jeudi 15 décembre 2016

Human Ancestor or Human during Flood?


Isn't There a Geological Column in Laetoli, and Aren't the Footprints Proof of Human Ancestors? · Human Ancestor or Human during Flood? · These Footprints Look Human to Me?

Ancient human ancestor was one tall dude, his footprints say
on mail dot com
https://www.mail.com/int/scitech/news/4831810-ancient-human-ancestor-was-tall-dude-footprints.html


I'll only quote the bold text:

NEW YORK (AP) — He stood a majestic 5-foot-5, weighed around 100 pounds and maybe had a harem. That's what scientists figure from the footprints he left behind some 3.7 million year ago. He's evidently the tallest known member of the prehuman species best known for the fossil skeleton nicknamed "Lucy," reaching a stature no other member of our family tree matched for another 1.5 million years, the researchers say.


I checked the rest of the article and so no reference to any Australopithecus Afarensis bones.

Especially none with human type feet (Lucy is footless! See here:)



Par 120 — own picture worked with photoshop, CC BY 2.5, Lien


So, the clearly human footprints (not sure I can afford to show picture yet, will be added if possible, see link) could have not been from a relative of Lucy?

Yes, if and only if:

  • men existed back when this is from, and not meaning Australopithecines;
  • this was so recent that one cannot reasonably say "Australopithecines wre the only men back then".


This means, it is feasible if both Lucy and these footprints are from diverse kinds back at the time of Noah's Flood.

If from the same kind - then you reconstruct the Lucy skeleton as having human feet. If from diverse kinds 3.7 million years ago, you ask the question why no human skeleta are found for another 1.5 million years.

So, if you want to say, as I do, Lucy was an ape, the footprints are from a man, you have to skip the millions of years. I do so too.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
Octave of Immaculate
Conception of the BVM
15.XII.2016

jeudi 8 décembre 2016

In Reparation, to Honour the Feast : St Thomas (?) on Genesis 3:14, 15


Et ait dominus ad serpentem.
Ubi dat poenas pro peccato. Et debito procedit ordine: quia sicut peccaverunt, ita secundum ordinem puniuntur.

Quia fecisti hoc, ideo maledictus eris.
Aliqui exponunt literam istam moraliter, referendo ad mores. Vel ad malitiam Diaboli, exponendo mystice non literaliter. Tamen credo quod potest literaliter exponi de serpente vero. Nam ex facto isto est animal generi humano odiosum: quia fuit primae praevaricationis instrumentum. Unde sicut signum crucis est Diabolo odiosum, quia fuit instrumentum quo Christus exhibuit nobis nostrae liberationis beneficium: ita similiter serpens est apud homines maledictus, quia fuit talis maledictionis instrumentum.

Unde est maledictus super omnes bestias terrae.
Et licet sit animal venenosum, tamen ex eventu isto est redditum magis odiosum. Quare autem est punitus serpens, cum non sit animal quod habeat liberum arbitrium? Dicendum quod illud fuit ad ostensionem divinae justitiae, et scandalum vitandum, ne videretur quod Deus peccatum alicujus naturae intellectualis dimitteret impunitum: ideo sicut fuerat in eo aliqua similitudo intellectualis, quia scilicet loquebatur: ita esset in eo aliqua similitudo poenae inflictae pro peccato.

Quod autem sequitur, super pectus tuum gradieris, et terram comedes omnibus diebus vitae tuae,
quidam exponunt et dicunt quod serpentes tunc ibant et incedebant erecti, et vescebantur fructibus, vivebantque de terrae nascentibus, sicut recitat Magister in historiis. Unde quod super suum pectus gradiantur, habent ex ista sententia, non ex natura. Hoc autem frivolum videtur. Nam nos non videmus quod habeant pedes vel instrumenta quibus possent incedere erecti, cum pars eorum ultima sit in fine debilior ad totum corpus, et ita illud ei non possit inniti. Ideo dico quod aliqua incommoda sunt quae habent serpentes ex ista sententia, sicut quod est maledictus et horribilis redditus ex isto facto, et ex facti consideratione fidelibus, et ex instinctu aliquo per divinam justitiam et ordinationem complantato in omnibus forte, sicut etiam est sequens poena quae ponitur consequenter cum dicitur: inimicitias ponam inter te et mulierem. Aliqua autem sunt incommoda quae habuit ante, sicut ista, super pectus tuum gradieris, et terram comedes. Et ista ponuntur et replicantur ut ex hoc aggraventur alia, et appareat major poena, sicut major est afflictio addita infirmo quam sano.

