Was St Augustine against Literalism?

This quote - ironically - comes via No Answers in Genesis:

It is also frequently asked what our belief must be about the form and shape of heaven according to Sacred Scripture. Many scholars engage in lengthy discussions on these matters, but the sacred writers with their deeper wisdom have omitted them. Such subjects are of no profit for those who seek beatitude, and, what is worse, they take up very precious time that ought to be given to what is spiritually beneficial.

What concern is it of mine whether heaven is like a sphere and the earth is enclosed by it and suspended in the middle of the universe, or whether heaven like a disk above the earth covers it over on one side?

But the credibility of Scripture is at stake, and as I have indicated more than once, there is danger that a man uninstructed in divine revelation, discovering something in Scripture or hearing from it something that seems to be at variance with the knowledge he has acquired, may resolutely withhold his assent in other matters where Scripture presents useful admonitions, narratives, or declarations. Hence, I must say briefly that in the matter of the shape of heaven the sacred writers knew the truth, but that the Spirit of God, who spoke through them, did not wish to teach men these facts that would be of no avail for their salvation.

But someone may ask: "Is not Scripture opposed to those who hold that heaven is spherical, when it says, 'who stretches out heaven like a skin?' " Let it be opposed indeed if their statement is false. The truth is rather in what God reveals than in what groping men surmise. But if they are able to establish their doctrine with proofs that cannot be denied, we must show that this statement of Scripture about the skin is not opposed to the truth of their conclusions. If it were, it would be opposed also to Sacred Scripture itself in another passage where it says that heaven is suspended like a vault.

For what can be so different and contradictory as a skin stretched out flat and the curved shape of a vault? But if it is necessary, as it surely is, to interpret these two passages so that they are shown not to be contradictory but to be reconcilable, it is also necessary that both of these passages should not contradict the theories that may be supported by true evidence, by which heaven is said to be curved on all sides in the shape of a sphere, provided only that this is proved.

Our picture of heaven as a vault, even when taken in a literal sense, does not contradict the theory that heaven is a sphere. We may well believe that in speaking of the shape of heaven Scripture wished to describe that part which is over our heads. If, therefore, it is not a sphere, it is a vault on that side on which it covers the earth; but if it is a sphere, it is a vault all around.

But the image of the skin presents a more serious difficulty: we must show that it is reconcilable not with the sphere (for that may be only a man-made theory) but with the vault of Holy Scripture.

My allegorical interpretation of this passage can be found in the thirteenth book of my Confessions. Whether the description of heaven stretched out like a skin is to be taken as I have interpreted it there or in some other way, here I must take into account the doggedly literal-minded interpreters and say what I think is obvious to everyone from the testimony of the senses.

Both the skin and the vault perhaps can be taken as figurative expressions; but how they are to be understood in a literal sense must be explained. If a vault can be not only curved but also flat, a skin surely can be stretched out not only on a flat plane but also in a spherical shape. Thus, for instance, a leather bottle and an inflated ball are both made of skin.

Here is how they used it:

From the way Augustine responds to various questions which have been put forward, there is a clear implication that many people in his day (around AD 400) thought that not only the earth but also the heavens were flat.

What the guys at "No Answers in Genesis" fail to grasp is the distinction between thinking something is literally in the Bible and knowing for sure it is.

When St Augustine argues the heavens are a sphere (which as for fix stars modern cosmologists are basically denying, based on taking so called parallax as really parallactic and therefore as a real trigonometric distance measure, thereby making the heavens of the fixed stars very much less like the inside of a spheric tent), he takes very good care to at the same time carefully show he is not contradicting the literal meaning of the Bible. The word "flat" is not there in the text when God stretches out the Heavens as "a skin" (or a tent). And it is not implied by the stretching out either:

If a vault can be not only curved but also flat, a skin surely can be stretched out not only on a flat plane but also in a spherical shape. Thus, for instance, a leather bottle and an inflated ball are both made of skin.

Why does he say this? Because he really thinks it is literally true that Heaven is like a vault and like a skin stretched out.

Our picture of heaven as a vault, even when taken in a literal sense, does not contradict the theory that heaven is a sphere. We may well believe that in speaking of the shape of heaven Scripture wished to describe that part which is over our heads. If, therefore, it is not a sphere, it is a vault on that side on which it covers the earth; but if it is a sphere, it is a vault all around.

But the image of the skin presents a more serious difficulty: we must show that it is reconcilable not with the sphere (for that may be only a man-made theory) but with the vault of Holy Scripture.

My allegorical interpretation of this passage can be found in the thirteenth book of my Confessions. Whether the description of heaven stretched out like a skin is to be taken as I have interpreted it there or in some other way, here I must take into account the doggedly literal-minded interpreters and say what I think is obvious to everyone from the testimony of the senses.

He does not discard the doggedly literal-minded interpreters as totally mistaken about Scripture. He thinks he has to take them into account. And if he corrects them, it is not by contradicting the literal sense of the Bible, but by correcting their "literal" interpretation. And he does not do it from "man made theories" but from "what is obvious to everyone from the testimony of the senses."

We do not have an obvious testimony of the senses that such a T Rex head in a museum is 65 million years old and more. We have an obvious testimony of the senses it is there and it is dead, if ever it was alive. And a somewhat less obvious testimony it was in fact alive. We do not have an obvious testimony of the senses that Earth is moving around itself or through space. We have an obvious testimony from sight and inner ears Earth is still and from sight that Sun and Moon and Stars are moving. Both these modern theories are - like the spheric heavens St Augustine was considering - "man made theories" and interpretations of the obvious testimonies of the senses.

But the obvious testimony of the senses he was putting in is that a skin stretched out need not be stretched out flat on a flat surface. Meaning that God stretching out Heavens like a skin need not mean that Heavens are flat.

Now, is Adam and Eve literally in the Bible? And literally on day six rather than after millions or billions of years of other creatures? Yes. Is this confirmed by God? Yes, in the very words of Our Lord, those that have become so very reactualised by the debate in US and French legislation about the nature of Marriage. Marc 10:6. And similarily Earth standing still and Sun getting around it is literally in the words of one whom St Robert Bellarmine considered too wise to state anything that could be refuted. King Solomon.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St Jude
28-X-2013

PS, for those eager to read the very famous StAugustine quote they also cite in context, here is Book one of De Genesi ad Litteram:

Book I, the Work of the First Day (excerpt from translation by John Hammond Taylor S. J.)

