou fin de chapitre 20. Raison de plus pourquoi je crois, sinon dans la théologie au moins dans l'historicité de l'Odyssée.

La faiblesse des aristotéliciens est de s’en tenir à cette vision infantile qu’est l’image instantanée du monde.

Cette image est infantile? Si vous ne devenez pas comme des enfants ... vous n'aurez jamais de certitude philosophique, au moins. Et celle-ci n'est pas découpée de la certitude de la foi qui prépare pour l'arrivée à la vision béatifique.

Et Bruno, dans le texte cité ci-dessus, était déjà capable de voir la Terre telle que la voient aujourd’hui nos astronautes depuis leur station orbitale.

Si les astronautes peuvent se dire que notre vue de la Terre est une illusion optique alors nous pouvons dire que la leur l'est aussi. La station orbitale est la preuve la plus bête qu'il y ait contre le Géocentrisme, pour le Géokinétisme. Si cette fameuse vue des astronautes à partir de la station orbitale est prise pour monnaie comptante elle ne prouve pas que la décision arbitraire de regarder la vue normale sur la Terre était bienfondée, mais plutôt qu'elle est épuisante pour l'esprit. Comme une décision de se "libérer des dogmes chrétiennes" est généralement épuisante pour l'esprit humain de la manière qu'elle conduit la plupart de ses adeptes, c'est à dire des apostats, à un dogmatisme pas moins stricte, uniquement moins bien fondée.

Dieu a bien pu créer le monde comme Il voulait et le faire paraître comme Il voulait. DONC, Il a bien pu réaliser une volonté que la vue normale sur l'Univers soit la vue la plus immédiatement correcte (je ne dis pas totalement immédiatement correcte, mais la plus telle*). Et ceci a ses connexions avec Romains 1:20, comme je viens de le détailler en un essai en anglais, avec une traduction du latin en anglais du commentaire de Saint Thomas d'Aquin. Effectuée par ma pauvre compétence.**

Si pour découvrir naturellement le Bon Dieu et sa loi naturelle à partir de ses œuvres visibles il faudrait une sophistication à la Kant ou Spinoza, alors les Payens auraient été très excusables. Mais Saint Paul les considère comme inexcusables. Donc il suffit d'une vue beaucoup plus simple et banale que ça. Par exemple celle rejeté par l'Héliocentrisme et par Bruno.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Bpi, Georges Pompidou
Sainte Dorothée
6-II-2014

* De manière que les inexactitudes qu'il y a sont facilement découvrables ou immatériels quand à la découverte de Sa Sagesse et son Pouvoir ou les deux à la fois.

** Creation vs. Evolution : Romans 1:20 and Dawkins, Richard
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2014/02/romans-120-and-dawkins-richard.html

Expulsion des Musulmans de Vaucluse? Peut-être non: le meurtrier s'est rendu, voir mise à jour

Je me posais la question si les Musulmans de Carpentras ne pouvaient pas être expulsés parce qu'ils font les Caïds là-bas. Je me posais la question si les Musulmans d'Avignon ne pouvaient pas être expulsés à cause des deux garçons qui avaient jeté des pierres dans une église là-bas. Maintenant Alain Sanders donne en PRÉSENT l'histoire d'un Kevin qui semble avoir été égorgé parce qu'il faisait la cour de la petite sœur du tueur.

Notons que je me sens soulagé d'avoir évité de tomber amoureux des filles en voile islamique. Ça évite les soucis avec leurs familles. Ce qui n'équivaut pas que celui qui s'y risque doit être impunément tué, biensûr.