Inimicitias ponam inter te et mulierem.
Ad literam credo quod ex aliquo instinctu facto in muliere a Deo, habet quemdam horrorem et imaginationem quasi naturalem ad ipsum serpentem. Unde fit ut mulieres magis nitantur istam speciem exterminare, et caput suum conterere. Vel aliter dici potest, quod mulier ex natura habeat, sicut sexus infirmus, quod ista venenosa horreat, quod ante non horrebat in statu innocentiae: et tunc hoc habebat ex speciali dono divinae gratiae, quod poterat certitudinaliter istorum nocumenta vitare, ac ideo non curabat ista persequi: sicut etiam ex natura complexionis nunc patitur in partu mulier, tamen ex gratia Dei non pateretur in statu innocentiae. Ideo ex culpa quae istam gratiam privavit, est ista poena. Item poterat esse quod aliquid erat in animalibus brutis, et aliqua impressio qua homini obediebant et parebant. Ista autem omnia cessaverunt per hominis culpam. Animalia enim fuerunt suis naturalibus passionibus relicta, et mulier fuit omni gratia destituta: et gratia gratum faciente, et omni alia gratis data. Ideo ex peccato factae sunt inimicitiae isto modo inter serpentem et mulierem.

Unde dicitur: ipsa conteret caput tuum, et tu insidiaberis calcaneo illius.
Quod dictum est secundum literam; quia serpens ambulat super pectus, insidiatur calcaneo, sicut parti sibi propinquae, ad quam facilius potest attingere: et ipsa conteret caput tuum. Quia aliquid haerens terrae, de facili potest ipsum terere.


And the Lord God said to the serpent.
Where He gives punishement for the sin. And He proceeds in order : as they sinned, so in order they are punished.

Because thou hast done this thing, thou art cursed
Some expose this letter morally, referring to behaviour. Or to the malice of the Devil, exposing mystically, not literally. Even se, I think it can be literally exposed about the real serpent. For from this act, the animal is odious to human kind: since it was instrumental in the first prevarication. Whence, as the sign of the Cross is odious to the Devil, since it was the instrument by which Christ gave us the benefice of our liberation: so similarily the serpent is cursed among men, since it was instrument for such a malediction.

Whence it is cursed among all cattle, and beasts of the earth.
And though the animal be venomous, even so from this event it is rendered more odious. But why was the serpent punished, when it be no animal having free will? One should say that that was to show forth divine justice and avoid scandal, so that it should not seem that God forgives sin by any intellectual nature unpunished: so, as there had been in it some similarity to an intellectual nature, namely since it was talking: so there should be in it some similarity to a punishment inflicted for sin.

But what follows, upon thy breast shalt thou go, and earth shalt thou eat all the days of thy life,
some expose and say that serpents were then walking and going forth upright, and eating fruits and living of what was born of the ground, as the Master recites in the histories. Whence, that they are walking on their breast, they have of this sentence, not from nature. But this seems frivolous. For we do not see they have feet or instruments by which they would be able to go forth uprightly, since their last part be weaker in the end to all the body, and this it cannot uphold it. Therefore I say that some incommodity that serpents have of this sentence, as that it is cursed and rendered horrid from this act, and from its consideration to the faithful, and from some instinct by divine justice and ordination strongly complanted in all, as also is the following punishment which is posed thereafter when it is said: I will put enmities between thee and the woman. But some are incommodities which it had before, as this, thou shalt crawl in they breast and eat dust. And these are posed and replicated so that therefrom the other punishment should be aggravated and appear greater, since a greater affliction is added on the infirm than on the healthy.