Linking to an Interesting Claim about Birds Found with Dinosaurs

CMI : Modern birds found with dinosaurs
by Don Batten
http://creation.com/modern-birds-with-dinosaurs

Discussing a sign in a museum:

Sign at the American Museum of Natural History, 2011. Contrary to the sign, Dr Werner discovered that many types of birds have been found with dinosaurs including ducks, loons, flamingos, albatross, owls, penguins, sandpipers, parrots, cormorants, avocets, as well as extinct birds such as Mononykus, Archaeopteryx and Hesperornis. While these extinct birds did have teeth, many other modern types of birds without teeth have been found. By leaving this fact out, the museum display misleads the public.

Click link above for more!

Would finding Atlantis disprove the Flood of Noah?

1) somewhere else : Would "Finding Extraterrestrials" Disprove Christianity?, 2) Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : I am not a believer in Hörbiger, 3) Creation vs. Evolution : Would finding Atlantis disprove the Flood of Noah?

Brief answer: no.

Longer answer: some people have said - notably Ignatius Donnelly and a lot of people following him - that the deluge sinking Atlantis was the real story of which the Flood of Noah is just a bad version. But the problem with this view is the stories can be related as one being true and another being a bad version of same event - while they can also be read as both being fairly true accounts of different events.

If Atlantis Sinking is the same event as Noah's Flood one of the versions must be bad, and I have no doubt that in that case it is the Atlantis one which is bad. I mean, Gladstone could go off on a rant against the Pope basically because Pius IX had been saying "one must obey God more than men" a few times over in the Syllabus of errors, and that man (capable of accusing Rome of threateneing with slavery of conscience!) could write to Donnelly and tell him he agreed with him! Spiritually speaking that is not a recommendation at all.

However, should Atlantis ever be found, we would then be able to rule out Atlantis Sinking was a bad version of Noah's Flood. We would not be able to establish Noah's Flood was a bad version of Atlantis Sinking. Because we would not be able to rule out the following scenarios:

• 1) Atlantis Sinking happened before the Flood of Noah. Perhaps at the death of Methuselah, which according to Septuagint was 17 years before the Flood of Noah (his name meant something like "his death shall bring judgement", but that would also otherwise be true since 17 years of a lapse between his death and the Flood are not too much). In that case there would not be any meaning to talk about an Atlantean race at all, since if any Atlantean at all survived the following Deluge it was on the Boat called Arc, and thus all men descend from Atlanteans - or if no Atlanteans were on the Arc, no men descend from Atlanteans. In that case also the giants and other men who would not believe Noah were extra stupid in not believing the Flood as they had had a foretaste of it when receving refugees from Atlantis.
• 2) Atlantis Sinking was part of the Flood of Noah. In that case too either all or no men are Atlanteans. Even if only one of Noah's daughters in law was from Atlantis (this applies to previous one as well), not only would her sons with one of Noah's sons be Atlantean origin, but also a few of Noah's grandsons through the other sons as well, through her daughters.
• 3) Atlantis Sinking happened after the Flood. God had promised Noah never again to wipe out the whole Earth with water, but Atlantis Sinking was not the whole earth. Precisely as if Ireland would sink (St Patrick obtained a promise this would happen 7 years before the World ends, so as to spare the Irish the Tribulation) this would also not be in any way contrary to God's promise to Noah. In this case, Atlantis could have left racial particularities where survivors landed. But there would be nothing especially salvific in belonging to such a race, and nothing especially spiritual about it, unless it were in a culture that remembered the disaster and tried to repent from the pride that was provoking such a secondary deluge. It could however have been of merely technological importance or civilisational, but in such a role I prefer the Sinear remnants of post-Babel civilisation.

I am sure Noah's Flood and Sodom and Gomorrah's Fire and Brimstone were not the only disasters of a punitive kind. In Bretagne the Catholics record the Island of Ys - sunk like a "very small Atlantis." In Austria or rather Tyrolia (up to 1918 that counted - including what is now Alto Adige to Italian administration - as a possession of the Habsburgs separate from Austria properly speaking) a city vanished under snow and ice which is called Tanneneh ... precisely because of pride and of arrogance to the poor.

Let us now suppose Atlantis did not exist. So far people have been searching but little has been found. Not nothing, but not sufficient to absolutely establish Atlantis either. How did the story then originate?

According to Athenians gossiping when Plato may have heard it - I just heard this charming theory or guess of Plato hearing it as a boy when Socrates was not his "master" as Jesus of the Twelve but rather simply houseteacher - it had been told by Solon a generation or two earlier by an Egyptian priest.

And where did the Egyptian priest get his story from? A long series of Egyptian priests confiding this secret only to very chosen initiates up to the day when a simple Greek called Solon was finally found worthy? Not ... so ... fast. That kind of information road is precisely very prone to interpolations. Or even downright inventions. If all previous steps of a tradition were secret, who can check out if it has been faithfully followed? Michael Heiser has said the Sumerian tablets were in fact very variable about the very same myths (not just period after period but even between different temples at same period, depending no dbout on which divinity one wanted to flatter) ... I have no reason to believe Egyptian ones were more uniform and scrupulously faithful to established and handed down truth.

Solon was told the Atlantis story with a certain twist. Atlanteans tried to invade the rest of the world. Athens stood in the way and actually stopped them. Then Atlantis sunk and Athenians sunk too, and today's Athenians (up to Solon's day that is) are Barbarians who know nothing about it ...

Sure, the last twist to this reminds me of how the Nine Muses talked to a shepherd named Hesiod. Like intimidating in an insulting way just to make him feel they knew better than he. And that fits extremely well with them starting off by singing hymns among others to "Kronos of the crooked mind", i e to Satan, I have very little doubt. Same attitude taken by the Egyptian priest to Solon. Same attitude taken by Hindoos and Blavatskians and Freemasons today to anyone they like to initiate. Not really something that raises my confidence.

It nearly puts me off as much as when I learned the descriptions of Vimana's as things able to fly and to be manned by men were not at all from Mahabharata but from a text "channelled" to one Hindoo in about 1920. As much confidence as one South African archaeologist getting sessions in his channelling with "Enki himself" ... or Cayce. Much as I like Atlantis lore, I am simply not a willing dupe to that kind of sources. Vade retro Satanas!

But the Atlantis story has another characteristic as told to Solon. The Egyptian priest set "prehistoric Athens" (Athens before the current memory of Athenians) in a role against Atlantis that Athens would soon have for real against Persia at Salamis and Marathon and Sparta against Persia at Thermopylae. He may very simply have been resenting the Persian overlordship over Egypt and trying to get Greek help against Persia. And the Ptolemys up to Cleopatra were the ultimate answer.

