New blog on the kid: November 2017

Wednesday, 29 November 2017

Moral Doctrine with Mark P. Shea

He wrote an article called People of the Lie:

People of the Lie
November 28, 2017 by Mark Shea
www.patheos.com/blogs/markshea/2017/11/people-of-the-lie.html

So here we are now in 2017 and the prolife movement is now the passionate defender of a sex predator eager to damn his 16 victims as liars, as well as now being absolutely In The Tank for Roy Moore, a visible-from-space child molester.

Excuse me, Mark Shea, but by "child molester" do you refer to the kissing of a girl of 14 who did not become his wife?

Because, if so - you are in the US, of course, you might know about more than I do - either you are lying by calling the victim (if that is the right word) a child, back then, or you are calling the Canon Law of the Catholic Church for centuries a liar, which said a girl could marry from 12. At 1917 revision, that was raised to ... 14. As far as latest source on when revision happened.

Note, in the present version of the paragraph (supposing 1983 code is valid, which I do not, but you do) there is an added proviso : respect for the marital laws of your country. In US, the minimal legal age for marriage, however, is not a union matter, but a state matter. 30 years ago, Alabama required more than 14 for marriage? I don't think that is all that probable.

If he in fact molested girls, that is bad, but not necessarily child molestation. If he did so after marriage, that is kind of adulterous, but still not child molestation. If he did so with girls other than the one he married, that is, even before marriage, kind of fornicational in his heart - and still not child molestation.

I don't know if he has 16 accusing victims or not. I do know, that with his agenda, some degree of false accusations can be expected by desperate leftists. I also know that if he did in fact molest girls, they would be having a choice to use real victims.

Whichever be the case of his guilt or innocence on molestation charge, it is not child molestation in my eyes, if he did not go as young as 11, or if between 12 and 14, girls clearly not visibly puber, yet. A Pope in the 18th C was telling a Pole, or the Polish king or sth, that:

while such and such a girl of 11 and a half could theoretically be already married, that required a Papal dispensation from the 12 year old limit;
and it could obviously not be given so she (Catholic, I presume)* could marry a Protestant heretic, to the detriment of her faith.

If you are calling the girls who back in the days were 14 children, you are calling a lot of Catholic marriages (and Alabaman ones too) child molestations or rather even statutory rapes.

While lying is never a just act per se, there are degrees of lying. Lying about a fact (like whether so and so actually did or did not molest so and so) is less grave than lying about doctrine.

If I had grown up in a Catholic country under the old rules, my plan at 14 of declaring my love, engaging myself to and later marrying a girl in the parallel class would not have been - as it probably was - stamped as a kind of mental derangement, sth teachers and others needed to find a cure for. And probably she and I would not have been going to the same school, and I would have had the possibility, before Prussia and others made school compulsory, to have finished my apprenticeship and started as a paid worker, a k a journeyman (if certainly not yest master craftsman) at 14.

My prospects at 14 would, in other words, not have been bad enough to drive me to consider suicide, even if only very briefly.

As for the rest of the story, WaPo (Washington Post, I presume) practises journalism by verifying stories. Well, the fake story of O'Keefe was probably his way of practising journalism by verifying the journalistic quality of WaPo. Do you seriously think such momentous things like checking stories are never ever done by lying or suggestio falsi in order to get a possible liar off guard? I suspect it is.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
Vigil of St Andrew
29.XI.2017

* I do not have the reference fresh, which is often my case, so, if Mark Shea catches me in an error of fact, it was not a deliberate lie.

Monday, 27 November 2017

How Many Readers, Last Month, II, Main Blogs

Sunday, 26 November 2017

Hier, un homme me disait

"je ne sais pas si je vais lire le blog créationniste*, j'étudie la science"

Bon, c'est précisemment pour des gens qui font ça que j'ai un blog créationniste. Si vous vous contentiez de la Bible, sans vous intéresser pour les sciences, et leurs objections contre le scénario biblique, alors, vous n'auriez pas besoin de mon blog créationniste. Le texte de la Bible, et son éxégèse traditionnel, les Pères de l'Église, c'est accessible ailleurs.

Parfois ces derniers sont mal cités, très sélectivement, comme on cite St Augustin pour ne pas avoir cru que les six jours étaient forcément littéraux, mais on cite moins souvent qu'il rejetait totalement des chronologies païennes, tels l'historiographie égyptienne, qui excédaient les 5000 ans et quelque avant Jésus-Christ que le monde avait duré.

Et remettre en valeur les pères de l'église comme des bons créationnistes jeune terre, et géocentriques, c'est la moindre des choses que je fais là, en quantité, quoique pas en importence, je m'occupe beaucoup plus des solution techniques dans les sciences dites exactes./HGL

http://creavsevolu.blogspot.fr/

Friday, 24 November 2017

One stray comment was actually not quite spam

Not linking to the video, not seen it yet, but here is a story:

The USA Gymnastics sex abuse scandal is a series of criminal activities involving the sexual abuse of minors in which Larry Nassar, a fired USA Gymnastics national team doctor, has pleaded guilty. He is named in hundreds of lawsuits filed by athletes who allege that Nassar sexually abused them under the pretense of giving them medical treatment.[1] Since the first allegations were brought by former club gymnast Rachael Denhollander against Nassar and made public in September 2016, former USA Gymnastics national team members Jamie Dantzscher, Jeanette Antolin, McKayla Maroney, Aly Raisman, and Gabby Douglas have accused Nassar of sexually abusing them as well. Nassar initially denied the sexual abuse charges. In July 2017, Nassar pled guilty to federal child pornography charges and is currently in jail awaiting sentencing. On November 22, 2017, he pled guilty to seven charges of first-degree sexual assault and will enter another guilty plea on November 29, 2017.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA_Gymnastics_sex_abuse_scandal

Some have been presenting sexual predating as mainly a case of clergy. Here we see, other people in positions responsible for younger people are abusing the position. Modern culture is pushing youth into too much dependence, too far into adolescence. Sport, education, scouting, etc./HGL

Thursday, 23 November 2017

I am not beyond laughing at a good joke

just too tired, much of the time, to be all that funny. Eccles, thank God, isn't:

Eccles is saved : Pope Francis says "stop loving your neighbour"
http://ecclesandbosco.blogspot.com/2017/11/pope-francis-says-stop-loving-your.html

LAMATLWTASM

The History Girls : Two reflections on Dickens's Little Dorrit, by Leslie Wilson
http://the-history-girls.blogspot.com/2017/11/two-reflections-on-dickenss-little.html

If I had had no experience with psychiatry, I would have considered this as even more hilarious! As it is, it has a bitter aftertaste ...

How Many Readers per Post, Last Month? I, Dialogue Blogs

Mark Shea Wonders if Satanism Exists

Here he has an article:

I don’t believe for a second…
November 22, 2017 by Mark Shea
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/markshea/2017/11/dont-believe-second.html

Here is a question from that article:

"Why is every single 'former satanist' a 'high wizard' or 'high priest'? Are there no satanists who are just laymen and accountants?"

I don't know about that.

It could be Satanist laymen function as non-Satanists, not quite as initiated. Like, they could function as freemasons or as wiccans.

It could be apprenticed Satanists aren't allowed to be Satanists.

Check the novel Krabat by Otfried Preussler. The poor Krabat (historically based on a Catholic whose talents and rosaries struck his Lutheran tenants as proof of sorcery, and who was as much historically as mythically "delivered by the love of a virgin" - very different senses, though!) was as an apprentice not told who that "master miller" or whatever it was really was. Then he became everyday chief of that mill ("master miller"?) and he knew.

It could be, low grade Satanists, like low grade freemasons, on converting, are protected by the Christian groups, and only high rankers are better protected by coming out than by hiding. After all, if you didn't go very far, wouldn't you be better off as another trade than where you lived among Satanists, but still a normal trade, rather than making your conversion your trade? On the other hand, a very high ranking ex could be not having such an option.

It could be, Satanists, like Freemasons, have a certain addiction to fancy sounding titles* (OK, apprentice is a title with freemasons, I am not such or other one, btw, despite some perhaps trying to count me as such or paint me as such behind my back, but after that, titles start getting higher and higher, not just in grades, but in sounds : how many KKK have high sounding titles? As to the ex-KKK assembling the hoods of which a black "missionary" boasts of, they seem on the one hand to be generally low grade, but on the other hand also to be anonymous).