I will put enmities between thee and the woman [and thy seed and her seed]
To the letter I think that from some instinct God put in woman, she has a kind of so to speak natural horror and imagination to the serpent itself. Whence it comes that women more tend to exterminate this species and to crush its head. Or otherwise it can be said, that woman from nature has, as from weaker sex, that she is horrified by these venomous things, which before she had not been horrified of in the state of innocence: and then she had of a special gift of divine grace, that she could with certainty avoid the harms of these, and therefore did not care to persecute them: as also from the nature of her complexion now the woman suffers in childbirth, but by grace of God she would not suffer in the state of innocence. Therefore, from a guilt which deprived of this grace is this punishment. Likewise coud have been that something was in brute animals and some impression by which they obeyed and were submitted to man. But all this ceased by the guilt of man. Animals were relinquished to their natural passions, and woman was destituted from all grace: both of grace rendering pleasing [to God], and of all grace freely given. Thus, from sin were these enmities made this way between the serpent and the woman.

Whence it is said: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.
Which is said according to the letter; since the serpent walks on its breast, it lies in wait for the heel, as the part most close to itself, to which it can as easily as possible attain: and she shall crus thy head. Since it is something clung to the ground, it is easy to crush it.


The work from which this is taken is:

"Ignoti Auctoris"
Postilla in libros Geneseos
http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/xgn01.html


I disagree with "ignoti autoris" and consider it an early work of St Thomas.

He is using "iste, ista, istud" for "hic, hec, hoc", which is easily a beginners' fault in Latin, if your maternal tongue has for "hic, hec, hoc" sth like "este, esta, esto" or "questo, questa" - and St Thomas was from southern part of Italy.

He is also seemingly (at least from here) giving an exposé over the very literal sense of Genesis to exclusion of moral and mystical ones.

But the mystical and prophetical meaning of the text, he was far from denying : it is about the Blessed Virgin Mary and Her total enmity ("enmities") against the Devil. Meaning, there was not room for even one moment of peaceful submission to him, not room for one moment of the state of sin in Her blessed life.

She was always crushing his head by not sinning, she was always crushing his head by obeying God.

St Thomas certainly knew that, but left this to be said by his superiors, as I think it might be from back when he was just studying.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
Feast of Immaculate Conception
of the Blessed Virgin Mary
8.XII.2016

Is Wikipedia Losing the Grip? And what about cognitive bias and guilt by association?


Often enough, it links to sources supposed to be more credible than itself.

However, when it links to Nathalia Gjersoe, one can start to doubt that!

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

Actually links to:

The Guardian : World Toilet Day
Thursday 20 November 2014 15.46 GMT | Nathalia Gjersoe
https://www.theguardian.com/science/head-quarters/2014/nov/20/world-toilet-day-yuck


And then

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

Links to:

Dogs: an uncomplicated relationship
Monday 23 September 2013 15.48 BST | Nathalia Gjersoe
https://www.theguardian.com/science/head-quarters/2013/sep/23/dogs-uncomplicated-relationship-research


Now, what is wrong with Nathalia Gjersoe? If linking to her can be even considered as potentially wrong, there must be sth wrong about her, right?

  • She's a psychologist.
  • She believes psychological biasses should be countered.


The latter meaning, for instance, countering the bias for creationism by indoctrinating into Evolution even earlier.

See here:

Evolution makes scientific sense. So why do many people reject it?
Thursday 31 March 2016 07.45 BST | Nathalia Gjersoe
https://www.theguardian.com/science/head-quarters/2016/mar/31/intelligent-design-popular-evolution-creationism


So why, despite formal scientific education, does intelligent design remain so intuitively plausible and evolution so intuitively opaque? And what can we do about it?

Developmental psychologists have identified two cognitive biases in very young children that help to explain the popularity of intelligent design. The first is a belief that species are defined by an internal quality that cannot be changed (psychological essentialism). The second is that all things are designed for a purpose (promiscuous teleology). These biases interact with cultural beliefs such as religion but are just as prevalent in children raised in secular societies.


When countering "cognitive biasses" passes for "science", as can be seen with the rest of her article, there is sth wrong about how science is defined.

On the other hand, one can say that wikipedia has (so far, I might be giving someone a tip) not cited Nathalia Gjersoe on this deplorable subject.

One can say that demonising wikipedia because she is cited (despite this deplorable third article!) on two other articles, is what is known as "guilt by association".

So far, I am not ditching wikipedia, just because two articles cite one Gjersoe on aspects irrelevant to her more deplorable views.