To return to its relation of similarity to the Flood of Noah, I have a kind of gut feeling that certain civilisations were very willing to forget the Flood very quickly and if not able to do it totally, of minimising the Flood. Reducing it in one Egyptian case to the deluge of only Atlantis - and in one Hindoo case (Mahabharata and Puranas) to the deluge of one sole city predicted by Krishna. This is why I am certainly interested if submarine archaeologists get something West of the Azores (and East of America) that looks like a city, but I am not exactly holding my breath for it.

China, India (with its Buddhist outposts in Tibet), Egypt are the ones prone to Flood denialism. Or Flood minimalising. They share a characteristic with Sumeria or Sinear which was too close to the Arc for that kind of thing (though they shortened the Deluge very much): extremely much longer ages than Biblical chronology. Nearly all other Paganisms have rather a shorter chronology. Greece and Rome, Norse Mythology, Irish starting with Partholan just before the Flood, and for that matter, Hindoo myths like Mahabharata rather than Hindoo dry chronologies tend to be at a date just before the Flood, Japanese mythology leaves out the creation of the world and starts with the creation of Japan, not so much earlier than Christ ...

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Bpi, Georges Pompidou
Sunday
20-X-2013

What was Wrong with Ussher?

Commenting on quotes from:

Appendix B—The Forgotten Archbishop

In 1625, he was appointed Archbishop of Armagh, which was the highest position in the Irish Anglican Church.

Anglican? Big mistake number one.

That "Church" got its 39 Articles confirmed by a Secular Popess named Elisabeth Boleyn or "Tudor". She had six fingers and probably six toes. She employed Magicians like John Dee and Edward Kelley, pirates like Francis Drake and even Protestant Reformers like Matthew Parker.

Let us remain a bit with Matthew Parker. A man able to deduce from Ælfric's near verbal quote from St John Chrysostom that - very unlike same St John Chrysostom as we know him from other contexts, including the Orthodox doctrine upheld at Jerusalem and Iasi or details about the veneration due to the Blessed Sacrament even after reception - said Ælfric did not believe in Transsubstantiation or True Presence. And so the True Presence was not affirmed in the 39 Articles, and Ussher subscribed to them. And he allowed himself to be appointed even Archbishop within the Ecclesiastic Body that subscribed to them.

However, Cromwell, who headed the rebellion, held him in great esteem. When Ussher died, Cromwell held a magnificent funeral for him and had him buried in Westminster Abbey.

Getting honoured by Cromwell, possibly a big mistake number two. I mean, would any sane Catholic want to be honoured by the man who for Catholics had the plan "to Hell or Connaught"? Of course, Ussher being as said an Anglican was not a sane Catholic ...

I say this was just possibly a big mistake number two because:

He was critical of the rebellion against Charles the first.

Maybe it was then not his fault he was honoured by Cromwell? God may have mercy on people who get honours tacked to their back that they should not have. Especially if they do not really want them! Anyone agree the Donkey Puzzle had no reason to despair (Last Battle)?

Now, there was arguably another mistake in what he is nowadays most known for. But it is not all of what he is most known for that is mistaken.

If as he thought Adam was 130 years when Seth was born, you add up early lives of Adam, Seth, Enosh to get 325 when Cainaan was born: 130, 105, 90.

He should obviously have added up 230, 205 and 190, as did Josephus and St Jerome. Cainaan was born in 625 Anno Mundi.

But that comes from downplaying the Septuagint:

An expert in Semitic languages, he argued for the reliability of the Hebrew text of the Old Testament and wrote widely on Christianity in Asia, and other Bible-related topics.

Now, apart from the text he chose, his method was not bad. St Jerome used exactly that method on the Septuagint text. Josephus for time up to flood uses it too and his text is either the Septuagint or a Hebrew text still agreeing with it.

So, no, Ussher, the world is not 6000 years old, any Catholic can tell you it is 7200 years old.

But that is peanuts compared to being Anglican (and a certain man passing for Pope among certains claims Anglicans need not convert ... I suppose since they are now so Darwinian he means not only do they not need to convert from the faults already Ussher had, but they do not need convert even to the virtues Ussher still was keeping, like Biblical inerrantism ... maybe on the Day of Judgement Ussher's Secular Popes Kings James and Charles will rise up against that man who said Anglicans need not convert).

Meanwhile, I recall another Archbishop ... of Dakar and Tulles. His followers in Rome were trying to give a Former War Criminal a decent burial, but secular "authorities" seem to have stepped in and stopped that. That other Archbishop - who really was one - was not a fan of Evolutionism either, as far as I have been able to verify. He was certainly no fan of Teilhard de Chardin. And he told Anglicans that they do need to convert.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Bpi, Georges Pompidou
St Luke the Gospeller
18-X-2013

Whose assumptions are best or least well proven?

1) Creation vs Evolution : Heard of Libby Anne? , 2) Did Libby Anne misunderstand at least Something about Young Earth Creationism? Or: Why don't they teach logic in these schools?! 3) Further Faulty Logic in Craig A. James's "refutation of a dialogue" 4) Stupid Word Game, Craig A. James? 5) Whose assumptions are best or least well proven? 6) Somewhere else : Is the Genesis "the Basis of the Whole Bible" or are there others? 7) Great Bishop of Geneva! : How is Chick erroneous about where we got the Bible from? 8) Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : ... to Hitchens on Revelation, Decalogue and Evidence for Moses. 9) Correspondence de / of / van Hans-Georg Lundahl : Notifying Craig A. James of a refutation of his refutation ...

List of "unproven assumptions" of Georgia Purdom's (PhD Molecular Biology) position, according to an Atheist critic:*


1) God exists
2) Communication between God and man can occur
3) Such communication has occurred

Your "honour," number 3 is not an assumption, it is historically proven fact and in itself alone proves the other two "unproven assumptions". God's existence would also be very much proven by the fact we have a world unless it were for modern fake science trying to reinterpret the evidence to fit it into an atheistic paradigm. But there is also the evidence from Communication between God and Moses, and from God becoming Man in Bethlehem.

4) God is trustworthy

Considering what He has done, He is. Creating the world, helping Noah's family survive, helping Israelistes out of Egypt, rising from the grave on the Third Day according to Scripture and exposing Old Testament typology for it during forty days to the Apostles all show Him as trustworthy.

Not so with Pagan gods or with the Quranic revelation.

5) That communication occurred with the person(s) writing Genesis.

Moses could not have taken Israel out of Egypt without God. And we have no other traditional authorship for it than Moses.

6) The communication was recorded accurately.

God's responsibility not to waste it on someone who would blast the thing to pieces by inaccuracy. No inaccuracy imaginable about recording could account for mistaking in those cases what was no divine revelation for one.

7) To this day the account remains accurate.