There are other things I have trouble believing about certain comings out. For instance about John Todd's claimed relation to Tolkien and C. S. Lewis. Especially curious the claim was not made till CSL had been dead 10 years and Tolkien was in his final illness (barring Purgatory, for participating in Novus Ordo, perhaps?) - the ones he accused could therefore not be confronted.

But if he could have been lying, he could also have been lied to. I believe, if such evil networks exist, they are not on every plane completely honest with their adepts. John Todd could have been paying someone whom he had been told was CSL (and carefully shielded from the fact that CSL was dead), even if it is more probable he was lying. If so, he could have been relatively honestly mistaken in his accusations against the Inklings. He could also have lied under duress, the Evangelicals who were helping him after his real or supposed defection could have been telling him they wanted to blacken the Inklings. Or, some other duress ...

"But… documentation, please? Proof. Evidence beyond this guy’s word and the word of people he has managed to convince of his yarn. Let’s see it."

OK, Satanists, by definition nearly, are a secret society. Some are coming out as having this conviction. The former manager of Helgon.net was just a sadist, regretting his strict heterosexuality, he had the user name Xenu. The present manager, one former user name Skallsprängd (skull exploded!) self identifies as a Satanist, a believer in the goddess and the horned god, that is why I am not going back to those forums, despite having enjoyed much Apologetics against people of that shade of conviction.

The present day Odinist Varg Vikernes, who was recently down fighting for Christians, Iraq, I think, had been a Satanist burning Churches in Norway before really getting caught for killing a fellow Satanist.

While one similar musical Satanist described this as pretty much theatre, I would not be sure the Father of Lies absolutely needs sincerity of believers in order to dominate them.

I have in the military been put with one - back then - Satanist, a former Greek Orthodox, and when I met him after military, he had become a Buddhist.

So, the conviction actually exists.

Melinda Barbour seems to have been, could still be, a low grade Satanist:

Exclusive: Craigslist Killer Miranda Barbour Tells How and Why She Killed
By Matthew Lysiak On 4/28/14 at 5:59 AM
http://www.newsweek.com/2014/05/09/exclusive-craigslist-killer-miranda-barbour-tells-how-and-why-she-killed-248670.html

She says she joined a satanic cult at the age of 12: “I kind of slid into it. But they weren’t just into Satan, there were into hating minorities too.” She insists Satanism has been a positive influence in her life and helped her harness that darkness inside of her—most of the time. “I worship a dark entity,” she explains, “but just because it is dark doesn’t mean that it is bad.”

She claims to have committed her first murder when she was 13. It was a man who owed money to her cult’s leader, whom she identifies only as Forest. She says she lured the man into a dark alley with the promise of sex, and Forest jumped out of the shadows and shot him. “Forest shot him in the chest, but he was still alive,” she says. “He put the gun in my hand. He put his finger over my finger and pulled the trigger.”

Miranda claims she became pregnant by a member of the cult that same year. The other cult members did not want her to have the baby, she says, so they tied her to a bed, gave her drugs and performed a gruesome in-house abortion. Before moving from Alaska, she says, she had to endure a brutal gang rape as the “exit fee” for leaving the cult. “There were only two ways out—by death or gang rape. I was pretty beat up.

I had missed the part about "exit fee". Nevertheless, she seems to have retained the same convictions. Including a hatred of "paedophiles", she helped kill a man because he still wanted sex after being told she was under 16. See link.**

Some people, I suspect, have had another type of exit fee, promising to lie and then to live up to that promise.

But if Zachary King is "lying" about Christmas or similar things, the answer could simply be, he was lied to. Cults like Satanists and Illuminati, insofar as they exist, adore power. Adoring power, they want to claim more of it than they have. They point their adepts to this or that or sundry (a very well known, popular thing) and tell him, "we are really behind that". He believes that while enjoying the game, and continues to believe it after quitting.

The problem with John Todd's claim about the music industry is, partly, he could have been told such a thing, while being "Druid" for a very rare (back then) client. And partly, once he spread it, Christians became warier about allowing theirs a musical carreer, and if certain music stars really have paid homage to Illuminati, this lie could be part of the reason. And the resuly is, Illuminati would be gaining power.

The solution is simple. A Christian need not forego secular music (unless he is religious, or part of a sect requiring lay members to live as religious, except for being married, and unless the dance or music is so extreme, in dance gestures or song lyrics or horror vibes he should avoid it even as a normal layman).

He can set up his own record company, because, if he can't, we would already be living, as far as music is concerned, in a world where no one can buy or sell except having a mark on his forehead or his hand, and that would normally still be just upcoming. And once he has a record company, he can of course make music and invite no Druids to "bless" the records. I think a company like Naxos was not even ever on John Todd's mind.***

And as to allegations about this or that common symbol, we owe the Church in France over centuries more credibility over a Triskell than we owe an ex-Satanist - even if he is a real one.

Did the clergy at any time try to forbid the Triskell is a very much more relevant question than what Zachary King thinks about the Triskell, even if he is an ex-Satanist. His pronunciation of Samhain is really not too Gaelic, for one.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St Clement I, Pope and Martyr
23.XI.2017

Notes:

* In case anyone considers my insistance on being a writer a similar addiction to titles, no, it is a work description. I am writing every day when I find a library with internet connection open, and I would like to start getting some pay for that.

** Just in case :

“People think I’m a monster, but I’ve done a lot of good.” She claims her murders spared “hundreds” of young girls from abuse. “The justice system doesn’t work, so I did what I did.”

That’s why she believes LaFerrara deserved to die. The 42-year-old electrical engineer ... first, Miranda says, she wanted to give LaFerrara an out, so she told him she had lied about her age, that she had just turned 16. If he had done the right thing at that moment, she says, he would still be alive. “Instead, he told me that it was OK.” He still wanted to have sex with her. ...

I have also cited the case here:

New blog on the kid : Are Satanists Very Moral?
http://nov9blogg9.blogspot.com/2016/05/are-satanists-very-moral.html

*** So, why am I, refusing to "take a mark" of modern, up to date, Vatican II-ism, or of Protestantism, either Evangelical or High Church, or of Freemasonry, still not having my compositions played?

musicalia : General index
http://hglundahlsmusik.blogspot.com/2009/08/general-index.html

They exist. They are not someone else's copyright. Six Ribbons Variations, which I wrote taking Six Ribbons for a traditional melody well after copyright, was not copied unto the musicalia blog. Whatever Jon English can have said about playing my compositions back when my variations on Six Ribbons were the "trademark" of my musical part of Antimodernism MSN Group, he cannot make such claims now, supposing he even did.

Dear St Cecily, thanks for giving me an opportunity to mention it!/HGL

Saturday, 18 November 2017

There is a Common Good - But Only If Common to Individual Persons

A water fountain in a city is a common good - because it is common to all the individual persons who drink from it or wash their hands in it.

If drinking and washing hands were no needs individual persons could have, or no joys they could have even when not strictly needing it, a water fountain would not be good just because it is common to the city. It is "common good" because it is common to individual persons living in or visiting the city.

Some common goods involve more than individual persons, but not less. The happiness of a family staying together is common to the family, but it is so because the family is common to the individual persons in it, even the staying together is common to the individual persons in it. Suppose one of them is staying elsewhere, he is not immediately sharing that good of staying together. He is not totally excluded from it, but this is because on other occasions he has stayed together with them - indeed on many continuous series of occasions - otherwise he would not be part of the family and would not have joy from knowing the other family members are staying together.

Or he could be de jure part of it, but separated from it, by child protective services at an early age, that is an abnormal case which I was not considering. So, I'll consider it. This rape of the common good of a family is perpetrated by states who think - or rather whose legislators and current administrators think, at least on occasion - that the common good of the state implies a kind of right to override the common good of the family, the right of staying together, in the name of protecting certain rights, defined by the state and not always real rights, sometimes more of duties than rights, of certain individual persons of the family, namely the children.

Obviously, a little child, unless He is God and can sow wheat grains that grow up before the eyes of St Amadour, is not able himself to protect his own rights. His rights therefore have to be protected by someone else. Libertarians would say, this is the family. Their opponents would say, it is sometimes the family, but the state can also do it, against certain families. In such cases, the state pretends that having a certain kind of education, rather than a different one, is a common good of all small citizens, and all small citizens getting it is a common good for all adult citizens of the future, once they live together.

