HGL's F.B. writings

mardi 8 avril 2014

Some Links about Justina Pelletier

The Courant > Health > Connecticut
Lou Pelletier Rebuts Judge's Decision
http://www.courant.com/health/connecticut/hc-pelletier-rulling-response-20140402,0,2393890,full.story

Huckabee: After 14 months Mass. responds to Pelletier family
Apr. 06, 2014 - 4:01 - After overwhelming response to case, parents get answers
http://video.foxnews.com/v/3438391939001/huckabee-after-14-months-mass-responds-to-pelletier-family/#sp=show-clips

Justice for Justina
http://justiceforjustina.com/

Not yet signed, but I think I will when I have read through what it is about. I am not in the habit of signing lightly. However, my internet access is being hampered, so I am not sure when I will be able to hear all the videos. Whether or not she has a lifethreatening disease, she should not be kept in Psychiatry. Even if it's all in her head as they claim, keeping her captive will not mend matters./HGL

Dialogue entre sourds avec un vieil ami

1) New blog on the kid : Pascal Lamy ou Moyen Âge?, 2) HGL's F.B. writings : Dialogue entre sourds avec un vieil ami

Lui, statut (de la suite modifié): "If you don't want your tax dollars to help the poor, then stop saying you want a country built on Christian values, because you don't" Jimmy Carter
DR: Jimmy Carter qui aurait quand même pu faire beaucoup plus...
Lui: Pour le coup, nous sommes parfaitement d'accord. Léger caveat, toutefois : la citation doit se comprendre dans un contexte américain
Moi (en anglais comma la citation): Sorry, but a Christian wants the poor helped, but only partly by tax dollars.

Of course the couple of Sales Boisy were helping poor and of course they were feudal lords in some ways taxing the country. But giving alms on occasions like the Baptism of St Francis of Sales and hoping others will also give alms on their great days is different from making alms givng a state monopoly.
Lui: Hans-Georg, il va sans dire que la charité ne peut se vivre sans implication personnelle. Bien entendu, ceci ne signifie nullement qu'il faille fermer les yeux sur les structures économiques en soi immorales. C'est le tout qu'il faut rechercher.
Moi: Une structure du fisc qui augmente les impôts pour que le gouvernement fasse à peu près la charité de tout le monde (qui devient par là solidarité plutôt que charité) est une des structures économiques en soi immorales qu'il faut combattre.

HGL's F.B. writings : Reflections on a stone block and on gruesome factory farming and more
http://hglsfbwritings.blogspot.com/2014/04/reflections-on-stone-block.html

New blog on the kid : The Communist Government of Pensacola
http://nov9blogg9.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-communist-government-of-pensacola.html
Lui: Ce n'est pas mon avis. Il y a certes des abus et de grands travers dans le système actuel, dont les principes ne sont du reste pas évidents. Abusus autem usum non tollit.
Moi: Ah ... bon ... tu préfères peut-être le système qui m'a ruiné ma vie et que j'ai fui en 2004?
Lui: Certes non. Ce système-là est en effet fort nuisible. Il y manque de nombreux éléments du droit naturel.
Moi: Tu préfères quoi, alors?
Lui: Un système distributiste fondé sur l'idée de bien commun. La justice commutative faisant bien entendu partie d'un tel système.
Moi: Commutative? Ce n'est pas la justice distributive que tu vises? Et tu entends quoi par "distributiste"?
Lui: Quant à 1 : les deux ; relativement à 2 : Chesterton et alii... Chesterton auquel tu m'initias jadis, du reste.

[La question est s'il a bien compris Chesterton.]
Moi: Ça sont les noms, j'ai aussi lu Chesterton. Il aurait aimé que le fisc soit le soutien principal des pauvres? Non.

[Il n'aurait pas été complètement d'accord avec la citation de Carter, par exemple.]
Lui: Je n'ai pas dit le principal soutien. Je n'ai pas non plus parlé des modalités, mais du principe. L'état a la charge du bien commun. Par ailleurs, sous un régime n'exigeant pas une pauvreté de masse comme l'actuel, la situation serait bien différente sous bien des aspects.
Moi: La justice commutative est celle qui règle les justes prix et les justes salaires. Et qui exclut le prêt sur interêt. N'a rien à voir avec le soutien des pauvres.

Les dollars des impôts sont d'abord pour le militaire et la justice, et ceux des dîmes/deniers de l'église y compris un peu plus pour les pauvres. Mais ni l'un ni l'autre est le soutien principal des pauvres, non plus que les pauvres soient leur principal but.

Le denier en Suède du Moyen Âge: celui principal sur le blé allait 1/3 pour le curé, 2/9 pour l'évêque, 2/9 pour l'église en soi, 2/9 pour les pauvres.

Somme total du denier = 10% d'impôt sur la récolte de blé.

Les deniers accessoires venaient uniquement au curé.

Après, c'était une responsabilité PERSONELLE et morale du curé d'utiliser davantage en faisant l'aumône.

[Notons, cette aumône était distincte du budget prévu pour les pauvres.]
Lui: "La justice commutative est celle qui règle les justes prix et les justes salaires. Et qui exclut le prêt sur interêt. N'a rien à voir avec le soutien des pauvres." - Détrompe-toi, cher ami, tout se tient, fait que la question monétaire démontre amplement.

[Si le manque de justice commutative cause effectivement de la pauvreté, le soutien des déjà pauvres en tant que tels plutôt qu'en tant de producteurs, relève de la justice DISTRIBUTIVE.]
Moi: Et la question monétaire est laquelle (il y en a plusieures, non?) et comment change-t-elle les données?
Lui: Je ne vois pas le principe en jeu, ni du reste la raison de ton opposition.
Moi: Non, tu ne vois pas le principe, tu ne vois pas la raison. Bien dit.
Lui: Le système monétaire actuel est basé sur l'usure systématique. Il consacre le pouvoir du capital sur le travail.
Moi: Alors c'est ça qu'il convient de changer.

[Avec des lois, plutôt qu'avec les impôts.]

Et ce n'était pas ça le propos de Jimmy Carter.

[Car le sien était - en effet sinon en intention - de laisser appauvrir les modestes si juste les impôts sont là pour les soutenir comme pauvres.]
Lui: Nous parlons de phénomènes imbriqués.
Moi: Qu'on peut aussi désimbriquer. Mais, même imbriqués, on peut les traiter ensemble de la bonne manière plutôt que de la mauvaise.

HGL's F.B. writings : Reflections on a stone block and on gruesome factory farming and more
http://hglsfbwritings.blogspot.com/2014/04/reflections-on-stone-block.html
Lui: Pour Carter: Certes non, du moins pas parfaitement. Ceci ne le rend pas entièrement faux. Le propos de Carter est à resituer dans le contexte de l'ultra-libéralisme actuel, où la souffrance du prochain ne gêne plus grand monde.
Moi: Il prétendait que son propos était la bonne cure contre ultralibéralisme, je le trouve une des causes de ce même ultralibéralisme.
Lui: Non, pas nécessairement. Je crois que son propos est plus profond. Quoi qu'il en soit, il vaut mieux vouloir un bien par des moyens inadaptés ou imparfaits que de rester de marbre devant le mal. Malheureusement, nous en sommes là, de nos jours.

[Que ce ne cause pas nécessairement par provocation de l'ultralibéralisme en chaqu'un qui en souffre par oreille ou le jour de payer l'impôt est une chose, ça n'empêche pas que c'est assez nécessairement vrai que ça le provoque chez quelques-uns et que ça devient donc UNE DES causes. Et que son propos soit "plus profond" ne change évidemment rien à ses effets tel qu'il a été pris.]
Moi: Et je ne considère pas l'opposition au système d'impôts aux États-Unis comme de l'ultralibéralisme.

Au contraire, quand les petites entreprises ferment à cause de par exemple d'impôts de succession, les richissimes s'enrichent davantage et appauvrissent les autres davantage.

[il vaut mieux vouloir un bien par des moyens inadaptés ou imparfaits que de rester de marbre devant le mal.]

Oui, et il accusait peut-être sans aucun fondement les opposants aux moyens inadaptés d'être de marbre.
Lui: Sur les impôts tuant les petites entreprises : Bien entendu. Le fait que tu croies que je pense le contraire tend à prouver que tu ne suis ni ma pensée ni mon intention.

[Que les impôts vont quelque part aux pauvres, qui l'aurait disputé aux années 70? Mais ce qu'on disputait était précisément faire des impôts un soutien principal ou même le soutien principal des pauvres, ce qui donnait des impôts qui tuaient des petites entreprises.]
Moi: Je ne suis pas télépathe. Je regarde tes propos directement et tes intentions et pensées à travers.
Lui: Non, malheuresement pas. Carter parle dans le contexte suivant :

Kevin O'Leary says 3.5 billion people living in poverty is 'fantastic news'
Matt Hudson
[http://tinyurl.com/osu4yf6]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuqemytQ5QA

[Je dirais, à partir de la chronologie, que Kevin O'Leary, pour démoniaque qu'il soit, pourrait être excusé, quoique malhonnêtement, par le fait de parler dans un contexte des propos de Carter et de ceux-ci n'ayant pas marché. C'est d'ailleurs Kevin O'Leary que mon vieil ami mettait dans le statut modifié.]

