Copernicus and the Index

[Martin Harran]

In the discussions concerning the Catholic Church and heliocentrism
that occur here from time to time, the *banning* of Copernicus's work
'De Revolutionibus' regularly gets cited in support of the claims
about the Church opposition to heliocentrism.

This article tells a different story:
https://rbscp.lib.rochester.edu/3338

De Revolutionibus is one of the very few texts for which we have a
detailed account of the Inquisition's decision and it turns out that
the work was not *banned* permanently, the Inquisition placed it on
the Index *until correction* and the required corrections were mostly
to do with presentation, nothing to do with the core proposition of
heliocentrism.

The relevant corrections are detailed in the article linked to above
but there is a neat summary and discussion on Stack Exchange:

https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/7941/what-corrections-did-the-catholic-church-make-to-the-copernicus-work-de-revolut
or https://bit.ly/2NUw6LO

As one commentators sums it up: "It seems the essence of the theory
was not actually removed. The first removed paragraph is political,
the second correction states an evident fact, the third correction
simply makes the language more scientific rather than religious, only
the last change underlines it is just a hypothesis."

If I'm reading that summary correctly, it seems that being placed on
the Index "until correction" did not amount to any ban on the book
being printed, circulated or read - it was simply up to owners of
individual copies to strike out/amend the offending sentences.

Some posters - yes, I'm looking at you, John Harshman - have insisted
that Galileo's troubles were fuelled by heliocentrism being against
Church teaching.; if that is so, I'd be interested in an explanation
as to why they had clearly no issue with the main thrust of
Copernicus's conclusions.

[zencycle]

On Monday, July 16, 2018 at 6:35:02 AM UTC-4, Martin Harran wrote:
>
> This article tells a different story:
> https://rbscp.lib.rochester.edu/3338
>

Good find, Martin. I did find this excerpted quote from Copernicus quite compelling:

"Perhaps there will be babblers who claim to be judges of astronomy although completely ignorant of the subject and, badly distorting some passage of Scripture to their purpose, will dare to find fault with my undertaking and censure it. I disregard them even to the extent of despising their criticism as unfounded. For it is not unknown that Lactantius, otherwise an illustrious writer but hardly an astronomer, speaks quite childishly about the Earth's shape, when he mocks those who declared that the Earth has the form of a globe. Hence scholars need not be surprised if any such persons will likewise ridicule me."

You could substitute evolution or AGW for astronomy (with the relevant other linkages), and this passage would be valid today.

> Galileo's troubles were fuelled by heliocentrism being against
> Church teaching.; if that is so, I'd be interested in an
> explanation as to why they had clearly no issue with the main
> thrust of Copernicus's conclusions.

Different time, different political regime (Ref. my statements in another thread concerning the catholic church as a political organization, rather than a religious movement).

Pope Paul III had no problem with it, pope paul V did. According to the wikipedia article on Galileo,
" In February 1616, an Inquisitorial commission declared heliocentrism to be "foolish and absurd in philosophy, and formally heretical since it explicitly contradicts in many places the sense of Holy Scripture.""

The article goes on the describe how the political establishment used the bible:

"Religious opposition to heliocentrism arose from Biblical references such as Psalm 93:1, 96:10, and 1 Chronicles 16:30 which include text stating that "the world is firmly established, it cannot be moved." In the same manner, Psalm 104:5 says, "the Lord set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved." Further, Ecclesiastes 1:5 states that "And the sun rises and sets and returns to its place."

So, it was indeed opposition to heliocentrism that was the 'excuse' the vatican used for persecuting Galileo. My feeling is that, due to the political climate at the time, the church hierarchy sought to make examples of heresy to demonstrate their authority. Galileo and heliocentrism were low-hanging fruit.

[Martin Harran]

On Mon, 16 Jul 2018 07:50:27 -0700 (PDT), zencycle
<funkma...@hotmail.com> wrote:

>On Monday, July 16, 2018 at 6:35:02 AM UTC-4, Martin Harran wrote:
>>
>> This article tells a different story:
>> https://rbscp.lib.rochester.edu/3338
>>
>
>Good find, Martin. I did find this excerpted quote from Copernicus quite compelling:
>
>"Perhaps there will be babblers who claim to be judges of astronomy although completely ignorant of the subject and, badly distorting some passage of Scripture to their purpose, will dare to find fault with my undertaking and censure it. I disregard them even to the extent of despising their criticism as unfounded. For it is not unknown that Lactantius, otherwise an illustrious writer but hardly an astronomer, speaks quite childishly about the Earth's shape, when he mocks those who declared that the Earth has the form of a globe. Hence scholars need not be surprised if any such persons will likewise ridicule me."
>
>You could substitute evolution or AGW for astronomy (with the relevant other linkages), and this passage would be valid today.