There is actually one right which is essential for the common good of a state, that is the right of growing up with one's family. When God under the Old Law decided, certain Canaaneans should be killed, only the adults were guilty. So why were babies to be killed rather than adopted by Israelites? There are two options. Rob Skiba would tell us : "that Canaanean state was inhabited by giants, by mutants, their genome was evil" (or at least a trap into evil that few escape from, and none of those "of old", see Baruch 3). But what if that Canaanean city state was inhabited by normal people, with a genome roughly similar to Lebanese? Only problem being they practised Molochism with human sacrifice and Sexually immoral rites, that being a choice, not part of their genome? Well, there is an answer to that : adopting the children of city state after city state of Canaaneans would involve being a state where too many, proportionally, had grown up with foster parents, too few, proportionally, with their own parents.

There is one case in which children can be taken away from parents, and I approve : if the parents are Molochists. Let us hope this case is theoretical, though I spoke to one person who thought the case was rather practical and it was only impossible to save the victims in time, because impossible to track down Molochists. One other, namely if children are raped or even systematically molested (even with some kind of consent, valid or not) by members of the own family.

Note well, in 2002 or 2003 there was a case in Sweden, an adolescent girl was placed back with her real father, because the foster father molested her. In the same news article, there was a mention, 1/3 of all foster home placements in Sweden were back then interrupted, whether by seeking another solution or by bringing them back to parents. Presumably, her separation from her own fathers was not due to such a grave fault, but more to one of the ideology judged ones. I am rather sure, it is more common (at least per percent of each population, of majority living at home, of minority living with foster parents) to be abused in foster families than in one's own family. In the natural sense of the word, doing it with a foster daughter or foster sister is not incest, while doing it with one's own daughter or own sister is. Therefore, persons in foster families have less of a block against this than persons in the own family.

This is not adequately counteracted by Social Services selecting the foster families very carefully or even giving them educations or briefings or follow-ups : on the contrary, these things act as stress moments on family life, beyond the fact of someone presumably being unhappy of not being with her own family.

Who is in this case defending the family? Libertarians. Who is therefore defending the Common Good? Libertarians. This is not all there is to Libertarians, perhaps, but it makes them far better than typical Leftist members of some Social Science institute.

Now, look how the supposed "Pope", Bergoglio, strawmans Libertarians and upholds Social Sciences (which are not sciences, but arts of harrassment and bullying, often enough):

"Finally, I cannot but speak of the serious risks associated with the invasion, at high levels of culture and education in both universities and in schools, of positions of libertarian individualism. A common feature of this fallacious paradigm is that it minimizes the common good, that is, “living well”, a “good life” in the community framework, and exalts the selfish ideal that deceptively proposes a “beautiful life”. If individualism affirms that it is only the individual who gives value to things and interpersonal relationships, and so it is only the individual who decides what is good and what is bad, then libertarianism, today in fashion, preaches that to establish freedom and individual responsibility, it is necessary to resort to the idea of “self-causation”. Thus libertarian individualism denies the validity of the common good because on the one hand it supposes that the very idea of “common” implies the constriction of at least some individuals, and the other that the notion of “good” deprives freedom of its essence."

There may have been Libertarians who theorised that badly, perhaps because they were Atheists (and Atheism does not admit of objective values inherent in the very fabric of the universe, as Creationism does), but they have at least, indirectly, affirmed the truth, that human good is only such if enjoyed by individual human persons, and by societies like the family or analogous, and this is also true of the part of human good known as "common good". They have affirmed, very correctly, that representing the common good is not an excuse for inventing (in the interest of the common cause, as one sees it) goods that are not felt as good by the individuals concerned, and impose it on them in the name of the common good passing before private good.

And whom is "Pope Francis" speaking to? Well, the quote is from:

Message from the Holy Father to the participants in the Plenary Session of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences (28 April – 2 May 2017), 28.04.2017 https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2017/04/28/170428h.html

So, now there is a "Pontifical" Academy of Social Sciences ... well, this does not bode very good. For either individual and personal in the sense of private goods, or for the real common good which is common to personal and individual ones. Hat tip to Mark Shea who thinks "Pope Francis" is doing a good job.

In the context, the remark might pass off for very good - since coming after some actually not altogether incorrect observations about the good of workers coming before the financial interests of their employers (a thing Libertarians may miss out on, sorry Mises, but price regulation is not against the natural law, if anything it is free pricing which may easly become so, and regulations for safety and health are not bad either, if proportional, we don't want building to be a process where you moan over one brick falling down, but feel free to ignore men falling down to their death, even if I am not sure at all Josephus' details for Tower of Babel are technically the real ones).

But in this need of protecting workers against certain types of rapaciousness (and if US workers do not feel that need, it is perhaps due partly to laws that were not Libertarian) we have no right to confuse other issues, where Libertarians are simply and obviously right, like defending family from compulsory school, compulsory vaccines, or child protective services, and where the ones who are wrong are moreover more often than not invoking Social Sciences.

In the same document (which I skimmed through, but I did not content myself with Mark Shea's quote, we find a bit of thoroughly bad history:

"The fifteenth century was the first century of humanism; at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the need for a new humanism is felt ever more strongly."

Bergoglio, does he really not know that 15th C. Humanism was a revival of what was bad in pre-Christian, Pagan, Libertarianism? Does he really not know Humanists were fighting price regulations and trade impediments and other Medieval stuff that really took care of the common good, and really saw the poor man's liberties as part of the common good?

Well, sorry, but it seems that he spent more time studying rhetoric than history.

I may have to take another look on what he writes about labour, here I am concerned with not throwing Libertarian defense of families and babies* out with Libertarian bathwater equivalent in price regulations, and such questions.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Bibl. Marguérite Audoux**
Consecration of the Basilicas
of Sts Peter and Paul***
18.XI.2017

Update : Therefore, persons in foster families have less of a block against this than persons in the own family. The English term I was searching was "less inhibitions" or "fewer inhibitions". For wiktionary, this meaning of "spärr" was too technical, for wikipedia, the technical term was not technical enough to have an own article./HGL

* And in defining good as enjoyable by individual persons. ** Yes, I think libraries are one kind of common good, it is enjoyed by lots of individual readers and people using the internet. That doesn't mean CPS is acting for the "common good" or even duly for the individual one or most cases. *** Can one feast it while Bergoglio is abusing them? One can at least commemorate this!

Friday, 17 November 2017

Some Are Taking Dan Brown for a Genius

Not so Kathy Fisher. [Schiffer, my bad!] She tries, finally, to be motherly. But the title of her blog post is Again, Dan Brown? New Novel ‘Origin’ Spurns Faith - a motherly reproach. We'll pass on that and go to some worthwhile matters:

Dan Brown's Crisis of Faith

Dan Brown's success is almost inconceivable: The 53-year-old author has more than 200 million books in print in 56 languages. Three of his thrillers have been made into movies, and the success of those blockbuster films makes it likely that Origin, the fifth in the Robert Langdon series, will also attract the attention of Hollywood.

Brown was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, the son of a mathematics teacher and a church organist. It was that combination of interests which laid the foundation for his lifelong focus on the interplay between science and religion. He was raised in the Episcopalian Church but fell into atheism when he failed to find satisfactory answers to his nagging questions about the integration of science and faith. In a 2009 interview with James Kaplan, he said:*

I was raised Episcopalian, and I was very religious as a kid. Then, in eighth or ninth grade, I studied astronomy, cosmology, and the origins of the universe. I remember saying to a minister, 'I don't get it. I read a book that said there was an explosion known as the Big Bang, but here it says God created heaven and Earth and the animals in seven days. Which is right?' Unfortunately, the response I got was, 'Nice boys don't ask that question.' A light went off, and I said, 'The Bible doesn't make sense. Science makes much more sense to me.' And I just gravitated away from religion.

A little contrast.

I had no professional Churchmanship in my background. A mother left off a Salvation Army carreer (her beliefs now Catholic or close to, and I mighht have sth to do with it). She started med school and is passionate about nature.

My grandparents on her side were both Evolutionist, gramp buying me, when I was very young "Försvunna världar" (the Classics Illustrated "Lost Worlds") after a former stepfather, a Chemist and an Atheist had already introduced me to dinosaurs and millions of years.

I spent time pondering how a fish could change into an amphibian.

My granny bought me "Människans förfäder" from an English original I cannot identify (it's decades since I held the book, it is not sold any more, so I cannot look it up), but it starts with a lot of scientific method and ends in England's Iron Age, might tell someone else sth.

All this before my ma first introduced me to the New Testament and only after that to the Bible as a whole.

There was a time when I tried to conjugate the two, playing around with gap theory and day age or gaps in genealogies, possibilities which my mother hand mentioned without stating she believed them.

