Flood Geology - a Slight Divergence in Method

Here I quote today's article by John D. Matthews on CMI:

In order to validate the biblical account of the Flood from geological evidence, it is not sufficient, though it was helpful as a precursor, to show that all our mountains were once under water. We need to ask if the whole of the UK was simultaneously under water recently.

Our foray into the uniformitarian literature to answer these questions, ignored by those who practise uniformitarianism, starts with our figure 1, taken from Rayner,* and based on primary sources such as Hancock and Rawson.** In what is described as the ‘Late Cretaceous’ period and dated around 65 Ma, her composite map shows all of England, much of Wales, and major parts of Scotland under water. It also shows the whole of the Ireland landmass under water, as well as major parts of continental Europe. Furthermore, this map is regarded as ‘conservative’ by Rawson20 and Gannon,15 who point out that a ‘radical’ view of the exposed land mass of Britain around 65 Ma is smaller than Rayner’s map shows, and may even have been nonexistent.

Others who have studied the ‘Cretaceous’ period have maps which show a small island of land in the Lake District (LD), and an extension of area ‘W’ to the south to include the Brecon Beacons (BB); for example, Gale.21 Rawson,20 in a solo-authored article, apparently contradicting what is described above, shows the area ‘W’ to be in the south of Wales rather than the north (his figure 12.2B). The latter is possibly a draughtsman’s error because of the relative heights of the respective areas. Whatever the individual causes for the differences, part of the explanation is the problem of identifying which igneous deposits were subaerial and which were subaqueous, as mentioned above.

* Rayner, D.H., The Stratigraphy of the British Isles, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1981.

** Hancock, J.M. and Rawson, P.F., Cretaceous, Geol. Soc. London Mem. 13:131–139, 1992.

So far no problem. We do not have a very great area of land fauna from Cretaceous in UK, though its specimens are conspicuous and include pterodactyl kind fossils.

This accords with their take on adapting the labels like Cretaceous to Flood Geology and it accords with mine.

Next quote:

A further question is the relative height of the Snowdonian area and the other outliers in figure 1, during the ‘Cretaceous’. The height was what it is today, plus what was eroded in the ‘post-Cretaceous’ period less any rise in the basement rocks. Estimates of as much as 1.5 to 2.0 km for the additional height exist. Obviously, these put Snowdon above water, but these heights are ‘guesstimates’. If there was land in those positions, then there would be a high probability of land-derived clastics in the chalk. They don’t exist. The estimates of heights are based on the recognition that the dykes and the host rocks in these areas were once topped with much more ‘over-burden’ than they are now.

However, since the bulk of this ‘over-burden’ has since disappeared, we know that the top of the ‘over-burden’ was once under water much later than that first igneous intrusion, and that that water must have had extensive erosive power to remove that additional ‘over-burden’. This ‘Late Cretaceous’ period seems to fit closely.

My one divergence from John D. Matthews is that he seems here to take "late Cretaceous" as a definite period within the Flood, during a much shorter time span, like uniformiatarians do on a longer one.

What I would like to know - though this apporach might be OK while only classifying rocks - is, from a Palaeontological view, how do we know position x in UK was covered with water during Cretaceous?

If position x has marine invertebrates, like almost any position with fossils, well, that just means it was convered by water through the Flood. It tells us nothing of what the position was like before the Flood, because all was covered with clams and mussels and mussels and clams and "cockles and mussels alive alive O". (Not just punning : some creationist videos I have seen indicate that mussels were buried as alive by sediment and did not have time to die before getting buried and immobilised).

If position x has marine fossils of kinds associated with specifically Cretaceous vertebrate marine fauna, this probably means position x was in the Sea before the Flood. With some margin of displacement.

If position x has fossils associated with Cretaceous vertebrate land fauna, this probably means position x was on Land before the Flood - also with some margin for displacement.

Now take Ordovician. I don't know if one has found any Ordovician land fauna, but if position x has marine fossils associated with specifically Ordovician vertebrate marine fauna, this probably means position x was in the Sea before the flood. With some margin of displacement.

If position x has land fossils associated with specifically Jurassic vertebrate land fauna, this probably means position x was on Land before the Flood. With some margin of displacement.

But what is the difference between position x having Jurassic vertebrate land fauna or Cretaceous vertebrate land fauna? Both were, with some margin of displacement, on land before the Flood, but with different faunas.

And what if on point x you dig one metre and find Cretaceous vertebrate land fauna, and then continue digging and at 3 metres depth of same hole find Jurassic vertebrate land fauna?

My whole point is that all I know of Palaeontological discoveries and exhibit materials is that this has nowhere ever happened.

You can find and do find rocks, in which formation lies over formation. Each usually assigned to a different time period, and here the standard Flood geologists are right to say that the formations that lie on top of each other must have come into place during successive parts of the flood.

But in such places, you will not find that fossilised faunas lie on top of each other (except marine invertebrates, which for instance can have been sorted by size - heavier and larger ammonites getting lower down in GC, for instance). Where you find Cretaceous rock above (in the strict usual sense) Jurassic rock, you will not find Cretaceous land fauna above Jurassic land fauna with a clear demarcation of species belonging to the one or the other.