I agree with the sentiment but I also agree with the Inquisition that
it was better removed from the work - however true it was, I think it
was too polemical for inclusion in what was effectively a scientific
treatise.

>
>> Galileo's troubles were fuelled by heliocentrism being against
>> Church teaching.; if that is so, I'd be interested in an
>> explanation as to why they had clearly no issue with the main
>> thrust of Copernicus's conclusions.
>
>Different time, different political regime (Ref. my statements in another thread concerning the catholic church as a political organization, rather than a religious movement).

I vaguely remember that thread but can't easily locate it. Can you
give me a message id or even a title/date will do.

>
>Pope Paul III had no problem with it, pope paul V did. According to the wikipedia article on Galileo,
>" In February 1616, an Inquisitorial commission declared heliocentrism to be "foolish and absurd in philosophy, and formally heretical since it explicitly contradicts in many places the sense of Holy Scripture.""
>
>The article goes on the describe how the political establishment used the bible:
>
>"Religious opposition to heliocentrism arose from Biblical references such as Psalm 93:1, 96:10, and 1 Chronicles 16:30 which include text stating that "the world is firmly established, it cannot be moved." In the same manner, Psalm 104:5 says, "the Lord set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved." Further, Ecclesiastes 1:5 states that "And the sun rises and sets and returns to its place."
>
>So, it was indeed opposition to heliocentrism that was the 'excuse' the vatican used for persecuting Galileo. My feeling is that, due to the political climate at the time, the church hierarchy sought to make examples of heresy to demonstrate their authority. Galileo and heliocentrism were low-hanging fruit.
>
>

I saw it summed up fairly neatly recently that the Church's problem
was with Galileo, not Galileo's ideas. He was an incredibly clever
individual but had a tremendous propensity for insulting everyone
around him, including his fellow scientists, the Jesuits who were his
greatest supporters and the Pope who was well disposed to him
potentially his greatest ally. Indeed I'm inclined to wonder if he was
the Alan Turing of his day, suffering from autism or Asperger's or
something similar which would not have been identified in those days.

Necessary Disclaimer
==================
For those who struggle with the difference between *explain* and
*excuse*, nothing in what I have just said is intended to defend or
minimise the Church's abysmal treatment of Galileo - they were totally
wrong in how they treated him as has been long admitted by the Church
itself, at least a 100 years ago.

[zencycle]

On Monday, July 16, 2018 at 2:05:03 PM UTC-4, Martin Harran wrote:
> On Mon, 16 Jul 2018 07:50:27 -0700 (PDT), zencycle
> <funkma...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> >On Monday, July 16, 2018 at 6:35:02 AM UTC-4, Martin Harran wrote:
> >>
> >> This article tells a different story:
> >> https://rbscp.lib.rochester.edu/3338
> >>
> >
> >Good find, Martin. I did find this excerpted quote from Copernicus quite compelling:
> >
> >"Perhaps there will be babblers who claim to be judges of astronomy although completely ignorant of the subject and, badly distorting some passage of Scripture to their purpose, will dare to find fault with my undertaking and censure it. I disregard them even to the extent of despising their criticism as unfounded. For it is not unknown that Lactantius, otherwise an illustrious writer but hardly an astronomer, speaks quite childishly about the Earth's shape, when he mocks those who declared that the Earth has the form of a globe. Hence scholars need not be surprised if any such persons will likewise ridicule me."
> >
> >You could substitute evolution or AGW for astronomy (with the relevant other linkages), and this passage would be valid today.
>
> I agree with the sentiment but I also agree with the Inquisition that
> it was better removed from the work - however true it was, I think it
> was too polemical for inclusion in what was effectively a scientific
> treatise.

My point was actually relevance to our current sociopolitical environment, but, ok.

> >
> >> Galileo's troubles were fuelled by heliocentrism being against
> >> Church teaching.; if that is so, I'd be interested in an
> >> explanation as to why they had clearly no issue with the main
> >> thrust of Copernicus's conclusions.
> >
> >Different time, different political regime (Ref. my statements in another thread concerning the catholic church as a political organization, rather than a religious movement).
>
> I vaguely remember that thread but can't easily locate it. Can you
> give me a message id or even a title/date will do.

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/talk.origins/5F6WtDhlRgU/X_hTb-vTBAAJ

>
> >
> >Pope Paul III had no problem with it, pope paul V did. According to the wikipedia article on Galileo,
> >" In February 1616, an Inquisitorial commission declared heliocentrism to be "foolish and absurd in philosophy, and formally heretical since it explicitly contradicts in many places the sense of Holy Scripture.""
> >
> >The article goes on the describe how the political establishment used the bible:
> >
> >"Religious opposition to heliocentrism arose from Biblical references such as Psalm 93:1, 96:10, and 1 Chronicles 16:30 which include text stating that "the world is firmly established, it cannot be moved." In the same manner, Psalm 104:5 says, "the Lord set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved." Further, Ecclesiastes 1:5 states that "And the sun rises and sets and returns to its place."
> >
> >So, it was indeed opposition to heliocentrism that was the 'excuse' the vatican used for persecuting Galileo. My feeling is that, due to the political climate at the time, the church hierarchy sought to make examples of heresy to demonstrate their authority. Galileo and heliocentrism were low-hanging fruit.
> >
> >
>
> I saw it summed up fairly neatly recently that the Church's problem
> was with Galileo, not Galileo's ideas.