Précisons: si après des faits comme ça on expulse toute une communauté, ça n'équivaut pas à dire que chaque personne dedans est responsable pour les crimes. Ça équivaut à dire qu'après les crimes on est sur ses gardes envers la prochaine personne qui sera responsable pour un crime de cette communauté précise. Je pose la question en termes d'une expulsion le plus amicable possible. Que les gens de là-bas choisissent, famille par famille ou personne par personne, à quel pays musulman ils veulent aller après ça. Pour ceux qui n'ont pas de crime sur la conscience, on peut espérer que le pays ne dira pas "halte-là, nous ne voulons pas vos criminels". Mais qu'ils prennent plutôt une communauté pour la majorité honnête pour lesquels quelques-uns ont gâché la France pour les autres.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Bpi, Georges Pompidou
St Vincent de Valence
Diacre et Martyr
22-I-2014

Mise à jour:

Je n'avais pas compris qu'on connait l'identité du meurtrier grâce à son courage de se rendre lui-même, évidemment pour ne pas souillir les autres, mais va-t-il suffire pour rétablir la confiance?

ledauphine : VAUCLUSE :
Meurtre de Kevin à Avignon : le frère de la petite amie mis en examen et écroué
http://www.ledauphine.com/vaucluse/2014/01/02/meurtre-de-kevin-le-frere-de-la-petite-amie-mis-en-examen-et-ecroue

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Bibliothèque Heure Joyeuse/St Sévérin
Conversion de St Paul
25-I-2014

If someone is holding me excommunicated in his prayers to God ...

Here is Catholic Encyclopedia about excommunications for propositions:

(1) "Those who either publicly or privately teach or defend propositions condemned by the Holy See under pain of excommunication latæ sententiæ likewise those who teach or maintain as lawful the practice of asking the penitent the name of his or her accomplice, a practice condemned by Benedict XIV in his Constitutions 'Suprema' (7 July, 1745), 'Ubi primum' (2 July, 1746), and 'Ad eradicandam' (28 Sept., 1746)." This article contains two distinct parts. In the first it is not question of all propositions condemned by popes or councils in terms less condemnatory (e.g. rash, offensive, etc.) than the specific stigma heretical (to defend heretical propositions being heresy itself and already declared a chief cause of excommunication, see above), but only those which the popes have specifically forbidden to be maintained under pain of excommunication latæ sententiæ. These propositions are:

(a) the forty-one errors of Luther condemned by Leo X, 16 May, 1520;
(b) the seventy-nine theses of Michael Baius condemned 1 Oct., 1567, 29 Jan., 1579, and 16 March, 1641;
(c) the thesis on confession and absolution by letter or messenger, condemned by Clement VIII, 20 June, 1602;
(d) the twenty-eight propositions condemned by Alexander VII, 24 Sept., 1665;
(e) the seventeen propositions condemned by the same pope, 18 March, 1666;
(f) the sixty-five propositions condemned by Innocent XI, 4 March, 679;
(g) the sixty-eight propositions of Miguel de Molinos condemned by the same pope, 20 November, 1687;
(h) the second of two propositions condemned by Alexander VIII, 24 August, 1690;
(i) the thirty-one propositions condemned by the same pope, 7 December, 1690;
(k) the five propositions on duelling condemned by Benedict XIV, 10 November, 1752;
(1) and finally the sixty-five Modernistic propositions condemned by decree of the Holy Office, 3 July, 1907, according to the Motu Proprio of Pius X, 19 November, 1907.

I do not think I have defended anyone of these. I specifically abhor some of the last of the forty-one errors of Luther, as found in the Bull of Pope Leo X, Exsurge Domine.

And obviously case one of reserved excommunications can not apply to reading Clive Staples Lewis insofar as he avoided sentences which would have shocked any of either Catholics, Calvinists or Anglicans, nor to the reading of Creationists who are scientifically defending the Patristic understanding of Genesis.

And obviously it does not apply to reading and believing either Riccioli or St Thomas Aquinas on Geocentrism and angelic movers.

I count any attempt to excommunicate me without telling me what for and without giving me occasion to defend myself as equivalent to Black Magic.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Bpi, Georges Pompidou
Immaculate Conception of the
Blessed Virgin Mary
& II Sunday of Advent
8-XII-2013