You may find a rock of type x and a rock of type y partially superposed so that x is above y, and beside you will find y containing Jurassic fossils and x containing Cretaceous fossils. Jurassic coast would be an ideal spot for this exercise. When this happens, this is taken as confirmation that Cretaceous is newer than Jurassic.

When you find a Jurassic animal in the Cretaceous fauna, you will usually take this as extending the time limits for the survival of the kind forward a few million years into the Cretaceous (if you do this, this means you can no longer tell Jurassic from Cretaceous on basis of this kind, but this doesn't stop someone else from doing so if he ignores or contests that you extended the life span of the genus or even species). If instead you find a Cretaceous animal in the Jurassic fauna, you will take this as a token you can extand the lifespan of the kind earlier, back a few million years into the Jurassic. It developed earlier than one had thought. And same observation applies, as to its use as "index fossil" for Jurassic/Cretaceous limit.

If you were on the other hand to find a rock of type x and a rock of type y partially superposed so that x is above y, and beside you will find y containing CRETACEOUS fossils and x containing JURASSIC fossils, you will supposed some shift has occurred. But this happens rarely, because the index fossils between these are taken from the majority and are, as said, sometimes devalorised by extended life span of the species.

It is usually true you never find Ceratopsians (a Cretaceous animal) UNDER Dimetrodon (a Permian animal). But it is equally true that you never find Dimetrodons under Ceratopsians either, if you take above and below in the strict vertical sense.

So, the Cretaceous islands of land on the map in figure one are the spots where UK had Cretaceous land fauna previous to the Flood.

I predict - in the way scientists use the word: I take this as a conclusion supposing my intelligent guess is right - that the islands of Jurassic and the islands of Permian (not sure UK had any such) will not coincide locally.

This said, hat off for the very intelligent observations about what Uniformitarians take as Eocene Amazon sized rivers and what Flood Geologist John D. Matthews takes more realistically as a sea current during the flood.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St Timothée Diacre
Martyr en Mauritanie
19-XII-2014

Source for quotes:

CMI : Why was the UK once totally under water?
by John D. Matthews
http://creation.com/uk-once-under-water

Is Evolutionism or Antischolasticism Used as a Luck Charm?

Here we have some men basically admitting (basically as in giving reasons for them to admit it if they were more logical than they are) that Oil Companies are using the mantra of "millions of years" as a luck charm:

HGL's F.B. writings : Why do Oil Companies Drill For Oil and Find it, when Using Millions of Years?
http://hglsfbwritings.blogspot.com/2014/12/why-do-oil-companies-drill-for-oil-and.html

Here I am debating with a "jamma" who treats antischolasticism as a Luck Charm:

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : Jamma starts giving examples! Yeah!
http://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/2014/12/jamma-starts-giving-examples-yeah.html

Here I get talking to a young lady who is less heavily involved in accepting modern number theory in order to get results, and who abviously knows how to get them:

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : Erdős papers published with ...
http://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/2014/12/erdos-papers-published-with.html

I would like to see geologists reacting to Deep Time like she does to i and similar./HGL

An Extra Reason Against the "Unknown Ages" Apostasy

As readers of this blog might know, I have previously spoken out when I heard that in the Christmas proclamation the words "in the year from the creation of the world, when God in the beginning created Heaven and Earth, five thousand one hundred and ninetynine" had in US been exchanged to "unknown ages".

Here we have from Haydock another reason:

Concerning the transactions of these early times, parents would no doubt be careful to instruct their children, by word of mouth, before any of the Scriptures were written; and Moses might derive much information from the same source, as a very few persons formed the chain of tradition, when they lived so many hundred years. Adam would converse with Mathusalem, who knew Sem, as the latter lived in the days of Abram. Isaac, Joseph, and Amram, the father of Moses, were contemporaries: so that seven persons might keep up the memory of things which had happened 2500 years before. But to entitle these accounts to absolute authority, the inspiration of God intervenes; and thus we are convinced, that no word of sacred writers can be questioned. (Haydock)

Long age compromisers at least humanly speaking compromise the exactitude of the tradition of how the Fall happened - and therefore of the promises, given as a threat to the serpent. The promise being very relevant for the feast today, through the words "ponam inimicitias".

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
Immaculate Conception
of the Blessed Virgin Mary
8-XII-2014

Emil Silvestru on Radioactive Decay Rates

If natural nuclear fission reactors existed deep inside the earth, in the core or/and in the mantle, there is no particular reason why they could not have a pulsating character, periodic or random. It is conceivable that during pulses, massive neutrino fluxes were produced which could have then affected radioactive decay rates of all radioisotopes on the planet.

This is from one of four articles on radioactive decay rate variations I was reading with great interest on CMI.

I will first list them:

• Variable radioactive decay rates and the changes in solar activity
  by Andrew Sibley
  http://creation.com/radioactive-decay-rates-and-solar-activity
• Radioactive decay rate depends on chemical environment
  by Tas Walker
  http://creation.com/radioactive-decay-rate-depends-on-chemical-environment
• Billion-fold acceleration of radioactivity demonstrated in laboratory
  by John Woodmorappe
  http://creation.com/billion-fold-acceleration-of-radioactivity-demonstrated-in-laboratory
• Neutrinos—the not-so-neutral particles
  by Emil Silvestru
  http://creation.com/neutrinos-not-so-neutral

What exactly was I saying about atomic warfare in the Nodian pre-Flood society, a few months or perhaps even a year ago? I was saying for instance such bombs may have accelerated decay rates very substantially for pre-Flood radioactive samples.

