Kurukshetra War and Joshua's Long Day

First of all I have to distance myself from the kind of Catholic - if so you will call them such! - which considers that Holy Writ is not factual. Then I would distance myself from the kind of Evangelical or Protestant or Puritan who considers Holy Writ and all its wonders is factual and are factual, but nothing outside Holy Writ of wonderful is factual. Third and most important, from the kind of ecumenist who would consider not only Trojan and Kurukshetra Wars as factual as the battle of Gilgal, but also the Pagan accounts as holy as the Hebrew one and the theology as true in all three, theologically contradicting each other and yet all three equally true. No.

That said, Trojan and Kurukshetra Wars being factual, but Apollo and Krishna not holy, Gilgal Battle being factual and God who heard Joshua being truly holy, we get into some more humdrum problems, like corroborative evidence, dating, etc. And on an intermediate level, which I take first, cosmology.

On a page on Joshua's long day, I see a Galileo quote, which attacks the cosmology of the scholastics. Here:

Introductory quote:

Witness Galileo Galilei, an early and vocal proponent of heliocentrism and regarded by many as the first true physicist. In 1613 he wrote in a letter to Castelli why Joshua’s long day should not be believed:

Galileo quoted within quote:

And first I ask the adversary if he knows by what motions the sun is moved? If he does know, he must reply that it is moved with two motions, that is, an annual motion from west to east and an opposite diurnal motion from east to west. Hence, in the second place, I ask if these two movements, so diverse and almost contrary to one another, both belong to the sun and are equally its own? They are forced to answer no; that one alone is its own and particular motion, which is the annual, while the other is not the sun’s at all, but that of the highest sky, called the Prime Mobile, which sweeps along with itself the sun and the other planets and also the starry sphere, constraining them to make one revolution around the earth in 24 hours, with a motion (as I said) almost contrary to their natural and proper motions.

So I come to the third question, and ask them by which of these two motions the sun produces day and night, that is, by its own or from the Prime Mobile? It is necessary to respond that day and night are the effects of motion of the Prime Mobile, while from the proper motion of the sun not day and night, but the different seasons, and the year itself are produced.

Now if the day depends not on the sun’s motion, but on that of the Prime Mobile, who can fail to see that in order to prolong the day it is necessary to stop the Prime Mobile, and not the sun? ... It being therefore absolutely impossible, in the arrangement of Ptolemy and Aristotle, to stop the motion of the sun and to lengthen the day, as the Scripture affirms to have happened.

Follow up remarks after ending Galileo quote:

In his challenge, Galileo sets up a straw man and thus exemplifies the ignorance of the Bible which is so characteristic of humanity. True, if one ascribes the annual motion to the sun and the diurnal (daily) motion to the stars, then Galileo’s argument is correct; but the Bible does not fall into such simple traps. The Bible clearly indicates that the sun is to rule the day. This means that the daily motion is unique to the sun and has nothing to do with the annual motion. The sun’s period is exactly 24 hours. The stars’ daily motion nearly matches the sun’s period, being about 3 minutes 56 seconds less than the sun’s period. Over the course of one year this amounts to one extra revolution about the earth, namely, the annual effect. (The north-south annual motion of the sun can be shown to be due to the difference between the sun’s period of revolution and the rotation rate of the rest of the universe.) When viewed from that perspective, Galileo’s argument falls flat on its face. Both motions are from east to west, but the sun’s motion is roughly 1/365th slower than that of the cosmos. Thus the motions are not “almost contrary” but are almost identical. Yet no theologian has ever come up with a better argument against Joshua’s long day than has Galileo at this one point.

Source:

Geocentricity : JOSHUA’S LONG DAY
http://www.geocentricity.com/astronomy_of_bible/jld/

First of all, I am not at all sure Galileo was in the letter arguing that "Joshua's long day should not be believed" at all. I rather think he was arguing "Joshua's long day should not be explained as the scholastic Geocentrics do." Arguing non-factuality of Biblical history was as yet far from even wayward Catholic minds, unless he was especially perverted by Averroës - a Muslim who had argued a thing could be true "in theology" (Ibn Rushd meant Muslim Quran and Sunna exegesis etc, but Christian Averroists pushed this to apply to Christian real theology) while being false in philosophy and inversely. And even if he were, he would hardly have had the courage to write like that to a Catholic. The words that go ...

It being therefore absolutely impossible, in the arrangement of Ptolemy and Aristotle, to stop the motion of the sun and to lengthen the day, as the Scripture affirms to have happened

... must in all probability be introducing a passage in which Galileo argued for a phenomenological approach to a historically accurate account, as Heliocentrics YECs do now. Probably, the quote was taken out of context by someone else than Geocentricity, by some Secularist who is touting Galileo as a hero.

Second, I disagree with the assessment that the passage cannot be taken quite literally within the scholastic approach which Galileo very correctly attributed to his opponents. So, I disagree strongly with Galileo's rejection of Geocentrism and mildly with the Geocentricity's rejection of scholasticism.

Of course, one can take in a somewhat obvious sense the principle "if Prime Mobile is moving west, Sun is moving along with it" to imply "if Sun is not moving west, Prime Mobile is standing still".