Same response. Both about God's responsibility and this that no inaccuracy imaginable about transmission (in such a well recorded transmission as the Hebrew and Christian one) could account for mistaking in those cases what was no divine revelation for one.

He - the Atheist - then takes the step to impugn St Mark as we have it. He claims Gospel of St Mark was after a few decades contaminated with 12 extra verses.

It is far more probable that the Mark manuscript without them was made for and by unbelievers who did not want the resurrection account.

Like Jews. Laying out evidence about what Christians believed before someone who had already decided that Resurrection is wrong anyway. But who wanted to know details before passing some kind of judgement on the Christians.

You see, there is no ancient Christian community that tells us these 12 verses do not belong there. It is only a modern scholar presuming from one chance manuscript without it being perhaps very little older that they should not be there.

His next question is a bit idiotic.

Assuming the 7 well evidenced so called assumptions, it is obvious that the observation behind certain facts in the Genesis account is God's and not men's.

Furthermore the Atheist claims the Universe looks millions of years older than the Biblical timescale, but that is assuming a lot of unproven assumptions on part of the Atheist.

He might feel he needs no proof as we do, because his assumptions are Atheist and thus "make no remarcable claim."

The remarcable positive claim in these is being able to reconstruct accurately ages never observed by human eyes or processes that happened before there was any rational observer at all on the Atheist view.

And Atheism has no proof for it.

Georgia Purdom's point about Here and Now Science is perfectly clear and consistent. Except insofar as she stamps astronomy as a here-science by stamping it as a here-and-now-science. It is not. Planar astronomy is a science about how stars and heavenly bodies look from either here or close to here. With "star vault" conveniently represented as inner plane of a globe, hence name, whether it is or not.

"Physical astronomy" is in some ways as reconstructive and indirect about the evidence as Paleosciences are. Which is why I reject as unfounded its Heliocentric and even Acentric-Relativistic conclusions.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Bpi, Georges Pompidou
St Dionysius of the Areopagus
Bishop of Paris

PS, he also takes her to task for saying there is no observed mechanism for adding new information. He claims bacteria have been found able to digest materials previous samples of culture could not digest. Problem with this claim is we who are not Molecular Biologists as she is would not know if this is from added genetic information or from loss of genetic information that discriminated against a food source. I was at a talk from a French Evolutionist. He claimed tehre was an island where flies live without wings. I asked whethere there was one were snails grew wings. He had the clarity to take that is a joke. Flies loosing wings is loss of genetic information. Snails gaining them is gain of genetic information. And you see which one of them is the joke.

*All seven taken from the video:

JacobBe5 : Creationists failing at attacking Bill Nye
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrwcnV-d-M4

It quotes small snippets of this one, where I found no Protestant errors and some pretty good sense:

creationmuseum : Bill Nye, Creationism is Highly Appropriate for our Children
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-AyDtD6sPA

Stupid Word Game, Craig A. James?

1) Creation vs Evolution : Heard of Libby Anne? , 2) Did Libby Anne misunderstand at least Something about Young Earth Creationism? Or: Why don't they teach logic in these schools?! 3) Further Faulty Logic in Craig A. James's "refutation of a dialogue" 4) Stupid Word Game, Craig A. James? 5) Whose assumptions are best or least well proven? 6) Somewhere else : Is the Genesis "the Basis of the Whole Bible" or are there others? 7) Great Bishop of Geneva! : How is Chick erroneous about where we got the Bible from? 8) Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : ... to Hitchens on Revelation, Decalogue and Evidence for Moses. 9) Correspondence de / of / van Hans-Georg Lundahl : Notifying Craig A. James of a refutation of his refutation ...

We start off with quotes within the quote from M. Craig A. James who is quoting from the text Atheist Professor - Christian Student.

Student : Professor, is there such a thing as Heat?

Professor: Yes.

Student : And is there such a thing as Cold?

Professor: Yes.

Student : No, sir. There isn't.

(The Lecture Theatre became very quiet with this turn of events )

Student : Sir, you can have Lots of Heat, even More Heat, Superheat, Mega Heat, White Heat, a Little Heat or No Heat. But we don't have anything called Cold. We can hit 458 Degrees below Zero which is No Heat, but we can't go any further after that. There is no such thing as Cold. Cold is only a Word we use to describe the Absence of Heat. We cannot Measure Cold. Heat is Energy. Cold is Not the Opposite of Heat, sir, just the Absence of it.

This is so ridiculous it's embarassing. No professor of philosophy would be tricked by a stupid word game like this.

...

Student : What about Darkness, Professor? Is there such a thing as Darkness?

Professor: Yes. What is Night if there isn't Darkness?

Student : You're wrong again, sir.

Darkness is the Absence of Something. You can have Low Light, Normal Light, Bright Light, Flashing Light ... But if you have No Light constantly, you have nothing and its called Darkness, isn't it? In reality, Darkness isn't. If it is, were you would be able to make Darkness Darker, wouldn't you?

Again, this is the same silly word trick. The author is claiming there is no such thing as darkness. Darkness is merely a subjective, relative term that says, "Insufficient photons are stimulating the retina for this human's present needs."

Replace "darkness" with "emptiness" and see how it sounds. Suppose your coffee cup is empty. Would you say there's no such thing as emptiness because you can't make your coffee cup any emptier than it already is?

Ah, well, now it is time for me to do some response to Craig.

Atheist Professor having posed problem like "did God create Evil". Christian Student answers Evil is not a thing. He parallels with Darkness and Cold. They have no physical existence of their own but are defined as absense or too low presence of the Good Opposites.

Now, Craig A. James considers this a Magic Trick, since they still "exist" - but do they?

Well, no.

An empty mug exists. It may irritate owner by fact of being empty. But its emptiness does not exist. Its emptiness rather occurs. The mug is never really empty, when it is referred to as "empty" it means it is full of air even down to the bottom, usually. Its emptiness consists of absense of a good, specifically a drink (water, wine, tea or coffee ...) its owner would desire there. It is very true its emptiness can irritate. But for all that, it has no positive physical definition. It is not a thing created by God. Oh, God has created air that fills the cup as long as it is empty, but he has for all that not created emptiness as such.

But would not its eternal plenty be as bad or worse? Suppose it was eternally full of wine, God had created mugs that way, once you pour a liquid into them it stays full of that liquid forever.

You take a sip of wine. You put it back on table. Wine level rises to where before. You take another sip. And it is full of wine again. Might be pretty risky to some people? No?

And what if you wanted water? You could never empty the cup, even if you turned it upside down, since once you put it straight up again, the few drops left inside would quickly start filling the mug again. You would need another mug for water. And another one for milk. And another one for tea. And what if you wanted a drink you had given away the mug for? And what if you mixed two liquids that do not go together, like tea and coffee? You would be eternally stuck with the mixture (it is atrocious even to mix them in the stomach, I dare not imagine how it is to the taste!).

