Is It Christianity at All?

Creation vs. Evolution: Is It Christianity at All? · New blog on the kid: "Inspiring Philosophy" pretends to trace YEC to Ellen White ·Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Dr Joel Edmund Anderson - a Fraud or a Dupe? · Magisterium and Polygenism · An Unexpected Turn

Progressive Christianity is retrograde or at least retrospective enough to be celebrating 100th anniversaries of events, notably the speech by Harry Emerson Fosdick.

"The Rev. Dr. Caleb J. Lines" resumed the line of demarcation as follows:

Christianity that is concerned only with biblical inerrancy, individual salvation at the expense of others, defining life at conception, denying science, discriminating against LGBTQIA+ children of God, and ignoring history is antithetical to the actual life and teachings of Jesus. Fundamentalist Christianity isn’t Christianity at all, and it’s turning droves of people away from Christianity while causing substantial church-induced trauma.

So, Fosdick claimed Fundamentalist Christianity isn't Christianity at all, and I'll take a look at each item in how he defines it.

"Christianity that is concerned only with ..."

C. S. Lewis remarked that "only" is a dangerous word.

Back when tithing mint and anise was part of the law, Our Lord spoke about:

Vae vobis scribae et pharisaei hypocritae, qui decimatis mentham, et anethum, et cyminum, et reliquistis quae graviora sunt legis, judicium, et misericordiam, et fidem! haec oportuit facere, et illa non omittere.
Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you tithe mint, and anise, and cummin, and have left the weightier things of the law; judgment, and mercy, and faith. These things you ought to have done, and not to leave those undone.
Matthew 23:23.

I think these days when Fundamentalists do "define life at conception" (as mentioned lower down) they cannot really be accused of leaving the weightier things of the law, judgement and mercy and faith.

But Fundamentalists also make a point against the evils of Lynchburg. Fundamentalists today and Catholics back then, ideally also Fundamentalists back then, opposed the Progressives who thought sterilising people was a good idea. And the ones who were these eugenistic progressives back then* were in fact depending heavily on Darwin, whom Progressives to this day have not left.

"biblical inerrancy,"
"denying science,"

And avoiding Eugenics.* Thank you.

"individual salvation at the expense of others,"

Given that defrauding others is antithetical to one's individual salvation, I don't know why they would say that.

"defining life at conception,"

Well, standing up for children targetted for slaughter kind of is one of the weightier things ...

"discriminating against LGBTQIA+ children of God,"

I am not sure what discrimination is supposed to mean here. OK, not strictly true, but that's how you tend to say a thing like this.

If LGBT etc are discriminated against by being less often heterosexually married, it is arguable that at least some of them are discriminating against themselves by not chosing that.

If certain people are concerned with stopping homosexuals from even trying, that would be the kind of progressives who think these determined by their homosexuality so as to be incapable of marriage. You know, the kind of people who are against denying science. Though in this case the science of determinism might not be the most recent word in psychological studies on homosexuality. IN the meantime, I think someone had made a study claiming lots of exclusive homosexuals find they are bisexual, and lots of bisexuals become exclusively heterosexual.

B u t - if it's about gay couples and lesbian couples not getting the same respect and dignity as married couples, able to procreate children, which is what I suspect, that's actually forbidden to heterosexuals too.

"and ignoring history"

I'm not sure what history we are supposed to be ignoring. Again, not strictly true, but that's how you tend to say a thing like this.

Let me guess ...

"The guys who canonised the 27 books were Catholics!"

That might bother lots of Protestant Fundamentalists, but doesn't bother this Catholic Fundamentalist the least.

"The reading where Scripture is upheld against discoveries in science is discredited by the Galileo case!"

I'd rather say it's the Heliocentric ideology (pertinent for Distant Starlight problem) that's discredited by the Galileo case.

You can define this as "denying science" (and I note the only Science** who warned against denying Him before men is different from the "Science" of Heliocentrism and Evolution), but you can hardly call it "denying history" ...

"The idea that sex is for marriage between a man and a woman historically involves banning contraceptives!"

That might bother Protestant Fundamentalists less than these guys think, and certainly bothers this Catholic Fundamentalist not at all.

But I am afraid that the history we are supposed to be ignoring is sth totally different:

"You cannot ignore the uncertainty about the source Q!"