Whence my interest in Mahabharata poem as having possibly sth to do with warfare when Kali Yuga is supposed to have begun, i e 155 years before the Flood (if we date it by Roman Martyrology).

In other words, Hindoo Mahabharata freaks if succeeding in proving atom bombs existed and were used thousands of years ago, would be doing Young Earth Creationism a big favour. Perhaps not a necessary one, but still a big one.

For the reason stated by Emil Silvestru in the quote above.

Of course, there is this other take on very old ages by very long half lives - that they have not been tested as to the Geiger measurer ticking rate per se and calculated half life from there but rather calibrated half lives from old samples. I am not speaking as an expert here, but I am noting that something like that was done when a mummy supposed to have been historically dated was used to calibrate C14. As already noted on the three parts of the fifth part of a series that also includes messages here:

• 5) New blog on the kid : Quarterlife is a Bad Term
• 5b) Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : Answering Bill Nye, the Science Guy on a few points
• 5c) New blog on the kid : Phil Provaznik/Dalrymple on Potassium-Argon and on Principle, more on Fission Track and Isochrons (a debunking of...)

Take it as a suggestion. I have found consistent or near such mutism towards non-specialists among specialists of today, when adressing the essays to them and challenging for refutations if they have such. So I cannot claim to know for a fact exactly how it is claculated, but these are my musings on the matter.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St Sabbas, Abbot
5-XII-2014

CMI on Galileo again (not their most honest topic!)

It is actually a small paragraph from them* and then a paragraph from Peter Harrisson quoted by them which I will focus on. The rest of today's article is decent.

So what are the facts? With his telescope, Galileo carried out repeatable observations which refuted the geocentric (earth-centred) systems of Aristotle and Ptolemy, and extended the heliocentric (sun-centred) system of Copernicus. He observed that the sun had spots which moved across its surface, showing that the sun was not ‘perfect’ and that it rotated; he observed the phases of Venus, showing that Venus must orbit the sun; and he discovered four moons that revolve around Jupiter, not the Earth, showing that the Earth was not the centre of everything. He also observed three comets pass effortlessly through Ptolemy’s ‘crystalline spheres’ (in which the planets and stars supposedly moved around the Earth), showing that these spheres must be imaginary.

Bit by bit now:

With his telescope, Galileo carried out repeatable observations

Yes.

which refuted the geocentric (earth-centred) systems of Aristotle and Ptolemy,

but not the equally geocentric system of Tycho Brahe

and extended the heliocentric (sun-centred) system of Copernicus.

or the geocentric system of Tycho Brahe.

He observed that the sun had spots which moved across its surface, showing that the sun was not ‘perfect’ and that it rotated;

which was not condemned

and he observed the phases of Venus, showing that Venus must orbit the sun;

which was not condemned, and which is part of Tycho Brahe's system

and he discovered four moons that revolve around Jupiter, not the Earth,

which was not condemned

showing that the Earth was not the centre of everything.

... not the DIRECT centre of everything.

He also observed three comets pass effortlessly through Ptolemy’s ‘crystalline spheres’ (in which the planets and stars supposedly moved around the Earth), showing that these spheres must be imaginary.

Or aethereal. Either way, that observation also was not condemned. In fact none of his direct observations and none of their strictly logical conclusions were condemned.

Here is a quote from Peter Harrisson through CMI today:

Peter Harrison (Prof. of Science and Religion, University of Oxford) correctly refutes this disinformation, saying it was “a conflict between two sciences; a conflict between traditional Aristotelian science and a new science that Galileo is proposing. … Catholicism reacts because its authority is under threat, but that’s not a question to do with science and religion; it’s a question to do with the politics and authority.”

a conflict between two sciences;

between three actually: Galileo took account of his own and of Ptolemaic Aristotelians. He took no account of Tycho Brahe.

a conflict between traditional Aristotelian science and a new science that Galileo is proposing.

Peter Harrisson no doubt has Galileo among his scientific heros and read the conflict through Galileo's pen. So did Chaberlot, basically, though he provides information of other points as well.

…

What exactly is left out here?

Catholicism reacts because its authority is under threat, but that’s not a question to do with science and religion; it’s a question to do with the politics and authority.

That is an assessment, not a piece of factual information no one could think otherwise about.

The "authority of the Catholic Church" involves, as per Trent:

• Inerrancy of all Scripture in each passage, at least as per original (translations used by Church can contain factual errors only if not doctrinal, say whether Vulgate is better or worse than Septuagint for dating the age of Heaven and Earth - but if translation x differs from original, it would stand to reason the matters are small and correctable from other versions).
• Inerrancy of, not each single Church Father, but all Church Fathers taken together when unanimous on a matter.

But it is very possible Peter Harrison regards neither (outside religious topics) as "religion". I am not even sure he regarded the hasty conclusions of Galileo as science. Chaberlot named "six arguments" from Galileo and "six proofs" available later for Heliocentrism (I refuted all twelve, but that is in French).