And at that time I also tried to find evolutionary answers to mind, to abiogenesis, to origin of language.

To me it was, and will always be, the supposed science which from a certain time on did not make sense. The Bible makes more sense to me.

Today's article on CMI is for a book mentioning the impossibility of an evolutionary theory of the mind:

Consciousness: a problem for naturalism
by Daniel Tate
https://creation.com/consciousness-problem-for-naturalism

It seems from the review that the reviewed authors, Brad Harrub and Bert Thompson, both Ph.D., came to same conclusion as I as a boy of 10 +.

The second groups of studies we might refer to as deficit studies. These studies involve demonstrating that when a particular region of the brain is damaged, a corresponding psychological deficit is consistently noted. Neither correlation nor deficit studies explain how the region of the brain is involved in the psychological process in question; they merely establish that it is involved in some way. For this reason, they are incapable of excluding the involvement of a non-physical soul in the same process. If I observe the gearbox of a car, I may note that whenever the car is moving, the gears rotate, and that whenever the car is stationary, they do not. That hardly proves that the gearbox alone provides a complete explanation of the motion of the car. Similarly, if I damage the gearbox of a car, it may well no longer be capable of driving. Again, however, that hardly demonstrates that the gearbox alone makes the car move.

In other words, as I have said myself, for that exact reason, there is no study which proves either that thought is produced by or even that any thought at all can be produced by brain activity in the physical and biochemical sense.

It is also not a thing which is inherently likely, I have even more often mentioned that even if you can do maths on an abacus, the abacus is not likely to understand maths at any level at all.

Matter doesn't have what it takes to understand.

Computer linguistics in action have more than once tipped me off that the computer software really doesn't understand what it transcribes from scans, what it gives subtitles to, what it translates.

Spell check is a nuisance, I was writing a Latin sentence with accusative plural of the masculine pronoun "eos" and I got the Spanish "eso" ... if it was not own clumsiness, perhaps induced by post-hypnotic suggestions or sth ... and if so, I have seen other abhominations of spell check.

In other words, I completely agree with Brad Harrub and Bert Thompson and with their reviewer Daniel Tate.

Here too:

There is an absolute qualitative gap between the production of, and response to, signs (whether innate or conditioned) found in some animals, and the complex inflections and grammatical structures found in human languages.

This is exactly what made me dump evolution as the real large picture forever, even if I had a later brief (ok, less than ten years) relapse into evolutionary human prehistory (after the then common thought that Neanderthals were killed off by Cro Magnon, I was actually prepared to write a pre-history fiction, a genre I liked and still like, with Neanderthals showing Abel like and Cro-Magnon showing Cain like traits**). But it never went as far as doubting God's primordial necessity for the existence of the human mind.

So, my own road is the opposite one to Dan Brown's. It will remain opposite to the one he has so far taken on this issue.

That said, I think Dan Brown is in some sense more honest than a reviewer of his, already quoted.

The Myth of Catholic Irrationality

For Dan Brown, the creation narrative in Scripture was a deal-breaker. If the earth wasn't created in a literal seven days, then the Bible could not be true. But was he right?

Both John Paul II and Benedict XVI affirmed that the Book of Genesis is not intended as science, that it teaches that God created the earth but does not offer a literal explanation for how he did it.

Saint John Paul II, in his 1998 encyclical Fides et Ratio, likens faith and reason to “two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth.” Rather than fearing scientific inquiry, the Pope embraced its potential to lead the soul toward God. He explained:

God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth – in a word, to know himself – so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves.

It's unfortunate that the youthful Dan Brown didn't receive a more substantial answer from his minister. If he had, perhaps he would have continued his pursuit of truth, eventually exploring the depths of Catholic teaching which can be found in the Catechism or in the works of great theologians like Aquinas.

Six literal days is not the issue. One can believe in a one moment creation, like St Augustine, but that poses the question whether that one moment in which also Adam and Eve were created was on a Sunday, like the Creation of Light (also in that one moment), or on a Friday, as the sequence of six literal days suggests.

Now, after suggesting one moment creation with a great deal of argumentation end of book V, beginning of book VI of De Genesi ad Literam libri XII, St Augustine actually goes on to say that believing six literal days may not be as subtle, but it is good enough.

Now, Kathy Schiffer mentioned Aquinas ... she gave an Amazon with a preview, but arguably this might not include what St Thomas has to say on the six days.

Look here instead:

Summa Theologiae > First Part
First Part (Prima Pars)
http://newadvent.com/summa/1.htm

Here is a part worth noting:

The Six Days (Matter)

CREATION: The work of creation (65***).
DISTINCTION: The ordering (66) of creation towards distinction. The work of distinction in itself: The first (67), second (68) and third (69) days.
ADORNMENT: The fourth (70), fifth (71), sixth (72) and seventh (73) days.
GENERAL: All seven days (74***) in common.

Kathy Schiffer recommends "John Paul II" and "Benedict XVI" in fairly gushing terms. I do not see them as having the same faith as St Thomas Aquinas, nor as St Augustine of Hippo, nor as anyone I can clearly and definitely without reservation consider as Catholic.

A Jesuit a few years ago presented his moder view of Biblical exegesis (compatible with JP-II and B-XVI), but noted that St Robert Bellarmine had a much more Fundamentalist one (perhaps it was in the context of the Galileo affair).

So, Dan Brown has a certain reason to consider Catholicism as Creationist, even if that does not amount to considering either as irrational.

I think that the quote from JP-II comes dangerously close to Baha'i. I think in Baha'i, "two wings" might be a metaphor for gender equality, but Baha'i has the same attitude to faith and reason.

St Thomas Aquinas considered Faith and its opposite Incredulity not as coordinated with Reason, but as qualities of it.

Even if JP-II had led an examplary life, saying things like this would make him uncanonisable.

Perhaps his quest would have led him to the Magis Center, founded by Jesuit Fr. Robert Spitzer, where science, reason and faith are integrated and explored, or to the Faith and Reason Institute, where issues challenging contemporary society are explored within the framework of the “two wings.”

I looked up the Magis Center. One essay title there is "A Contemporary Thomistic Metaphysical Proof of God (with a response to Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion)"

This very title admits that the Five Proofs for God as given by St Thomas are, at least by him and similar evolution supporters, not totally "contemporary". A brief glance tells me, he is omitting Prima Via, in which God is moving the Universe each day around Earth (if you look up parallel passage, much longer, in Summa Contra Gentes) and this causes movements all the way down to it, including day and night and heat and cold and winds of passage and Oceanic currents, which prove God, since the outer layers move the inner ones and there cannot be more and more faster and faster moving outer layers "all infinity" outwards, moving what is moved.

He is so content with Proof 2 (from causality) and 3 (from necessary and contingent existence). Like so many other contemporary Thomists, even if St Thomas himself said that Prima Via or Proof 1 was the most obvious.

So, Kathy Schiffer, you proved there are Modern Catholics in disagreement with Catholicism as previously believed. Not that Catholicism is in any way shape or form more open to Evolution than the Episcopalian Dan Brown saw.

Let's analyse the dialogue again, shall we?

Or, read it again, and analyse, rather?

Dan Brown: 'I don't get it. I read a book that said there was an explosion known as the Big Bang, but here it says God created heaven and Earth and the animals in seven days. Which is right?'
Minister: 'Nice boys don't ask that question.'
Inner event: "A light went off, and I said,"
Dan Brown: 'The Bible doesn't make sense. Science makes much more sense to me.'

What exactly did the Minister mean by saying 'Nice boys don't ask that question'? My hunch is, he was ironising over "nice boys" as being not curious enough to ask that question.

What inner light went off in Dan Brown? My hunch, not necessarily a disgust with the Minister's Creationism (he hadn't documented any), but with his insincerity. If the Minister had said instead "one of the books is wrong", Dan Brown would have had some reason to listen. The science teacher presumably had said "one of the books is wrong" - and come off as sincere. The Minister, no.

And that same insincerity is the exact same one as in the quote from JP-II.

That pretty much does give Dan Brown a good reason to paint his fictive Catholics as very Traddy Trads. It gives him a relief from the real very Modern Mod he had for Episcopalian minister, I should not wonder.

As to his painting of fictive Catholic Churchmen as very evil, often enough, that is a Traddy Episcopalian thing, the Anti-Catholic Propaganda of Bilious Bale or Foxe' Book of Martyrs being from the first century after Henry VIII, and therefore having some venerable veneer for Anglicans, and presumably also for ex-Anglicans.