I think it is good for us mugs have been created such (in God's plan and man's work) that they can be empty - even if that means they will sometimes be empty when we do not want it.

It is also good for man not to have sympathy with each and every creature solliciting it every time. Otherwise one would so easily be overloaded. So it is good we have the freedom to cut off sympathy (and even an unsympathetic empathy*) when we need. It is not a freedom one should deprive each other of. Or ask God to deprive mankind of either. But this also means we have the freedom to not show sympathy when we actually should.

God has not created Evil, he has created Possibilities, and therefore also the Possibility of each Possibility working out for Evil on some occasion in some aspect. And the Possibility of Evil, unlike Evil, is Good.

Even Physical Evil (i e physical conditions of lower levels of things that comfort us, like life or like coffee, any level of seriousness) is sometimes a Good insofar as it is a Deserved Punishment.**

God sometimes causes Deserved Punishments (collectively or individually deserved, varies), but He never causes Moral Evil. Even if the Deserved Punishment is someone else's Moral Evil, God was not causing it, just using it to punish someone else's Moral Evil.

And Moral Evil is a lack of things in Angelic or Human lives that these angels or humans owe to God. Things that affect God as an empty or dirty or broken cup would affect us. If you want to know what "abhomination" means, imagine a cup that has been standing in the sink for one month (by my laziness I have seen such). Moral Good is what we owe God, either directed to Him or to Ourselves and Our Neighbour (Fellow Man, Fellow Christian) for God's sake.

This is a Christian theory of why there is Evil in a world that God created Very Good. It is very shortened, has not entered into the Historic and Theological Point of how Original Sin (the state we inherit from Adam's Sin) are a Culpability deserving of some Physical Evil, but it has I think made the point that Christian Student was not doing a shuffling of the logic, but rather Craig A. James a shuffling of terminology, confusing "exists and is created" with "occurs" as if everything that occurred would aslo be created rather than sometimes allowed by God, and also confusing "the fact there is evil is evil" with "the possibility of evil" being therefore also evil, as if possibility of one state were not also possibility of opposite and perhaps the only genuine possibility of opposite.

Meaning that Atheist Professor had no real point. And Craig A. James has not given him one. Meaning that Atheism is therefore not another name for thorough logic but for sloppy such.

St Thomas Aquinas has actually also dealt with why there is evil. First briefly in the Question-Article whether God actually exists, Summa Theologica Part I, Q 2, A 3:

Objection 1. It seems that God does not exist; because if one of two contraries be infinite, the other would be altogether destroyed. But the word "God" means that He is infinite goodness. If, therefore, God existed, there would be no evil discoverable; but there is evil in the world. Therefore God does not exist.

...

Reply to Objection 1. As Augustine says (Enchiridion xi): "Since God is the highest good, He would not allow any evil to exist in His works, unless His omnipotence and goodness were such as to bring good even out of evil." This is part of the infinite goodness of God, that He should allow evil to exist, and out of it produce good.

Note the wording "allow evil to exist" - not create it. Evil in angels come in Part I, QQ 63 and 64. Evil in Men is dealt with according to the understanding of the subject in Ist Part of IInd Part (I-II), QQ 71-89. By the way, the passage just quoted would be the case of Atheist Professor along with the response.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St Bridget
of Vadstena
8-X-2013

*Sympathy usually should either be empathetic or have the luck to coincide with what someone's own or someone wiser's sympathetic empathy would be. But empathy on the other hand can be there even if cut off from sympathy. Note that empathy can also be an illusion, one can think one understands someone without actually doing so.

**One can say that it is also part of the testing of those who are elect to glory, but even there there is an element of collective punishment for original sin.

Further Faulty Logic in Craig A. James's "refutation of a dialogue"

1) Creation vs Evolution : Heard of Libby Anne? , 2) Did Libby Anne misunderstand at least Something about Young Earth Creationism? Or: Why don't they teach logic in these schools?! 3) Further Faulty Logic in Craig A. James's "refutation of a dialogue" 4) Stupid Word Game, Craig A. James? 5) Whose assumptions are best or least well proven? 6) Somewhere else : Is the Genesis "the Basis of the Whole Bible" or are there others? 7) Great Bishop of Geneva! : How is Chick erroneous about where we got the Bible from? 8) Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : ... to Hitchens on Revelation, Decalogue and Evidence for Moses. 9) Correspondence de / of / van Hans-Georg Lundahl : Notifying Craig A. James of a refutation of his refutation ...

Actually, as far as I am concerned, it is easier to refute a thesis or an argument than a dialogue, but here goes:

Student : Have you ever observed Evolution with your own eyes, sir? (The Professor shook his head with a Smile, beginning to realize where the Argument was going )

Another subtle trick: the student says, "with your own eyes." Scientists use all sorts of instruments to extend our senses. You can't see sunspots "with your own eyes" because your eyes can't look at the sun. But does anyone not believe in sunspots? Or bacteria, viruses, supernova, radio waves, protons and electrons? It's ridiculous.

From Refuting the Atheist Professor vs the Christian Student
http://religionvirus.blogspot.fr/2011/07/refuting-atheist-professor-vs-christian.html

I cannot see my eyes or mouth with my own eyes without a mirror. And we can agree a mirror is an extension of one's own eyes.

However, in the enumeration there are things which are indeed visible in the usual sense, though not to one's own eyes and perhaps not to any human eyes at all without certain extensions.

To see sunspots one needs to magnify the angle of sight dedicated to the sun (by a telescope) and to dim the light (by some filter) so as not to damage the eyes.

To see bacteria, one needs to magnify the angle of sight dedicated to a bacterium (by a microscope) and perhaps to colour them so they stick out better from the background.

Supernovas are events. One may be divided on what they mean, but they are events. And visible through telescopes.

But now we come to another part of the list of Craig A. James:

"radio waves, protons and electrons? It's ridiculous."

None of these are actually seen by merely manipulating light so as to extend one's eyesight range.

Protons are I think not even seen as bulbs in the nucleus when using electronic microscopy. The one kind of bulbs that does reveal is probably (if theory is correct) the very fast spinning of electrons around nuclei.

And as electronic microscopy uses electrons to see things, obviously even if that is really what it is using they cannot be seen by it, just as you cannot see photons by shining light on them.

Same thing applies to radio waves, no one ever saw one. Using them and observing them is not same thing.

The point is thus not empiricism vs faith alone. The point is that empiric knowledge (or what is currently portrayed as such, for that matter) is not restricted to what can be directly observed by the five senses.