I'm not certain it even exists such a thing. Definitely not as a demoted already unfaithful to fact substrate with accretions already happening, which is anterior to the Synoptics or Synoptics other than Mark. And I suppose that is how the phrase is most often used.

"You cannot ignore Genesis 1 - 11 as sequence of events was plagiarised on Babylonian myth! Only the different theology is what is inerrant."

So far no Babylonian originals*** have been upcoming for Adam and Eve or for the Tower of Babel.

When it comes to the Ark of Noah vs giant coracle of Utnapishtim, while the texts of Gilgamesh may be slightly older than Moses, it's the text of Moses that is capable of providing realistic dimensions for an Ark that can actually float in a world wide flood.

"is antithetical to the actual life and teachings of Jesus."

Especially as summarised by people unwilling to look beyond their quotemining to see what their mined quotes actually mean.

Lonnie Frisbee can hardly be presented as taking too great a distance to sinners, but his views on some lifestyles that can be first and foremost thought of in relation to "Alphabet people" are hardly what Progressives would take as inclusive either. I'll trust him or Serafim Rose over Caleb Lines.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Annunciation to Our Lady
25.III.2023

* New blog on the kid : Who Fought Eugenics?
https://nov9blogg9.blogspot.com/2023/03/who-fought-eugenics.html

** The Word of the Father also mentioned something which would in context mean that the timespan from the beginning of the universe, by creation from nothing, to the creation of Adam and Eve, is negligible compared to the 5200 or 5500 years plus from then to when He spoke. Mark 10:6.
*** Fair warning to any Progressive who imagines I am speaking from ignorance - I am not just a Fundamentalist, but also a Mythology geek, and I know a thing or two about Babylonian myth. Norse myth (which I know even better) is closer than Christianity.

Does Sennaar mean Sumer?

Are CMI Hearing Me? · Does Sennaar mean Sumer? · Ken Griffith and Darrell K. White considered Judi, but not Göbekli Tepe · Ah, Griffith and White Provided the Source Too · Sumeria, Damien Mackey, Intellectual Honour · Damien Mackey Has His View on Shinar, Nimrod and Babel

Here is an interesting part of French wikipedia:

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumer

La terminologie employée par les historiens reprend en partie des termes rencontrés dans les textes antiques18,19.		The terminology used by historians is partially taken over from terms found in ancient texts.
Sumer est issu du terme akkadien Šumerum, correspondant au sumérien ki-engi (« pays autochtone » ?), qui désignait une région couvrant la partie sud de la Mésopotamie, souvent en opposition à la région qui la bordait au nord, le pays d'Akkad, Akkadum en akkadien et ki-uri en sumérien, peuplé majoritairement de Sémites, les « Akkadiens », locuteurs de l'akkadien.		Sumer comes from the Akkadian term Šumerum, which corresponds to the Sumerian ki-engi ("own land"?) which designated a region covering the South part of Mesopotamia, often in opposite to a region bordering it on the North, the land of Akkad, Akkadum in Akkadian and ki-uri in Sumerian, peopled in majority by Semites, the "Akkadians" who spoke Akkadian.
On trouvait du reste plus couramment le terme de « Pays », kalam, pour désigner ces contrées.		One found more commonly the term "land" - kalam - to designate these regions.
La langue sumérienne était également évoquée dans les textes, eme-gi7 (quelque chose comme « langue autochtone ») en sumérien, et šumeru en akkadien des phases babyloniennes tardives20.		The Sumerian tongue was also evoked in the texts, eme-gi7 (something like "own language") in Sumerian, and šumeru in the Akkadian of the late Babylonian phases.
Les historiens ont ensuite créé le terme « Sumériens » pour qualifier le peuple vivant dans cette région et parlant cette langue.		Historians have afterwards created the term "Sumerians" to qualify the people living in this region and speaking this language.

I think this is pretty definite against anyone pretending that Sennaar has to mean only South Mesopotamia in the Bible.

In German, "Alemannen" means a specific tribe among those making up German speakers, and in French "Allemands" means Germans.

Akkadian and Hebrew are not the same language, so Sennaar and Šumerum need not have the same delimitation. Both Akkadian and Sumerian were obviously post-Babel languages, since different. The restriction of Šumerum to the South can have very clear roots in that fact.

Before the Babel event, it was more natural to designate countries by natural features, and the ones most prominent would be:

• the plain
• the two rivers.