It would be very wrong to say all Church Fathers had supported Aristotle or all had supported Ptolemy in every detail.

Someone wanted to ridicule Church Fathers on a forum and called in how such and such one had believed in Crystalline spheres. On that forum, I replied "sure, I'll believe that too, if all Church Fathers are unanimous on it." They are not. The ones that supported a Hebraising, flat Earth containing (but not exclusively defined by that) cosmology were believing each star and planet and sun and moon went as the body we see through basically empty space. Neither aether (which I support, see Coriolis) nor crystalline spheres for those ones. Hence, crystalline spheres can be attacked without attacking the authority of the Catholic Church.

But CMI continues lying (or at best repeating lies, but I have tried to point it out!) in its nearly Masonic reverence for Galileo.

Scientific establishment attacked Galileo and Church supported it?

What exact Scientific establishment? Sure, universities existed, but unlike Evolutionist quasi consensus now, debates existed too.

Picked on a few verses like Psalm 103:5?

How many times is it now that they neglect to mention the Joshua 10:13 verse which was very much up to a debate between Galileo and St Robert Bellarmine in the 1616 process against a book of his? They systematically explain the verse - when they mention it as if it were just any inquiry, and as if it had no relation to Galileo case - according to Galileo's and against St Robert Bellarmine's understanding of it. They also fail to mention that St Robert Bellarmine fully understood the position of Galileo and gave a refutation of it: "if Earth had stopped turning around itself, only, then Moon would have continued, since not tied to Earth". Their writer John Gideon Hartnett recently was on a forum from which I was excluded where I was repeatedly asked what my favourite verse was while I had made it clear alreay it was Joshua 10:12 (Joshua adressed no word at all to Earth, so we cannot suppose it was Earth that changed behaviour).

HGL's F.B. writings : How I answered Mike P with Scripture on Catholicism
http://hglsfbwritings.blogspot.com/2014/11/how-i-answered-mike-p-with-scripture-on.html

Note how SDA female pastor Lea misses I have already answered what my verse is.

On this series 5 - 7 were on that forum and 5 - 8 were on topic of Joshua 10:12, here:

1) Assorted retorts: ... on Not Believing Vedic Astronomy Apart from Geocentrism, on Believing Scholastic Astronomy Including Geocentrism, 2) ... on Nicole d'Oresme refusing to apply relativity perfectly understood to Geocentric appearances, 3) ... on Black Holes and Geocentrism, 4) Back to Godinci, 5) HGL's F.B. writings: A "Biblical" Heliocentric Misciting Holy Scripture, 6) Vy considers I accused him falsely of mis-citing the Bible, Rod invokes relativity, 7) Vy makes his point more clearly - so do I, 8) New blog on the kid : Columbus and Joshua (Imagine Christopher Columbus had worked a miracle)

After I had been provoked to defend Catholicism on that forum (YE3C - Astronomy on FB), and had also mentioned my take on what Joshua 10:12 involves and defended it before that, I was banned and Alex Naszados informed another forum (Catholic Cosmology and Geocentrism) that debates involving Geocentrism were for the future banned on the forum where Mike P (SDA, self-employed lawyer, according to profile, I know his last name but abbreviate, since he is not a public figure that I know of).

What CMI is suggesting is that these Creationist astronomers were ONLY being as fixed on one position as the Scientific Establishment of Galileo's time. Not so.

And of course, it was Galileo himself with his heterodox understanding of the Joshua passage, which alerted the Church he was contradicting the Bible. A Dominican prior of San Marco struck the alarm bell on that very occasion. One more thing in Galileo: he refuted Ptolemy on a few points, no problem, but not only did he not refute the Geocentric position of Aristotelians, he did not even refute their "physics of astronomy". As I recently dealt with elsewhere on my blogs.**

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre University Library***
St Bibiana
2-XII-2014

* Exploring the God Question: 1. The Cosmos, Part 1 (The big bang)
by Russell Grigg, Published: 2 December 2014
http://creation.com/exploring-cosmos-big-bang

** Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : Kurukshetra War and Joshua's Long Day
http://filolohika.blogspot.com/2014/11/kurukshetra-war-and-joshuas-long-day.html

*** Will see if their hospitality extends to a coffee or even a slight lunch today ...

Natural Selection - Observations on an Issue among Creationists, and on Duty of Disclaimers in Diverse Issues

I intro

There are two major things to be considered:

• 1) is the process really there?
  
  
• 2)is "selection by nature" a proper wording?

II

Now, the latter first.

The ‘personification of nature’ claim is simply a hyperliteralistic misunderstanding of a phrase, and a failure to understand that language is defined by usage. The creationists who first proposed NS and Darwinists who followed them never intended it to mean anything cognitive by nature. So we can’t blame the evolutionists for any misunderstandings. This is easy to document.

It is funny, that the people whom CMI/in this article Jonathan Sarfati/ praise as "creationists" (and thus on their own camp) have at other times been called "old earth compromisers" and "species fixicists" and been shoved off as part of the pre-Darwin set up for Darwinism when countering the argument that Darwin was supposed to have been a Bible believing Christian up to his supposed discovery.