And that is where the Atheistic Professor in question betrayed his ignorance of how Science really works. An ignorance which Christian Student was trying to reveal by a perfectly legitimate reductio ad absurdum of his first formulation of his position. Of course, the Atheistic Professor could have reformulated and said "OK, empiric knowledge also includes valid conclusions from what is seen, heard, etc". but then the Christian Student could have as well answered "how do you know Evolution is and God is not a valid conclusion?"

You see, proving God exists (or "someone with the same skillset" not defining which religion it is the God of) is perhaps even easier than proving electrons exist. Electrons and protons and so on are models about why the atoms we can see that molecules are made up of (in electronic microscopy, if we trust it) have the different atom weights and their different combination possibilities and these functioning on basis of whole number ratios between atom numbers ... but as far as I know one has not been making up loads and loads of other models trying to fit them into the evidence here relevant and then ruling them out one by one.

By contrast, when St Thomas Aquinas proves God exists, he is not content with the Five Ways, he also says they prove there is a "first unmoved mover which everyone calls God" and the other four ("first" not as in temporally first or earliest but as in causally first simultaneously, quite distinct from "if there was a big bang there must be a big banger" some have paraphrased it with), he then goes on for a lot of further Quaestiones to test different models of what God could be. Ruling them out one by one. Can God be all the matter of the universe? Can God be the soul of all the universe relating to it as soul to body? Can God be material himself but mightier than the matter over which He is God? No, no, no. And St Thomas does not just say "no, no, no" but he proves there is something at least very problematic about each such model.

He then goes further and asks whether the Christian God specifically the bit about Holy Trinity fits or does not fit the God that natural philosophy gives us evidence for. Only after that does he get into the question about creation - what kind of divine act it is and only after that does he get into the Biblical account of it.

How long does all of this take? In Question I he is asking whether the Bible (or if you like Bible and Tradition) is needed on top of all human sciences. Affirmative. But when he gets back to the Biblical account of the stages of creation he has used so many Questions the way I just outlined that the one about Day four is Question 70. And each Question is very typically subdivided into more than one Article (the Five Ways are given in Part I Question 2 Article 3 - easy enough to remember - and furthermore in "corpus" of article as opposed to objections part and answers to objection part).

I do not think that Einstein or Planck did such a thorough job of thinking it through. They certainly had access to more observation than St Thomas had (he never looked into a telescope) and they certainly used more advanced mathematics for their models than he did. (How do you mathematicalise Infinity? St Thomas answers that properly speaking you don't, when mathematicians speak of "infinity" in mathematical contexts, they do not really mean it, so when Theologians and Philosophers speak about Infinity of God, they do not mathematicalise it). But any mathematic conclusion does not only depend on how well you do the mathematics, but also how well what you count about fits how you count it. The one time a student failed to get a maths problem in my very short teaching carreer, he had simply set up the wrong calculations that did not fit the problem of applied mathematics.

So, if the Atheistic Professor ever had admitted that Scientific knowledge is not just five senses with content, but also valid conclusions from such (including from the fact we can reason about their content), he would not have been in any logical position at all to state brazenly "evolution is proven and God is not a scientific concept" at all, and the Christian Student could very easily have shown so.

One little Red Herring to possibly clear up: the terms macroevolution and microevolution are not the distinction between evolution on macroscopic and microscopic level. What creationists used to call microevolution (the community is starting to abandon the terminology I heard) is indeed observed on both macroscopic and microscopic level. What creationists used to call macroevolution is however neither observed on macroscopic nor on microscopic level. It is the extrapolation from observed microevolution in the microdifferential and microtemporal perspective into a macrodifferential and macrotemporal perspective. You know the famous extrapolation "a million generations" - which are of course not observed ones.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Bpi, Georges Pompidou
St Bruno, Hermit
6-X-2013

Did Libby Anne misunderstand at least Something about Young Earth Creationism? Or: Why don't they teach logic in these schools?!

1) Creation vs Evolution : Heard of Libby Anne? , 2) Did Libby Anne misunderstand at least Something about Young Earth Creationism? Or: Why don't they teach logic in these schools?! 3) Further Faulty Logic in Craig A. James's "refutation of a dialogue" 4) Stupid Word Game, Craig A. James? 5) Whose assumptions are best or least well proven? 6) Somewhere else : Is the Genesis "the Basis of the Whole Bible" or are there others? 7) Great Bishop of Geneva! : How is Chick erroneous about where we got the Bible from? 8) Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : ... to Hitchens on Revelation, Decalogue and Evidence for Moses. 9) Correspondence de / of / van Hans-Georg Lundahl : Notifying Craig A. James of a refutation of his refutation ...

It seems to me that I was taught it sort of like a circle. We know creationism is true because the Bible says it, yes, but the scientific truth of creationism in turn confirms the Bible and proves we can trust it.

From: Rebutting Ken Ham’s Response
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2012/05/rebutting-ken-hams-response.html

What she did most probably misunderstand was when circularity is bad in logic. Or rather, what kind of circularity constitutes a vicious circle.

We know creationism is true because the Bible says it

And because science fails to demonstrate the opposite and sometimes also demonstrates for instance a young earth (salt of seas, remember) or impossibility of mammalian evolution from common ancestor considering chromosome numbers.

yes, but the scientific truth of creationism in turn confirms the Bible and proves we can trust it.

And so do confirmations of a lot of other scientific and historic truths.

No vicious circle. If A proves B and B proves A, the vicious circle is only there if neither is proven by anything else. If both are proven by something else and that something else is ideally no assumption, instead of a vicious circle you have a non-vicious curl in a strong argument. If ever you are confronted with "A proves B and B proves A," don't complain of circularity at the first stop but ask instead if something else than A proves B and if something else than B proves A. Of course, it is a good gut reaction to mark a certain circularity, but not to judge immediately just from that gut reaction. What about:

It seems to me that I was taught it sort of like a circle. We know Earth circling Sun each year is true because the Heliocentric Newtonian model says it, yes, but the scientific truth of Earth circling Sun each year in turn confirms the Heliocentric Newtonian model and proves we can trust it.

No longer a quote, but a meme. Applied to an example she might not spontaneously deny.

So, does something else than Heliocentric Newtonian model conclusively prove Earth circles Sun rather than other way round? Does something else than Earth circling Sun conclusively prove Heliocentric Newtonian model rather than for instance a Tychonian one?