I have actually meditated on founding a Silas Fanclub, after the Albino "Opus Dei Monk" Silas - but unfortunately some would miss the irony. That is one reason why I often refrain from irony, even if capable.

Another is, it can be taken in a bitter way, like I think Dan Brown took the irony of that Minister.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St Gregory the Thaumaturge
17.XI.2017

* The link to the interview gives a url plus an empty white page. See:

https://parade.com/106060/jameskaplan/13-dan-brown-life-after-da-vinci-code/

At least, an empty white page is what I see.

** I probably never figured out which population group should represent the Biblical Seth.

*** First and last Q of section are 65 and 74, the ASCII numeric values for A and J. In Swedish AJ (pronounced like "I" or "eye") means "ouch". Perhaps a look at these QQ might give a Catholic non-Creationist promoting Aquinas OVER Creationism reason to exclaim "ouch" as well ...

Thursday, 16 November 2017

Some Have Taken Tolkien for a Crypto-Fascist

While being patriotic, and while his son was fighting Italians in Ethiopia, he had some sympathy for Italians - but not for Hitler's Germany. He was a patriot for England - but not for British Parlamentarian Democracy. He considered in Hitler's Germany obedience was put to bad use, but he still considered it a virtue the English could learn from.

So, in a sense, even more if you extend "fascism" to include anything beyond Mussolini's original and its contributary Marinetti's Futurist Party (not quite Tolkien's glass of milk!), for instance Franco or Salazar, Tolkien was more or less fascist and not so crypto. He was against the Reds in the Spanish War.

The Orcs in The Hobbit (and later in Lord of the Rings) may well owe a thing or two to the Reds in Spain.

However, he also considered his books were not allegories. Some might take this as hypocritic, a bit like a record company accused of backmasking saying that in their record company all discs are turning one way only, forward - yes, but what about the magnetophone recordings before the actual discs? Well, I trust Tolkien for one, and for another, some who "decode" him are unusually inept at decoding allegories.

"Since their publication, many critics have labored to decode hidden allegories of real-world events in the adventures of the Fellowship. Because of its racial essentialism and black-and-white morality, Tolkien has often been accused of crypto-fascism."

There is absolutely no racial essentialism in Tolkien's work, beyond the level like "negros are musically talented" - which is not a very racialist thing to say and also has very little to do with Fascism in the general sense.

There is no "Gondoreans are good" or "men from Harad are bad". Men from Harad were misguided at the start of the war, but one task of Aragorn after it was helping them around in a peaceful way. Peaceful, a part from a decisive destruction of Satanism, that is. And men from Numenor have turned bad : the Ring Wraiths are all originally "Black Numenoreans", and black does not refer to skin colour, but to moral alignment, Denethor sank to Occultism, to Realpolitik and to despair, the kingdoms of the North became dominated by the Witchking Angmar, the foremost of the Nine Ring Wraiths. Hobbits too have sunk low, like Gollum and like Lotho Pimple, not forgetting Ferney. One part of the story is a Rosa Parks turn for the good of the people of Ghân-Buri-Ghân.

It is just that Numenoreans are longer lived and more intellectually talented than some others (Aragorn being a young warrior at 80, like Abraham in Genesis 14), they had the talents necessary for colonialism, and some used it well, others very ill.

Orcs and elves are not human races, and orcs are a twisted version of the elvish "race" or rather kind. No conclusions can be drawn from relation to Orcs or Elves to relations between human races.

And "sorry for the word" (ok, not too much), but it was in use in his day and not everyone using it was ideologically a racialist and he was not.
Black and White morality is certainly there in Tolkien - but that is the opposite of the Fascisms which went sour like curdled milk. Italian Fascism was beginning good mannered, up to O ... 79 years ago today, no, tomorrow, with the ban on mixed marriages between Italians (not Catholics) and Hebrews (not confessional Jews), against which, 79 years ago today, Pope Pius XI protested.

Why did it change? Because it believed in an evolving, not in a Black and White, morality.

Hitler's party North of the Alps had even less use for Black and White morality.

By contrast, Franco was preserving Spain from things like Sterilisation and Euthanasia, precisely because he believed, as a Catholic, in a Black and White morality.

So, in having this, Tolkien is actually, if not "antifascist" at least against the bad Fascisms. The nearly bad from start German workers' party, and the going bad Italian proto-version of it.

So, with yet another untalented reading of it as allegory about contemporary things, one can most usefully support Tolkien's aversion to allegory (at least to allegorical reading of his own works apart from Leaf by Niggle).

Nevertheless, while John Last is showing some ineptitude with the above quoted remark, I think that he is giving a not too bad story, which shows that Fascists doing Tolkien have some better inspiration than certain episodes of Mussolini or than Evola. A special bonus for pointing out a contrast between Tolkien and Evola:

"While Evola was theorizing a radical break with modernity, J.R.R. Tolkien was living it. After decades cloistered in the English department of a medieval university, rearranging the elements of Anglo-Saxon lore, Tolkien published The Hobbit, in 1937, followed, almost 20 years later, by The Lord of the Rings."

Mille grazie!

And as Evola might have dreamt of a Pagan antimodernity, Tolkien showed forth a Catholic Christian one, with no little Medieval tinge, not far from Pope St Pius X's Antimodernism.

I am much obliged. Due to this, I may simply state, I have been reading Tolkien for a very long time, especially in formative years and the last years before leaving my last adress in Sweden, I have not been paying attention to Evola and don't intend to too much.

Here is the adress to above story:

How ‘Hobbit Camps’ Rebirthed Italian Fascism
by John Last October 03, 2017
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/hobbit-camps-fascism-italy

Enjoy!

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St Gertrude
16.XI.2017

Suspect de prendre du Mazagran?

Qui ça? Manuel Dias:

Manuel Dias, unique victime de l'attentat aux abords du Stade de France
Par LG avec Eleonore Autissier
Publié le 16/11/2015 à 19:26 Mis à jour le 17/11/2015 à 10:02
http://france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr/grand-est/marne/manuel-dias-unique-victime-de-l-attentat-aux-abords-du-stade-de-france-855557.html

Pourquoi le serait-il?

Ordering “un mazagran” was still common in France into the 20th century, although it seems now to have mostly disappeared. The one stronghold of Mazagran coffee left is in neither France nor Algeria, but in Portugal, where it’s become a soft of coffee-lemonade hybrid: it’s iced coffee with at least a twist of lemon. It doesn’t seem very likely that this is what French soldiers were drinking during a siege, but it’s reportedly tasty—especially when it’s made with a shot of rum.

Donc, les Portugais (dont Manuel Dias) prennent encore le Mazagran, et encore avec de l'alcool.

Mais pourquoi (à part l'alcool) est-ce que le Mazagran embêterait le terroriste coupable?

There’s no good agreement on how many Algerian soldiers surrounded the force—one account puts their number in the hundreds, more likely, it was in the thousands. The French soldiers were definitely outnumbered, though, and their walls were not particularly high. They withstood their enemies for a few days and were ready to make a last stand when reinforcements arrived and the siege force retreated.

Les soldats français ont été assiégés par des soldats algériens, et ont été victorieux. Et, où ça?

Abdelkader had negotiated a treaty with France in 1837 but, after consolidating power in the country’s interior, starting fighting for control of the coast as well. In 1840, his fighters trapped 123 French soldiers in a fortress, at the outpost of Mazagran.

Abdelkader avait donc brisé la paix avec la France en assiégeant la forteresse de ... Mazagran.

J'imagine que ni la mémoire de l'infidélité d'Abdelkader, ni celle de la victoire française étaient au goût des terroristes.

Par contre, je ne peux pas tout à fait considérer Manuel Dias comme un martyr pour le Mazagran, bien que ça serait une bonne cause (la liberté chrétienne et tout ça, ne vous laissez pas juger sur ce que vous mangez ou buvez ...). Car, pour citer le premier lien:

Manuel Dias est l'un des 129 noms couchés sur la si longue et encore provisoire liste des personnes décédées lors des attentats de vendredi dernier. Manuel Dias avait 63 ans. Ce marnais est mort aux abords du Stade de France, victime de l'explosion d'une bombe.

Ah, il n'était donc pas personnellement ciblé. Je vient de le découvrir après d'avoir écrit la petite spéculation sur un mobile se conjugant sur café, glaçons, citron et alcool.

Par contre, j'espère qu'il était bon catholique, car à Fatima la Vierge a prédit "en Portugal, le dogme de la foi sera toujours préservé".

RIP

Hans Georg, e moito obrigado aos Portugueses no caminho do Santiago ...