But actually Prime Mobile is moving - as said - 3 minutes (?) 56 seconds faster than Sun, so Sun is anyway not tied to Prime Mobile. The proper movement of the Sun is making the day usually 3 minutes 56 seconds longer than the rotation of the Prime Mobile. This time it made the day over Holy Land 24 hours, 3 minutes and 56 seconds longer (instead of just 3 minutes 56 seconds longer) than the rotation of the Prime Mobile. So, the change in movement was really in the Sun. It changed its absolute movement between Earth and High Heaven (above Prime Mobile) to a stillstand. It changed its relative movement in relation to rotation of Prime Mobile and of aether moving with it to equal speed opposite direction, if the scholastic explanation is true. So did the Moon, except its opposite movement is greater than that of the Sun, as far as the angle is concerned - a Lunar day is one hour longer than a stellar day.

Update : if you have ideas how and even if this squares with Habacuc 3:11, feel free to tell me!

Geocentricity has a Hebraising attitude which translates in a clear preference over an empty space with sun, moon, stars all going of their own movement westward and sun lagging only behind without positively going eastward at all even in relation to a rotating aether, over God turning a rotating aether around us and Sun, Moon and other planets lagging behind by a positive opposite movement effected by angels. St Augustine in a passage misconstrued by CMI Heliocentrics as implying indifference if earth moving around its axis instead of Universe/Heaven around earth, was really stating indifference between the view here ascribed to scholastics (Heavens move, aether is a substance, Sun, Moon, Stars daily move along with its rotation) and the one here defended by Geocentricity (Heavens are an empty unmoving spave, Sun, Moon, Stars move each at their pace through it every day).

My preference of scholastic view has two theology related roots. One is that God moving Heaven around us and angels moving Sun and Moon and planets but not stars opposite direction (and some angels moving stars back and forth as seen in so called "parallax") shows God as a superior over angels and them as depending totally on Him. Hebrew version only shows them as obeying Him, but as being themselves the sources of movement. The other is this that the Sun on the long day allegorically symbolises Christ as we rout our sins under His justice. So, empty-space version with Sun's own movement westward gives the Sun an unusually easy day. Rotating space version with Sun's own movement eastward gives the Sun an unusually hard day - as Christ's day on the Cross.

Anyway, whether Joshua so to say ordered Sun to "stop a chariot" as having it stand still or to "arrange a boat for a standstill" as driving hard against the current (and succeeding MUCH better than a boat in a river!), Joshua's words are very appropriately adressed to the Sun. Nowhere does the passage imply that stars and heavens also ceased rotating.

Sun governing day in Biblical language is also no problem for the scholastic view, since days are not counted in the periods of Prime Mobile rotations, but in the 3 minutes 56 seconds longer periods of Sun's moved placing mostly along with it and slightly moving against it so as to get slower. Because Sun governing day means days is period of sunlight.

Now, what does all this have to do with Trojan and Kurukshetra wars?

For one thing, as I said, because I will not consider mankind as so unequal between elected and temporarily bypassed peoples (for the duration of Old Testament after Tower of Babel, and speaking largely, not as if every individual was bypassed) that all marvels recorded by Greeks and Hindoos must be considered as inventions of poets.

And of course I have already argued that Trojan War happened after Joshua's long day, that Agamemnon had heard of it, perhaps through Philistine's knowing what had happened in the Holy Land and very certainly from the Long Day being objectively observable all over the world, as a very long day, or a very long night, or a very long sunrise or sunset. This was - I have also argued - why Agamemnon hoped to get a similar miracle by praying to Helios and failed. The Sun angel worships God and does not answer Sun worshippers.

But why get into Kurukshetra War in the context? I have previously considered it happened around the time when Hindoos date their Kali Yuga era, that is with Krishna dying a little before the Flood (I checked Kali Yuga and Roman Martyrology for 25 December which gives year after Creation, Flood, Vocation of Abraham, Exodus etc in which Christ was born - Kali Yuga starts 155 years before the Flood), and since this was way before Joshua's long day, one would expect Mahabharata would be of no help at all.

But I have also considered that Mahabharata as we have it is a kind of rehashing with many differences of detail from what happened in any War - in my view a Civil War of Nodian civilisation - so that we do not really know if "Krishna" was or wasn't guilty of telling "Arjuna" so bad theology as Bhagavadgita, or was perhaps used as a mouthpiece by a post-Babel poet (descending from Regma/Raamah the son of Kush or perhaps from Havilah son of Ioctan or from both) like the way in which Scipio and Laelius were used by Cicero in "Dream of Scipio" (where the eschatological theology is nearly acceptable except for temporality of paradise and reincarnation and consequent lack of resurrection of the bodies) or in "Laelius on Friendship".

Now, I have just gotten challenged on when Kurukshetra War happened. I had for months and up to a year or more (no use being dogmatic, Mahabharata is not Gospel truth) considered it was pre-Flood.

I learned from one person that he considered it was about the time of the Trojan War.

Now, a lesson from this is not to trust Hindoos too much. If Krishna died when the start of Kali Yuga implies, he died pre-Flood and pretty certainly spoke Hebrew rather than Sanskrit or any kind of Indo-European. So he would have (with same meaning of nickname) have been called Kush. And he would have lived so far behind any possible date post-Babel of poet that we could not know how much inaccuracies and misunderstandings had heaped on each other and perhaps this man was guilty of a very much lesser sin than of posing as a god, but was divinised by ancestor worship and given posthumous "theophanies" like after speaking Mahabharata. Bhagavadgita.

