With an Orthodox Priest on Lenin, Putin, KGB and the Orthodox I Met

Difference between "sodomy" and "homosexuality" · With an Orthodox Priest on Lenin, Putin, KGB and the Orthodox I Met · With Aristobule Adams

Aristibule Adams

(Orthodox, by now I think Priest)

Bury the vampire. Put up a chapel to the glory of Jesus Christ and the memory of the New Martyrs of the Soviet Yoke in its place.

Russian Church Abroad calls for removal of Lenin’s body from Red Square
on pravoslavie.ru | Moscow, March 13, 2017
http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/101803.htm

Taking only

my own subthread.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Well, if Putin had done that and banned abortion, I'd have taken him for a Christian.

Aristibule Adams

He's working on it. He's a president of a republic though - not the dictator the NeoCons and Progressives of the West imagine.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

And if the republic is stopping him from doing so, might that be because Russia apostasised?

Aristibule Adams

They suffered the apostasy of the Soviet Yoke, and are repenting of it. It takes time - much of the population still has to be converted, and they are not an autocracy but a democracy - so they have to get the people onboard as they can. But Church and Putin are cooperating in that.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Are Church and Putin:

• allowing again girls and boys to marry before 18, as before the Revolution?
• abolishing school compulsion, as was introduced by revolution?
• allowing private schools, including run by Young Earth Creationists?

"As for reburials and other issues of a similar kind, you know, it seems to me that this should be approached carefully so as not to make any steps that would divide our society. On the contrary, it should be united, that is the most important thing,"

I think it was to some persecutors of Christianity before him. Like Marcus Aurelius.

Putin urges careful approach towards Lenin reburial issue not to divide society
Source: Interfax-Religion | Stavropol, January 26, 2016
http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/90028.htm

Aristibule Adams

Yes, see Met. Hilarion (Alfeyev)'s comments above regarding the removal of Soviet names from places - he also emphasized that it must and will happen, but that it must be done in such a way that the people are onboard. It takes collective repentance.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Constantine was banning abortion without asking the people.

If he is so eager to have popular consent, why not make a referendum and then step back if the Christian solutions are not agreed on?

Aristibule Adams

Well, he was a monarch. We haven't gotten the monarch restored yet - they have to be prepared and worthy of it. Though it is part of the prayers of the Church, and a growing sentiment in Russian society. Just not supported enough yet to make it viable.

When you have a population like that, you have to manage change. He's not putting it out all there at once to be slapped down. It has to be done gradually.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

His sense of tactic necessity may one day be what makes him an apostate.

Unless he is so already.

It reminds me of KGB. And of psychiatry.

He thinks he has to gain on his own wisdom and talent, as if God would not sustain a good effort, even if it looked hopeless.

Aristibule Adams

He's not an apostate. He's pious Orthodox, and he has a goal and love for his country. He's just wise in politics.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I am not taking your word for it.

Aristibule Adams

That's okay. Just watch and pray.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I wonder how much he has contributed to a situation in which I have less and less peace of praying.

Aristibule Adams

Probably not much. He's been too busy learning to be an Orthodox Christian and Making Russia Great Again.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

You forget he has a past as KGB agent.

You might not know that a village in Sweden where I was has had Communist and Masonic ties to St Petersburg, and at the very least, the official version, sports ties.

He also has a sports passion. And at the time, he was involved in St Petersburg politics, as a replacement. He had time off to make spy affairs.

Also, you might not know how much Orthodox have pushed for getting me regarded as a monk and my writing as dishonorable disobedience in a monk and my trying to get married as defection from my supposed duties as a monk ... could he have been giving lessons about me to those who gave him lessons about Christianity?

Aristibule Adams

I doubt Putin is involved with anything you've experienced personally. We Orthodox tend to have our crazies as much as the Catholics or anyone else. It's just humans being weird.

As for Putin - he resigned from the KGB, and then fought against them when they attempted their coup in the early 1990s before they were shut down. It's why the ex-KGB oligarchs hate him, and have fled his Russia. Of course, they tell us that he is dangerous for being ex-KGB (resigned, and combated KGB) but do not want to be considered themselves KGB (who only stopped being KGB when the KGB was disbanded, and had to flee anti-KGB policies.) Several years after, in any case, Putin had his religious awakening. You haven't had such a thing with the Oligarchs. Most of them are still are atheists.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

" We Orthodox tend to have our crazies as much as the Catholics or anyone else. It's just humans being weird."

I am NOT talking about single persons who could be identified as crazies.

I AM talking about systematic, bishop after bishop, priest after priest (meeting priests but not bishops) and parish after parish showing a VERY queezy attitude to me being a writer.

Perhaps they thought I was the "crazy", and perhaps, ultimately, Kirill and Putin liked that.

I spent late 2006 to first half of 2009 under Omophore of a Roumanian bishop and looking at other Omophores so as to get a life as opposed to be honoured as a new version of Russian Pilgrim and locked out of company with every step I took at getting out of that role.

The Roumanian priest in Aix, a married one, certainly preferred the company of a philosophy teacher who was indignated that the Roman Catholics had burned Giordano Bruno, which I think was a good thing, if heretics should be burned. Far better than burning Avvakum for instance.