Tu demandes pourtant souvent aux autres de l'être, télépathe. Un peu de bonne volonté suffit le plus souvent.
Moi: Non. Celui qui ne me comprend pas est libre de me poser la question ou d'argumenter, même de manière erronnée. Et s'il le fait, je suis libre de m'expliquer.

PAR CONTRE, je me plains des gens qui jouent aux télépathes. 0 btt [=à btt, faute de frappe.]

[Après, je reviens:]
Lui: Tu viens de prouver mon propos, peut-être sans le réaliser. Laissons donc là de côté toutes ces questions pour l'instant.
Moi: Non, je ne viens pas de le prouver du tout.

Tu n'as pas donné une seule occasion que je t'aurais demandé d'être télépathe. Et tu n'as pas non plus donné une seule bonne raison pourquoi l'enchevêtrement des choses obligerait un distributiste ou soi-disant tel de faire le cas d'un socialisme essentiellement avec la "nomenclature" (Nomenklatura tak sam Sovietitchkaia, da?) échangée pour une telle un peu moins anticléricale mais vivant de même manière. En s'interposant entre le riche et l'aumône, en faisant de manière que le riche paie, en plus de l'aumône aussi son salaire. Et parfois non pas seulement le riche, mais le non pas aussi riche aussi.

Kevin O'Leary n'était évidemment pas un Chrétien quand il s'agit de l'application des valeurs dans la société. Carter parlait à propos ceux qui étaient contre ses dépenses fiscales pour les pauvres mais qui se disaient Chrétiens. Un peu genre Tea Party, non?

Je ne dis pas qu'ils aient raison en tout, par exemple pas forcément en termes de "free trade". Mais ils l'ont qq part quant au fisc.

Je suis POUR certaines choses des Démocrates, historiquement, comme le Fair Deal, Square Deal, New Deal, comme les loi contre les Trusts (conglomérats d'entreprises privées ou entreprises privées gigantesques). Mais je ne suis pas pour chaque chose depuis, certaines me dégoûtent.

Bush avait promis d'abolir l'impôt de successions/d'héritage. Il a renoncé au projet, puisque les "Responsible Rich" (il y a un club qui s'appelle ainsi) disaient qu'il ne soit pas bon pour quelqu'un d'être né avec une cuiller d'argent dans la bouche. LEURS éventuelles progénitures ne perdent pas les entreprises parce qu'ils doivent payer l'impôt sur la succession. Pas mal de petits entrepreneurs, par contre, oui. Vendre ou emprunter à la banque. Je me fais compréhensible?

Je ne te demande pas quand même d'être télépathe?

lundi 7 avril 2014

Continued from Previous, Some Debate

Robert Sungenis

Wow. Who started this Facebook page on Geocentrism? Great idea. Hans, you have some fascinating contributions. Love your thought processes. What is your background?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Latin and Greek.

This means for one thing I was at a Classic Letters Seminar* and know:

a) one can count with Roman Numerals, i e without zero,
b) "irrational numbers" were well identified in antiquity, but called "alogoi logoi" or "rationes irrationales" (irrational ratios). They are NOT numbers.

Here is a little series, btw:

[Linking to previous.]

* Copenhagen 90 or more probably 91.

NS

Yes, Hans, I would agree with the perspective on the video which would reason that the Sun's size compared to the Earth is obviously massive, but insignificant when compared to the rest of the Universe. Therefore we can reason that Newton's laws of gravity need to be used with the whole Universe, not merely with our Solar System. The evidence for this need is more than plentiful...

Thanks for sharing all your insights, very enlightening!

Hans-Georg Lundahl

My answer is we are in no position to say anything about any mass or law of Newtonic gravity, since there can be angelic movers (and probably are).

Therefore, obviously, we are in no position to speak of stars as larger than the sun. It is called the Greater Light, and I think that is true absolutely.

Robert Sungenis

Hans, I'll have to disagree with you here. First, there is no evidence of angelic movers, either in Scripture or Tradition. Second, we can say something about the size and distanc of stars based on reasoning from known evidence from science.

Rick DeLano

Even if there were angelic movers, it is quite clear that they are operating in a way that reduces, on local scales, to a law of gravity, and on cosmological scales, does not.

In other words, science knows nothing of angelic movers, and even angelic movers are obeying the Logos in a way that is lawful, and hence knowable to a certain degree of precision, to science.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"First, there is no evidence of angelic movers, either in Scripture or Tradition."

Even in 66 Books there is Job [See previous to previous.]. In a Catholic Bible there is more [See previous to previous.]. Not totally unequivocal. Could also be a question of stars being ensouled, as St Jerome thought. But St Thomas Aquinas (Prima Pars, Q 70 on Day Four, I think Article 3) preferred angelic movers.

"Second, we can say something about the size and distanc of stars based on reasoning from known evidence from science."

If you consider PARALLAX as known evidence for stars distances (how come if you are geocentric?). Or if you consider self ignition by great gravitational pressure of a mass superior to Jupiter the ONLY way a star could come to start shining (how come unless you are an atheist?).

Otherwise, no.

"it is quite clear that they are operating in a way that reduces, on local scales, to a law of gravity"

Not quite clear either. This supposes we know the masses of heavenly bodies. THEN we could say the movements, except for Mercury, reflect Newton's laws of gravity. BUT the masses are concluded from the movements, with a presupposition of gravity and inertia being the agencies responsible for the movement.

"and hence knowable to a certain degree of precision, to science."

We have science of the movements. We have so much tried to explain these with gravitation, it has failed so often in new observed details, that Occam's razor favours, except to Atheists and Sadducees, saying angels move heavenly bodies.

hanslundahl - Neglected Angelology in the Angelic Doctor
http://hanslundahl.livejournal.com/964.html

Of course, there is the fact that gravitational caclulus did help discover Neptune. One Faà di Bruno, beatified by John Paul II or "beatified" by Wojtyla was involved in doing those.

However, Angels could have been so insulted by Newton they asked the Good Lord to allow them a practical joke.

You know the passage in Isaiah about "circles of the earth", with all quarrels on whether they are flat or global circles?

Same passage God is also described as destroying those who seek out secrets.

Astronomers involved in astrophysics might fall in that category.

THAT is exactly why I asked earlier on what the exact miracle of Faà di Bruno is. I have not yet got any answers.

Rick DeLano

Hans, gravitation describes motion quite well on solar system scales. It falls apart completely on scales larger than a stellar cluster. Therefore we know that, whether it is conceived of as a "force", or as the empirical outcome of angelic movers obeying the Immutable commands of the Logos-------we do not yet know what gravity is, or what the commands of the Logos might be, which the angelic movers are obeying. What we do know, is that science is legitimately entitled to pursue its answer from observation, hypothesis, and experimental test.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Well, in the microscope you can really actually TEST theories about bacteria. In electronic microscopy, you can test some but not all theories on molecules (difference between nucleus and electrons not tested as far as sightings in microscope are concerned, and if theory is right electrons will never be sighted by electronic microscopy). But astronomy has very little possibility of actually TESTING a theory.

Since you cannot - unlike bacteria - look at stars from ALL angles, the second best is to do so from clearly different ones. I have for my part proposed TWO tests, neither of which I have been given any answer on.

Here I have, since long ago, proposed watching Parallax from Mars:

HGL's F.B. writings : Creationism and Geocentrism are sometimes used as metaphors for "outdated because disproven inexact science"
http://hglsfbwritings.blogspot.com/2011/04/cagasuamfobdis.html

To the best of my knowledge it has NOT been done yet.

Here I have proposed a test about whether spatial sonds have been seen as if zigzagging, which would be predictable parallax if earth was moving in and out of the origo of the trajectories:

Catholic Answers Forums > Forums > Apologetics
Has Cassini-Huygens spacecraft earth flyby in 1999 disproven geocentrism?
http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?p=9120534#post9120534

As for gravitation, IF Armstrong was on moon, that would be a positive test outcome against Aristotle's theory of "natural place of heavy objects". But by parallel from water droplets attracted to electrically charged knitting needle, gravitation is NOT a good explanation for orbits of any prolonged duration of repetition.

[ISS] Don Petit, Science Off The Sphere - Water Droplets Orbiting Charged Knitting Needle
SpaceVids.tv
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyRv8bNDvq4

Count the number of orbits each droplet makes. I get between ten and twenty, medium fifteen.

Robert Sungenis

Hans, re angels moving planets, you mentioned Job? What verse are you referring to? You mentioned 66 books of the OT (but there are 73 in the Catholic Bible) but didn't cite any verse teaching angelic movers. As for Aquinas, he says in Reply to Obj. 5 [of Article 3 of Q 70]: "The heaven is said to move itself in as far as it is compounded of mover and moved; not by the union of the mover, as the form, with the moved, as the matter, but by contact with the motive power, as we have said. So far, then, the principle that moves it may be called intrinsic, and consequently its movement natural with respect to that active principle; just as we say that voluntary movement is natural to the animal as animal (Phys. viii, text. 27)." In Reply to Obj. 4 he refers to the mover as "intelligent power." I think we can all agree, as St. Paul says in Colossians 1:18, that God holds the universe together by his eternal power. Neither a bird falls from the sky nor an electron revolves around a proton, unless God permits it by his power. But that is different than saying that God actually moves the electron or kills the bird. Aquinas says such movements are "intrinsic" to the thing moving, but we all know there is an "intelligent power" behing every movement, but that power is indirect, not direct. As for Jerome's "ensoulment" of the stars, I'm afraid he has no support from either Scripture or Tradition for such speculation.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"by contact with the motive power, as we have said"

Key difference. One school back in his time - Aquinas' - was saying God was moving Heaven westward, Angels were moving planets Eastward, Human Souls were moving human bodies, extrinsically, as a man moves a bike.