If on the other hand Krishna lived around the war of Troy, he can really have used hypnosis or worse, real magic by demons, to impose himself as a god on Arjuna as Odin did later in Uppsala. But in that case, dating him to have died 155 years before the Flood would mean that Hindoos really outdid each other in exaggerating the ancientness of the matter. "He died five years ago." - "Five years? Are you joking! It's a god, it must have been fifty years ago!" - No, five hundred!" and you have an auction going on how long ago it was, highest bidder wins, for same reasons that pushed Egyptian Pagans to say world was 40,000 years old when it was really only some 5,500 when a Church Father (or more than one) commented on this mania for high ages - one which of course Evolution believers have trumped by some billions of years, making Kali Yuga look like small beer by comparison.

However, I set out to look up if there was some kind of support for the later date for the Kurukshetra War. And I came across this page:

DATING THE KURUKSHETRA WAR
http://ignca.nic.in/nl002503.htm

And one quote set me looking for a kind of correlation with Joshua's long day, hence the earlier part of this essay.

Here it is:

The other dignitaries present on the dais were Dr. M.K.L.N. Sastry - Hon. Secretary, Mythic Society, Prof. P.V. Krishna Bhat - Hon. Coordinator, IGNCA-SRC and Shri K. Narahari - Managing Trustee, Apte Trust. The opening session set the tone for the mind stirring sessions with various interpolations found in the Mahabharata. Several scholars put forth their perception and calculated derivations. Dr. S. Balakrishna (NASA, USA) proved the occurrence of 'two eclipses in (a span of) 13 days prior to Mahabharata'. Analysing the astronomical possibility of Vyasa's statement in Bhishma Parva "Amavasya occured on the 13th day. Two eclipses in a month, on the thirteenth day." he presented the data of eclipses during the period 3300 BCJ (Before the Calendar of Julian Ceaser) to 700 BCJ visible at Kuruxethra, using Lodestar Pro software. He stated the possibility of 672 eclipse pairs, ten 'thirteen day lunar first' eclipse pairs and concluded that 2559 BC eclipse pair was nearest to the text of Mahabharata.

So a Westerner at NASA can laugh at Joshua's long Day,* while a Hindoo at NASA can try to date Mahabharata from eclipse pairs? Apparently yes!

But the thing that set me looking was this: of the two eclipses, one could have been a supernatural event recorded in the Bible. Mahabharata was certainly written too early for The Sun Gone Dark over Calvary to be it. Otherwise I would have tried to ask myself if there could have been a real lunar eclipse visible in India thirteen days before or after Crucifixion which gave something falsely considered as an eclipse while not being such. Indeed, "Vedic astronomy" (whenever it was written down, unless it was very much too early which is difficult to check) may have gotten the idea of eclipses caused by Rahu rather by the solar eclipse that was clearly not moon caused than by failing to explain lunar eclipses from a flat earth, as is also possible.

However, if Crucifixion is too late for the two eclipses 13 days apart according to Mahabharata, what about Joshua's Long Day? Which is why I did the search which led me to - Geocentricity's page.

But back to their page about dating Mahabharata. They cannot agree (though all are sure Kurukshetra War happened).

But the dates for say eclipses 13 days apart, lunar first, if they would point to a definite time around 1500 B.C., would that really have dated Kurukshetra War?

You see, I am somewhat of a novelist myself. I have a half written novel about Susan Pevensie (after the train crash that killed off her family and friends - should perhaps give her friends she doesn't lose in it) and I wanted a chapter about her visiting Narni in Italy, a place which Antiquity called Narnia and which C. S. Lewis very consciously chose to give a name to Narnia in that other world. So, the chapter takes place in very late 1949, I wanted to know what the weather was like there then and of course I can't. So, I used a weather report for same day I was writing it, and since that was also same few days, it was assumable that the weather just possibly COULD have been like that when Susan of my novel visited Narni in my novel on St John's Day 1949.

Vyasa could very easily have taken weather and astronomic observations from when he was writing and transposed it back to when he was writing about, not as if it were sure to be the same, but because it was realistic. Tolkien did a similar stunt when giving realism to LotR, the phases of the Moon when Gollum leads Frodo and Sam mimic those of the month when he was writing the chapters.

Dating the astronomy of Mahabharata may very well be a better help to dating the composition than to dating the war.

And no, the Gospels are not related to the life of Christ with as much room as between Trojan War and Homer or Third Punic War and Cicero or Kurukshetra War (if pre-Flood) and the real poet of Mahabharata (who was certainly post-Flood). They are in two cases written by eyewitnesses (Sts Matthew and John) and in two cases by people having spoken to such (St Mark to St Peter - though the exact account of how it happened differs somewhat between the Stromatist and St Augustine - and St Luke to the Blessed Virgin Mary and quite a few more).

How do I decide which is which? Well, I rely on tradition. When diverse traditions are in conflict, I rely on the best one. And that has helped to decide my Christian Catholic faith (I was my first years a little God fearing but even more Evolution believing and Comic book believing Pagan) as much as the faith has helped me subsequently to distinguish between a better or a worse tradition.

On Krishna tradition has it:

He died 3102 BC - he was in the Pandava-Kaurava war - which took place in Kurukshetra - he was a deity - and Hindoo dynasties descend from him or Arjuna directly, with no intervening Flood.

As a Christian I cannot find the first and last of these in agreement but must choose. Whichever choice I make, Hindoo tradition bungled some facts.