Aristibule Adams

Well, we certainly have a crisis in this age. I think Crete showed where those lines are drawn. Bishops are humans just like the rest of us - some of them might personally 'click' with a personality, and some may not. I've experienced that. Sometimes a person likes you, sometimes they don't. It can be hard to when there are ethnic or cultural differences as well. I doubt that involves the Patriarch or Putin - unless you personally came across them? I haven't yet - I'm only at two degrees of relation there. :) I doubt either have specifically heard of me.

Looks like

a deliberate interruption, to "give me face" or "give the priest face" as they say in Chinese, the following, doesn't it?

Madison Krezymon

Aristibule Adams still not sure why the MP was involved with Crete to begin with?

Aristibule Adams

He wasn't. He, along with other Patriarchs, refused to participate.

Madison Krezymon

Ah OK didn't actually know that I thought he did participate I know Antioch wasn't involved something that I'm personally thankful for

Possible interruption

over, except one reply, resuming my exchange with Aristobule.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

The problem is not whether a person likes me or not.

The problem is when a person who has at least some liking for me refuses to tell me what he is up to and is (as I see after some years of analysis) up to making it pastorally impossible for me to marry and to get paid for my writing and my compositions.

If I had looked for a monastery or to be a priest candidate, my being rejected from that (which I was not, since I did not apply) might be put down to that.

But being denied the basic liberties of a layman (like to marry and to chose my occupation) by people who want to force me to live like a monk (they partly succeeded, except for the prayer and fasting), that can be put down to exactly two causes:

• a) the hierarch is evil himself,
• b) the hierarch is misinformed by someone else whom he respects.

Aristibule Adams

(to Madison Krezymon)

No - and for good reason. The Patriarchs of Moscow, Tblisi, Antioch, and Sofia did not attend. Neither did the Metropolitan of the OCA.

Aristibule Adams

(to me again)

Ahh, I see Hans-Georg Lundahl - they were trying to recruit you to the monastic life! Not unheard of. There might be other reasons for that beyond a & b. Especially if you were already living some sort of life. Every priest I had told me that I was destined for the priesthood and had no choice in the matter. The priest who received me stood in room full of converts - and when asked by them (many former ministers from the sects) what they should do now - said "whatever you want..." and then pointed to me in front of the class and said "... except you, we have plans for you."

That's how it works in Orthodoxy - you get led around rather than going 'where you wist'.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Well, in that case I suppose you are closer to Talmudism than to Catholicism.

In Catholicism, getting led by obedience to a superior is a choice, not an obligation on every layman.

Aristibule Adams

No, not an obligation - but if you showed signs of the calling. You refused, so there you are. They couldn't force it on you.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

It is not as if they tried overtly once, and I refused and that was it.

They tried half discretely once, I refused, they ignored my refusal.

To me that looks more KGB than Orthodoxy, but I could be wrong about Orthodoxy.

Aristibule Adams

Sounds like overly enthusiastic people. You might have even run into a cult within the church. It happens - just like in Catholicism, Pentecostalism, etc. It's why Patriarch Kirill had to denounce such activity.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

No, they were not enthusiasts.

When I showed url for my blog, they were extremely cold.

The "cult" within Orthodoxy was in this case Neohimerite/Canonical version.

Aristibule Adams

Yes - I've run across the Neohimerite Fundamentalists as well. They cannot touch me in the Russian Church though.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Which of the two?

Patriarchate or ROCOR?

Besides, Hilarion Alfeyev had opportunity to help me get played as a composer. He never bothered to answer my mail.

Aristibule Adams

Same. The only Neohimerites of Russian tradition are in OCA, the EP's Paris Eparchy, and ACROD.

I cannot answer why a clergyman might not answer. It is known to be an issue everywhere. I've been guilty of it myself. I know I get inundated, and get messages I don't know what to do with at the moment, or don't answer, and think 'I'll come back to this' - and it gets forgotten in the pile. The persistent get through.

For what it's worth - Met. Hilarion (Alfeyev) has never answered my messages either. :)

Met. Hilarion (Kapral) always does.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

[linked to here]

Aristibule Adams

I'd rather facebook conversations not be reproduced elsewhere.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I for my part would rather that when I have made allusions to my situation, the reactions be reproduced in public.

As a priest, you are a public person, that is why I gave your name in full.

Aristibule Adams

Ah, well all I know about the situation are the allusions then.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Yes, and now my readers know your reactions to them, including calling them "allusions", when I gave actual facts.

Aristibule Adams

Or your readers know that I don't 'get' your allusions - because I don't know them or the events you alluded to. All I know is that you alluded to something, and called it allusions. I wasn't present for the events after all. I've only been present at the events I've been present at. :)

Hans-Georg Lundahl

That is a polite way of calling me liar or mistaken.

The kind of readers who would agree with you are the ones I care least about.

The ones behind that kind of crap I have had.

Aristibule Adams

No, I'm simply pointing out that you were the one that said you had made allusions to your situation. I only used the word when I acknowledged that all I knew about that situation were the same allusions that you called allusions. I've no other source of information for that. #NoKGB

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I used allusions as general description of what type of thing I did, even beyond the fairly clear descriptions here.

Aristibule Adams

Yes, and that's all I was referring to. The allusions might be clear to those who know the people and institutions involved. But I don't . I'm sure it's clear to you though.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I think it is clear enough to anyone knowing English and reading my words WHAT I describe.

What could be unclear to some is whether I am right and honest or wrong or a liar.

And your words stamp either you as dishonest or as being too little versed in your own language to be able to do pastoral as a priest.

Ouk axios.