Another school said Human Souls were moving Human Bodies because they are united INTRINSICALLY as form to matter. And Angels similarily were souls of stars. AND God, or one Divine Person was the soul of Heaven moving daily Westward.

The fix points of Orthodoxy against these extremes are:

God is NOT the soul of Heaven.
Man's soul IS the soul, i e intrinsic form [or form=intrinsic mover], of his body.

Angels and stars could theoretically be movers and moved either way, BUT Orthodoxy in Paris settled for angels being extrinsic movers rather than intrinsic.

En lengua romance en Antimodernism y de mis caminaciones: Index in stephani tempier condempnationes
http://petitlien.com/tempier

Now, it is true that Scripture does not very directly support this idea of angels extrinsically moving the stars. Because it rather - taken very literally - supports stars having some kind of souls. THREE passages, as I mentioned above in the thread in a Catholic Bible, and ONE OF THEM left in the 66 book truncated version.

That one is Job 38:7.

That is actually taken directly better support for St Jerome than for Parisian Sorbonne Orthodoxy of 1277.

The other two are Daniel the COMPLETE chapter 3, namely where sun, moon and stars are enumerated between two mentions of SPIRITS of God, but Protestant Bibles lack the Song of the Three Young Men. And Baruch chapter 3. One which is, due to last verse, read each Holy Saturday in the Catholic Church.

You see, there are two schools of Geostasis, the Hebrew and the Greek one. In the Hebrew school, Heaven does NOT move, since it is empty space. Stars move westward under this non-moving empty space, which in its turn is under another Heaven, the roof of the universe and the throne of God. Generally stars are seen as ensouled.

God is Choreographer of the Angels. See for instance Josephus account on how Abraham figured out there was a one true God.

Greek view, Heavens move westward each day, but stars move eastward under it. BOTH movements have been - as I said - debated whether mover is extrinsic or intrinsic. In Sorbonne Orthodoxy God is extrinsically moving Heaven from East to West each day, while angels are, also extrinsically (like a man is extrinsic mover of a bike, and not like the will is extrinsic mover of his feet), moving their planets from West to East within Zodiac, Sun taking a year, Moon taking a month to do the trip and other planets other, somewhat erratic trips.

"we all know there is an 'intelligent power' behing every movement, but that power is indirect, not direct."

Now, that one is a bit rich. Have you really thought that one through?

Btw, there are not 66 or 73 Books of OT in any Bible, as far as I know. There are 66 in Protestant ones (excepting some Lutheran and Anglican editions), there are 72/73 in Catholic Bibles and usually even more in Eastern Separate Churches' canons. But not for OT alone, but for both Testaments.

Now, the three passages I referred to are all in OT, but two of them are not in the 66 book collection, even so one remaining is.

Which is of course overlooked by Protestants. My point is: if they have an excuse for overlooking just one passage, what is yours for overlooking three?

Update 9-IV-2014

HGL

It has been a bit silent for 24 hours and more. Perhaps this can help you out, at least as far asthe thoughts of St Thomas Aquinas are concerned:

I answer that, As Dionysius says (Div. Nom. vii): "Divine wisdom has joined the ends of the first to the principles of the second." Hence it is clear that the inferior nature at its highest point is in conjunction with superior nature. Now corporeal nature is below the spiritual nature. But among all corporeal movements the most perfect is local motion, as the Philosopher proves (Phys. viii, 7). The reason of this is that what is moved locally is not as such in potentiality to anything intrinsic, but only to something extrinsic--that is, to place. Therefore the corporeal nature has a natural aptitude to be moved immediately by the spiritual nature as regards place. Hence also the philosophers asserted that the supreme bodies are moved locally by the spiritual substances; whence we see that the soul moves the body first and chiefly by a local motion.

I, Q110, A3, corpus articuli
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1110.htm#article3

On Matrimonial Prospects at My Age

JAU, status with meme: Don't regret growing older.

It's a privilege denied to many.
HGL/me: I do not regret growing older, I am just sorry that is still before getting married (to a girl younger than myself, as otherwise she would be close to infertile if not previously having born children).
JAU (himself this time): half the man's age, plus seven years minimum.
HGL/me: Where do you get that from?

That is NOT in Holy Writ and NOT in Canon Law either.

Jogaila's Russian mother Uliana of Tver urged him to marry Sofia, daughter of Prince Dmitri of Moscow, who required him first to convert to Orthodoxy.[nb 4] That option, however, was unlikely to halt the crusades against Lithuania by the Teutonic Knights, who regarded Orthodox Christians as schismatics and little better than heathens.[2][7] Jogaila chose therefore to accept a Polish proposal to become a Catholic and marry the eleven-year-old Queen Jadwiga of Poland.[nb 5] The nobles of Malopolska made this offer to Jogaila for many reasons. They wanted to neutralize the dangers posed by Lithuania itself and to secure the fertile territories of Galicia–Volhynia.[10] The Polish nobles saw the offer as an opportunity for increasing their privileges[11] and avoiding Austrian influence, brought by Jadwiga's previous fiancé William, Duke of Austria.[12]

On 14 August 1385 in Kreva Castle, Jogaila confirmed his prenuptial promises in the Union of Krewo (Union of Kreva). The promises included the adoption of Christianity, repatriation of lands "stolen" from Poland by its neighbours, and terras suas Lithuaniae et Russiae Coronae Regni Poloniae perpetuo applicare, a clause interpreted by historians to mean anything from a personal union between Lithuania and Poland to a complete incorporation of Lithuania into Poland.[13] The agreement at Kreva has been described both as far-sighted and as a desperate gamble.[nb 6]

Jogaila was duly baptised at the Wawel Cathedral in Kraków on 15 February 1386 and from then on formally used the name Władysław or Latin versions of it.[14][nb 7] The marriage took place three days later, and on 4 March 1386 Jogaila was crowned King Władysław by archbishop Bodzanta. He was also to be legally adopted by Jadwiga's mother, Elizabeth of Bosnia, so retaining the throne in the event of Jadwiga's death.[7] The royal baptism triggered the conversion of most of Jogaila's court and noblemen, as well as mass baptisms in Lithuanian rivers,[15] a beginning of the final Christianization of Lithuania. Though the ethnic Lithuanian nobility were the main converts to Catholicism—both paganism and the Orthodox rite remained strong among the peasants—the king's conversion and its political implications created lasting repercussions for the history of both Lithuania and Poland

1386 - she was twelve. He was 35 if born in 1351 and 24 if born in 1362.

The parents of St Francis of Sales married when she was fourteen and he was, I think, 63.

He was born 1522, she in 1552. They married 1566.

So, sorry, he was 44 while she was 14.

LA MAMAN
DE
SAINT FRANÇOIS DE SALES
par
Monseigneur FrancisTROCHU
[extrait]
http://www.saint-remi.fr/medias/extraits/la_maman_de_saint_francois_de_sales_extrait.pdf

If you had been right, canon law would have forbidden that marriage and it did not. Nor does it now.

And similar things could be said for the Empress Hildegard:

Wikipedia : Hildegard of Vinzgouw
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hildegard_of_Vinzgouw

At age 13, she marries a man age 29 at least.
JAU: these days, such matches would be called child abuse.
HGL: these days are vile and full of falsehood.

dimanche 6 avril 2014

From Catholic Cosmology Group, on Size of Universe

Status by NS

Thoughts?

It seems our Sun becomes a lot less significant, as the reality of the Universe is a much broader concept than our own solar system...

Amazing Things in the World
24 mars
Star Size Comparison - Must See!
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=668231813230536&set=vb.338077742912613&type=2&theater

AN

My first reaction to this presentation is wonder at the vastness of the universe. But then at the end they make a logical fallacy by equating this with insignificance, and even more illogically, saying this somehow negates geocentrism (since any point can be a centre, no matter the scale of what it is occupying). Also, this only looks in one direction- there is also the micro-universe, which is equally awesome to contemplate. Another thought: I will try to find the original source document, but I read a essay claiming that, in the context of the scale of the universe (both micro and macro), the human being is at the midpoint. So in terms of scale, humans can be seen as the centre as well. Here is an interactive graphic of what I'm talking about:

The Scale of the Universe
[Takes some time to load]
http://htwins.net/scale2/

RL

All that real estate out there and the only signs of intelligence are on the Earth. And as a coincidence, Earth is the only place where God became man. Now, where is the center of the universe?

CS

The futility of my attempts to wrap my head around the vastness of creation only goes to show just how powerful Our Lord truly is -- and this is just that which is material!

The closing statement claims that we are not the center of the universe while only providing an animated representative illustration for the supposed scale of the universe, as though this is somehow definitive evidence to support this claim.

I'm not surprised...

On a side note, I can't wait much longer for The Principle to be released! My bit is just about chomped through in anticipation.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Now, the largeness of the Universe is observable in terms of degrees of circles, namely full circle rotated a full circle around it diametre as axis, but not in terms of distance measures EXCEPT insofar as we either have direct such for smaller things (it is larger than earth which can be measured) or indirect such for nearer things (it is larger than the largest distance measured by any kind of trigonometry).