Now, making disclaimers is indeed one way to avoid responsability for misunderstandings.

Suppose someone had decided to take me poor sinner for either "Jesus come back on earth" (when we know he shall return on the clouds) or "legal Messiah of the Jews" (when we Christians know Jesus is still alive since His resurrection), and I made a disclaimer (as I have done anyway, just in case, some have acted in ways that were probably either that or testing if I was a lunatic who thought that - not meaning my not thinking it guarantees they won't take me for that on basically baseless excuses), "no, I am a Christian, I know that Jesus is the Right King of the Jews and I know Jesus is not coming back to live a life on Earth as before, but on the clouds", one might either think I had done enough, or blame me for the misunderstanding if I did not repeat the disclaimer often enough or loud enough. Or one might blame me if what I was trying to do was succeeding better because others misunderstood, so that my disclaimers were half hearted. And I might reply that those who don't want to read such disclaimers were the same guys who don't want my blogs to be read anyway, and who make rumours (about Messianity or about madness) about me so as to exclude readers from my blogs. Their fault not mine. Btw, my clothes are ripping apart, so I am in a way fulfilling the obligation (if still such!) to tear my clothes.

But this latter point brings me to one about Evolutionists: are they not both profiting (by the form Evolutionism takes in the popular mind) from undue support and (by forgetting their disclaimers when it suits them) fooling themselves despite all their disclaimers?

There is such a thing as admitting something half of the time and forgetting it half of the time. Like forgetting when arguing from it (I never argue from a supposition I am Messiah, and I never argue from a supposition I am mad, when writing), but admitting whenever challenged on the point. It is a form of hypocrisy.

Guliuzza may be perfectly right that Darwinists are really attributing a kind of personal creativity to "nature" by the use of this word.

I met a German who had grown up in East Germany (the Communist State, where Dia-Mat was taught in all schools) who considered Darwin had shown us that Gaia - mother Earth - was developing us. Dawkins in The Greatest Show on Earth is very obviously attributing more success to "natural selection" in getting a needed result than to "breeders' selection" in getting a consciously wanted result. How can I convince myself he is not fooling himself, by forgetting any admission he or others may have made? For my part, I can't. I suspect he's a thinly disguised Pantheist.

However, despite the evolutionists’ disclaimers, should we be concerned by a term that even figuratively personifies nature? Actually, scientists do that all the time without any problems. For example, pharmacists might warn about ‘light-sensitive’ medicine that should be stored away from light. Is this really claiming that medicine is literally sentient? According to Guliuzza and some of his colleagues, we must logically say yes.

The day when the public starts believing the medicine will shout at them when light is harming their medical properties, i e the day when the metaphor starts to make people attribute a causality to them which non-sentient objects naturally cannot have, I will take the parallel seriously. I don't expect this day will be tomorrow. Nor the day after. Perhaps they will invent medicine that discolours or changes taste if exposed to light, and if so the user has to know how it should look and taste like. We'll see.

Now, here is where Jonathan Sarfati makes an assumption. Namely that Bible itself uses personification in a metaphoric sense.

As a final observation, it’s rather strange to claim that personification of nature is anti-biblical, when the Bible contains passages like “the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands” (Isaiah 55:12), unless of course the Bible is anti-biblical.

The idea that "natural selection" is anti-biblical may have other grounds than it being a metaphoric personification. For instance that it is a misleading such - as said - or for other reasons, I will come back to. But Jonathan Sarfati seems to be no Narnia fan or if such at least very confident that Narnian things "don't happen in our universe," if he takes it for granted that Isaiah 55:12 or rivers clapping hands or stars singing are just metaphors.

Haydock, Isaias 55:
http://haydock1859.tripod.com/id1275.html

12 For you shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall sing praise before you, and all the trees of the country shall clap their hands.

13 Instead of the shrub, shall come up the fir-tree, and instead of the nettle, shall come up the myrtle-tree: and the Lord shall be named for an everlasting sign, that shall not be taken away.

Ver. 12. Peace, by strangers, chap. xlix. 22. --- Hands, for joy. (Calmet) --- Ipsa sonant arbusta Deus Deus ille, Menacla. (Virgil, Eclogues v.)

Ver. 13. Myrtle-tree. Instead of the wicked, the just shall be seen. (Chaldean) --- Away. The conversion and sanctity of the Gentiles shall be a trophy to the Lord. (Menochius)

So Calmet thought the trees clap hands for joy? He feels it necessary to comment on "plaudent manu" as "for joy", but not to point out that trees whether clapping hands or being joyful is a metaphoric personification? And what about the reference to Eclogues v? It is a dialogue between shepherds and these were in those times very likely to believe in nymphs, just as likely as CSL was to put such in the fictional setting of Narnia. So, a Pagan who wanted to become Christian obviously had to renounce all sacrifices to Olympian gods as well as believing in them - but was he required in the days of Saints Paul and Barnabas (who had no more inclination to be taken for Mercurius and Jupiter than I to be taken for King of the Jews!) to disbelieve nymphs of trees? I highly doubt it.

If Sarfati feels it MUST be a personification, he might be using some other info than the Holy Scriptures, and I would like to know what it is.