Aristibule Adams

Okay, I guess I don't get your drift. I'm not sure I know your situation beyond that you use computers in libraries often in France, and what you said about the Romanians from 2002-2006 (and I don't know any of them.)

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I would have been using some own computer at home, perhaps, and certainly had a home, if my being a writer on internet had been interpreted as a valid work for a homeless layman instead of as a bad behaviour on part of a monk or sth.

And that was repeated, over years, these being 2006 to 2009, check if you find I said otherwise.

As to the Romanians, how about checking?

I also mentioned Hilarion Alfeyev, whom you might know better.

Aristibule Adams

I've never got to know him. Like I said, he's never responded. I'm not part of his circle.

The Romanians, I just don't interact with them. I don't busy myself with those too far out from where I go (mostly Southern US - but also Canada and UK).

Hans-Georg Lundahl

So, you won't check, but you would still not accept my assessment of my situation as being honest and clear?

You don't know, but you just know I have to be wrong or you must have got my meaning wrong?

Updates

following day.

Aristibule Adams

I have to make the assessment on what I've experienced and know - which is in the ROCOR/MP and Antioch. If you experienced something like that, I have to give the benefit of the doubt to all parties. I do understand how things work in the Church (I wouldn't be here otherwise), but I don't know every personality in every diocese. I don't accept negative words by reputation either (nor positive ones) - that is gossip. But I would not be surprised if you had a negative experience with Neohimerite fundamentalists. That has happened with others and myself. But it is no business of mine to go digging in other dioceses for things that happened decades ago that do not concern me. My patriarch, my metropolitan - that's what matters if priorities are kept straight. Look to our own salvation, and not what someone is doing over there. And I do suggest to converts that the Russian Church is the safest place at this time - with no animosity towards others. The Serbian church is good, the Georgian church is good, Jerusalem is good, etc. But yeah, Russia is best. :)

Hans-Georg Lundahl

" I don't accept negative words by reputation either (nor positive ones) - that is gossip."

I am perfectly willing to give you the names, and you check with them.

You gave at least one part of your experience which clearly supports my WITNESS, hearing which is NOT GOSSIP.

You said they had told you "except you, we have plans for you."

" I do understand how things work in the Church (I wouldn't be here otherwise)"

I do at least know the canon law of us Latins does NOT support Shanghaiing someone to monastic existence despite his wanting to marry and saying so.

I do at least know the canon law of us Papists does NOT support condemning a man to Franciscan poverty over allowing his intellectual and artistic production to be known.

If writing on theology and publishing without asking a bishop first is an offense, it must be a minor one, if the content is not bad.

These guys were asked over and over again to pass judgement on my blogs, and did not. After that they cannot say I went behind their back.

And it is perfidious to condemn a man to poverty over years simply because the process of an imprimi postes or nihil obstat is delayed by people not having time to look.

If they had said openly "what you write is WRONG, we can't print and sell that, you should repent of having written it", that would have been another matter.

I would perhaps have repented but more probably gone back to Catholic sooner. I would probably have said "if they say Young Earth Creationism and Geocentrism are doctrinally wrong, they can't be doctrinally right, they are against the Church Fathers".

Precisely as Pentecost 2009 I was at last released by someone preaching, no doubt on behalf of his bishop, that Antipope Ratzinger (they spoke of Pope Benedict), I am no longer sure if they named him or just alluded and then explained afterwards, had been uncharitable in his words on condoms.

He had not, if anything he had been unduly lax.

But supposing they felt queezy about what I wrote, didn't have the courage either to approve or condemn, they could at least have allowed me a living on my musical compositions.

They preferred holding me back in obscrurity* and poverty.

This is not "hearsay", this is formal accusation, and I will give the names I can give if asked to.

Note *

Yes, I misspelled. I was typing so eagerly. I weighed my words, but not my typing speed.

Aristibule Adams

I'm not the one to file complaints with - I'm a mere mass-priest in the country (a country in the Caribbean South).

Hans-Georg Lundahl

No, but this dialogue can be transferred, since reblogged.

Aristibule Adams

So how is finding a wife going, in that case?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Well, I have one to marry if and when she wants to and circumstances (including her conversion to Catholicism) allow.

Circumstances have not allowed and she is not yet (last time I checked) back to the belief of her baptism.

Screen Saves from a Debate

More on Inerrancy, Specifically Six Days

Stefan Schwarz

Question for everyone. Why do so many call upon St. Augustine as a supporter of reading Genesis purely allegorically?

I have been reading through his sections on Genesis in the City of God and in Confessions and as far as I can tell St. Augustine is speaking quite literally about six days of creation. Am I missing something?

Johnny Proctor

People who want to subordinate the creation account to scientific hypotheses get very nervous when we invoke Trent and Vatican I as infallibly teaching that Catholics are not permitted to teach an interpretation of Scripture contrary to the consensus of the Holy Fathers. They know they can't get around this, so they invoke an opinion of St. Augustine's - which, far from being in favor of a billions-of-years-evolutionary-process, suggests creation all occurred in an instant. This shows the sophistry and craftiness of the so-called theistic evolutionists, and how they are trying to bypass dogma.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

In De Genesi ad Literam Libri XII, books V and VI, he argues against 6 literal days and for a one-moment creation.

He explains the days as the successive views that angels had of what had just happened, and evening and morning as angels viewing it first by their capacities (evening), then in the light of God's glory (morning).

He also explains fall of some angels (Satan, et al.) as them seeing creation only from the "evening" view.