Now, for distance of Moon we can do optical trigonometry from earth, using two observatories at equator, nearest distance going through centre of earth and distances along equator equal either way, and observing moon at same time.

Triangulation to Sun is possible using angle of sunlight at Moon.

And once distance to Sun is known triangulation can be made to close planets. The Universe IS larger than that.

However, trigonometry applied to parallax is a different question ...

deretour : Trigonometry, principles, astronomic applications
http://hglundahlsblog.blogspot.com/2008/05/trigonometry-principles-astronomic.html

BC

The hatred of those who despise and ridicule the idea of a Creator blows my mind (as evidenced by the comments for this picture in the original post by "Amazing Things in the World")...they go on and on about how insignificant we are, but it gives them no humility whatsoever -- they insist everyone who believes in God is a fool, and their great "wisdom" must be accepted by all!

Hans-Georg Lundahl

They have a low opinion of humanity in general, but except their god - their collective self.

Rick DeLano

The Catholic cosmology is a deeply salutary antidote to the present, through-the-looking-glass impotence of the multiverse (a theory which, at one and the same time, represents the end of science, and the perversion of its method in service of an antitheology which is, as Hans-Georg Lundahl has indicated, profoundly antihuman at its root.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I am actually interested in the argument as such.

After what I said about trigonometry, is anyone willing to say the universe is so vast that it circling around us is physically impossible and absurd? Or have I answered the charge just given?

After watching part of the video, one must of course say that Sirius A, Pollux, Aldebaran are allotted their sizes through a calculus taking into account two things:

a) distance considering they show no parallax in a universe where every star must show parallax (as think Heliocentrics) whether perceptible or not,
b) apparent angular size in observations.

I am not arguing with apparent angular size in observations. But if these things are only ten times further off than the sun, or whatever the minimum distance is to be beyond Pluto and Kuiper Belt, then they are obviously NOT bigger than it. It is only by getting the inflated distance measures derived from parallax which is derived from heliocentrism that they "must" be so.

I am thus not sure that VY Canis Majoris is not given a size beyond the actual one of all the universe.

(I haven't checked but, assume that is greater than Kuiper Belt extended in a sphere around the Sun.)

A pretty good confutation of initial Newtonian Polycentric Universe Model was done by Olbers:

Olbers' Paradox - A Level Physics
DrPhysicsA·204 vidéos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQz0VgMNGPQ

I agree with his solution nr 1, and I do not agree with his problem about it.

My little problem is this: some exoplanets HAVE been not concluded but directly sighted.* If they are very near, why do they only reflect light from their star and not from the sun?

Of course, Olbers was working from within the cosmology of Newton-Laplace. And in that one, the Universe has to be both infinite, and equal in density all over and ab aeterno, OR there is a God. For if it is ab aeterno, and finite, it means the stars would already have collided in a big lump due to gravity. Same if some parts of the universe were more dense than others.

13:27 [on video] - Red shift can come from two kinds of Doppler effect, I hear:

a) light source moving away,
b) light source moving in a circle observed from Centre.

The latter is compatible with a finite and totally Geocentric Universe.

Quoting CMI:

66. How is red-shift explained?

The red-shift of starlight is a decrease in the energy of the light. This energy decrease results in a lengthening of the wavelength of the light, measured with an instrument called a spectrometer. Red is the rainbow color with the longest wavelength, hence the name "red-shift." Stars do not actually become red in appearance since the wavelength change is usually slight. Almost every star and galaxy is found to be red-shifted. The following list summarizes some of the alternative explanations for the origin of this stellar red-shift.

1.Stellar Motion. If a star moves outward from the earth, its light energy will be reduced and its wavelength stretched or red-shifted. Stars and entire galaxies show varying amounts of red-shift, therefore implying a variety of speeds for these objects. Police actually use this same effect with radar to measure the speed of cars. Stellar motion is often taken as evidence in support of the Big Bang theory. Stars are assumed to be speeding outward as a result of the explosion. This is not the only explanation of red-shift, however.
2.Gravitation. As light leaves a star, the star's gravity may slightly lengthen the wavelength of the light. A gravitational red-shift could also result from starlight passing near a massive object in space, such as a galaxy. As the light escapes from a strong gravity field, it loses energy, similar to what happens to a person struggling to the top of a mountain.
3.Second-Order Doppler Effect. A light source moving at right angles (tangentially) to an observer will always be red-shifted. This can be observed in the laboratory by using a high-speed turntable. A detector is placed in the center and a gamma radiation source is placed on the outside edge. The gamma energy is seen to decrease, or "red-shift," as the turntable speed increases. This is an intriguing explanation for stellar red-shift. When applied to stars, it implies that the universe may be in circular motion instead of radial expansion.
4.Photon Interaction. It is possible that light waves exchange energy during their movement across space and lose some energy in the process. A loss of light energy is equivalent to a "reddening" of its light. A theoretical understanding of this proposed "tired light" process has not yet been developed.

Any of these four explanations, alone or in combination, may be responsible for red-shift. We do not know enough about space to be certain of the source of stellar red-shift.

CMI : Astronomy And The Bible
by Donald B. DeYoung
http://creation.com/astronomy-and-the-bible

Here I was referring to what they call "3.Second-Order Doppler Effect"

I do not in fact know either how Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation is detected or how to explain it. But explaining it - supposing it is correctly detected - as a remnant of a very distant time when all the sky was bright is something of an act of faith.

It is an explanation that concurs with the evidence CITED (Robert Sungenis might know of some contradicting evidence, I do not in the writing moment), and also with the now prevailing theory. But it is not obvious how this would be the only possible explanation, i e how this would be proven fact.

Here is a dialogue on that assumption:

Anonymised: If visible light has been red-shifted to microwaves, wouldn't that imply that gamma rays have red shifted to visible light? I guess that all things being equal, there would now be more low frequency waves than high frequency waves as time has passed; but the video seemed to imply that once the visible light red shifted to lower frequencies, there was nothing more to see. Is it just that at the time of the big bang, there was very little gamma radiation (or higher), and a lot of it has since been absorbed?
DrPhysicsA: Yes indeed. The photons which would have been produced as a result of the matter and anti-antimatter annihilating shortly after the big bang would almost certainly have been in the gamma ray region. But over time as the universe has expanded they had stretched such that they are now in the microwave region.

Unnecessary on Geocentric assumptions.

Two more on that video:

a) CMBR could be caused by movement of stellatum.
b) Olbers was not counting with interstellar matter deflecting light.

I am not sure if

i) an infinite though not very dense amount of deflecting matter would have kept the nights as dark as we see them
or
ij) an infinite amount of deflection would have changed the paths but still given an infinite amount of light from different light sources.

I can however say, even with an Olbers paradox not really disproving infinite universe, it is mathematically absurd, and neither infinite nor expanding universe is required if one accepts Geocentrism worked by a God upholding what He had created.

When?

These posts about size of Universe with relation to Geocentrism are from between March 25 and April 6 of the year of Our Lord 2014./HGL

Added last minute:

But perhaps I have been misunderstanding NS's point all the time? Perhaps you meant we ar so small we cannot be SIGNIFICANT enough to be the centre of the Universe?

Mark Shea wrote something about Puny Human's Vast Universe which contained a few errors answered both by Robert Sungenis and myself. However one passage was/is still so evidently right:

In Scripture, the action takes place on earth, not in the sky, and the main story is of God and his people, culminating in the revelation of Christ. Astronomical events, such as the star of Bethlehem, point to what God is doing in the affairs of men. Like road signs, these phenomena point the pilgrim soul on his way to Christ and are then quickly forgotten.

But in an age that has come to doubt or even forget Christ, pagan ideas—including ideas about the heavens—can reassert themselves. We live in such a time.

It is not unusual to meet people who have a physicalist view of man’s place in the cosmos. One particularly crude argument asserts that the Bible errs by focusing on the earth and not the sky, because, as H. G. Wells said, "Man is utterly insignificant compared to the size of the universe!" They produce numerous illustrations of our smallness for popular science shows. A camera pulls back until the earth shrinks to (in Carl Sagan’s phrase) a "small blue dot," then the solar system becomes a pinpoint that vanishes into an arm of the Milky Way, which itself becomes an indistinct smudge of light disappearing into billions of other galaxies. People set real store by such thinking. But that’s not because they are hard-headed scientists looking at cold facts. It’s because they are poets who think they are philosophers. They can’t refrain from supposing that immense differences in physical size mean something. But as G. K. Chesterton dryly replied to his friend Wells’s contention, "Man is small compared to the nearest tree."

In short, size doesn’t matter. Michael Jordan does not have greater spiritual worth than Michael J. Fox because he’s taller. Because people are the size of ants compared to the Twin Towers does not mean the buildings were more important than the people killed in them. But when size differences become vast, we tend to wax poetic and to forget these obvious facts.