Meanwhile, when psychology is into countering "cognitive biasses" (as they are defined these days) it is really undermining science, since undermining philosophy of which Natural Sciences is one department.

Philosophy is done by using a double starting point : a) innate principles, such as are universal to all of mankind, b) external experience, in the light of these innate universal principles.

And what philosophy has since Plato called "innate universal principles" and what psychologists call "cognitive biasses" are very difficult to keep separate, unless you add to the latter "culture specific". She at least had the clarity to tell us that the cognitive bias in favour of creationism is not so.

Seeing cats and dogs as fundamentally different and seeing them as serving a purpose (perhaps in our lives) is an innate universal principle. Unlike seeing a "drunkard" in every homeless man who drinks some wine in the street*, which is a very culture specific "cognitive bias" or in other words, a very sectarian "principle". Not to mention her own obvious cognitive bias in seeing as sensible whatever a small group of men styled scientists claims makes sense to them.**

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
Feast of Our Lady's
Immaculate Conception
8.XII.2016

PS. Hat tip to Evolutionising the young, by Dominic Statham on CMI today.

PPS. Sorry for examples given of her writing, especially first one, on this Holy Day. But that is what I could find./HGL

* Last time I was in Clichy, one man gave me a half bottle of wine, I ate some soup and fries before touching it, and took water along with it. Even so, another man frowned, as if he had caught me red handed in an act of drunkenness. Unfortunately, detecting and curing the very culture specific cognitive bias of that man is not as paying as detecting and making gross political comment on that of children. See Chesterton's magisterial essay The Tyranny Of Bad Journalism. ** Obviously culture specific, since sometimes clashing with the universal one for creationism.

lundi 5 décembre 2016

Hasn't Carbon 14 been Confirmatively Calibrated for Ages Beyond Biblical Chronology? By Tree Rings?


Creation vs. Evolution : 1) C14 Calibrations, comparing two preliminary ones, mine and Tas Walker's · 2) Radioactive Methods Revisited, Especially C-14 · 3) What Some of You are Thinking / Ce que certains de vous sont en train de penser · Great Bishop of Geneva! : 4) Carbon Dating of Turin Shroud and Hacking and Conventional vs Creationist Dating · Creation vs. Evolution : 5) A Fault in my Tables? A Plan for Improvement? · 6) Pre-Flood Biomass and More · 7) Advantages of a Shorter Carbon 14 Chronology · 8) Hasn't Carbon 14 been Confirmatively Calibrated for Ages Beyond Biblical Chronology? By Tree Rings? · HGL's F.B. writings : 9) Comparing with Gerardus D. Bouw Ph. D., Debating with Roger M Pearlman on Chronology · 10) Continuing with Pearlman, Especially on Göbekli Tepe and Dating of Ice Age

This is, first, from quora:

Graeme Shimmin
The tree thing is IMO impossible to refute.

In the case of the dating of the Bristlecone pines it's not like there's some complex scientific process involved - it's counting tree rings.

[two comments further down]

... Counting tree rings is not complicated and can be done by anyone. ...

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Only true for pretty young trees with pretty thin layers of rings to count.

And these are not the question.

Graeme Shimmin
I’ve never seen any evidence from a non-creationist source suggesting that counting tree rings is hard. Do you have any evidence?

Hans-Georg Lundahl
1
One provided as argument by a creationist one, but obvious once you think of it. You fell a tree. You count the rings from bark to core. No problem at all - but if you fell a tree like a woodcutter, it can’t be that old.

A double ring (light and dark) might be sth like 1.5 to 2.5 mm. This means that a tree even one thousand years old should have a thickness from core to bark of 1000 double rings, that is of 1.5 to 2.5 meters. This means the diameter of the tree is 3 to 5 meter thick. Try to fell that and count the tree rings?

I suppose those who counted a tree as 5000 years old had gone by thickness (7.5 to to 12.5 m) - but they would have seen thickness from outside and this leaves the question how far the outermost core is in. It happens that trees grow together and what if outermost of a composite tree only has its core 3 meters in from bark?

This one is pretty commonsense.

2
You mentioned only counting, but matching is also a problem. Two trees that are contemporary do not have exactly the same pattern of rings, and so the scientist is faced with the question exactly how much divergence is acceptable before declaring a match.