Obviously, this makes a YEC even a few days younger.

Johnny Proctor

The text they refuse to acknowledge is Exodus 20:11. Read St. Basil the Great's Hexaemeron preface on this - he cites the authority of Moses as the author of Genesis as one whom the LORD God spoke to as it were face-to-face.

St Basil the Great HEXAEMERON, Complete
Translated by Bl. Jackson.
http://www.elpenor.org/basil/hexaemeron.asp

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Obviously, St Augustine's a bit personal take on the nature of the six days does NOT weaken the Patristic consensus of a few thousand years between Creation and Birth of Christ.

Their take is "if St Augustine could be non-literal" [one direction] "about the six days, I can be non-literal" [opposite direction] "on them too."

No, not if specifically St Augustine closes that opposite direction and no one opens it.

Johnny Proctor

1. It is right that any one beginning to narrate the formation of the world should begin with the good order which reigns in visible things. I am about to speak of the creation of heaven and earth, which was not spontaneous, as some have imagined, but drew its origin from God. What ear is worthy to hear such a tale? How earnestly the soul should prepare itself to receive such high lessons! How pure it should be from carnal affections, how unclouded by worldly disquietudes, how active and ardent in its researches, how eager to find in its surroundings an idea of God which may be worthy of Him! But before weighing the justice of these remarks, before examining all the sense contained in these few words, let us see who addresses them to us. Because, if the weakness of our intelligence does not allow us to penetrate the depth of the thoughts of the writer, yet we shall be involuntarily drawn to give faith to his words by the force of his authority. Now it is Moses who has composed this history; Moses, who, when still at the breast, is described as exceeding fair; [1365] Moses, whom the daughter of Pharaoh adopted; who received from her a royal education, and who had for his teachers the wise men of Egypt; [1366] Moses, who disdained the pomp of royalty, and, to share the humble condition of his compatriots, preferred to be persecuted with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting delights of sin; Moses, who received from nature such a love of justice that, even before the leadership of the people of God was committed to him, he was impelled, by a natural horror of evil, to pursue malefactors even to the point of punishing them by death; Moses, who, banished by those whose benefactor he had been, hastened to escape from the tumults of Egypt and took refuge in Ethiopia, living there far from former pursuits, and passing forty years in the contemplation of nature; Moses, finally, who, at the age of eighty, saw God, as far as it is possible for man to see Him; or rather as it had not previously been granted to man to see Him, according to the testimony of God Himself, "If there be a prophet among you, I the Lord will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream. My servant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all mine house, with him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently and not in dark speeches." [1367] It is this man, whom God judged worthy to behold Him, face to face, like the angels, who imparts to us what he has learnt from God. Let us listen then to these words of truth written without the help of the "enticing words of man's wisdom" [1368] by the dictation of the Holy Spirit; words destined to produce not the applause of those who hear them, but the salvation of those who are instructed by them. St. Basil, Hexaemeron

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Certainly, they would just say "St Augustine didn't agree" and pretend to know better as long as you don't show you know the details.

Johnny Proctor

I have been in such exchanges multiple time with "conservative" Catholics. They cite Saint Augustine as a dissenter from the consensus of the Holy Fathers and grant themselves license to dismiss their voluminous writing on topics that touch on cosmogeny and cosmology, to say nothing of metaphysics.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

And they don't mention that the same De Genesi ad Literam also is clearly Geocentric.

Johnny Proctor

Yes, but once you consign Genesis 1-11 to a symbolic sense you have free reign to dismiss any cosmological references at all. This is why we must cite Trent and Vatican I as infallible sources for biblical exegesis.

The other tack is that they say infallibility extends only to faith and morals, and nothing beyond, even though this is explicitly condemned by Pope Leo XIII in Providentissimus Deus.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

And [we must] also accept the symbolical senses that really are there (Adam's sleeping and Eve created from his side symbolises Christ on the Cross and the Church).

Appendix on Aether

1) Debating with Antonio Antranik on Aether · 1b) Appendix on Aether · 2) With Antonio Antranik on Scope of Biblical Inerrance and Patristic Collective Infallibility · 3) More on Biblical Inerrance - Featuring Apocalypse

Hans-Georg Lundahl

[Linking to part 1]

Antonio Antranik, Alex Naszados, Stefan Schwarz

Antonio Antranik

Soooo, since you postulate the existence of "ether", tell me what this "ether" is composed of!

Heath Wilson

I think it is a state of water. It is a Planck particle superfluid. The Michelson/Morely, Michelson/Gale and Sagnac experiments prove its existence.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Antonio Antranik I don't think ether is composed, I think it is simple.

Between nucleus of one gold atom and nucleus of next gold atom, some posit "shells of electrons + void", I think the shells of electrons are states in the aether in which the nuclei also are.

If aether were composed of atoms, it would most certainly block anything as fine as light waves.

Here is by the way the next post of our debate:

[Linking to part 2]

Heath Wilson, as you are already in this thread, I am glad you see the link already.

And here is part 3:

[Linking to it]

And here is this:[Linking here]

More on Biblical Inerrance - Featuring Apocalypse

1) Debating with Antonio Antranik on Aether · 1b) Appendix on Aether · 2) With Antonio Antranik on Scope of Biblical Inerrance and Patristic Collective Infallibility · 3) More on Biblical Inerrance - Featuring Apocalypse

Heath Wilson

Papal Condemnation may not be its official title, but it was by the command of the pope, it therefore carries the weight of his office. It is therefore a matter of faith and a part of the ordinary Magisterium. We are bound by it under pain of sin.