Catholic Answer Magazine : Puny Humans, Vast Universe
Does Christianity Make Sense?
By: Mark P. Shea
http://www.catholic.com/magazine/articles/puny-humans-vast-universe

So evidently right, as I said, that I did not even realise it might need saying in a group like this one./HGL

Footnote:

* 777 concluded or sighted, but maybe 18 really sighted of them.

samedi 5 avril 2014

Diverging slightly from Sungenis

1) New blog on the kid : St Augustine was - Literally - a Young Earth Creationist and Geocentric, and he was Right, 2) HGL's F.B. writings : Diverging slightly from Sungenis, 3) From Catholic Cosmology Group, on Size of Universe, 4) Continued from Previous, Some Debate

Mark Shea and the “Synthesis of All Heresies”
http://galileowaswrong.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Mark_Shea_and_Synthesis_of_All_Heresies.pdf

Note that in the main the summing up of history is pretty correct, both as regards Hegelianism and as regards Patristics and Scholastics. I would like my readers to read the paper first, since I am disagreeing on certain points - including the question how to assess Mark Shea. But Robert Sungenis makes an invaluable scoop about how the text of St Augustine continues after that VERY over used - as the meme in which it is misused, not as the text it is - quote that I think pretty many of you know. As to good use of it, we may get some as soon as scientists start seeing how Heliocentrism and Darwinism break down.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

In essence, Hegel taught that all knowledge is a product of an evolutionary or dialectical process in man’s thinking. There were three phases to man’s thinking:

1) Thesis
2) Antithesis
3) Synthesis

Although theoretically the Hegelian dialectic can be applied to any historical movement ...

My comment

As far as I have understood Hegel applies it to EVERYTHING in the cosmos.

Being. Non-being. Annihiliation.
Annihiliation. Coming-Into-Being. Change.
Change. Non-change. Slowing down.
Slowing down. Speeding up. Changing speed.
Changing speed. Constant speed. Stabilisation.

... and so on. And on Hegel's view that is where we come from.

[One can add that on Hegel's view, this Hegelian dielactic in human thought mimics the Hegelian dialectic of being as such, of the Absolute.]

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

Conversely, Catholicism teaches that we can, indeed, know various things for certain since they are presupposed as coming from divine revelation, which always tells the real and unadulterated truth.

My comment

Not JUST from divine revelation. Also even naturally knowable things.

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

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

On his blog for March 26, 2014, Mr. Shea posted his latest diatribe, “Puny Humans, Vast Universe,” which, in a few words, tries to assume a middle position, or Synthesis, between the new television series, Cosmos, and our movie, The Principle.2 From his caricatures of the two features, it is obvious Mr. Shea believes his position to be the only sane and cogent of the three options.

My comment

He might with somewhat more probability be referring to Chesterton's observation that - I will add: though not reached in fact be Hegelian dialectic - the Catholic position on any question is usually the sane middle between two extremes.

Neither Pelagian nor Calvinist:

Great Bishop of Geneva! : Rejecting Pelagius and Calvin
http://greatbishopofgeneva.blogspot.com/2014/03/rejecting-pelagius-and-calvin.html

Neither idolising drunkenness nor teetotalism. Neither Materialist nor Pagan. Neither Polytheist nor Unitarian. And so on.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

[Cites one post by Mark Shea and my answer with which he agrees, see his paper, and politely adds:] Thank you, Mr. Lundahl.

My comment

You are welcome.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

Basically, Catholic liberals and modernists are people who teach that much of Scripture’s testimony on history is false. For example, they believe that various accounts in Old Testament (Adam and Eve, the Flood, ...

My comment

Here is his view:

Catholic and Enjoying It : Tee, as they say, Hee
April 2, 2014 By Mark Shea
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/markshea/2014/04/tee-as-they-say-hee-2.html

Here is my answer:

New blog on the kid : T'Ignore or Not Ignore?
http://nov9blogg9.blogspot.com/2014/04/t-ignore-or-not-ignore.html

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

Mark Shea is merely one of the more visible and popular purveyors of this modernist hermeneutic but certainly not the most intellectually gifted or the deepest thinker. As he himself once said on his own masthead: “Where no stupid comment on any topic went left unsaid,” or something to that effect.

My comment

He is admitting he is not knowledgeable enough about history to answer a question like the following:

Catholic and Enjoying It : A reader has a question for somebody knowledgable in history
March 31, 2014 By Mark Shea
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/markshea/2014/03/a-reader-has-a-question-for-somebody-knowledgable-in-history.html

I answered:

HGL's F.B. writings : Mark Shea Asking For the Commenter he Blocked
http://hglsfbwritings.blogspot.com/2014/03/mark-shea-asking-for-commenter-he.html

"once said" ... yes, I still see the cartoon character, but no longer the self depreciating comment that went with it.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

Thesis: The Bible claims to provide authentic narratives of historical events.

Antithesis: Modern science has shown these historical events never took place; and that all cultures were prone to create mythical stories to compensate for their ignorance about the universe.

Synthesis: Most of the Bible is made up of myths and only a fraction of it has real truth.

My comment

That is not so much Hegelian dialectics as an ordinary Aristotelian syllogism. With number two as erroneous though backed up by prefix Moden Science has shown. With an erroneous premiss you can get an erroneous conclusion.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

For example, although modern Catholic apologists often attempt to cast Pope Urban VIII’s 1633condemnation of Galileo as if it was prompted by Urban’s pride for believing that Galileo had insulted him in his book, the Dialogo, that accusation is simply not true.

My comment

Pope Urban VIII kept out of the trial himself so as to avoid being a biassed judge.

But over and above the charge being false, it is often spiced with "Galileo brought it on himself for having an attitude problem". Now that has a few implications a bit TOO spicy for me:

1) attitude problems are as serious as doctrinal problems or more so - false. At least for most attitude problems. Hatred of God is indeed more serious than mere heresy or apostasy.

2) the Church has a right to impede printing and shut up in reclusion at home, in a lifelong house arrest, people with attitude problems, even if they are right. False. Assuming Galileo had been right, the Church could at most have had an excuse for believing he was wrong (independently of the attitude problem) and an excuse for believing to be in Her rights in punishing him. But having an excuse for shooting a man on a hunt while believing it is a moose does not amount to a right to shoot men who look for a moment like a moose.

3) this right to deal with people who might be perfectly right but have attitude problems persists to this day. False, since such a right was not in question for the Church even then.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

The real truth is, Pope Urban was beside himself with fear over what Galileo’s doctrine would do to the Church.

My comment

This also looks more like searching excuses than like justifying.

If true, he at least left the judgement to judges with more level reason, but what I have seen from his character otherwise (like portraits and the fact he made a new Church for St Bibiana) suggests to me this is false.

Ouch, there seems to be sth for this way of looking at Pope Urban VIII:

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014, quoting a contemporary of process

Yesterday I did not have the time to report to Your Most Illustrious Lordship what had transpired (in a very emotional atmosphere) between myself and the Pope in regard to Mr. Galilei’s work….I too am beginning to believe…that the sky is about to fall. While we were discussing those delicate subjects of the Holy Office, His Holiness exploded in great anger, and suddenly he told me that even our Galilei had dared enter where he should not have, in the most serious and dangerous subjects which could be stirred up at this time. I replied that Mr. Galilei had not published without the approval of his ministers….He answered, with the same outburst of rage, that he had been deceived by Galileo and Ciampoli…

[(Niccolini to Cioli, 5-IX-1632)

Same letter:]

He said that he had prohibited works which had his pontifical name in front and were dedicated to himself, and that in such matters, involving great harm to religion (indeed the worst ever conceived), His Highness [the Grand Duke] too should contribute to preventing it, being a Christian prince….I retorted that…I did not believe His Holiness would bring about the prohibition of the already approved book without at least hearing Mr. Galilei first. His Holiness answered that this was the least ill which could be done to him and that he should take care not to be summoned by the Holy Office; that he has appointed a Commission of theologians and other persons versed in various sciences, serious and of holy mind, who are weighing every minutia, word for word, since one is dealing with the most perverse subject one could ever come across….Finally, he told me to write to our Most Serene Patron that the doctrine is extremely perverse, that they would review everything with seriousness, and that His Highness should not get involved but should go slow; furthermore, not only did he impose on me the secret about what he had just told me, but he charged me to report that he also was imposing it on His Highness [the Grand Duke].

My comment

As far as temper goes, this reminds me of Moderns. Hope Niccolini was suffering from pseudo-empathy and attributing emotions to Pope Urban VIII which were more violent than the Pope's real ones.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

[Later:]

He [the pope] retorted that in cases where religion might suffer damage, it was less harmful to overreact occasionally than to be remiss as a result of the reasons I mentioned, and thus to endanger Christianity with some sinister opinion; furthermore, he had been told by His Holiness that, since we are dealing with dangerous dogmas, His Highness [the Grand Duke, Cosimo Medici] should put aside all respect and affection toward his Mathematician and be glad to contribute himself to shielding Catholicism from any danger.

My comment

The ethics of the Inquisition. But in a day when it legally existed.

Now, these days, I think some are using a non-extant Inquisition to silence Geocentrics and Creationists. By setting up amateur Inquisitions.

He added that one is dealing with new doctrines and Holy Scripture, that the best course is to follow the common opinion

Now, that is a criterium, which if not followed up over Centuries Past is likely to be hurtful to Geocentrism.

[To a common man, following it up over the centuries might not be the first reaction. But in Pope Urban's day he was very much in a position to know - if the question had been raised - that he was indeed speaking for the common opinion not just of Catholics (and even Schismatics and Heretics) contemporary to him, but of Centuries Past excepting isolated cases among the Greeks in pre-Christian times. Today, the élite know very well they are not following up "the common opinion" over Centuries Past, even if they fondly imagine to be following the common opinion of Centuries Future (and unknown, even unknown whether they will at all happen), even common men are prone to depreciate "the common opinion" of Centuries Past, knowing they do so, and all know very well how Government Run Acacemic and Scholarly Institutions have contributed to the change. All know the change of opinion was not by millions of adults freely debating the evidence, but millions of children being indoctrinated by a small élitist minority, and parents being shown some evidence to calm their qualms about what was being done to their children.]