As to his being a deity, the options for a Christian are false theophany or bungled memory.

As to criticising my own Christian tradition the same way, well, I can in a way be said to evaluate it rationally on similar criteria when engaging in Apologetics and putting myself in the position, as far as I can, of my non-Christian opponent, if he would only be sufficiently rational to adopt those criteria. But unlike Hindoo tradition not being integrally acceptable, because Christian tradition primes over it, I have no criterium on which to rule out integrality of Christianity being true. Equal value of all traditions is a supposition, I value Greek and Roman over Mahabharata tradition and perhaps Mahabharata tradition a bit over the Nordic one in moral theology, but under it in factuality of heroic legend. Or even in metaphysics. Science based criticism of the Christian faith breaks down over how much of it is sham science either originally made or ulteriorly exploited as Christianity attacks. Supposed contradictions in the Bible break down over how ill the critics finding them know the Bible, know what tradition it belongs to (some take Rabbinic tradition over Catholic when it comes to moral meaning of passages in Moses, poor guys!) or know even the common place effort of friendly logic to try as many explanations as possible for a claim being possibly true before concluding it was not just a lie but a very clumsy and incomprehensible one at that.

And criticising tradition for being tradition rather than documentary archaeological fact misunderstands the role of tradition in general theory of knowledge very totally. It is, as I recently had the help of fellow Catholics on FB to point out, by oral tradition that we know that the form A belongs with the name "ay" and the sounds of "s-A-me, f-A-ther, f-A-t, f-A-ll" and the digraph EA ("ee and ay" or "ee-ay") having sounds of "r-EA-ding, [have] r-EA-d, gr-EA-t" ... of course though originally known by tradition it is tested by meaningfulness in context after context - but that is also true of almost any tradition, and it is mostly on ultimate questions where testing is difficult that they go wrong, not on humanly observable factual ones.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Bpi, Georges Pompidou Library
St Andrew Apostle and
First Sunday of Advent
30-XI-2014

PS: Why would I have considered it at all likely that Joshua's long day would have been considered as an eclipse in India? Because I was mistaken on two items. One, what time of the day the Sun stopped. I thought it was in the evening, like in the Iliad, but the Sun actually stopped over Gilgal at zenith. Which makes the day version rather than the night version of the event visible further East back then. By c. 90° even. The next problem is I was mistaken on how far East India is of Holy Land in terms of angle of the globe. I thought it might be about 90°. So, I test my theory today (1-XII, day of St Eligius).

I look up Gilgal. Are there coordinates there? No. But a reference to a site of Modern Israel that is close by. I look up that site. Argaman Coordinates: 32°10′20.99″N 35°31′18.84″E.

If I add 90° to 35° I get 125° East. Am I in India? No. I do a google and get a glimpse of a search 50° N 125° E. How far N actually matters less. But that locality must have been seeing the Sun due West if Gilgal saw it 32° S of mid high point of the sky, declining neither East nor West. So I redo the google, and I get here:

confluence project : 50 ° N 125° E
http://confluence.org/confluence.php?id=6643

And I am - mentally - with the writer Rainer Mautz who was there - physically on a bike - in 27.7 km (17.2 miles) W of Sizhan (Hēilóngjiāng), Nèi Měnggǔ, China. Accuracy is supposed to be 66 m (216 ft). That is far East of India and as far East as one has to get in order to have seen the Long Day as a Long Sunset. India saw it as a long day, as was mapped on Geocentricity page, a story of a long day in India.

* I was trying to find the relevant post on Bad Astronomy with my defense of Geocentrism and Joshua's Long Day in the comment section, but I found sth else by NASA Astronomer Phil Plait:

Bad Astronomy : Moon hoax: why not use telescopes to look at the landers?
By Phil Plait | August 12, 2008 10:00 am
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/08/12/moon-hoax-why-not-use-telescopes-to-look-at-the-landers/

if the landings were real, why not point Hubble or some other telescope at the landing sites and take pictures of the landers? ... The answer is pretty surprising to most people, but the science doesn’t lie.

The basic idea is that when the astronauts left the Moon, they left behind several artifacts, including the base of the lunar module (called the descent stage) and the rovers (for Apollo 15, 16, and 17). The descent stages were a little over 4 meters wide (the landing legs spread out were 9 meters across, but are narrow, so the bulk of the stage would be easier to see). The rovers were about 3 meters long and 2 wide.

Those numbers sound like you should be able to spot them with, say, Hubble. But can you?

The question here is one of resolution: how big does an object have to be before a telescope can resolve it, that is, see it as more than just a dot?

Wonderful news for the guys who seem to think telescopes can accurately directly measure parallax angles of 0.76 arc seconds or less. Some guys have the idea we get to measure stellar distances of 13.5 billion light years simply by parallax angle and trigonometry. But 0.76 arc seconds is just 4 light years. Look at Phil Plait's words again, and see if it seems he considers that an angle that can be measured directly even by Hubble!

Update: Ha! I found the post I was looking for:

BadAstronomy : That NASA look
By Phil Plait | July 26, 2010 12:00 pm
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/07/26/that-nasa-look/

Though the post is by Phil Plait, the guy I most argue against on the thread is Neil Haggath. So much indeed that when I link to the post from my own, I even attribute the post to Neil Haggath. Here is my own btw, tried to link to it in a short link on the thread, but the url-burner has ceased functioning, so for "o-x.fr/1po1" (as per on thread) I now give you:

deretour : Moontruth? Why?
http://hglundahlsblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/moontruth-why.html

Where I had argued that theories of Apollo landing hoax, interesting as they are, are not necessary at all for Geocentrism per se.