"by command of His Holiness and of the Most Eminent Lords Cardinals of this supreme and universal Inquisition, the two propositions of the stability of the Sun and the motion of the Earth were by the theological Qualifiers qualified as follows: The proposition that the Sun is the center of the world and does not move from its place is absurd and false philosophically and formally heretical, because it is expressly contrary to Holy Scripture. The proposition that the Earth is not the center of the world and immovable but that it moves, and also with a diurnal motion, is equally absurd and false philosophically and theologically considered at least erroneous in faith. "

I've personally wondered if the Woman Clothed with the Sun could also be the Church herself, who was shamed by the Galileo affair (and therefore metaphorically naked), and and if Her being "clothed by the Sun" could mean the Church being vindicated by science proving beyond all shadow of a doubt that the Earth IS motionless in the center and the Sun revolves around it. That is simply my private interpretation though.

"and anyone claiming that natural science is a part of FAITH is exceeding their authority."

Since the matter is one of how to interpret the Scriptures (and Scripture's inerrancy), arguing with the pope and the Inquisition about it isn't a very safe bet. The Church has SOLE authority is how Scripture is to be interpreted. Arguing against Her interpretation is heresy.

Antonio Antranik

Totally false. It was a matter of GOVERNMENT that was justified on the phony pretext of Faith.

Stefan Schwarz

Antonio Antranik do you believe the Church is infallible? Do you believe that Scripture as interpreted by the Church is inerrant?

Antonio Antranik

The Church is infallible ONLY in matters of FAITH and MORALS, as defined by the Vatican Ecumenical Council.

Heath Wilson

" It was a matter of GOVERNMENT that was justified on the phony pretext of Faith."

That directly contradicts the text of the above magisterial document. The Magisterium has determined that the Scripture insists that the immobility of the Earth is a matter of FAITH. You have no grounds to reject that teaching.

I also wanted to add that concerning the fantastical creatures such as a horse with a lions head, just give them a few years. They will exist.

Genome Editing with CRISPR-Cas9
McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pp17E4E-O8

Stefan Schwarz

From the 1st Vatican Council:

"If anyone does not receive as sacred and canonical the complete books of sacred scripture with all their parts, as the holy council of Trent listed them, or denies that they were divinely inspired : let him be anathema."

Does this mean that God inspired error? That would be blasphemy.

Antonio Antranik

The earth has no power source or rocket engines to change its course, but it can be moved by outside powers. To say that the earth is immobile would mean that even God Himself cannot move it. But God can do anything. Thus to say that the earth is immobile is HERESY.

Stefan Schwarz

Huh? God can make the earth mobile or immobile. He has revealed to us that it is immobile. It has nothing to do with God's power, it is about what God has revealed about what He has already done.

Heath Wilson

Science backs up our claim, too. Try to find a single scientific experiment that proves that the earth moves.

I would like to clarify that immobile does not mean that the Earth does not shake. Earthquakes don't count. It means that it does not move from it's place.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Antonio Antranik It would seem the Vatican Council defined the Church as being infallible in the matter of Faith and Morals.

It would not seem the Church also stated the word "only" on the occasion.

Your exegesis is an excuse for Luther's when saying his translation was right because St Paul obviously MEANT that Abraham was justified ONLY by faith.

Antonio Antranik "It was a matter of GOVERNMENT that was justified on the phony pretext of Faith."

Under the phony pretext?

OK, you believe Pope Urban VIII was that corrupt?

I don't, you see.

He gave a new monument to Saint Bibiana - patron saint of one of my sisters.

Also, he stepped out of the way and let Inquisitors decide without his presence, because he was personally concerned as insulted or suspected of being so by the character Simplicio in Galileo's dialogue.

Therefore, I am very much against your vile accusations against Pope Urban VIII.

Heath Wilson Apocalypse 9 speaks not of horses with lions' heads, but of locusts shaped like horses for war with lions' teeth.

I think this already exists, not as biology, but as technology : or may soon exist, if the exact model of chopper is another than those yet seen.

On another note, I was wondering if there was any beast associated with "the number of the beast".

In ASCII "the cat" and "the dog" are 665 and 667. What beast is then 666? Well, "the cog". It is technology, not biology, but serves as a beast of burden. It is also emblem of Rotarians, of which Bergoglio is a member, and in Swedish KGB can be pronounced (at least in Scanian dialect) so as to make the English phrase "cog gay bey" - a Bey as in non-Christian magistrate who is cog gay as in happier with cogs and cogwheels than with free people.

Putin and Kirill are "former" KGB. I am checking of COGGAYBEY does not add up to 666, I think it does.

Here is the check:

C 67 060 7
O 79 130 16
G 71 200 17
G 71 270 18
A 65 330 23
Y 89 410 32
B 66 470 38
E 69 530 47
Y 89 610 56

Yes, was right about that one.

Point with beast of Apocalypse 9, if beast of Apocalypse 13 can be "the cog", the beast species of Apocalypse 9 can also be technology, as in choppers.

"The earth has no power source or rocket engines to change its course,"

Or to put it in one if it is still.

"but it can be moved by outside powers."

As, for instance by God and angels - by God should He so chose, by angels if God allows.