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

[Dei Verbum:]

the books of Scripture, firmly, faithfully and without error, teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the sacred Scriptures.

My comment

The same claim that Trent claimed for the Vulgate. Trent claimed a lot more of inerrancy for the Bible as such or for the first manuscript of each hagiographer.

[Note that if the Vulgate had been perfactly inerrant, we could in all confidence doctrinalise the Time Line of Ussher. However, St Jerome based a similar time line, read in Christmas proclamation, on the LXX. The Universe was 5199 years old when God was born in Bethlehem.]

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

the Modernists want us to accept that Scripture is only without error when it speaks on salvation, and it is not inerrant, and thus not reliable, when it speaks about anything else, including history and the cosmos. This was a view of Scripture never before taught in the whole history of the Catholic Church.

My comment

Quite true. I have seen a quote attributed to Galileo in which he takes the exact same view. It was new and radical in his time.

Much more so than mere Heliocentrism. Bad as that is, for diverse reasons (just as a revision along the lines of astrology suggesting Jacob and Esau had different horoscopes would also be very bad - though I have heard one astrologer argue Jacob's true horoscope was when his hand came out for a moment).

And if Galileo had been tried and found guilty for that, he would have burned. Unless he had recanted.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

as error-filled and fictional as the testimony of Bill Clinton telling us he “did not have sex with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.”

My comment

His explanation is however very priceless. "That is not sex". Meaning, when we condemn the condom and the pill, we are really condemning non-sex. Same as with gay marriage. Catholicism is not against sex, She [the Church] is against Non-Sex.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

As we have seen, the Bible’s inerrancy was sacrificed primarily in order to make room for Copernicus and Galileo, with Darwin, Freud, Marx and a few other humanistic icons, running a close second.

My comment

All of those were on my no-no list when I still had the MSN Group Antimodernism.

I was never a believer in Sagan, but I liked original Cosmos series.

I agree he is spot on:

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

“But if the Bible is not everywhere literally true, which parts are divinely inspired and which are merely infallible and human? As soon as we admit there are scriptural mistakes (or concessions to the ignorance of the times), then how can the Bible be an inerrant guide to ethics and morals?”

[Ref. to Pale Blue Dot, pp. 40, 42. (Was there a picture on p. 41?)]

I wouldn’t doubt at all that the reason Mark Shea also appears soft on homosexuality (as noted in his defense of his homosexual friend, “Perry,” who lived with another homosexual male before he died last year, yet also claimed to be a practicing and devout Catholic) is that he has imbibed, in part or in whole, this “new way,” this Hegelian dialectic, of viewing Scripture.

My comment

I disagree.

HGL's F.B. writings : Oscar Wilde and Perry Lorenzo
http://hglsfbwritings.blogspot.com/2012/12/oscar-wilde-and-perry-lorenzo.html

And as for the suggestion Mark Shea is soft on, not homosexuals as people, but homosexuality as a way of life, see this:

Catholic and Enjoying It : There’s a Little Moment in Jurassic Park I Think of
April 4, 2014 By Mark Shea
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/markshea/2014/04/theres-a-little-moment-in-jurassic-park-i-think-of.html

Relevant quote:

That’s what I think of as the Gay Legion of Menacing Visigoths for Tolerance continues its ruthless and pitiless extirpation of all who are guilty of Thoughtcrime for failing to hail homosex as the Source and Summit of all that is noble, pure, good, and glorious. Tolerance is not enough. You. MUST. Approve. And God help you if the Thought Police discover anything in your past revealing dissent from the regime. Punishment will be swift and merciless. Because Diversity and Freedom.

As we are there, there are no doubt some Catholic Liberals who still deny miracles. But both Mr. Darwin and Mark Shea have testified to believing miracles do occur. Mr. Darwin believes Joshua's Long Day. Mark Shea believes Multiplication of loaves really happened.

DarwinCatholic : Did Augustine and Aquinas Believe In A Literal Interpretation of Genesis
http://darwincatholic.blogspot.com/2014/02/did-augustine-and-aquinas-believe-in.html

Well, at least he believes the Resurrection:

Indeed, it is the very predictability of physical laws which makes the exceptions to them (miracles, such as the Resurrection) miraculous.

[Actually one can very much dispute the definition or characterisation of miracles as "exceptions to physical laws", they are the most obvious since only exceptional results of an Agency above these laws. And above the causes alias agencies they usually deal with.]

Quoting him, in that thread.

Here is Mark Shea being Orthodox on Loaves and Fishes:

New Catholic Register - Blog by Mark Shea - The Miracle of Caring and Sharing
by Mark Shea Wednesday, May 04, 2011 2:00 AM
http://www.ncregister.com/blog/mark-shea/the-miracle-of-caring-and-sharing

Relevant quote:

In the same way, one can play with the (exceedingly lame) “explanation” of the Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes where everybody was so moved by Jesus’ warm fuzziness that they all shared their lunches. The Church does not forbid this stupid way of reading the text, just as the Church has never issued an infallible decree that 2+2 does not equal five, nor a formal dogma that you should not play in traffic.

Nonetheless, all these things are wrong and stupid, as is the naturalistic reading of the Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes.

Quoting you again:

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

Mark Shea seeks to make it appear that geocentrism makes the Catholic Church look like an antiscience, anti-modern, anti-establishment institution that simply refuses to budge even in the face of proof after proof that its traditional views have been discredited. I sometimes wonder that if modern science began to tout that there is “no proof” for a wafer of bread turning into the body and blood of Christ, whether someone like Mark Shea might be tempted to agree with it.

It wouldn’t be the first time. There was a whole movement begun by modernist Catholics coming out of Vatican II, led by Father Eduard Schillebeeckx, who were similarly “embarrassed” by the traditional Catholic doctrine of “transubstantiation.”

My comment

I have seen guys like that. They are more likely to be [cradle] Catholics with qualms about repression of Huguenots or Collaboration with Nazis, [or for that matter over Galileo case] than converts from Evangelical religion, such as Mark Shea.

Indeed, the fact that Mark Shea is a friend of Keating makes the suggestion impossible. Catholic Answers started as a defence of Transubstantiation and Sacrifice of Holy Mass in face of attacks from Protestants in the area.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

In effect, Shea will accept the unproven theories of atheistic scientists and sacrifice the doctrines of traditional Catholicism in order to promote ecumenism.

My comment

No.

He is not that ecumenical. If by traditional Catholicism you do not mean the contemporary defense of it, but rather Catholicism as it traditionally is, Mark Shea is more ignorant of it than opposed to it.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

Unfortunately, the cosmos of Genesis has become the biggest stumbling block for modernist Catholics because, quite simply, they just “know” that it can’t be right, thanks to Galileo and Darwin.

My comment

There you are a bit spot on again. Alas.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

Here’s challenge number 23 for you.

If you, Mark Shea, can provide just one scientific and indisputable proof that the Earth rotates and revolves around the Sun, I will give you $1,000.00.

If you can’t, then you owe me $1,000.00. Put your money where your mouth is, Mr. Shea, otherwise, shut up.

My comment

Maybe he doesn't have that money, and he is ignoring your challenge (to which you cannot bind him in advance without his consent) because he has some correct suspicions about the issue?

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

[Quoting Mark Shea]

The answer is twofold. First, converts who were once Fundamentalists and who used to read Scripture literally become Catholic and proceed to read Scripture and Catholic documents literally.

R. Sungenis: Absolutely false. If there were any “Fundamentalists” in the world before the Protestants, their name was “Catholic”!

My comment

Actually even more: if there were Fundies between 1500 and 1900 there were Catholics among them. And Calvinism and Socinianism are the main roots of non-Literal exegesis. (Non-literal as opposed to Literal AND Allegoric, for instance).

Creation vs. Evolution : Why a Literalist should be a Papist and not a Barnesist
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2014/02/why-literalist-should-be-papist-and-not.html

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

If not, how does Mr. Shea explain that of all the denominations and churches in the world, the Catholics are the only ones that interpret John 6:54 (“Whoever eats my body and drinks myblood has eternal life”) and Matthew 26:26 (“This is my body”) as literally as it can possibly be interpreted?

My comment

Catholics. Eastern Orthodox. Of Monophysites the Copts, previously also Armenians. I presume Nestorians too. Lutherans and some High Church Anglians also believe Real Presence. I think some of the newer denominations sometimes do so too.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

Ironically, it’s the Protestant “Fundamentalists” who refuse to interpret this passage literally!

My comment

True enough about Chick Tracts. And Karl Keating and Mark Shea (or Karl Keating at first and later Mark Shea) started out Catholic Answers to answer that.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

How does Mr. Shea explain the fact that the Catholics were the first and one of the only to interpret John 20:23 (“Whosever sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven”) as literally as it can be interpreted?

My comment

Again, and this time Armenians are included as well, this goes for all of the Churches with Apostolic Succession.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

It wasn’t until Darwin came along that a band of modernist and liberal “Catholics” decided that science had disproven a literal reading of Genesis.