No, Paul Price, no Pastor Kim

Both yesterday and today, CMI seemed to be attacking the use of internet (with some exceptions, including obviously themselves).

Shatter the echo chamber
by Paul Price, Published: 16 November 2017 (GMT+10)
https://creation.com/echo-chamber

"one of the reasons that social media platforms have been so successful is their ability to capture people’s attention by feeding them content they know will be interesting to that person. They keep track of your past actions and preferences, and use this as a template on which to base future suggestions—creating a feedback loop that some have termed the ‘echo chamber’. Ironically, this echo chamber effect of social media means that, rather than making people more connected, it is tending to have the opposite effect: people are being cloistered into tight-knit groups of like-minded individuals who share similar worldviews, political beliefs, and so forth."

With me, it is precisely the contrary.

I have been answering to one Protestant attack on the papacy, then another on the Catholic Church, then ...

I am now involved in the umpteenth attack on, this time specifically Catholic reading of Matthew 16:18.

I have been asking myself if there are Protestants who are recommending these things to me.

Perhaps not, perhaps it is just some programmer who decided that interest in a video on Nephelim or on Nimrod by Rob Skiba somehow implied five years ago (or so) a general interest in anything Evangelical, including Anticatholic stuff.

I am in a kind of echo chamber, but certainly not the one I feel well in.

It is, at least, less intense than the schoolyard bullies I was facing up to before university.

But the algorithm they use is not alive, it does not know or understand anything. If it is giving a targetted effect, I suppose it is due to someone in Heaven (or possibly in Hell if Satan has a hold on me) using it that way.

If internet is per se evil, God is using this to punish me from using it at all. I don't think this is the case, noting it only as a theoretical possibility.

If internet can have good uses, God is listening to someone who wants to give me a lesson, and I would like to know who that is and why God is preferring that guy's prayers to my former ones, I hardly dare pray about my situation any more, so much has God shown He is preferring someone else's prayer over mine.

"Does this mean that websites like creation.com are a waste of time and resources? Absolutely not! But they must be used for the proper purpose. What do you think is more effective: a) sharing a creation.com article to everyone you know on facebook, or b) reading it yourself and talking about it face-to-face with an unbeliever? After all we have seen thus far, I hope the answer b) is the obvious choice, although these are by no means mutually exclusive ."

In my own situation, option b is an impossibility.

I can want to share a creationist article from CMI, I can want to write one in response to CMI, I can for that matter write one of my own, as I might be doing today from some correspondence about carbon 14 formation, b u t if I speak face to face to someone I am not likely to be in a position to bring any of above up.

People speaking to me are speaking to me about my situation, about my not quite French accent, about why I don't look for paid work or how I could look for paid work or how I could seek out someone who - as they know - will sooner or later ask me to look for paid work, B U T speaking with me about subjects I care for? No ...

Planning with me to print my articles ... no.

Reading one of my articles and adressing me on "oh, I saw you had written something on carbon dating, I noticed you had not mentioned this angle" (insert any angle you think he might have discovered, by hypothesis, it would be one I overlooked at least in the articles he happened to read) ... no.

In other words, my physical social surroundings are very much an echo chamber of the type I consider as bullying against me, just ... well, sometimes I won't even say it is less intense than what happened in the schoolyards, it is more like I am more used to it.

Yesterday one man was giving me an alms and just before leaving he added after lauding me "the Lord is with thee" as if the words of the angel the Blessed Virgin were just a common greeting, or at least one between believers.

It is on the internet, not in my physical social surroundings, that I have some capacity to respond to such things.

It is on the internet that I can arrest the near Gish Gallop of Pastor Kim against the Catholic reading, look up the Bible verses, respond to his twisted interpretations. A Pentecostal or Baptist in Paris would usually not give me time to speak. And a Catholic would not care I was responding correctly to it, he would just want to get me off internet, and into another line of work.

I will give you someone else's assessment on why this is not a correct proposal to make me:

"There are a number of ways Christian scholars in higher education can respond. One is simply abandonment. We can just read the tea leaves and decide that a life in colleges and universities isn’t worth butting one’s head against a brick wall forever, and do something else. But investing the many years that a PhD requires, not to say the aspirations of the scholarly life, do not make abandonment a very serious alternative."

CT : The Illusion of Respectability
Allen Guelzo| November 13, 2015 |p. 2
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2015/november-web-only/illusion-of-respectability-allen-guelzo.html?start=2

I have spent more time in debating on internet, than some have spent on their PhD.

I am trying to make something of it, not to find sth other to do, and some ought to get over that. Trying to repeat to me I ought to abandon will be taken as bullying.

So, here is what I am doing with Pastor Kim's video:

THIS...is a Confusing Bible Verse!
BBC International | Ajoutée le 15 nov. 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amKf4hMwbQ4

My responses to Pastor Kim:

I

Resp. to 1:25 "because they [the Catholics] believe Peter is the first pope"

The Greek Orthodox, I was part time such* too, agree Peter was the first Bishop of Rome, Bishops of Rome, or commonly said Popes being his successors.

They also claim that there have been no Popes since the schism, about 1000 years ago, and that some unifying prerogatives of Rome now are with Patriarch of Constantinople (like erecting new Patriarchates, like defining boundaries between Patriarchates - like each Patriarch has in relation to episcopal Sees).

However, they have two ways of dealing with this.

One is, arguably, the same as yours. The real rock is Jesus, or Peter's faith, or at least not Peter himself, or if it is, not more than the other Apostles.

The other is, EVERY local bishop is successor of St Peter.

But they do agree he was first to episcopate in some sense in three locations:

Jerusalem, together with other apostles, where his or their common successor St James counts as first unitary bishop;
Antioch
Rome (coded as "Babylon" in his epistles).

On this, the historic fact of his being first Pope of Rome, they agree completely with us Catholics, or at least since he came to Rome when dying the ensuing bishops became his successors, which is fine enough with us too.

The real difference of opinion is less on what St Peter was (Palamas and Pope Innocent III both argued some sins can only be forgiven by Peter's successors, since it was to St Peter Christ said to forgive 70*7, but Innocent III considers this as meaning Popes of Rome, Palamas as meaning ALL local bishops).

*[Technically not Greek, Romanian]

II

Resp. to 2:59 "[Jesus Christ is] supposed to be the rock of the church"

Even back when Orthodox, before my return to Catholic, I had trouble agreeing with Orthodox who agreed with you. [As to what this verse is conveying]

Did you read past verse 18 to verse 19.

"And I will give THEE the keys of the kingdom of Heaven".

Not ~~"I will give MYSELF"~~ but "I will give THEE".

Also, Jesus being rock of the Church does not contradict Peter being it.

Jesus being rock in and of [H]imself, Peter became rock, then and there, through Jesus who is so in and of [H]imself.

That is how St Augustine sees it.

III

Resp. to 3:08 "supposedly followed after Peter"

You might have some trouble historically documenting any alternative views of who followed after Peter.

Obviously, citing patriarchs of Antioch is not an alternative view, we agree St Peter was in Antioch before he was in Rome, we agree he has in Antioch the successors Sts Evodius and Ignatius, and a few more:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Patriarchs_of_Antioch

just as in the meantime he had in Rome the successors:

Sts Linus, Cletus, Clement I, Evaristus and - Pope during martyrdom of St Ignatius - Alexander I, and a few more:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_popes

After 1938 or 1950 or 1958, the article should be making room for alternative claims, as the other article does for Patriarchs of Antioch.

I am obviously NOT accepting Evolution believing "Harry-Potter-God denying" Bergoglio or the most recent predecessors of him as real Popes.

IV

Resp. to 3:11 We also listen to Jesus Christ Himself, whereever we can read what He said on a topic (not so Bergoglio, it would seem, who denies implications of Marc 10:6 both for marriage, see Amoris Laetitia, and for age of humanity).

But there are topics on which we cannot read what He had to say, like, "where shall the bishop of Rome and and bishop of Ostia begin, geographically" or "how many years old must you be before you can receive the Eucharist, on what conditions can you receive it as a baby after baptism, on what conditions can't you do that" ... like when Jesus said "let the children come to me", is He only saying they should be baptised, or is He saying (like the Orthodox believe) they should receive the Eucharist too?

Or, if a child has received the Eucharist and starts to puke, what exactly must the priest do in Church, and what is the penalty of the mother who breastfed the child too close on to receiving the Eucharist? If it happens to often, can the Church cease doing that, and reserve Eucharist for later, when children don't accidentally puke every day nearly, but only when they are sick and can be told to wait until they don't feel an urge? Well, this is where Popes come in.