Extreme badness of computer scanned text retype

1) Extreme Badness of Google Translate (Copy Pasted both texts), 2) Extreme badness of computer scanned text retype, 3 a) basic english blog This will be. Easy. b) I was wrong. c) Reading level/blog readability test : Server Failure: The name server was unable to process this query.

Note, I am not speaking against scanned pictures, but when a scan results in the computer making texts rather than images. In Project Runeberg's version of Nordisk Familjebok, I have no problem reading the text from scanned images, but more than once I have had to correct the text produced under them. Here is a typical and pretty bad example. First a Bible text in English translation, then the scan produced text, then the real Latin words:

• If the world hates you, remember it hated me first.
• Si imtndus vos odil scitofeqnia mcpviorem Kobis odio halmit
• Si mundus vos odit scitote quia me priorem vobis odio habuit.

This post has three sixes in the post ID. Possibly someone was trying to excommunicate* me and warning me it was an "antichristian" thing to expose computer scanned texts.

Or to warn me that "Si imtndus vos odil scitofeqnia mcpviorem Kobis odio halmit" was offensive to the Sacred Word of God. But it is not my invention. I found it here:

Lettres apostoliques de S. S. Léon XIII, tome 7
http://www.liberius.net/livres/Lettres_apostoliques_de_S._S._Leon_XIII_%28tome_7%29_000000873.pdf

So you decide who is Antichristian - me for writing this, or some other guy for trying to scare me by unjust excommunications, or neither, if you prefer to think of the three sixes as a coincidence. For my own part, I am not adding a signature here, for that reason.

* Just because of that I also found I had spelled the word "ecommunicate"!

Challenge to Chomsky from a Latinist

ille mi par esse deo videtur, ille, si fas est, superare divos, qui sedens adversus identidem te spectat et audit dulce ridentem

This sentence IS grammatical in Latin.

Now, how do you parse that with a tree diagram? If you feel it is too long, abbreviate:

IMPEDV,I,SFE,SD,QSAITSEA.*

Now, parse!

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

Wikibooks : The Poetry of Gaius Valerius Catullus/51
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/The_Poetry_of_Gaius_Valerius_Catullus/51

*I obviously mean : IMPEDV,I,SFE,SD,QSAITSEADR.

What did Saint Thomas Really Say About Biblical Inerrancy?

1) New blog on the kid : Tit for tat ..., 2) Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : What did Saint Thomas Really Say About Biblical Inerrancy?

Here is a quote from a blog post in which it is suggested that matters in Scripture exist which to believe is never essential to the faith even if you know they are there:

In the Summa Theologica, Thomas Aquinas responds to an objection that everything in scriptures is a matter of faith:

"[O]f things to be believed some of them belong to faith, whereas others are purely subsidiary, for, as happens in any branch of knowledge, some matters are its essential interest, while it touches on others only to make the first matters clear. Now because faith is chiefly about the things we hope to see in heaven, 'for faith is the substance of things hoped for,' [Hebrews xi.1] it follows that those things which order us directly to eternal life essentially belong to faith; such as the three Persons of almighty God, the mystery of Christ's incarnation, and other like truths. . . . Some things, however, are proposed in Holy Scripture, not as being the main matters of faith, but to bring them out; for instance, that Abraham had two sons, that a dead man came to life at the touch of Elisha's bones, and other like matters narrated in Scripture to disclose God's majesty or Christ's incarnation."

Sweethearts Seeking Sanctity : Geocentrism: A Dangerous Pseudoscience
http://sweetheartsseekingsanctity.blogspot.com/2014/05/geocentrism-dangerous-pseudoscience.html

Now, there is such a thing as a footnote (number 45) giving us the reference for this quote:

Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae II-II, q. 1, a. 6, ad 1, quoted in William E. Carroll, "Creation, Evolution, and Thomas Aquinas," Revue des Questions Scientifiques 171 (2000): 319-347

Before agreeing with the next words of the blog post, namely ...

Cosmology is one of those subjects in scriptures which do not “order us to eternal life” but serves to “bring out” or illustrate a matter of faith and to “disclose God’s majesty.” Since cosmology is not a matter of faith, it follows that it cannot be doctrine. If I believed the entire universe went around the moon, I would be mistaken, but I would not be a heretic.

... let us see if the William E. Carroll from whose article "Creation, Evolution, and Thomas Aquinas," might not have dishonestly given the context in a truncated fashion. Did either of the two Sweethearts Seeking Sanctity, specifically Anthony whose blog post it is, bother to look up Summa theologiae II-II, q. 1, a. 6, ad 1?

I happen to know the passage rather well, since some time before 2000. I will give you the whole article:

Article 6. Whether those things that are of faith should be divided into certain articles?

Objection 1. It would seem that those things that are of faith should not be divided into certain articles. For all things contained in Holy Writ are matters of faith. But these, by reason of their multitude, cannot be reduced to a certain number. Therefore it seems superfluous to distinguish certain articles of faith.

Objection 2. Further, material differences can be multiplied indefinitely, and therefore art should take no notice of them. Now the formal aspect of the object of faith is one and indivisible, as stated above (Article 1), viz. the First Truth, so that matters of faith cannot be distinguished in respect of their formal object. Therefore no notice should be taken of a material division of matters of faith into articles.