My comment

I even think that as C S Lewis remained an Evolutionist at first (at first!) after his Christian conversion, it may have been the strictness of 1909 answers that made him prefer Anglicanism over Catholicism.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

Heliocentrism is wrong because the Church said it was wrong; [...] the medievals said it was wrong,

My comment

There is a move in Academia to make out as if Buridan and Nicole d'Oresme (who died as Bishop of Lisieux) were saying it was right, when in fact they were merely saying it was thinkable and physically non-contradictory.

They said it was "possible" about as someone would [now] say it was "possible" to assume everything in the whole universe every day shrank to half the size of 24 h. earlier in every dimension. You cannot experimentally prove that wrong, since the meters and yardsticks would have shrunk too, but it is pointless and counterintuitive.

So is Heliocentrism.

The TOF Spot : What's Wrong With the Cosmos?
http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2014/03/whats-wrong-with-cosmos.html

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

If I hear this quote from Augustine taken out of context one more time I think I’m going to be sick.

[I guess you all know which one! Sungenis quotes it in his paper if you don't. Read it if you haven't.]

My comment

For my part I got angry and impatient. It is a bit like nagging, isn't it?

New blog on the kid : St Augustine was - Literally - a Young Earth Creationist and Geocentric, and he was Right
http://nov9blogg9.blogspot.com/2014/03/st-augustine-was-literally-young-earth.html

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

[Lovely, Sungenis quoting St Augustine a little bit later on in the text of De Genesi ad Literam:]

Taking these theories into account, a certain commentator [Basil] has made a praiseworthy attempt to demonstrate that the waters are above the heavens, so as to support the word of Scripture with the visible and tangible phenomena of nature.... Hence, from the existence of the air between the vapors that form the clouds above and the seas that stretch out below, our commentator proposed to show that there is a heaven between water and water. This painstaking enquiry is, in my opinion, quite praiseworthy.

My comment

If Mark Shea reads this he might go right and say "oh, really, I didn't know" (he very probably doesn't as long as he hasn't read your text). [I did not know previous to reading it either!] Part of the outbursts about trash bin worthy mails might be about your text, I am not sure he is reading it [and see what he is missing!]. But more to the point : how would he be able to know the passage? De Genesi ad Literam is one of the longer works available, and unlike Summa Theologiae and De Civitate Dei it is not on the web in English translation. [Only in books that may be rare.]

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

But Augustine goes even further in the next analysis, for now he tries to show that there are waters even above the starry heavens.

My comment

I have heard - thanks to youtube - that the two most common molecules in the universe (as in interstellar space) are H₂ and H₂O. In my theory H₂ would also qualify as "water" in Biblical language. H₂ was created when H₂O also give rise to the O₂ in the atmosphere.

And what would you call H₂ in Biblical terminology? Air or water? You cannot use it for breathing. If you mix it with air and add a spark (which can have happened in the Flood on more than one occasion) it will result in water.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

Augustine will go on to argue that Saturn, which was then understood as a star, generates heat as it makes its orbit, but that it is cooled by the waters near it, above the heavens

My comment

It was as much "understood as a star" as whales and crayfish were understood as fishes in the Bible.

There are two "kinds of stars", fixed stars which stay in a fixed position in relation to the zodiak and also planets that have an own movement West to East along the zodiak. On top of all of above having a common movement East to West each day and night.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014 quoting St Augustine

It is true, indeed, that by its own motion, moving over a vast space, it takes thirty years to complete its orbit; yet by the motion of the heavens it is rotated rapidly in the opposite direction...and therefore, it ought to generate greater heat by reason of its greater velocity.

My comment

He theorises that the daily motion is generating heat like we speak about heat by friction. If he is wrong, I think some other Church Fathers did not share the Greek Cosmological preseumptions he had. So that the error is NOT common to all the Church Fathers.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014, still quoting St Augustine

With this reasoning some of our scholars attack the position of those who refuse to believe that there are waters above the heavens while maintaining that the star whose path is in the height of the heavens is cold. Thus they would compel the disbeliever to admit that water is there not in a vaporous state but in the form of ice. But whatever the nature of that water and whatever the manner of its being there, we must not doubt that it does exist in that place. The authority of Scripture in this matter is greater than all human ingenuity.

My comment

Five states of water: ice, liquid, vapour, H₂, hydrogen plasma (as in Sun - but note that the Sun also contains a subsidiary process involving Oxygen, Nitrogen and Carbon, where Oxygen is another of the "ingredients" or rather constituents of water) on its way to make Helium (IF the theory is correct). But one of these certainly is there. And modern scientists have detected not just plasma but also H₂ and H₂O.

Kent Hovind had a theory in which waters above the firmament was just a preflood condition. I think some of the passages he used prove there are still waters above the firmament.

He has admitted as much, by the way.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014 (in his own words again)

That is, the Lord did not desire to give us detailed information as to what pushes or pulls the sun and moon around the Earth, or how it is that they keep such precise time year after year.

My comment

Not VERY detailed, but some guidelines, perhaps.

Daniel 3: [57] All ye works of the Lord, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. [58] O ye angels of the Lord, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. [59] O ye heavens, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. [60] O all ye waters that are above the heavens, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all for ever.

[61] O all ye powers of the Lord, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. [62] O ye sun and moon, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. [63] O ye stars of heaven, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. [64] O every shower and dew, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. [65] O all ye spirits of God, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever.

The passage lacks in Jewish and Protestant Bibles!

Baruch 3:[32] But he that knoweth all things, knoweth her, and hath found her out with his understanding: he that prepared the earth for evermore, and filled it with cattle and fourfooted beasts: [33] He that sendeth forth light, and it goeth: and hath called it, and it obeyeth him with trembling. [34] And the stars have given light in their watches, and rejoiced: [35] They were called, and they said: Here we are: and with cheerfulness they have shined forth to him that made them.

Book lacking in Jewish and Protestant Bibles.

Job 38:[7] When the morning stars praised me together, and all the sons of God made a joyful melody?

THIS verse remains even to them.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

Hence, because the Lord taught them in Scripture that the sun and moon move around the Earth, it was for that very reason that St. Augustine and St. Thomas were both geocentrists, in opposition to the Greeks and Indians who were promoting heliocentrism.

My comment

Greeks at the time were not even promoting it. Authority of the senses would be the great reason (even to non-believers, see Romans 1:20) to be Geostatic and once roundness of earth is properly discovered since Vasco da Gama more precisely Geocentric.

Even atheists like Democritus and Lucretius were Geocentric. Indians may have included people thinking it [Heliocentrism] true, but these were marginal even among themselves and so much more to St Augustine and St Thomas.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

All these attempts, of course, are done in the face of the fact that Augustine believed firmly in geocentrism and defended it vigorously.

My comment

Sorry, Sungenis, "defended vigorously" implies someone was attacking it in his time. Who?

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

Ignoring these facts, heliocentric advocates will often appeal to Augustine’s general hermeneutical principles concerning the need to be cautions when science and Scripture seem to clash,

My comment

While they suppose this was his main general hermeneutical principle (the quote so over used). Ignoring he stated his real general principles in book I chapter 1. But, as said, the twelve books of that work are not available online.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

This quip came from one liberal cardinal, Baronius, during Galileo’s day, but the Church never adopted it as the truth. How could they, since it was that very Church in Baronius’ day that condemned Galileo?

My comment

Two points:

1) I have heard it attributed both to Galileo and to St Robert Bellarmine.
2) In the latter's mouth it certainly meant no disparagement of fact THAT the Heavens, rather than earth, are the ones that go.

Taken that way it is Orthodox. Holy Writ makes no very clear decision between flat or global earth, or between Geostasis in Flat Earth, Ptolemaic, or Tychonian Cosmology. But the Heavens do go. And if you think of it, very fast. And their staying together is either a miracle of construction or a miracle of good command over angels or both at the same time.

This is why, when defending Geocentrism, we are defending our eyes and part of the meaning of Romans 1:20.

[And I would not call Baronius a liberal.]

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

If, in that process, one makes the argument that being in the center couldn’t happen by chance and therefore the universe came into being by the hand of a divine Creator (as opposed to what Krauss and Sagan tout, that is, that the universe created itself), then so be it.

My comment

It is rather stars staying in a periphery rotating so very fast [and staying in stable either positions for fixed stars or orbits for planets] that could not happen by chance. As well as the energy provided each day for the rotation, as per my debate under TOF Spot:

"I suppose I could have said that 'given the conservation of mass-energy in large-scale phenomena, we know that geocentrism is false'."

St Thomas did not subscribe to conservation of mass-energy in marge scale or other phenomena, since he was not identifying the NECESSARY BEING with mass-energy, but with God.

"If you are willing to postulate an influx of energy that keeps the sun circling a stationary earth, such energy having no other detectable effect, of course you can still proclaim geocentrism."

Geocentrism is major proof that God is, as UPHOLDER of the Universe, providing the "influx of energy" that makes not just Sun but indeed All Universe circle around a stationary earth each day.

And the detection of the influx is by the phenomena of day and night.

That is the easiest way of stating Prima Via.

I rest my case.

My additional comment 5-IV-2014

Two retractions, since I was tired yesterday!

1) If Pope Urban was worried about Heliocentrism threatening Christianity, he meant as threatening its doctrine, and he has the history since about his times in favour of his accuracy.

If Moderns are worried about Geocentrism threatening Christianity, they usually mean either socially "embarassing the faith", or if doctrinally they are defending some phoney derivative of "Thomism" which is more Averroist than Thomist, and perhaps even more Deist than Averroist.