Obviously, some Orthodox would agree with you, by denying babies the Eucharist, we do not allow them to come to Christ and we don't listen to His words.

Perhaps you think you need to discern what Jesus really meant, perhaps some of you even deny He wanted the babies to get baptised?

Well, if you agree there are discernments to be made about what Jesus meant, you don't really mean listening to Jesus is sufficient either, you are then saying discernments must be made.

We agree, discernments must be made, but we also agree Jesus gave us a very "broad hint" or actually a very clear instruction on who is chiefly responsible for making them.

So, we don't agree this is a confusing verse at all.

V

Resp. to 3:18 "this verse seems to show Peter's the rock, not Jesus"

This verse seems to a Catholic to show that Jesus, already rock, made Peter rock too.

VI

Resp. to 3:48.

"This" rock would naturally be the last rock mentioned.

In Aramaic, both the proper name Peter and the common noun rock are Kipha.

This being so (this here referring to last sentence written just before), it would have been very confusing if Jesus had both named Peter rock and then so to say added "even so I am the rock on which I will build my Church", clarifying the "I" by gestures, which gestures are moreover not recorded.

And, once again, even if Jesus is the rock in Matthew 16:18, he cannot be the "thee" in Matthew 16:19.

Do you ever open a Bible and read the verse in context? Or did you just find Matthew 16:18 as a wikipedian or googled search on Catholic claims for papacy?

VII

3:56 "Jesus was pointing to himself"

That is not in the Bible.

You cannot even get this from the use of pronoun "this", since another clear meaning of "this" is "last item mentioned" (of a certain type) and Peter was last item mentioned of the type rock, unless you want to argue (as some Orthodox do) Peter doesn't mean rock.

So, in arguing against the Papal claims, you are adding to the Bible.

VIII

4:12 "[let's be quite honest, the verse does not say that and it makes more sense Jesus was speaking to Peter about Peter as the] rock rather than himself"

Hear, hear!

That was an honest word.

IX

4:23 Comparing Scripture to Scripture, you said (Popes do that, the procedure is not bad, it is just we allow them to be final authority on what emerges from such a comparison - a thing the Bible itself obviously cannot be final authority about).

I'll be happy to oblige!

"Built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone:"
[Ephesians 2:20]

This says, Jesus is the main rock, but not the whole rock. The whole foundation includes other persons than Christ alone, namely prophets and apostles, chief of them of course ... Peter.

Now, an Orthodox wanting to deny Peter was given other prerogatives than just any apostle would say "look, here it says all apostles are part of the foundation, not just Peter".

Agreed, but of those twelve stones, the one closes to the chief corner stone is ... Peter. And Palamas did not even dream of denying the special position of Peter, he was just saying every local bishop is his successor.

X

Resp. to 4:54 [18] The Jews, therefore, answered, and said to him: What sign dost thou shew unto us, seeing thou dost these things? [19] Jesus answered, and said to them: Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. [20] The Jews then said: Six and forty years was this temple in building; and wilt thou raise it up in three days? [21] But he spoke of the temple of his body.

On this occasion (the last mentioned), yes, he was using "this temple" as the one locally closests to his speech, and we also see the consequence, since he was talking outside the Temple in which he had driven out merchants, he was not understood.

He probably clarified it to his apostles later, that is how John knew this was his meaning.

However, you cannot make this a good parallel for Matthew 16, since here He was speaking among His Apostles, of whom He did NOT want to be the least misunderstood.

So, no John 2:18-21 shows at least He did not every time point at Himself, if He had, the Jews might have understood Him, therefore, it cannot show He was pointing to Himself in Matthew 16:18.

And since in Matthew 16:18 He had to be much clearer than to "the Jews" (John is using this generic term for His enemies, while He is not Himself doing so in the Gospel), it is also not proof He would have used "this" in the meaning of "me", since that was not a clear meaning, proven from how Jews misunderstood Him.

5:39 You cannot prove from John 2, the text, that Jesus was pointing to Himself, even if in verse 21 it is proven He meant Himself.

If you have a Church Father who claims He was actually pointing to Himself ...

6:00 No, we Catholics are NOT confused about Matthew 18, so far it seems you are.

Also, we don't really like to be compared to the people called mostly in St John's Gospel and known since then as "the Jews".

XI

6:59 "Wherefore it is said in the scripture: Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious. And he that shall believe in him, shall not be confounded."
[1 Peter 2:6]

Since Peter is not contradicting St Paul as already cited, while he says Jesus is the chief corner stone of the foundation, he is not denying all apostles, including himself belong to the foundation.

I e, as St Augustine says, he is rock by participation.

7:12 "and he said it is not himself"

You are a bit sloppy with what you just cite, aren't you?

Where in verse 6 which you cited does he even mention himself? So, he has not said "it is not me". Again, you are adding to Scripture.

Even to 8:47 : by saying the Rock mentioned in Matthew 16:18 is Peter, we are not denying the Rock is Christ.

Again, Jesus in Himself, Peter by participation.

So, therefore, in proving the Rock is Jesus Christ, you have not proven the Rock is not Peter. And that stating this was the meaning of Christ's words, verses 17 to 19 of Matthew chapter 16.

Leaving out verse 18, and checking two surrounding verses now:

Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona: because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven. ... [19] And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven.

This is obviously one of the verses where Orthodox claim Apostles were given same thing in general as here Peter alone. John 20:21-23.

But John 20 is only speaking of forgiving sinners or not forgiving them. Matthew 16:19 is speaking of WHAT-ever, not just of WHOM-ever.

Btw, this seems to indicate, Popes both had a right to bind on Geocentrism, making a heresy of disbelieving it, and then later to loose on Geocentrism, making it so one is no longer risking damnation for NOT being a Geocentric.

However, this would perhaps depend on how solemnly the binding was. Catholic doctrine usually has it, once a Pope (who is really a Pope, not a fraud like Bergoglio seems to be) has solemnly defined sth, no Pope after him can loose this.

On the other hand, once a Pope has solemnly defined an act or belief is licit, like in Fridays not to fast all the way to evening, like first Christians did, no Pope after him could bind?

Not quite, since a definition about what is licit but not obliging is usually disciplinary. And disciplinary is usually not a solemn doctrinal definition.

XII

Resp. to 9:06 I Cor 10:4

[4] And all drank the same spiritual drink; (and they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.)

Now, this confirms that which I cited St Augustine for, Christ is rock per se, even if in Matthew 16 He made St Peter rock by participation.

Here is what Bishop Challoner had to say of this, his commentary starts with verse 2:

[2] "In Moses": Under the conduct of Moses, they received baptism in figure, by passing under the cloud, and through the sea; and they partook of the body and blood of Christ in figure, by eating of the manna, (called here a spiritual food because it was a figure of the true bread which comes down from heaven,) and drinking the water, miraculously brought out of the rock, called here a spiritual rock, because it was also a figure of Christ.

http://drbo.org/chapter/53010.htm

The rock from which they drank was a physical rock, not identic to Christ, but it is called a spiritual rock "because it is a figure of Christ".

Well, guess what we think Christ made St Peter, back very close to the Gates of Hell, if Rob Skiba is correct about Mount Hermon, where Caesarea Philippi is? We think, in the time of Moses, Christ, as God the Son, made the rock a figure of Himself. In the fulness of time, He made Peter also a figure of himself.

Rocks are minerals. Minerals are what the stone tablets were made of.

Once, twice, God wrote the law on stone, in the New Covenant He writes the law on hearts (even if He also wrote it in sand, John 8, and the law being what He wrote in sand, I have patristic support for). Guess why He wanted a stone figure of Himself in the Old Covenant, and a human person figure of Himself in the New Covenant?

9:11 "not Peter, let alone any Pope"

Not what the verse says.

Again, you are adding to Scripture.

XIII

9:25 "There is no verse that says the Pope took over after Peter"

Guess what, there is not even a verse that says Peter died.

OK, indirectly, in John. John 21:[18] Amen, amen I say to thee, when thou wast younger, thou didst gird thyself, and didst walk where thou wouldst. But when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and lead thee whither thou wouldst not. [19] And this he said, signifying by what death he should glorify God. And when he had said this, he saith to him: Follow me.

St John wrote his Gospel after St Peter died. One can presumably conclude from this he died, even if it does not directly say so.

If no one took over after St Peter, who told St John?