But it is not the plain as plain, since we find "a plain in the land of Sennaar" - therefore it is the two rivers. Which are identic up to North Syria and East Turkey.

This is obviously lost on people who insist Genesis 11 was redacted during the Babylonian captivity (which is as intelligent as saying "Apollonius of Rhodes wrote the Iliad and Odyssey"), and therefore when the ethnic meaning of Šumerum was already established. But they are anyway lost ... don't stray with them, please!/HGL

Prehistoric Ireland - Correcting the Dates

I looked up the wikipedian article with that title.

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

During the Last Glacial Maximum,[5] ice sheets more than 3,000 m (9,800 ft) thick scoured the landscape of Ireland, by 24,000 years ago (22 000 BC) they extended beyond the southern coast of Ireland, by 16,000 years ago (14 000 BC) they had retreated so that only an ice bridge existed between Northern Ireland and Scotland, by 14,000 years ago (12 000 BC) Ireland was completely isolated from Britain and by 11,700 years ago (9700 BC) this Glacial period is recognized as having ended with no more glaciers present, but leaving Ireland as an arctic tundra.

We Creationists think the Glaciation was shorter and ice sheets thinner, but this is about the dates.

22 000 BC, 14 000 BC, 12 000 BC, 9700 BC. The first one isn't there as a result in my tables, here are the two surrounding results!

2890 B. Chr.

0.09274 pmC/100, so dated as 22 540 B. Chr.

2867 B. Chr.

0.119246 pmC/100, so dated as 20 467 B. Chr.

Shall we agree it's 3/4 towards the former and 1/4 towards the latter?

(22 540 + 22 540 + 22 540 + 20 467) / 4 = 22 022 BC. Yes.

What does this imply for the real years (of which the result is indirectly a non-linear and irregular "function")?

(2890 + 2890 + 2890 + 2867) / 4 = 2884 BC

Is that correct with the successive rising amounts of carbon 14 in the atmosphere?

(9.274 + 9.274 + 9.274 + 11.9246) / 4 = 9.93665 pmC
=> 19 100 extra years

19 100 + 2884 = 21 984 BC (close enough).

2756 B. Chr.

0.250709 pmC/100, so dated as 14 206 B. Chr.

...

2688 B. Chr.

0.328739 pmC/100, so dated as 11 888 B. Chr.

These can stand as they are.

2621 B. Chr.

0.406138 pmC/100, so dated as 10 071 B. Chr.

2607 B. Chr.

0.428224 pmC/100, so dated as 9607 B. Chr.

1/4 towards the former and 3/4 towards the latter?

(10 071 + 9607 + 9607 + 9607) / 4 = 9723 BC, close enough

(2621 + 2607 + 2607 + 2607) / 4 = 2610 BC

(40.6138 + 42.8224 + 42.8224 + 42.8224) / 4 = 42.27025 pmC
=> 7100 extra years

7100 + 2610 = 9710 BC

Please note, 9600 BC to 8600 BC in carbon dates, or 2607 BC to 2556 BC in real dates, is the time for Babel of Genesis 11, it is Göbekli Tepe. Yes, that is in Mesopotamia, South-East Turkey West of Turkish Armenia being that.

Mesolithic (8000–4000 BC)
Neolithic (4000–2500 BC)

2511 B. Chr.

0.507242 pmC/100, so dated as 8111 B. Chr.

2489 B. Chr.

0.519918 pmC/100, so dated as 7889 B. Chr.

(8111 + 7889) / 2 = 8000 BC
(2511 + 2489) / 2 = 2500 BC
(50.7242 + 51.9918) / 2 = 51.358 pmC
=> 5500 extra years

5500 + 2500 = 8000

4000 BC is 2007 or 2008 BC - I calculated it earlier. This is when Abraham is 7 or 8 years old.

1678 B. Chr.

0.894653 pmC/100, so dated as 2598 B. Chr.

1655 B. Chr.

0.914498 pmC/100, so dated as 2395 B. Chr.

(2598 + 2395) / 2 = 2497 BC
(1678 + 1655) / 2 = 1667 BC
(89.4653 + 91.4498) / 2 = 90.45755 pmC
=> 830 extra years

830 + 1667 = 2497 BC.

So, the key dates after Babel are 2500 BC, 2008 BC and 1667 BC. Happy St. Patrick's Day!/HGL