If - as is the case with old pieces of wood - the trees are reduced to fragmentary pieces, these can be so small that identification of a unique pattern only then but not more recently then instead, can be a real problem.

I had a reference ready on this one, but lost it, I recommend you research in “tree ring dating” as done by specialists who celebrate their breakthroughs and so, that will show a diagram of convergence and divergence of certain samples in a bottleneck, which will give you an idea how delicate the question of matches is.


I'll provide an example myself.

A Sequence of Ruins in the Flagstaff Area Dated by Tree-Rings http://ltrr.arizona.edu/content/sequence-ruins-flagstaff-area-dated-tree-rings

Title
A Sequence of Ruins in the Flagstaff Area Dated by Tree-Rings
Publication Type
Thesis
Year of Publication
1962
Authors
Harlan, TP
Advisor
Thompson, RH
Academic Department
Anthropology
Degree
MA
University
University of Arizona
Abstract
A collection of 4263 archaeological tree-ring specimens from the region around Flagstaff, Arizona, was examined by means of the dendrochronological method. Although some of the specimens had been dated previously, the majority of the collection had never been studied. This analysis yielded 596 outside dates. Although these new dates do not differ greatly from previous dates obtained from previous dates obtained from this collection they have made possible certain refinements in the dating of the phases in the archaeological sequence for the region.


I'll give some samples of specimen numbers (SN) with inside and outside dates (ID/OD) (when viewing other, pdf'd link for same thesis):

(Page 48)
Table 14, site NA 1139
SN F 1509
ID 815 OD 898
SN 1503
ID 814 OD 889
SN 1505
ID 809 OD 888
SN 1504
ID 812 OD 882
SN 1506
ID 814 OD 872


These five specimens span only, together, 90 years, of which 58 years overlap all specimina.

With such overlap and so short spans, dendro might seem even reliable.

But go back over millennia, you get longer spans with shorter or non-extant overlap and overlaps also from different areas, so one cannot count on all having grown in same microclimate even approximately.

In the Flagstaff area, the samples were together because used in buildings of an inhabited area whose inhabitants took the building material from about same area of tree growth.

You don't have that kind of advantage in larger scale tree ring dates, like those used in dating what one is purporting against Biblical chronology.

I suspect that "Inner Date" as being older AD date and "Outer Date" as being younger AD date refer to inwards and outwards between core and bark. But I am not sure.

What I am sure of is, you don't have a Flagstaff case for the wider tree ring chronology, the one which once upon a time made me ask "how can I square the Genesis with a 20,000 year old earth, shall I include some kind of Silmarillion scenario between verses 1 and 2, or sth?"

That chronology is way outside the secure validity of Flagstaff chronology.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St Sabbas, Abbot
5.XII.2016

vendredi 2 décembre 2016

Steno and "Vertical Barbecue" contra John Laurie


Geology seriesFeedback to Tas Walker on Geological Columns
If Tas Walker is right, Pius XII was not wrong to canonise Steno!

Actually Steno was not canonised yet, only beatified, and by John Paul II, as stated in following:

Creationism and Catholicism go well together (second example)
Where do you find Dinosaurs over Trilobites?
Steno and "Vertical Barbecue" contra John Laurie


I was revisiting the site of Tas Walker. He has had a correspondence over TAG = The Australian Geologist, starting with anti-Creationist provocations in letters to the editor.

After his first, published response, he was answered by one John Laurie, and the man displayed an appalling Historical ignorance, in this paragraph:

... Dr Walker enlists the eminent Danish anatomist and geologist Niels Stensen (latinised as Nicholas Steno) to demonstrate that creationists have made "fundamental contributions to geology in the past" And so they have! But it must be remembered that Stensen lived from 1638-1686 and that NOT being a creationist in those days could book you an appointment with the vertical barbecue. It is ironic that Dr Walker drew Stenson into his argument, as the fundamental concepts introduced or affirmed by Setnsen; i.e. that fossils are the remains of once living organisms; the principle of original horizontality; and the law of superposition, were some of the most important in the initial understanding of the great age of the earth and the evolution of its biota.