If someone told St John, why don't we listen to his disciples on where that could be? His most famous disciples are Sts Polycarp and Papias. It is from St Papias we have the earliest mention of four Gospels together.

But St Polycarp has a disciple called St Ignatius of Lyons and a friend or disciple called St Ignatius of Antioch - whose letter to the Romans indicates, this is where the Church is centered:

"Ignatius, who is also called Theophorus, to the Church which has obtained mercy, through the majesty of the Most High Father, and Jesus Christ, His only-begotten Son; the Church which is beloved and enlightened by the will of Him that wills all things which are according to the love of Jesus Christ our God, which also presides in the place of the region of the Romans, worthy of God, worthy of honour, worthy of the highest happiness, worthy of praise, worthy of obtaining her every desire, worthy of being deemed holy, and which presides over love, is named from Christ, and from the Father, which I also salute in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father: to those who are united, both according to the flesh and spirit, to every one of His commandments; who are filled inseparably with the grace of God, and are purified from every strange taint, [I wish] abundance of happiness unblameably, in Jesus Christ our God."

http://newadvent.com/fathers/0107.htm

St Irenaeus of Lyons is even more specific, he lists the first twelve Popes.

Just because a piece of history is not in the Bible doesn't mean it is doubtful.

9:30 "so it's only talking about Peter anyways"

Well, no.

Matthew 28, last verses. First, verses 16-18, whom is Our Lord speaking to?

[16] And the eleven disciples went into Galilee, unto the mountain where Jesus had appointed them. [17] And seeing him they adored: but some doubted. [18] And Jesus coming, spoke to them, saying:

So, He is speaking to Peter, Andrew, James, John ... seven more, not yet Matthias, no longer Judas Ischariot.

What does He tell them?

All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. [19] Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. [20] Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.

Note, He is telling this to the Apostles. Not as some would say, all the faithful. He did not say this to the five hundred disciples. He ddid not say this to the women who followed Him, just the Apostles.

There is more than one indication it means they were having successors.

1) The command implies all nations. But some nations were not yet reached (think China) when the Apostles lived, some did not even exist back then.
2) It says He is with them "all days". While each of the eleven is indeed with Him in Heaven now, how is He with them in what He commanded them? Well, because they have successors to this day. The Catholic bishops.

And if all eleven have successors through all the bishops, it is at least reasonable St Peter specifically has successors to one specific series of bishops.

To Roman Catholics, that is the bishops of Rome, the Popes, while all other bishops, local bishops or lower, are successors mainly of the other Apostles.

To Palamas, that is the local bishops (including that of Rome), while all bishops below local bishop, all "chorepiscopoe" in Greek terminology, all "Weihbischöffe" in German termonology are mainly succeeding the other Apostles.

XIV

10:02 In your terminology both Paul and earlier Peter "admitted Jesus Christ has to be the rock of the church"

Why "admitted"? Are you seeing them as on our side?

Are you being adversarial to them?

"there is no other"

Not what it says, you are adding to the Bible!

[Unless by "other" he means "completely other" which we do not take St Peter or successors to be.]

10:15 In Matthew 16 Christ "has to be the rock of the Church"

We agree, that is why He could in verse 18 make Peter (formerly Simon) rock by participation.

You know, when God called Abram Abraham, when God called Sarai Sarah, God meant sth.

When Christ calls Simon Peter, He means business too.

Abraham is Father of Many. Hmmm .... "one is your father who is in heaven"?

So, God is Father of Many in and of Himself, Abraham became so by participation.

Even when a man makes a child, he is not the primary father of the child, God is, so Abraham being ancestor of Hebrew nation (Samarians, Jews and Palestinians) through Isaac does not change God's Fatherhood.

Same way making Peter the rock does not change God's, Christ's rockness. Or rockitude.

10:27 "[that is the only verse] a person will ever use to prove Peter [...] has to be the rock"

No, I just used all the other rock references you gave as well, plus one you have so far not given Ephesians 2:20.

10:35 I don't think you have tons of verses, except against you.

None is for you when denying Peter is the rock, and if you pretend proving Jesus is the rock proves Peter isn't, you are setting up a strawman on what it means when Peter is said to be the rock.

When Jesus made Peter the rock, He did not cease to be rock. The chief corner stone.

If we had been claiming He ceased or never was, you would have had tons of evidence against that claim, but that is simply not our claim. Check out what we say instead of putting things in our mouths!

There is no verse John 2:42.

You mean John 1:42! [He later changed that.]

[42] And he brought him to Jesus. And Jesus looking upon him, said: Thou art Simon the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is interpreted Peter.

In other words, the name Peter was not just a nickname, it was a promised name, a title of nobility.

There are parallels:

Neither shall thy name be called any more Abram: but thou shalt be called Abraham: because I have made thee a father of many nations.
[Genesis 17:5]

Abraham, as mentioned. God is father of all Christian nations, but God made Abraham father of them too.

Jesus is the rock, but He made Peter rock too.

Saying: Thou shalt not be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name. And he called him Israel.
[Genesis 35:10]

In this we see how Jacob by becoming Israel becomes the key person of the covenant. After an angel of God had wrestled with him - and he had won.

At Caesarea Philippi, Jesus is starting out to wrestle with the Apostles, and who wins the blessing? Peter, this makes him the key person of the covenant.

11:50 "which is by interpretation a - what? - stone, so oops"

You have another translation, but the Greek word is Petros, and if some have claimed this means the same as Lithos (normal word for stone), well, Jesus is called Lithos too in I Peter 2:6.

"Is he a rock or is he just a stone?"

It's like asking if I Peter 2:6 (come on, you cited this verse yourself!) claims Jesus is "the rock" or "a stone". Your dichotomy is unwarranted.

If a rock is larger than a stone, Jesus is rock (as foundation) with some other stones, Himself chief corner stone, namely Prophets and Apostles, Ephesians 2:20.

Being a stone is not the opposite of being a rock!

Here is Nestle Aland, the word in the Greek is not Lithos, but Petros:

ΚΑΤΑ ΙΩΑΝΝΗΝ 1:42 ἤγαγεν αὐτὸν πρὸς τὸν Ἰησοῦν. ἐμβλέψας αὐτῷ ὁ Ἰησοῦς εἶπεν· σὺ εἶ Σίμων ὁ υἱὸς Ἰωάννου, σὺ κληθήσῃ Κηφᾶς, ὃ ἑρμηνεύεται Πέτρος.

Also, Kipha in Aramaic is not "stone" but actually rock.

The Greek normal word for rock, Petra, would have been inappropriate for St Peter, since it sounds like a female name.

12:51 While Christians are lively stones, there is an architecture.

The foundation is not "Jesus alone", but Jesus with Prophets and Apostles.

However, there is an architecture between the Apostles as well, as revealed in John 1:42 and Matthew 16:18, especially as compared with the new names Abraham and Israel.

13:33 You claimed JOhn 1:42 called Peter a "stone" in the same sense as other living stones (I Peter 2:5).

Nestle Aland does not have "petroi zôntes", but "lithoi zôntes":

ΠΕΤΡΟΥ ΕΠΙΣΤΟΛΗ ΠΡΩΤΗ 2:5 καὶ αὐτοὶ ὡς λίθοι ζῶντες οἰκοδομεῖσθε οἶκος πνευματικὸς εἰς ἱεράτευμα ἅγιον ἀνενέγκαι πνευματικὰς θυσίας εὐπροσδέκτους θεῷ διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ.

So, you have no warrant to claim Peter is just one of the stones, any more than to claim Abraham is just one of the nations or Israel is just one of the children of Abraham.

Besides, John 1:42 and Matthew 16:16-19 between them prove that Peter is a key person for the new covenant, like Abraham and Israel for the old one.

"he is not some special"

Oh, yes, he is!

13:54 "They are trying to make you think it is the same passage"

No, we are not.

We are precisely claiming it is two different ones, and that John 1 is about the beginning of Jesus acting, as much as Genesis 12 is about the beginning of God acting with Abraham.

You are strawmanning Catholicism, again!

"Matthew 16, Jesus meets Peter later"

What do you mean by "meet"? They had spent all the time between together, or most of it. Peter was His disciple, that means student, and Peter, like other students, spent l o t s of time with the Professor, in this case the one Professor.

No, this Catholic Apologist is not trying to make you think John 1 and Matthew 16 are same incident, but that it is two incidents related to same name change.

Now, if he is saveable, that should make him think.

At least I hope it makes some other people think. But probably more over internet than over face to face talk.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St Gertrude
16.XI.2017

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