III - back to issue 1

As already explained, a personification can be antibiblical if misleading. And "Biblical personifications" may be very much something else, i e descriptions of real persons. I have no problem to take "trees clapping hands" as at least their guardian spirits - usually good angels rather than demons to judge from the context here - actually doing some Ent-like or Huorn-like hand clapping. While we are not watching. So if Scripture is not in the habit of metaphorical personifications, it may be even less Scriptural if the metaphoric nature of one is forgotten half of the time so one expects from a personification what can only be expected from persons.

But there is another turn on the question whether Natural Selection is anti-Biblical. Does it occurr?

Natural selection of who or what specimen shall survive long enough to have offspring, of whose offspring or the offspring of what specimen shall diffuse most or least, as explained means selection depending neither totally on chance or in any greater way on personal conscious choice.

In other words, natural selection means God is not personally making choices about the matter. Is that Biblical?

Psalm 103 includes the verse 5 which is Geostatic. If Earth is a disc, it will neither sink closer to Hell nor rise further up to Heaven. Nor even move sidewards. If Earth is a globe - as we know by other means that it is, but not directly and obviously from the Bible - it neither rotates around its axis nor, even less, is removed from its place to get around an orbit. That is at least a pretty obvious reading of that verse.

But this is not all the Psalm contains. It also includes "oculi omnium in te spectant Domine, et tu das illis escam eorum in tempore opportuno." Oh, sorry, that was Psalm 144! Now Psalm 103 contains a parallel:

Omnia a te expectant ut des illis escam in tempore. Dante te illis, colligent; aperiente te manum tuam, omnia implebuntur bonitate.

Everything expects from chance to be fed so as not to starve? No. Everything expects from their natural abilities to starve if weak or to eat if strong? No. Everything expects it from God! And if some creature starves to death?

Nonne duo passeres asse veneunt? et unus ex illis non cadet super terram sine Patre vestro.

Saint Matthew, chapter 10.

Are not two sparrows sold for a shilling? Not even one of the falls on the ground without your Father. Oh ... so what Evolutionists and CMI (unanimously according to Jonathan Sarfati) attribute to "natural selection", our Lord attributes to - God.

God does the culling. God knows whatever genetic faults there are in a population, of beasts or of men, and God also knows which of them He intends to let through and which if them He intends to cull.

In that sense, yes, Natural Selection is deeply antibiblical.

It presupposes the genetic material is full of brave new possibilties (evolutionist version) or of disastrous faults (CMI version) either the one needing culling away or the other needing to be exalted by culling away of the rest. Either version supposes that life of a species depends on disaster on part of its members. Now, after the fall, life of wolves or lions may indeed depend on disaster for rabbits or deer, such as being caught and eaten, or life of rabbits and deer depend on (relative) disaster for wolves or lions such as going hungry. But the idea of Natural Selection means that life of each population also depends on death of some of its members. Not just from time to time, not just by the oldest dying away to give place to the youngest (most of the time), but also regularly through choices being operated by culling of some individuals. Now, God certainly does know as an occasional fact that some individuals have genetic traits likelier to survive in some environments and God sometimes in such cases choses to take care of the population by culling away those with traits less likely to survive.

But it is neither good theology nor even good operational zoology to suppose this is almost always the case.

A lion catching or not catching a deer and a deer escaping or not escaping a lion is of course a survival occasion of that individual. And of course there is a sense in which a genetically slower individual, if there be such one, will be less likely to catch or to escape. But this is very far from being the reason why a lions catches or why a deer escapes in all cases. It can be a matter of the other of them being slow. And even that need not be hereditary, it can be due to its shape of the day. The slow individual which looses such a spurt (as deer eaten or as lion going hungry) may simply have just eaten and be full (in which case the lion would normally not be hunting, unless catching up on family obligations, but it can easily be the case for the deer), may have stumbled, may even have stumbled because its very quickness did not allow it to pay attention, may have had an accident relevant for the leg, and so on.

It is very nonsensical to presume this "lottery" is always or regularly - except on very long run - favouring the best and disfavouring the worst genes. And it is not needed to presume genes are often in a survival relevant inequality. Obviously downright genetic diseases are. Among men, this is less likely to stop procreation - except when men get Darwin conscious and eugenicist. Even among wild animals, God could make an exception to the usual rule of disregard and dying out of "unfit", and among domesticated animals it is even current. Some cat races and dog races could not survive in the wild - unless God provided.

So, in that sense, Natural Selection is anti-Biblical. It disregards the Divine Providence and overdoes the Pagan feeling that "heredity is destiny" - a feeling I am more certain that Pagans had to renounce, as they also had to renounce consulting Sibyls, when getting ready for Baptism.

Hans Georg Lundahl
UL of Nanterre
Saint Sosthenes of Corinth
whom Saint Paul mentions
28-XI-2014

Sources of citations:

• CMI : Feedback archive → Feedback 2014
  The fact of natural selection
  creation.com/natural-selection-fact-contra-guliuzza
  
  
• Wiki : Antoine Augustin Calmet
  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine_Augustin_Calmet
  
  Note he was not a believer in Enlightenment or Scientism. Voltaire taunts him for having believed in Vampires. Kent Hovind has at least once, probably more than once, given an Inerrancy related exegesis (10 men per chariot! - Kent explains it as three teams of three changing turns and a tenth attending the horses so they exchange too) agreeing with Calmet.
  