John Laurie

Weston, ACT


Cited after Tas Walker's copies of the letters and news article, with his own comments in blue, here:

Tas Walker's Biblical Geology : More Discussion in TAG
Geologists discuss again
http://biblicalgeology.net/The-Australian-Geological-Society/Geologists-discuss-again.html


John Laurie ignores that unlike Catholics, Orthodox, Anglicans and Calvinists, Lutherans of Denmark didn't have the "vertical barbecue" - except for witches.

As to heresy, Lutherans claimed a "moral high ground" over Catholics and Reformed alike, by not burning heretics.

In Sweden during the Middle Ages, as far as I could make out when studying Latin in Lund (and Latin studies involved some Swedish Middle Ages) exactly one man was burned on a stake, during the Catholic era, because he denied the Real Presence of Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament.

Russian Orthodox burned Avvakum for a much worse reason.

Anglican king James I of England burned two Anabaptists, aboiut the time he authorised his famous version. Calvin burned Miguel Serveto.

Lutherans would have none of that, they could persecute Catholics as traitors or as disobedient rebels, but not as heretics, nor did the punishments for heresy extend to the stake.

And how is this significant for Steno? Well, Steno was born precisely in Lutheran Denmark.

This also means that when he arrived in Florence or Livorno, they were less than eager there to burn heretics. At least foreigners residing there were not burned for being Lutheran. This was the environment in which Steno started to study geology, thitherto he had been mainly an anatomist.

Is it true that not believing Genesis would have made for a rendez-vous with the stake, even if you were a foreigner?

Let us look at the story of Isaac La Peyrère a bit:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_La_Peyr%C3%A8re


In his Prae-Adamitae, published in Latin in 1655 and in English as Men Before Adam in 1656, La Peyrère argued that Paul's words in Chapter 5, verses 12-14 of his Epistle to the Romans should be interpreted such that "if Adam sinned in a morally meaningful sense there must have been an Adamic law according to which he sinned. If law began with Adam, there must have been a lawless world before Adam, containing people".[3] Thus, according to La Peyrère there must have been two creations: first the creation of the Gentiles and then that of Adam, who was father of the Jews. The existence of pre-Adamites, La Peyrère argued, explained Cain's life after Abel's murder which, in the Genesis account, involved the taking of a wife and the building of a city. This account of human origins became the basis for 19th century theories of polygenism and modern racism.

[For the latter, some wikipedian has added "citation needed"]

In 1656 after a storm of indignation the Prae-Adamitae was publicly burned in Paris and La Peyrère was imprisoned briefly during a visit to the Catholic Spanish Netherlands, but was released after he supposedly recanted his views.


So, one way if you came to heterodox conclusions was to state them and recant them. If he had stayed in France, he would simply just have seen the burning of his book and that was about it.

But there is more.

The Inquisition of the Spanish Netherlands was perhaps more eager to try and burn foreigners than what other Inquisitors were. After all, they had tried and burned Tyndale. He had been burned before the Dutch War of Independence, and Isaac La Peyrère had been briefly held prisoner after it. In the former case, war was threatening, in the latter case, recent enemies were there just across the border, of another confession.

If instead you look at Spain itself, the uncle of William Penn had got out at a lesser price, perhaps, than burning. George Penn had been expelled and his marriage to a Spanish lady had been annulled. If he hadn't married, as a foreigner he would probably not have been bothered, though his letter, cited in "The family of William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania, ancestry and descendants" by Howard M. Jenkins, though this letter of his to LOrd Cromwell doesn't explicitly say so.

Here are his words about the sentence, which seem probable, pp 12,13:
https://archive.org/stream/familyofwilliamp00jenk/familyofwilliamp00jenk_djvu.txt


Finally, upon his abjuring the Protestant fiaith [sic, computer scanned book, for faith], a public procession was formed in Seville, he was taken to the church, and his otfences [sic], confession, and sentence proclaimed " in the sight of thousands." His property was confiscated, — about ten thousa'nd pounds' value, he declares, — he was ordered to leave Spain within three months, on pain of death; he was sentenced to be burned if he should be again under arrest and found to have renounced the Roman faith; lastly, his wife was divorced from him, and she was ordered to be married to a Spaniard " for her better safeguard from me and securing of her soul from my heretical suggestions."