But finding out that if A proves B and B proves A, there is not each and every time a vicious circle was somehow not on my school curriculum. It seems they no longer properly teach logic in these schools? Wonder why? And same question for my finding out Heliocentrism was more doubtful than Globe shape of Earth.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
Sts Placidus and Companions,
Disciples of St Bennet,
Martyrs at Messina
5-X-2013

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : ... on Young Earth Creationism Denying Gravity (with a certain levity towards the matter, thank God!)
http://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/2013/05/on-young-earth-creationism-denying.html

PS: she did misunderstand one thing more about Creationism, possibly.

But regardless, what was crucial to my deconversion was that I was definitely taught by Answers in Genesis that if creationism is not true, the entire Bible and even Christianity itself falls apart.

Logically, yes, Christianity would not be true without Genesis account being true. And in a sense that excludes Hugh Ross' model or Stephen J. Gould's model.

But Christianity could well be rationally known even if one had no proof confirming Genesis (though one has). Since one has proof confirming the Gospels. The central truth question boils down to "what happened to the body". But the general truth of such a man really walking on earth would be apparent from Christian Churches counting Him (since before their branchings or divisions) as their founder. It is not at all easy to imagine how if He had never existed the Church could have both come into existence from some other start and then forgot its real origins and remembered Him as the real one. Atheists are not usually coming up with plausible scenarios for mythicism any more than for body stolen by disciples (how come they then were martyred for what they themselves knew to be a lie?), but those that take the mythicist position are assuming that is what must have happened. This is now being rivalled by a Christianity was adulterated by Peter-position, as popularised by Dan Brown - equally idiotic, of course./HGL

Heard of Libby Anne?

Brought up as Creationist. Let's skip how Georgia Purdom [PhD Molecular Biology] describes her change of mind for now and go to her response.

[Here is the series: 1) Creation vs Evolution : Heard of Libby Anne? , 2) Did Libby Anne misunderstand at least Something about Young Earth Creationism? Or: Why don't they teach logic in these schools?! 3) Further Faulty Logic in Craig A. James's "refutation of a dialogue" 4) Stupid Word Game, Craig A. James? 5) Whose assumptions are best or least well proven? 6) Somewhere else : Is the Genesis "the Basis of the Whole Bible" or are there others? 7) Great Bishop of Geneva! : How is Chick erroneous about where we got the Bible from? 8) Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : ... to Hitchens on Revelation, Decalogue and Evidence for Moses. 9) Correspondence de / of / van Hans-Georg Lundahl : Notifying Craig A. James of a refutation of his refutation ... ]

If your beliefs can’t stand up to scrutiny, you need to rethink your beliefs. If cutting yourself off from anything that might ever challenge your beliefs is the only way you can keep them, you have a serious problem.

From Rebutting Ken Ham’s Response

Oh, sure. However high school and friends (or sometimes non-friends) you are automatically exposed to might not be the best occasion. It is the age that God has usually meant for starting families and not for debating your beliefs with others. Secular powers have lately made a Hell for people that age by near compulsory high school plus near compulsory co-education. Lately meaning last century or perhaps just last fifty years - since before I was there anyway!

Since homeschooling in Vienna ended at my age 11 1/2 to when I was forced to get to a boarding school after a short second home schooling, my beliefs and right wing loyalties were challenged all right. At the boarding school they were challenged. It did not mean I ceased to believe the Bible, only I started to believe the Catholic Church (in its historic tradition) in order to do so. At University, in the Military, back at University, my beliefs were challenged. Every step of the way. I was labelled as a devout young man, because my father confessor encouraged it, because I enjoyed it as long as I secretly hoped to get out of Sweden into a Monastery and then get out of the Monastery into marriage with a nice Catholic girl outside Sweden. But very much also because certain someones were making my fight for my creed more difficult than it need be, even for a shy boy or young man, by stamping truly intellectual beliefs which I held to independently of devotion going up and down as "too much devotion or fervour".

It led to a first drop out from University, for social circumstances rather than Academic reasons (though I failed the one test I had time to prepare for in the year 92-93, it was not a big one either), to several changes of environment and ... challenges against my beliefs. In Sysslebäck a Catholic was challenged from Communist and Fundamentalist alike. And one with a not so ecumenic outlook from Liberal Christians as well.

I came to Sysslebäck in 95 and left it via prison (with asylum) - for a shooting which killed noone and which I consider as legitimate self defense. I came to Rosengård - and left it 2004. It is an immigrant dominated part of Malmö. There I had my last appartment.

I have toured Europe 2004 - 2005. I have toured France up to 2009. I am touring the Paris region as a homeless man since then. Everywhere I come, though most certainly not from everyone, I am by sufficient people ignored, pitied, stamped as alcoholic or madman, or I get my beliefs challenged. And in the Internet, I go where I get my beliefs challenged. Or where there is at least some half promise of it.

And I do challenge Scientists for debate. It is often not I that cop out.

Three or Ten Dimensions, with Bubbaman

Some things tend to make me yawn. You linked to a site saying I think more than once: "The author of this essay is trying to put religious logic into an atheist's argument. The professor would never do that." And a few more. Believe me, or watch, Atheists do argue lamely and do forget the façade of impeccable logic (and impeccable superiority to Christians therein) that is so much easier to keep up when no Christian is around to challenge it.

These dialogues are not made up.

And how is Craig A. James to know what the Atheist Professor said? Was he there? No, he just sees what mistakes the Atheist Professor made. But he does not give a better solution. The solution that he does give opens up other faults in the atheist logic, like begs the question where atheists think morality comes from in general, not at all limited to where they get their version of it for themselves.

The Premise of Duality is a religious concept, not a scientific one. The author of this essay is trying to put religious logic into an atheist's argument. The professor would never do that.

From: Refuting the Atheist Professor vs the Christian Student

Well, there goes the Professors argument for the argument of Lucretius. If Duality is unscientific it is also unscientific to have a preference and so to deny God on the charge of having "created evil despite being good". But also to have a morality above one's personal preference and binding it. Which has opened very dark passages of the history of the previous century. Up to congratulating policemen on their act of hysteria around the President for protecting him probably just from getting a slap in his face.

Miriam Carey, RIP!

Some people can't really receive gate crashers very well. In my much better case, I was of course not driving a car, but still: I woke up with a torch shining in my face and a rifle in front of it, answered calmly, and when the farmer knew I had been there for just one night and intended to be somewhere else the next, I got a very nice breakfast. Honey on the bread, milk in the coffee.

Sorry, rambling. Back to Libby Anne:

Second, I find the last part of this paragraph a bit insulting. Dr. Purdom doesn’t know me, and she wasn’t there when I was in college. The idea that I “fought for a while” and then “gave up” is ludicrous. I “fought” for months. And it wasn’t a college professor I was “fighting,” either. It was another student in my dorm, a student who found science and evolution fascinating and was himself fairly agnostic. I spent almost an entire year arguing with him about creation and evolution daily, and I continually went back to my sources, reread my books, and made sure I was using every young earth creationist argument in the book. I even took him to an Answers in Genesis conference. That’s not fighting “for a while.”