  
• Search function and cites on Douay-Rheims Bible Online (I wondered why I could not find "passer" in NT, I should have searched "passeres"!).
  
  
• Same version with fuller comment on Haydock Commentary site. Haydock is not a single man commenter, he is often referring back to Calmet or Menochius. Which I thus know chiefly in English translation.
  
  
• Eclogue v by Virgil : Latin / German parallel text
  www.gottwein.de/Lat/verg/ecl05.php

Just Ask Anyone ....

I

I opened a book on pottery.

It was outstandingly excellent. I only pursued the first 10 pages of hundreds or so, but since I am no potter myself, I did not read very much for my instruction, I could afford to read just as stray collecting of random facts, without any intention to put them into practise.

Even so I could tell that the book was very probably either the best or one of the best in its field. Such a clay is used for such a process, such a clay must be mixed to something, such a clay may need admixture of something, such a clay works best with very hot ovens, such another clay with ovens that are still very hot, but very much less so. And while the clay has such and such different softnesses, somewhat harder for pressmolding than for potter wheel throwing, you can use different techniques to form it.

It was a very excellent book - but it began with the statement that clay formed through corrosion of granites that formed by volcanic activity that happened ...

... can you guess? ...

... so and so many millions of years ago.

An information which the potter will certainly not need while doing his pottery, technically speaking (certainly some artists might be inspired to make art referring to it, in pottery, but the technique does not imply anything about correctness of this information). But this comes into the head of the potter as part of a collection of random facts, which he has no intention of putting into practise, but which it is fun to know.

II

I had opened a book on the history of Morocco, written by the French Bernard Lugan, who was born in Morocco (like Alain Sanders). It is an excellent book. It really gets through for instance what happened in Roman Mauretania and Tamugadiana between Roman conquest and the Vandal one - though technically "province" as much as Egypt, it was more comparable to "territory" than to "state" in the terms of 19th C. US. It deals with the Moorish dynasty of Idriss at some length.

And probably it is a well needed book. If it is like his other work, where he explains who really started out with slavehunting in Africa, well, he has done a good job overall.

But it began ...

... can you guess? ...

... with a carbon dating (totally uncontested) of the first known Moroccan to 41.000 years before present (unless I misrecall what dating it was).

Does he really mean that settles any dispute about Moroccan stone age archaeology there could be with a Young Earth Creationist?

III

I have more than once delved into language history. That Romance languages are all descended from Latin is uncontestable. The variation process is nearly seen happening in real time in Gaul/France, but is very far from observed in real time in Roumania. Nevertheless, Roumanian very certainly went through some process similar to French when coming into existence from Latin.

Or any Germanic language history, it is uncontestable that such and such an older language like Old High German, Old English, even Rune Nordic were closer to each other on points of phonetics and basic grammar (though not necessarily lexical vocabulary) that they can very reasonably be assumed to have originated from a single lost parent language among each other and probably with Gothic too (especially Norse and Gothic were similar).

But even so a Germanic language history will typically begin ...

... can you guess? ...

... with a reference to Proto-Indo-European. A somewhat contestable model for the origin of commonalities between known "branches of" Indo-European. Not just because it is unknown. Not just because its various datings include such which place its existence in pre-Flood times (rather unreasonably if St Augustine is right that pre-Babel language was Hebrew - but far more reasonably according to Flood deniers or Flood minimalisers), even back to 10,000 BC according to some. But even supposing you pose Proto-Indo-European as one language having arisen at Babel, we have a problem. Iavan and Madan (both Japhethites), and Semite Gether (if he's responsible for Bactria) and Hamite Lud (if he's responsible for Lydian) would if so have either ended up speaking the same language at first, or one of them would have been substituting his own for one of the others.

It is also contestable as a model, because by now the model of Latin > Romance languages is not the only actually verified model for how more than one language end up having similarities between them.

Balkanic neighbour languages mean languages of which there are bilinguals borrow from each other. You can see that in Spanglish too.

Medieval West European languages mean languages all of whose educated speakers are bilinguals and educated in a higher prestige language (Latin) borrow from that one. Not just items of vocabulary, but even parts of grammar. English, from Middle English to today, is not simply a Germanic language which has borrowed lots of Romance vocabulary. It is Romance in part of sentence structure. It has the Romance word "very" (truly, confer French "très"=trans, beyond) instead of the other Germanic languages' "much". For diverse languages merging into an Indo-European unity, this "high language influence" could very well have been Hittite (Nesili, not Hattili!) used as Latin/French in England by subjected and neighbouring peoples.

So, the PIE model is not even needed as a necessary explanation, but it is nevertheless always actually given.

It is not a question which will bother learners of Old English (since common word roots with Greek words, if truly such - dizzy with θεος? - are very seldom used to explain meanings of OE words no longer used). Or of Old High German. But it is adressed in every book.