Now, this would totally preclude saying "Earth is immobile" in the sense of preventing God from moving it, but it does not preclude saying the Earth is immobile by God's own decree.

"To say that the earth is immobile would mean that even God Himself cannot move it."

In the former, not the latter sense.

"But God can do anything. Thus to say that the earth is immobile is HERESY."

Not in the latter sense, as implying "by God's decree".

So - as to heresy - it is to say that God could not have created the Universe with Earth immobile - by His decree - in the Middle. Pope Urban's argument from back in his days of Cardinal Barberini, as well as Simplicio's was: God was free to create the Universe any way He wanted it, and God was also free to make it appear to us any way He wanted it.

One can gather from this that God was free to make it appear as he created it, or to make it appear the reverse of how He created it. But God is truthful and the universe appears to us as having the Earth as immobile centre. Therefore we should presume from His truthfulness, that that is also how He created it.

The last was of course back to Antonio Antranik.

What is the Greek about "shape"?

Nestlé Ahland text for NT GRaece Apocalypse 9:7 Καὶ τὰ ὁμοιώματα τῶν ἀκρίδων ὅμοια ἵπποις ἡτοιμασμένοις εἰς πόλεμον, καὶ ἐπὶ τὰς κεφαλὰς αὐτῶν ὡς στέφανοι ὅμοιοι χρυσῷ, καὶ τὰ πρόσωπα αὐτῶν ὡς πρόσωπα ἀνθρώπων,

It is "τὰ ὁμοιώματα". Anyone know Greek well enough to decide whether this can mean sth like function rather than geometric shape?

With Antonio Antranik on Scope of Biblical Inerrance and Patristic Collective Infallibility

1) Debating with Antonio Antranik on Aether · 1b) Appendix on Aether · 2) With Antonio Antranik on Scope of Biblical Inerrance and Patristic Collective Infallibility · 3) More on Biblical Inerrance - Featuring Apocalypse

Antonio Antranik

Where does it say that the stars and other planets in the solar system stood still? All that would be necessary for God to freeze the sun and the moon (and everything else) be to suspend the laws of physics and freeze time for the closed volume system of the earth and the moon. That does not prove the sun and/or stars revolve around the earth. As for what the Church Fathers may have said, none of them are infallible in anything and not even the Pope is infallible in matters of natural science, but only in FAITH and MORALS.

Heath Wilson

According to the Papal Condemnation of Galileo's errors, the immobility of the Earth and the mobility of the Sun ARE matters of faith.

"Whereas you, Galileo, son of the late Vaincenzo Galilei, Florentine, aged seventy years, were in the year 1615 denounced to this Holy Office for holding as true the false doctrine taught by some that the Sun is the center of the world and immovable and that the Earth moves, and also with a diurnal motion; for having disciples to whom you taught the same doctrine; for holding correspondence with certain mathematicians of Germany concerning the same; for having printed certain letters, entitled "On the Sunspots," wherein you developed the same doctrine as true; and for replying to the objections from the Holy Scriptures, which from time to time were urged against it, by glossing the said Scriptures according to your own meaning: and whereas there was thereupon produced the copy of a document in the form of a letter, purporting to be written by you to one formerly your disciple, and in this divers propositions are set forth, following the position of Copernicus, which are contrary to the true sense and authority of Holy Scripture: This Holy Tribunal being therefore of intention to proceed against the disorder and mischief thence resulting, which went on increasing to the prejudice of the Holy Faith, by command of His Holiness and of the Most Eminent Lords Cardinals of this supreme and universal Inquisition, the two propositions of the stability of the Sun and the motion of the Earth were by the theological Qualifiers qualified as follows: The proposition that the Sun is the center of the world and does not move from its place is absurd and false philosophically and formally heretical, because it is expressly contrary to Holy Scripture. The proposition that the Earth is not the center of the world and immovable but that it moves, and also with a diurnal motion, is equally absurd and false philosophically and theologically considered at least erroneous in faith. "

Papal Condemnation (Sentence) of Galileo
By Professor Douglas O. Linder
http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/galileo/condemnation.html

[Note, the site which labels this condemnation as papal is not a Catholic one.]

Oh, as to the aether, Michelson/Morley, Michelson/Gale and Sagnac prove it's existence, as well as disproving that the Earth is moving in the way necessary to be orbiting the Sun, but show that there is relative movement to show a diurnal rotation. That meets the requirements of the Neo-Tychonic geocentric model and falsifies the heliocentric one.

Stefan Schwarz

Scripture's Inerrancy is a matter of faith.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Antonio Antranik "Where does it say that the stars and other planets in the solar system stood still?"

It says Sun and Moon did so - after Joshua ordering Sun and Moon to stand still, not ordering Earth to stop turn.

"All that would be necessary for God to freeze the sun and the moon (and everything else) be to suspend the laws of physics and freeze time for the closed volume system of the earth and the moon."

Here you talk of Sun and Moon freezing - correctly.

BUT you are not dealing with the fact that it was Sun and Moon which stopped, not JUST phenomenologically, but also after THEY had been given a miraculous command.

Hence the attention to verse 12, which you neglected.

"That does not prove the sun and/or stars revolve around the earth."

If Earth is usually rotating, one of three:

• Joshua should have told Earth to stop rotating;
• OR Joshua's words should not be immediately followed by the miracle;
• OR God is a deceiver.

Supposing Christopher Columbus had prayed "God, bring us to China now", and they had been miraculously brought to America, God would have been fooling Christopher Columbus that America was China.