Objection 3. Further, it has been said by some [Cf. William of Auxerre, Summa Aurea] that "an article is an indivisible truth concerning God, exacting [arctans] our belief." Now belief is a voluntary act, since, as Augustine says (Tract. xxvi in Joan.), "no man believes against his will." Therefore it seems that matters of faith should not be divided into articles.

On the contrary, Isidore says: "An article is a glimpse of Divine truth, tending thereto." Now we can only get a glimpse of Divine truth by way of analysis, since things which in God are one, are manifold in our intellect. Therefore matters of faith should be divided into articles.

I answer that, the word "article" is apparently derived from the Greek; for the Greek arthron [Cf. William of Auxerre, Summa Aurea] which the Latin renders "articulus," signifies a fitting together of distinct parts: wherefore the small parts of the body which fit together are called the articulations of the limbs. Likewise, in the Greek grammar, articles are parts of speech which are affixed to words to show their gender, number or case. Again in rhetoric, articles are parts that fit together in a sentence, for Tully says (Rhet. iv) that an article is composed of words each pronounced singly and separately, thus: "Your passion, your voice, your look, have struck terror into your foes."

Hence matters of Christian faith are said to contain distinct articles, in so far as they are divided into parts, and fit together. Now the object of faith is something unseen in connection with God, as stated above (Article 4). Consequently any matter that, for a special reason, is unseen, is a special article; whereas when several matters are known or not known, under the same aspect, we are not to distinguish various articles. Thus one encounters one difficulty in seeing that God suffered, and another in seeing that He rose again from the dead, wherefore the article of the Resurrection is distinct from the article of the Passion. But that He suffered, died and was buried, present the same difficulty, so that if one be accepted, it is not difficult to accept the others; wherefore all these belong to one article.

Reply to Objection 1. Some things are proposed to our belief are in themselves of faith, while others are of faith, not in themselves but only in relation to others: even as in sciences certain propositions are put forward on their own account, while others are put forward in order to manifest others. Now, since the chief object of faith consists in those things which we hope to see, according to Hebrews 11:2: "Faith is the substance of things to be hoped for," it follows that those things are in themselves of faith, which order us directly to eternal life. Such are the Trinity of Persons in Almighty God [The Leonine Edition reads: The Three Persons, the omnipotence of God, etc.], the mystery of Christ's Incarnation, and the like: and these are distinct articles of faith. On the other hand certain things in Holy Writ are proposed to our belief, not chiefly on their own account, but for the manifestation of those mentioned above: for instance, that Abraham had two sons, that a dead man rose again at the touch of Eliseus' bones, and the like, which are related in Holy Writ for the purpose of manifesting the Divine mystery or the Incarnation of Christ: and such things should not form distinct articles.

Reply to Objection 2. The formal aspect of the object of faith can be taken in two ways: first, on the part of the thing believed, and thus there is one formal aspect of all matters of faith, viz. the First Truth: and from this point of view there is no distinction of articles. Secondly, the formal aspect of matters of faith, can be considered from our point of view; and thus the formal aspect of a matter of faith is that it is something unseen; and from this point of view there are various distinct articles of faith, as we saw above.

Reply to Objection 3. This definition of an article is taken from an etymology of the word as derived from the Latin, rather than in accordance with its real meaning, as derived from the Greek: hence it does not carry much weight. Yet even then it could be said that although faith is exacted of no man by a necessity of coercion, since belief is a voluntary act, yet it is exacted of him by a necessity of end, since "he that cometh to God must believe that He is," and "without faith it is impossible to please God," as the Apostle declares (Hebrews 11:6).

New Advent > Summa Theologica > Second Part of the Second Part > Question 1 Faith > 6 Article Should the things to be believed be divided into a certain number of articles?
http://newadvent.com/summa/3001.htm#article6

Let me first stress the question posed in the article. Whether the object of faith can be divided into a certain number of articles (Apostolic Creed having 12 or 14 depending on division, the Creed of St Athanasius having 40). Not whether everything in the Bible is to be believed. Especially not whether some things in the Bible are not to be believed.

Let me then stress what the first objection was, I quote again from the New Advent site:

Objection 1. It would seem that those things that are of faith should not be divided into certain articles. For all things contained in Holy Writ are matters of faith. But these, by reason of their multitude, cannot be reduced to a certain number. Therefore it seems superfluous to distinguish certain articles of faith.

What is taken for granted is that Bible is inerrant in every aspect. What is being argued is that since Bible has an infinity of aspects, faith cannot be divided into a finite number of articles.

Now, let me quote the answer in full, unlike what William E. Carroll did. I will stress words he left out.

Reply to Objection 1. Some things are proposed to our belief are in themselves of faith, while others are of faith, not in themselves but only in relation to others: even as in sciences certain propositions are put forward on their own account, while others are put forward in order to manifest others. Now, since the chief object of faith consists in those things which we hope to see, according to Hebrews 11:2: "Faith is the substance of things to be hoped for," it follows that those things are in themselves of faith, which order us directly to eternal life. Such are the Trinity of Persons in Almighty God [The Leonine Edition reads: The Three Persons, the omnipotence of God, etc.], the mystery of Christ's Incarnation, and the like: and these are distinct articles of faith. On the other hand certain things in Holy Writ are proposed to our belief, not chiefly on their own account, but for the manifestation of those mentioned above: for instance, that Abraham had two sons, that a dead man rose again at the touch of Eliseus' bones, and the like, which are related in Holy Writ for the purpose of manifesting the Divine mystery or the Incarnation of Christ: and such things should not form distinct articles.