According to this, he also had to abjure in order to survive, but his abjuration was in that case not taken so very seriously that he was allowed to live a now Catholic life, on the contrary, he was put in two positions which would make it very difficult for him to remain Catholic : divorce from his wife and expulsion from Spain to presumably a Protestant country.

There can be some doubt in favour of the account, only if one can presume that she had been bamboozled by him into marrying a non-Catholic (or at least said so) and if the three months were supposed to give him some alternative, like going to France or Italy.

Even this is very highly doubtful, since if he had abjured, the wife would normally have had an option of remaking the failed marriage with him if he was sincerely Catholic - which was at least juridically presumed when he was released, according to the story. But the least likely part is that of her being married off to a Spaniard, that looks mainly like a projection of what Cromwell would be doing in similar circumstances, when persecuting Catholics and Non-Conformists : it doesn't look like the Spanish Inquisition at all, since she would have been able to fasten her Catholic faith very well by being received as guest in a nunnery or sth, and studying under a priest, while news awaited if George Penn was sincere or not in his conversion.

Of course, simply divorcing after a validly made marriage was a no no to any Catholic even if contrahent was a heretic. The marriage must have been null for such a divorce to take place, like saying George Penn was not validly baptised or she did not know George penn was a Protestant. So, George Penn's story seems contradictory and could in part have been made up in order to make sure of being better received on returning home.

Howard M. Jenkins adds:

The dates of this transaction, including the condemnation in the church of Seville, are wanting, and we can only infer them, but it seems to me most probable that the whole of the business was known to the young sea-captain, the brother of George Penn, when he caught the little ship with its " 8 Spaniards" coming out of Waterford, in the winter of 1646, and that as he stripped and exposed the unhappy secretary of the governor of Flanders he was inflicting a retaliatory blow, and not expecting to propitiate the Inquisition at Seville, or hoping to secure the good offices of the humiliated Don Juan.


So, perhaps the transaction never took place, George Penn perhaps simply bolted from his wife, and it was perhaps a wise thing to do if he didn't intend to stay Catholic even in appearance.

Or perhaps the papers have been later found by Spanish archives, since Howard M. Jenkins wrote as long time ago as in 1899.

To resume, since Steno didn't actually marry in Florence or Livorno, he was less at risk than George Penn, if he had been heterodox. Also, Florence and Livorno were arguably less risky than Spain.

But there is one more thing to this : Steno was very certainly not insincerely posing to believe the story of Genesis, since he then made great sacrifices as a Catholic convert.

Unlike that Swedish apostate from the Catholic faith, he was attracted by the doctrine and even dogma of Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. He converted. He then became a missionary priest and bishop, and persecuted (though, as said, not by the stake) in his own Lutheran home region. He died as a man having incurred sickness by cold where he was not hospitably received, and he is now venerated as a Saint by those who consider John Paul II was Pope when he pretended to canonise him.

I don't really disagree on the sainthood, now I know he never deviated from Young Earth positions while a Geologist : I just disagree with the formal recognition thereof by an Antipope like Wojtyla - also, I don't know exactly what miracles he wrought after his death, that is also important for recognising full sainthood.

A man who makes such sacrifices to spread the Catholic faith is hardly the kind of man who a decade or two earlier is likely to have hidden conclusions about Old Age (like those later given by Hutter and Lyell) just because he feared the Inquisition. And his homeland never had such a thing since the Reformation, it persecuted by inhospitality instead.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St Bibiana, Virgin, Martyr
2.XII.2016

PS, a little update. I was just looking at Penn Family, and it seems the "George Penn" who is supposed to have been uncle of the founder of Pennsylvania is missing from the genealogy. There is of course this character:

4. George Penn - was born in 1571, lived in Birdham, Sussex, England and died on 4 Nov 1632 while living in Plymouth, MA . He was the son of William Penn and Margaret Rastall.


But the dates don't really fit with the story about the Spanish Inquisition told above. Here is the site:

Penn Family Genealogy
by Albert Douglass Hart, Jr.
http://www.coltechpub.com/hartgen/htm/penn.htm


I'll contact him if he has more information on the missing George Penn .../HGL

PPS, I did, and the email to him did not work.

550 permanent failure for one or more recipients (ourfolk@renderplus.com:5
50 cuda_nsu sorry, no mailbox here by that name. (#5.7.17))