As there was no miracle per se and he had prayed less specifically for "land", there was no deception on the Columbus case.

How do you as a Heliocentric (or at least Turning-Earthist) argue that God was not deceiving by Joshua's miracle?

Antonio Antranik "As for what the Church Fathers may have said, none of them"

Individually is ....

"are infallible in anything"

However, they are collectively so.

Bring up one Church Father on your side, a canonised saint, and the consensus for Geocentrism is broken, you are free to be Heliocentric.

"and not even the Pope is infallible in matters of natural science,"

Unless they are also matters of faith and morals, like being contained in the Bible.

"but only in FAITH and MORALS."

That does not exclude all matters of natural science, but only those that the Bible does not touch on and which have no moral implication.

Heath Wilson As to "Papal condemnation of 1633" that is a title given by the university, which is not a Catholic one.

Some Heliocentrics could argue it was only an Inquisitional condemnation.

However, I am not sure Pius VII signed the sentence in the Anfossi case either, so that could cut both ways.

Or my memory could be lousy. I remember there was SOMETHING about Pius VII's presence or absence, but not exactly what.

Antonio Antranik

You really are an idiot. What did the ancient Israelites know about astronomy? For all they knew the sun and everything else revolved around the earth and they had no concept of physics or chemistry or the masses and distances involved and there was no point in God trying to teach them about it. The only thing that mattered (and still matters) is that God created everything, heaven and earth and the whole universe. How He did it and how He made it work and how He maintains it and all the details of physics and chemistry etc. are not the subject of the Scriptures. Once in a while He did give them some engineering instructions like how to build the Ark and how to build the Temple, but He also didn't give them a lecture series on Statics or Mechanics of Materials or Civil Engineering, but just said "build it this way" and the builders knew they could trust in the Lord's design.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"What did the ancient Israelites know about astronomy?"

They had been 40 years in the desert. Doing very little work with their hands, collecting manna was not a chore and their clothes were miraculously kept intact, so there was no mending clothes either.

God knew perfectly well that He was going to make that miracle and gave them no indication that geocentrism was not the rule.

"For all they knew the sun and everything else revolved around the earth"

Indeed, for all that mankind knows, most of it, for most of the time. You are putting modern science in a VERY privileged position, compared to the rest of mankind.

"and they had no concept of physics or chemistry"

Because they were not Heliocentrics?

"or the masses and distances involved"

As if these were very relevant to the point?

"and there was no point in God trying to teach them about it."

God very well knew He was going to make that miracle.

God also knew that Joshua's words were going to produce it.

God could either have given them some hint of Heliocentrism, or inspired Joshua to speak somewhat differently.

[Supposing Heliocentrism had been true, of course.]

Some would say that Joshua's words tell Sun and Moon to stay on relative positions, which is fulfilled even it if it is Earth which stops turning. I'd answer that even so, he directed the words to Sun and Moon, not to Earth.

BBL.

Antonio Antranik

Christ did not come down from heaven to teach astrophysics or any kind of natural science, so anyone trying to claim that the Church is infalible in matters of anything other than FAITH and MORALS is a heretic, and anyone claiming that natural science is a part of FAITH is exceeding their authority. Where are the huge horse-shaped locusts with women's hair and lion's teeth and scorpion's tails that St. John spoke about in the Apocalypse? Where is the sea of glass? Have you seen any lion-headed horses? Have you ever seen a woman clothed in the sun? Where in Scripture does it say that the woman clothed in the sun is revolving around the earth? Do you not understand that these are all metaphors? Since the Woman clothed in the sun is the Blessed Virgin Mary, how is it that she could appear to St. Bernadette and the Famita children etc. without her solar clothes vaporizing the whole earth?

Modern science and engineering allows man to know more about the physical nature of the universe, just like modern optometry allows people with myopia and astigmatism to see.

Adam and Eve were naked, so God sacrificed a couple animals and took their skins to clothe Adam and Eve. He did not teach them mechanical and electrical engineering so they could build sewing machines to make garments for themselves.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"Christ did not come down from heaven to teach astrophysics or any kind of natural science, so anyone trying to claim that the Church is infalible in matters of anything other than FAITH and MORALS is a heretic,"

False, unless by "anything other" you mean anything other *and unrelated.*

Astronomy, including horoscopes, was also not a thing He came down to teach.

Even so, we must believe Jacob was holding the heel of Esau when both came out of the womb, and therefore had the same horoscope. As St Augustine specifies.

This is not inerrant truth because horoscopes are one subject on which God inspired the Bible, per se, but because the birth of Jacob and Esau is an inerrant part of the Biblical story and therefore related to the "qui locutus est per prophetas" which includes Moses.

God also wanted to shed a light on the fact that horoscopes, no matter how well documented they are by astronomic observation, have little to do with character and nothing to do with ultimate fate.

" and anyone claiming that natural science is a part of FAITH is exceeding their authority."

Natural science systematically is not part of the faith.

Things which pertain for one reason to natural science may however for another reason pertain to the faith, this is NOT heretical.

In such cases, the supernatural aspect takes precedence over the natural one, precisely as in what in politics are called "materiae mixtae".

"Where are the huge horse-shaped locusts with women's hair and lion's teeth and scorpion's tails that St. John spoke about in the Apocalypse?"

Possibly seen in recent wars. A chopper looks like a locust with a scorpion tail.

If not, there may well be upcoming monsters too.