What does Anthony conclude?

Biblical cosmology cannot be doctrine.

What should he conclude?

Biblical cosmology cannot be a distinct article of faith.

What is the difference? One is that there are doctrines that are not articles of faith in themselves.

But another is that each distinct article of faith - which are finite in number - gives occasion to a potentially infinite number of doctrines - one for each Bible passage that is actively contested in relation to the article.

There is a connexion. Every doctrine is about an article of faith or about a commandment in the decalogue or related to the double command of charity or about a petition in the Lord's Prayer.

So, Biblical cosmology can touch, primarily as articles: first one saying God is Creator, and the one which says the Holy Ghost has spoken through the prophets.

There are obviously articles of cosmology which are not Biblical. Earth not being a globe but instead a disc can not very well be reconciled with Holy Writ once we know geography, since the latest flat earth maps show land masses as having a midpoint in North Pole (probably after a Hindoo idea) and three corners verging towards the South rim: Americas, Africa, SE Asia. Bible requires four corners. We could get four corners more easily if we allow the globe to be a globe and do not distort the landmasses to suit an idea of North Pole as "centre point" and "South rim as periphery".

But as Anthony suggested with a wrong example, if I were a flat earthist, I would be wrong but not an heretic. I could for instance be ignorant of geography and count Jerusalem as centre of a flat disc and Americas as a fable. That would be wrong, but not heretical. The four corners would be the same as one version of what I consider they might be: NW, NE, SE and SW corners of the Old World, a k a Europe, Asia and Africa. My other option, as a round Earth admitter (let's not call it globe earth believer, it is not doctrine) would be to replace Cape of Good Hope with Cape Horn as SW corner. And to see Atlantic Ocean as a secondary incursion into the four cornered land mass. Of course a third option would be to consider the four corners as referring to a pre-Flood landmass, in which case flat earthers would just possibly be able to say, escaping heresy, that after the Flood the fourth corner is missing. And still adher to the North Centre/South Rim map. I would not do that. Four corners does just not require it.

But there are other articles of cosmology, which, though not articles of faith are still to be believed because they are in the Bible.*

As the "objection 1" states as a premiss and as the "reply to objection 1" does not argue against.

I am sorry, but William E. Carroll has - 14 years ago in Revue des Questions Scientifiques 171 (2000): 319-347 - given himself to the abject practise of quote mining - of using a quote, not only to make a point strange to the person quoted, but even worse, to make it appear, by truncation of context, that the person quoted agrees with one. At least on one essential where this is not the case.

Before finalising such an accusation, I must of course read that article, I have not done so yet. But I find it significant that Anthony quotes a piece lacking the final words that clarify context and the meaning in which faith "is not directed to" things like Abraham having two sons (at age hundred, later he had more) or Elisha's relics raising a man from the dead. I must either think Anthony was an inattentive reader of William E. Carroll, or that Anthony was himself quote mining William E. Carroll - or that, as my main suspicion lies - William E. Carroll was deliberately quote mining. This is way beyond just sloppy.

Now, if and when I read the article from 14 years ago, I will give an update on whether my culprit is William E. Carroll. Meanwhile I will pubish this post of mine, link to it under the post of Anthony, and hope that this time he publishes it. He has already twice not published comments (he has comment validation on, I have free comments) I wrote under it.

My main suspicion of Anthony is that he took the quote as given by Carroll on faith - on human faith in a fellow Catholic or supposed such. And never bothered to check it himself, since he counted on such a publication not publishing anything without checking.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Bibliothèque Marguérite Audoux
St Elisabeth daughter of the King of Hungary
widow in Marburg**
19-XI-2014

* All real discoveries of Galileo through the telescope, observations as opposed to his conclusions, are not concerned. There were in both processes 1616 and 1633 just two theses where he was uttering something in conflict with Biblical cosmology.

** In oppido Marpurgi, in Germania, depositio sanctae Elisabeth Viduae, Regis Hungarorum Andreae filiae, ex tertio Ordine sancti Francisci, quae, pietatis operibus assidue intenta, miraculis clara migravit ad Dominum.

Extreme Badness of Google Translate (Copy Pasted both texts)

1) Extreme Badness of Google Translate (Copy Pasted both texts), 2) Extreme badness of computer scanned text retype, 3 a) basic english blog This will be. Easy. b) I was wrong. c) Reading level/blog readability test : Server Failure: The name server was unable to process this query.

English Original

I am only showing that I care

French Translation

Je ne fais que montrer que je fous

More typical badness of Google translate:

English Original

shielde

French Translation

shielde

I jumped in:

"sans le E final"

English Original

shield

French Translation

bouclier

Of course "shielde" and "shield" mean exactly the same pronunciation, it is the exact same word. But only "shield" rather than what you can find in 14th C. manuscripts of Chaucer, perhaps still in Morte d'Arthur by Malory is programmed in the English vocabulary, so the latter, "shielde" is treated like a proper name, left untranslated, or as an unknown word "hope the guys have a dictionary for what Google Translate doesn't fix" said some programmer (and yes, professional translators may use Google Translate as a first draft). But "bouclier" or "écu" depending on exact form of the object would be correct translations, "écu" also meaning a coin, "bouclier" being same word as "buckler." And the more common of the two words.