Again from Rebutting Ken Ham’s Response.

Months in her language is longer than a while. In mine, a while is so undefined it can for instance be months. She was not herself enjoying the kind of linguistics education that her hero Craig A. James recommends. And it seems this kind of prolonged exposure is precisely what certain people want to happen to Christians, especially "Evolution deniers". I boldened the word him in this quote, since this means there just might have been some kind of hormones into play as well.

Let us note this kind of prolonged exposure can have very different results, even for people finding people of other beliefs they can agree socially with. In Libby's case, apostasy followed (sorry for being cruder than Georgia Purdom), in mine Catholic Conversion and some other conversions of lifestyle too, in Cassandra Bernall's case she became a Goth Chick up to a conversion a few months before she died in the shooting, saying, famously, yes. Cassandra Bernall was physically eliminated. I was socially eliminated. Atheists and Goth Chicks that remain so tend to be encouraged. A recipe that sounds like a Lenin omelette (the one you famously cannot make without breaking eggs, you know, but in this recipy it is a moot point what he refers to as broken eggshells ...), yes to me it sounds like a Lenin omelette.

Back to Libby Anne:

In the end, I didn’t “give up.” Rather, I realized I had been wrong. There’s a big difference there. And once I saw that creationism didn’t actually hold water, and that evolution was supported by the evidence, I had the intellectual honesty to change my mind. Why? Because that’s what you do when you realize you were wrong.

Realising one has been wrong can sometimes be a kind of Stockholm Syndrome, i. e. a kind of giving up.

When I realise "I had been wrong", I say about what I realised it. And how wrong I had been. And what argument made me change my mind. At sixteen I realised I had been wrong to believe there were Bible believing Christians not so different from today's Protestants all along the Church History and beside the usually larger Catholic Church. I realised Protestantism is not a direct product of Matthew 28, but a by product of Catholicism, which comes from Matthew 28. I have never since wanted to be a Protestant. Except the first year and then only for a while, as a High Church Lutheran preparing for a negociated union with Rome. The other guys who had that plan drifted off very soon, I was living my life and - at the boarding school and out of it and up to including Sysslebäck, most of the time - I was living it badly. When I got around to the Catholic Church at age 20, 1988, I had things to confess.

Later I realised I had been wrong to presume Vatican II Catholicism is just Catholicism with a new outlook. So I became a Trad. And a few more conversions forth and back since. But never back to Protestantism.

Libby does not tell us what made her at once see creationism doesn't actually hold water. But here is one important thing she does tell us:

Does Dr. Purdom think I didn’t read those books too? Does Dr. Purdom not think my parents’ house was awash with creationist literature from early on? Does Dr. Purdom think that my parents never “asked questions” to make sure I really understood what I was being taught? If so, Dr. Purdom would be wrong, very, very wrong. Creationism was discussed at the dinner table, while working on family projects, and on car rides. My parents always discussed sermons with us after church, and our church frequently taught creationism from the pulpit using AiG materials.

...

I wonder if Ken Ham remembers the little girl in braids who stood in awe in his presence and eagerly asked him for his autograph all those years ago. Probably not. But that little girl, that little girl fascinated by science and ever eager to find truth, she’s still here. She’s just sitting on the other side of the fence now.

I think some of the people that remember me being curious about dinosaurs and how long ago they lived (Evolutionist scenario), and listening eagerly to how stars form and how gravity holds them in galactic orbits shook their heads at my change of mind at age 9. The first time in my life ma had a chance to educate me on her own. And, if still alive, they still shake their heads.

But girls that they do not want me to make Catholic, Young Earth Creationist, Thomist and Reactionary in moral, legal and other philosophy, or Geocentric, they do tend to shut them off from me. As if they did not agree about - what was it Libby said? Yeah:

First, if the only way to preserve your creationist beliefs is to not have them challenged – i.e. not attend a college that teaches any contrary view – that says more about your beliefs than anything else. [...] If your beliefs can’t stand up to scrutiny, you need to rethink your beliefs. If cutting yourself off from anything that might ever challenge your beliefs is the only way you can keep them, you have a serious problem.

I do not have it.

But they seem to think I have never read the right books. Believe me, from their point of view I have. I was a pesky, soon fat little researcher in Evolutionist and Heliocentric (and all that modern Cosmology) lore. Now I am not. I am a refuter of such things. What was it again that Craig A. James said the Philosophy Professor should have done?

But real professors (especially in philosophy) are faced with smart-alec kids like this in every freshman Philosophy 101 class. Most of them learn to gently correct these young hotheads so that they can get on to important lessons.

Professor: So what is the point you are making, Young Man ?

Student : Sir, my point is your Philosophical Premise is flawed.

Professor: Flawed ? Can you explain how?

A real professor would have cut this student off by now and suggested some reading and a writing assignment to force the student to defend his position. And while writing the essay, the student would probably discover his errors.

And if the student has not realised he was wrong, at least the Professor has shut off the discussion, so the other students are cut off from anything that might challenge their belief systems. Maybe the Professors produced by modern education are better at Football (as Kent Hovind is good at Tennis) than at serious argumentation. Must laud the candour with which Craig A. James admits this.

That is one reason for putting Creationist arguments in blog form - essays here and close to in extenso discussions on the other blog I linked to. Because that way students do not depend on their professors' loud voice and authority. They are not cut off unless they want to.

These dialogues are not made up.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St Placidus and Martyrs
of Messina
5-X-2013

PS, I do not know on what point Libby gave up defensibility of Young Earth Creationism, but I do know that as one try was to make me realise the Bible I believed divine came from the Catholic Church I did not yet believe divine, and this led me to become a Catholic, so one other try was Distant Star Light Problem and this led me to Geocentrism./HGL

I was wrong about T Rex!

Kent Hovind made a very good video as far as zoology goes, with a Bomber Beetle - also known as Bombardier Beetle (which is the name it has in wikipedia, and yes, there are other languages where it is called or they are called for instance Bombožygiai, Bombardérbiller, Coléoptère bombardier ...), meaning thereby to illustrate that firebreathing dragons are quite possible. And the T Rex seems to have had greater cavities in the head than the hollow headed dinosaur (forgetting its name). Even the theology was good as far as his personal illustration of what the words "cleanse me with hyssop" mean. Or his general point about the fear of the Lord. Some of his examples to that point were Puritan and wrong, but not too many./HGL