2) If Pope Urban was overexcited at a moment, he was later calm. Plus, of course, he left the judgment to many others and was not involved himself once the process started before it was ended.

So, my comparison was lopsided.

mercredi 2 avril 2014

Reflections on a stone block and on gruesome factory farming and more

I
Wall of John Médaille: a posting by another guy, named KH
KH's post
Upper piece of picture:: three men in the style of Egyptian Pyramid builders dragging a stone block with a desk and a boss on top of it.
Lower piece of same:: no more boss on top of stone block, but a leader at same time showing the way and adding a fourth piece of muscle strength to the dragging.
HGL: putting it like that verges on idiocy.
KH: I see it as contrasting Pharao's approach with Christ's. (Instead if merely dictating one leads by example.)
HGL: There is a problem here.

Christ indeed set an example, but he is NOT requiring everyone to get onto Calvary with loads of wood on the back and get nailed hands and feet until suffocating slower than a halal slaughtered sheep dies.

That was the theological one. On the Economic level, a heavy stone is a heavy stone, and too gavey for three men to carry with a boss sitting on it, but still too heavy for four men, including the boss acting as leader instead, to carry as well.

On the level of twenty men, it is hardly harder to drag it with one man on top than with a twentyfirst man dragging.

And the distributist thing for the four men would be not to drag the block at all, but to part it in four pieces and start sculpting each in his piece.

And each of the four men would in that Distributist picture have the designation neither of boss nor of leader, but of craftsman.
II
Wall of friend: crying, showing a picture with text: Disgraceful! The egg industry grinds baby male chicks alive because they're "useless." Who agrees that this is terrible?
LKG: It's terrible, but what are they supposed to do with them?
friend: Well, not grind them up alive! That is just barbaric. When there is a very problematic situation, it usually it due to a larger, foundational problem, and one must fix it, and the root of this problem is…factory farming. It is just unnatural. What did they use to do? Well, before factory farming, they would have never had this massive amount of male chicks to dispose of, and I suppose they did used to serve a purpose - as alarm clocks!
WH: Excess roosters were eaten at a young age. These are probably a scrawny breed adapted for the highest egg production, so not so good for eating but could be stewed and provide mineral-rich bone broth if raised on pasture. Most people in the past who were raising chickens for home use chose a multi-purpose breed that was good for eating and egg production.
friend: Yes, there is no answer to this solution, except for getting rid of factory farming.
LKG: That's true, but it's not likely to happen. Factory farming is providing food that is cheaper, and that is what most people will buy, which is why factory farming first began. Think about this for a moment. The chicks used to be thrown alive into garbage bags, where they would most likely suffocate, and the rest would die of starvation. They are so small that I'm sure they die quickly when they are ground up, and the remains are then useful as pet food or fertilizer. We raised chickens when I was growing up. There is no way to tell what gender the chick will be before it hatches, and only some Orientals can tell the gender immediately after hatching. We could tell, in time, and then all but one rooster had to be separated from the hens, or they would kill each other. We butchered all but one of the roosters as soon as they got big enough to eat, and we did eat them, but rooster meat is not as tender or tasty as hen meat, which is why there is no market for the male chicks.
RC: This cannot be true. Except that it can.
HGL: LKG, unfortunately it has happened that ground up chickens have been used to feed chickens.

"Factory farming is providing food that is cheaper, and that is what most people will buy, which is why factory farming first began."

Factory farming is providing food that is cheaper. Nike is providing shoes that are cheaper. Coca and Pepsi are providing drinks that are cheaper. People live in houses of concrete module over concrete module that are cheaper. Everyone is living a cheaper life.

Could it be that the craze for producing cheaper is impoverishing people employed in these cheaper productions, so that more people are nowadays FORCED to buy cheaper? Hmm?

Factory farming makes life less expensive except for farmers. Nike makes life less expensive except for Nike factory employees. Coca and Pepsi make life cheaper except for Coca and Pepsi employees. Hold on, who is NOT loosing at some one end? Perhaps the out-of-work, the unemployed? Well, there are more of those these days!
LKG: Very true, Hans-Georg Lu[n]dahl. So few people see this, which is part of why it is so difficult to reverse it.
HGL: This is part of why I am writing. And also a reason why I offer conditions favourable to small printers.

HGL's F.B. writings : Be my Unwin or Hooper if you like.
http://hglsfbwritings.blogspot.com/2011/09/be-my-unwin-or-hooper-if-you-like.html

Unfortunately, favourable conditions for printing my essays on small scale locally are not quite enough to keep an organic farm going.
III
Friend quoting a Distributist: "Both socialism and capitalism are products of the European Enlightenment and are thus modernizing and anti-traditional forces. In contrast, distributism seeks to subordinate economic activity to human life as a whole, to our spiritual life, our intellectual life, our family life." – Thomas Storck
HGL: [linking to this adress, while only first one was here.]
Paul D: Thank goodness for capitalism, though. Imagine how hard life would be without it.
HGL: How hard? Oh, without Ford you would not have a car to drive one hour to the job? Just that, under Middle Ages, usually European city dwellers were not taking an hour to get to their job. Usually a master craftsman would wake up and eat his breakfast upstairs and walk to the job and the business downstairs in the same house.
IV
Friend: I used to be "pro privatisation" - back when I followed mainstream "conservative" politics. Since practical solutions are needed to solve modern day problems (i.e. we just can't undo eveything, and go back to the Middle Ages), I think it is better for a government agency to be run by the local government than for it to be privatised. The latter is just as bad as federally-owned, if not worse, and is very capitalistic. Of course, the government should be non-profit.
DC: Practical Distributism : Distributism Basics: The Nature and Roles of Government http://practicaldistributism.blogspot.com/2014/01/distributism-basics-nature-and-roles-of.html
Friend: I am pro-distributism, of course, but could you please tell me your thoughts on this post? I will, of course, open the link, and read its contents.
DC: Well, as I am the author of the post, i think it's great!

I try to make the point that local issues should be handled by local authorities.
Friend: By "this post," I meant "my post."
DC: I agree with the statement. Remote government entities are too far removed from the problem to make them effective at solving local problems. That doesn't mean that they can't assist in some way (as I state in my article), but if the government is involved, it should be the local government which is more directly answerable to the people impacted by their decisions and policies. This means that the people in the community will have the greatest ability of oversee government assistance within their community.
HGL: "Since practical solutions are needed to solve modern day problems (i.e. we just can't undo eveything, and go back to the Middle Ages)"

Going back to the Middle Ages and undoing everything are two different proposals.

Some Government Agencies (I suppose you do not mean Post Offices) are intruding into people's lives.
Paul D: Yet nationalised orgs tend to be heavily unionised, inefficient and/or run for the benefit of the staff. Competition brings efficiency which benefits customers/citizens. Contrast the old east and west Germanys.
HGL: Any organisation is run either for the benefit of the staff or that of shareholders to some degree. Rather staff than shareholders.

Any organisation that needs coordination over the area of a nation state can as well be run by the state as private. There is an intermediate. The before private owner of a Spanish electricity company was made a duke or a count by Franco. So that he was a "private citizen" no more, but his company a feudal holding.
Paul D: A private organisation will only succeed if it pleases customers. State-undertakings (often monopolies) tend to escape market-pressure and consequently serve us badly. One economist has estimated that the state costs twice as much as the private sector to do anything. Worse, the money used to pay for state-services is often obtained with the threat of force and/or by expropriation. Even if the state served us well, the foundation of its finances would be unethical.
HGL: Taxes are not per se unethical. Nor are monopolies to relieve tax pressure.

"A private organisation will only succeed if it pleases customers."

Not even always true, since certain ones enjoy a kind of monopoly or joint such, i e oligopoly due to Capitalism empoverishing general population to needing the Walmart and similar.

What is true is that it will only succeed if customers will buy there. Which due to levels of doles and of wages may involve some kind of force - especially if certain cities like Pensacola go Communist selectively against bums.

"State-undertakings (often monopolies) tend to escape market-pressure and consequently serve us badly."

Capitalist oligopolies tend to override normal market pressures, remodel the market and make market pressures serve nearly everyone badly.

A state can limit its monopolies to things that need nationwide coordination, like post offices.

"Contrast the old east and west Germanys."

Post offices were run by the State both sides of Berlin Wall. East Germany had its worst elements of societal make up totally distinct from the market liberal vs monopolistic question, like school monopoly (which alas West Germany also had, herited from Hitler) and Psychiatry and Social Services having a very large role in too many peoples' lives.

"I think it is better for a government agency to be run by the local government than for it to be privatised."

The only loan agencies allowed to take any interest at all in Lateran V was precisly a local government directed pawn broker, where interest could go to paying the clerks very modestly, or ideally that could be managed by taxes (and monopolies) to half the extent and only other half by interest.

But TV and Radio, I think the sector can be private.

HGL's F.B. writings

Pages

mardi 8 avril 2014

Some Links about Justina Pelletier

Dialogue entre sourds avec un vieil ami

lundi 7 avril 2014

Continued from Previous, Some Debate

On Matrimonial Prospects at My Age

dimanche 6 avril 2014

From Catholic Cosmology Group, on Size of Universe

samedi 5 avril 2014

Diverging slightly from Sungenis

mercredi 2 avril 2014

Reflections on a stone block and on gruesome factory farming and more

Correspondence de / of / van Hans Georg Lundahl

Antworten nach Sorte

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere

Répliques Assorties

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