This is why my Swedish texts are difficult to get right by Google Translation : I use an older spelling. Not 14th C. but as with English in Britain a spelling that was current in 18th C. before Webster - and were even more so when I replaced "å, ä, ö" with "aa, ae, oe" which a human reader will understand but which wreaks havoc with computer translation. I now have other ways of dealing with lack of Swedish keyboard./HGL

Here is a Bing translate, and the result is catastrophic.

I will therefore give the faulty translation crossed out and the correct one beside:

Spanish original

Bendita sea tu pureza y eternamente lo sea, pues todo un Dios se recrea en tan graciosa belleza

French translation

Béni est Bénite soit votre pureté et être qu'elle le soit éternellement, tous car (ou et puis?) tout un Dieu recrée en beauté si drôle si gracieuse beauté.

Are SSPX Good on History of ROC/GOC?

No, I just heard Father Hesse (of blessed memory, I revere him as much as I would with Father Brown if he had been a real person or as much as I do revere Father Bryan Houghton), said they quarreled about whether there were seven or four councils. Update: the rest of the video, I just heard all of it, is excellent:

Fr. Hesse: A 3rd Conversation on Tradition vs. Modernism
Defeat Modernism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaGLel1_uXY

Not really, Armenians and Jacobites* (ecclesiastical sense = Copts and Ethiopian Copts) who do not accept all seven ecumenical councils of the first seven do not even accept the first four, only the first three. Of these first three, only the first two are accepted by Nestorians. BUT Russian Orthodox Church and Greek Orthodox Church accept all seven.

The quarrel between one and other faction of Greco-Russians is if there was ever an eighth or a ninth ecumenical council.

THEIR eighth is not OUR eighth. OUR eighth is 869, it condemned Photius, and Photians who have canonised him as a "defender of orthodoxy" (the other two such they refer to against Catholics are Gregory Palamas and Mark of Ephesus) are not likely to be actively promoting that as the eighth council. They do however in some cases promote as eighth council, fourth of Constantinople, the one that took place in 879, ten years later.

So, if they are pro-Catholic, they accept only seven councils, if anticatholic, they accept this council of 879 as the eighth, it reconciled Photius to the then Pope.

Their ninth ecumenical (those who think there were nine, not just seven) is the Fifth of Constantinople. There were three of these, and only the third of them is accepted by them as ecumenical. Gregory Palamas was rehabilitated on the third of these. It seems his opponent in the conflict, though later reconciliated with Latin Catholics, was at the time promoting some kind of Liberal Theology, some kind of "God is utterly unknowable" nonsense. Rome condemned certain theses that were given as canons at Constantinople V, but was not taking clear sides for Palamas' opponent, only against some of his mistakes.

Father Hesse also said that the Greco-Russians did not believe the Immaculate Conception. He had earlier admitted St Thomas Aquinas in a sense had opposed it. But the fact is Gregory Palamas was for it. Russians also remained for it, up to 1666 or** 1667. Then Patriarch Nikon was shocked to find that there were differences of Liturgic usage between Russians and Greeks, he made new liturgic books and in that process some theological commentary came, including one made by a Greek in Venice (if I recall correctly) who had studied under Luther, who had denied the Immaculate Conception and indeed the sinlessness (which is worse than the Greco-Russians do) of Our Lady, the Blessed Virgin Mary.

So we Roman Catholics have restored the doctrine of Immaculate Conception through the Greeks, but Russians have lost it through ex-Catholic Westerners in Wittenberg and Greeks have lost it since, because of respect for Russians.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Georges Pompidou Library
Sunday after Octave of All Hallows
9-XI-2014

PS related to update: Fr Hesse's video is not one of the things where I have 30 minutes of video and add 7 - 20 comments because of the number of mistakes in it, even when agreeing generally. One more blunder, he might have overestimated the patriotism and virtue of troops like those concerned in Abu Ghraib, but that is a blunder on the side of love, not of negligence.

PPS, for other videos, where I do give lots of comments, either against blunders of speaker or in response to debates, I have another blog than this one, namely:

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere
[by now the debates from comboxes outnumber those from yahoo boards]
http://assortedretorts.blogspot.com

* I avoid the wording "Monophysites", not so much because Jacobites prefer to translate Tawheedo as Miaphysites ('εις μια 'εν rather than μονος, μονη, μονον qualifying φυσις as in Christology), but because among them the Jacobites and Armenians are clearly different from each other. Jacobites, as far as I know, still uphold the Real Presence as dogma, while Armenians have once done so but since wavered.

** Can't recall if it was Skirzhal of 1666 or a comment from 1667, I think the latter, which introduced denial of Immaculte Conception to them. While the Old Believers still had clergy, they did indeed uphold the Immaculate Conception. Avvakum was burnt on the stake as a heretic, for fighting the new Skirzhal and for upholding Immaculate Conception.

Shoebat gets it RIGHT

At least on History.

DRINKING “THE BLOOD OF SAINTS”
By Ted on March 12, 2014 in General, Highlight
Exclusive By Walid Shoebat
http://shoebat.com/2014/03/12/drinking-blood-saints/

When he says he wishes Catholics knew the Bible as well as Protestants do, as a former Protestant I disagree. Catholics know the Bible better./HGL