"Where is the sea of glass?"

In the future after Doomsday, unless the aether should have been so described.

"Have you seen any lion-headed horses?"

Don't know exactly what you are talking about.

[Unless he was again talking of horseshaped locusts, rather than horses properly speaking.]

"Have you ever seen a woman clothed in the sun?"

That horoscope will however be upcoming this year, I think 22 September. Also, due to modern technology, it will be able to be observed, even if otherwise the Sun would be hiding the stars of Virgo.

"Where in Scripture does it say that the woman clothed in the sun is revolving around the earth?"

No need, if other passages, such as Joshua DO indicate it. Once again, if verse 13 could be narrator adressing things as they were seen (phenomenological language), this does not cover Joshua's words in verse 12.

"Do you not understand that these are all metaphors?"

Not just, they are descriptions of symbolic objects. And constellation Virgo will be showing forth symbolically a constellation (with nine fix stars of Leo together with three planets making a crown this year) which will honour Our Lady a little before 100th anniversary of Fatima.

Besides, Joshua is a historic book and not a prophetic one.

"Since the Woman clothed in the sun is the Blessed Virgin Mary, how is it that she could appear to St. Bernadette and the Famita children etc. without her solar clothes vaporizing the whole earth?"

The constellation Virgo as she will appear later this year was not so approaching the children. Virgo's being clothed in the Sun represents Our Lady being clothed in the Justice of Her Son, who is the Sun of Justice.

"Modern science and engineering allows man to know more about the physical nature of the universe, just like modern optometry allows people with myopia and astigmatism to see."

Correct for engineering and instruments of observation, as also for observations.

[At least if medieval counts as modern : glasses were invented then. By, you have guessed it, some geocentric.]

NOT correct for all its modes of concluding.

"Adam and Eve were naked, so God sacrificed a couple animals and took their skins to clothe Adam and Eve. He did not teach them mechanical and electrical engineering so they could build sewing machines to make garments for themselves."

Nor does the science of sewing machines constitute any matter of dispute between Literalists and Antiliteralists.

Catching up where I left off before:

"The only thing that mattered (and still matters) is that God created everything, heaven and earth and the whole universe. How He did it and how He made it work and how He maintains it and all the details of physics and chemistry etc. are not the subject of the Scriptures."

Check out the distinction in St Thomas between primary and secondary objects of faith.

"Once in a while He did give them some engineering instructions like how to build the Ark and how to build the Temple, but He also didn't give them a lecture series on Statics or Mechanics of Materials or Civil Engineering, but just said "build it this way" and the builders knew they could trust in the Lord's design."

AND they were good enough at physics and chemistry to actually be able to use the instructions.

Debating with Antonio Antranik on Aether

1) Debating with Antonio Antranik on Aether · 1b) Appendix on Aether · 2) With Antonio Antranik on Scope of Biblical Inerrance and Patristic Collective Infallibility · 3) More on Biblical Inerrance - Featuring Apocalypse

Subthread

under another thread.

Antonio Antranik

Why don't you just take a rocket trip up into outer space and gaze down at the earth and report what you see, whether the earth is revolving around the sun or the other way around?

Alex Naszados

Because you can only see relative motion. There is no way to determine if the observer is at rest or moving relative to one or both of the bodies. For example, if the universe is revolving around Earth (and the Sun with it), an observer within that space would feel he is observing a spinning Earth.

Antonio Antranik

All you need to do is go up to a fixed location half way between the earth and the sun and where the stars don't revolve around your spaceship and your position is fixed relative to all the stars 360° in all planes and just observe what the sun and the earth do. If the sun changes its position and ends up on the other side of the earth in 12 hours. Simple.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Unless your fixed location is moving with the same aether which is also moving the Sun Westward, as God turns the Universe around us.

Antonio Antranik

If such objects that far away had that much angular velocity they would fly off far away to the point where they would not be seen anymore.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Angular velocity is calculated in relation to aether not empty space, could that be a solution?

Antonio Antranik

Wrong. It would be observed in relation to the earth. 360°/24hrs = 15°/hr

Hans-Georg Lundahl

It is observed as universe rotating around us.

Antonio Antranik

That's exactly what I said, for you mathematically illiterate morons.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I think you got me wrong.

Angular velocity of objects would be that of 15°/h, except that it is aether which has that angular velocity and the objects are next to still in relation to this aether.

We do see the universe revolving around us by 15°/h, and we also know there is no physical strain on the objects from that (as well as geostationary satellites functioning), ergo, there is an aether moving westward.

How is that mathematically illiterate?

Antonio Antranik

Ether? Have you ever seen ether? Have you touched it with your hands? Have you breathed it in?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I have just concluded it from two observations:

• we see objects moving spatially:
• we know they are not moving physically in relation to whatever is physically relevant at that speed:

ERGO there is aether.

Antonio Antranik

hahahaha you concluded it. Well I concluded that you are as stupid as those who believe in evolutionism.

Antonio Antranik

Without obtaining the necessary evidence you make conclusions. Rash judgement by any other name.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

At least I differ from them in not believing evolutionism.

I differ from you in taking Joshua 10:12-13 as Church Fathers took it.

Pay special attention to verse 12, please!

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I don't know what you mean by "necessary evidence", I am using the available data to their best.

Stefan Schwarz

How would you know if you are staying still Antonio Antranik?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Stefan Schwarz - I presume he would conclude it from absence of aether and from objects otherwise flying apart?