In this case, one can blame Academia of early 19th C. especially Germany a bit for over systematisation. They were not wilfully ignoring what we know about Balkan languages or about relation between Medieval West being influenced by Latin (look at consecutio temporum), it was just not yet very well explored. But the "mother language model" has hung on and probably inspired Darwinism nearly as much as the book of Erasmus Darwin and nearly as much as Hegel. And it has in its turn been reinforced by the Darwinist model. If you believe in Dialectic Materialism (which is Hegelian through Feuerbach and Marx and - perhaps less directly - through Darwin and Marx-Engels), you are as little prone to doubt the Mother language model as you are to be a Young Earth Creationist. Or a Geocentric.

IV

Buy a fact book on Dinosaurs. They WILL have died out - unless you are lucky enough to find Creationist editions - 60 million years ago. Buy a book about astronomy - it will state Galileo was right. Buy a book about Stone Age (a licit and knowable study in itself, insofar as Cro Magnon site is explored, as Lascaux is explored and so on) - it WILL mention Neanderthal was another species and that it arose from Heidelberg man, like us directly. And the paintings in Lascaux WILL be dated as 20,000 years before present. Get to Mathematics and Gauss (or someone) WILL be praised for discovering "at long last" that "π is not a rational number" while "earlier they thought all numbers were rational" - which all numbers are, but π is not a number any more than φ or e or sqrt(2), these being all of them items special to geometry and non-existent in arithmetic. And if you are really out of luck, a book on Columbus may still get around to Washington Irving's proposal the Geocentric Young Earth Creationist Catholics of the Middle Ages could burn you on the stake if you doubted Earth was a flat round disc with Jerusalem horizontally in the centre.

V

Centennial by James A. Michener starts out with one chapter about Geology and one chapter about palaeontology. Hint: the geology would not quite agree with Tas Walker and the Diplodocus would not quite have the timescale as given by Kent Hovind. Get a comic book or a novel about the Cro Magnon and Neanderthals, like Rahan, by Lecureux (father and son), like Clan of the Cave Bear, by Jean M. Auel, like Neandertal, by Emmanuel Roudier, I just discovered Goulding had added a book too to his list of unreadables, The Inheritors, and no, we are not talking about Cuozzo's very old post flood men like generation of Noah's grandsons, who get good eye brow thickness from being old, or who even had their puberty at age thirty, we are not talking about stone age men who remembered the Ark and the Tower, we are not talking about men who had know how and traditions but who were in a Swiss Family Robinson situation or a Skilligan's Island situation. We are talking, with whatever the linguistic and mental difficulties of people who had no written language but communicated with each other over continents of the travels of Rahan, or of people who spoke same language and lived in same valley but were refusing each other very basic survival know how, or people even who were getting around to discovering as a very big secret that sex gives rise to pregnancy and that children have fathers as well as mothers. One notable exception is Family Flintstone in which the fact of being stone age is as much a shallow and parodic disguise for modern contemporary folks, as teh fact of being ducks and bears, a couple of mice and a dog is in Walt Disney's Duckville. In other words, the one exception is very much meant not to be taken seriously.

VI

Suppose you go to public schools. Those are supposed to be places where you learn real facts as they are, by teachers who know better, if not than each and everyone on every matter, at least better than anyone on most matters and better than most, better than nearly all on any matter. By teachers whom you are supposed to be able to ask anything on the subject and get an intelligent answer. And supposed to be places where you are taught to think for yourself.

Here at last is the haven of sanity and well founded knowledge by which to oppose by some logic all this propaganda, right?

* Just kiddin'! ROTFL *

[Insert picture of Donald Duck or Katzenjammer Kids rolling on the floor laughing according to your taste in comic books!]

VII

Television gives you Attenbourough and Sagan ... wait, there is Tyson and Il était une fois too! ...

Time to sum up

I think I have given a very convincing induction leading up to the very obvious conclusion, that if there is not a real conspiracy, we are at least dealing with Evolution Paradigm being as much the Queen of Sciences, as Catholic Theology was in the Sorbonne of the 13th Century. Anyone care to dispute that?

Problem is, when I have been confronted with argument "why would everyone believe evolution if it were not true?" I have invariably answered that there is quite a lot of indoctrination going on. And has been so for quite a long time by now, more or less depending on where and Germany was one of the pioneering places, through Hegel, Kant, Grimm Brothers (as to language directly, but they had no Christian view of the matter!) and a few more. I have heard the counterargument that I was being paranoid and seeing conspiracies where there aren't any.

But my point has never been, though conspiracies do happen and do happen to favour this paradigm, that each and every promotor of this paradigm was a conspirator secretly knowing better. I have on the contrary insisted that most are simply somewhat gullible dupes. With a slight touch of complacent vanity, not wanting to admit a theory which is presented as sophisticated comes out as gobble-di-gook to oneself. Emperor's New Clothes syndrom.

But ok, some are more likely to be conspirational than others. School teachers might very honestly believe what they try to get through, but still not be very honest to someone arguing otherwise, because they are in a class and have to be "paedagogic" to 30 (or in lucky cases 20, rarely just 10) pupils, many of whom are also a bit too boisterous to relish an honest debate. Not that they have to as in have to, like you have to eat and drink, but have to as in "have to" as in "one has to earn one's living (whatever it costs to others, but I'll try to be decent as it goes)" ...

Hans Georg Lundahl
Bpi, Georges Pompidou
St Cecily of Rome
22-XI-2014