Well, like I wrote previously, I think it also had a great deal to do with the church looking to demonstrate its' authority. Given your comments below regarding galileo's personality, it was probably just as easy to persecute a guy no one particularly liked.

> He was an incredibly clever
> individual but had a tremendous propensity for insulting everyone
> around him, including his fellow scientists, the Jesuits who were his
> greatest supporters and the Pope who was well disposed to him
> potentially his greatest ally. Indeed I'm inclined to wonder if he was
> the Alan Turing of his day, suffering from autism or Asperger's or
> something similar which would not have been identified in those days.

or, he may just have been an asshole.

>
> Necessary Disclaimer
> ==================
> For those who struggle with the difference between *explain* and
> *excuse*, nothing in what I have just said is intended to defend or
> minimise the Church's abysmal treatment of Galileo - they were totally
> wrong in how they treated him as has been long admitted by the Church
> itself, at least a 100 years ago.

I'm glad you wrote that, because "I also agree with the Inquisition that it was better removed from the work" gave me slight pause.....

[freon96]

Yet another interesting point lurks in this issue: Where
were the scientists? According to the "Church-Suppressed-
Science" school of thought, only a very few arrogant
pontificators stood up for science while everyone else
cowered under their beds.

Bill

[zencycle]

On Tuesday, July 17, 2018 at 12:15:02 PM UTC-4, Bill wrote:

> zencycle wrote:

> >
> > My point was actually relevance to our current
> > sociopolitical environment, but, ok.
>
> Yet another interesting point lurks in this issue: Where
> were the scientists? According to the "Church-Suppressed-
> Science" school of thought, only a very few arrogant
> pontificators stood up for science while everyone else
> cowered under their beds.
>
> Bill
>

It's happened throughout the centuries

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...#The_text

[Martin Harran]

I am not a conspiracist
On Tue, 17 Jul 2018 08:37:45 -0700 (PDT), zencycle

Absolutely - the core of his problem with the Church was his attempt
to lecture the Church on how it should interpret scripture, not
exactly a particularly sensible action at a time when the Church was
still reeling from the Reformation and the arguments about who and who
didn't have authority to interpret it.

>Given your comments below regarding galileo's personality, it was probably just as easy to persecute a guy no one particularly liked.

Yes, there were people who wanted to get him and when they made their
move, Galileo had pissed off all those who could have and should have
come to his defence.

>
>> He was an incredibly clever
>> individual but had a tremendous propensity for insulting everyone
>> around him, including his fellow scientists, the Jesuits who were his
>> greatest supporters and the Pope who was well disposed to him
>> potentially his greatest ally. Indeed I'm inclined to wonder if he was
>> the Alan Turing of his day, suffering from autism or Asperger's or
>> something similar which would not have been identified in those days.
>
>or, he may just have been an asshole.

I wouldn't assume that, Ii have seen many highly intelligent people
who are clueless about dealing with other people. Even in this little
newsgroup, we have a qualified doctor and a university professor who,
to put it kindly, have something of a deficit in social skills ;)

>
>>
>> Necessary Disclaimer
>> ==================
>> For those who struggle with the difference between *explain* and
>> *excuse*, nothing in what I have just said is intended to defend or
>> minimise the Church's abysmal treatment of Galileo - they were totally
>> wrong in how they treated him as has been long admitted by the Church
>> itself, at least a 100 years ago.
>
>I'm glad you wrote that, because "I also agree with the Inquisition that it was better removed from the work" gave me slight pause.....

I initially hesitated to actually say that I agreed with the
Inquisition in this instance as so many people have a binary attitude
- all good or all bad - about the Catholic Church in general and the
Inquisition in particular. In reality, the Inquisition had a very wide
role and the fact that it was guilty of truly dreadful behaviour in
some areas does not mean that it was truly dreadful in every area. The
way it handled Copernicus's work actually comes across to me as a
reasonably efficient early form of peer review.

[jillery]

On Tue, 17 Jul 2018 08:37:45 -0700 (PDT), zencycle

I recall a novel which incorporated the theme of RCC having inherited
and co-opted the power and glory of the Roman Empire. It was written
in 1979 and is no longer in print, but you may have read it; "The Far
Arena" by Richard Ben Sapir. I mention it here because reading it
ultimately convinced me of that transfer of political power you
described above, even though I didn't agree with the concept at the
time I read the book.

Of course, RCC of today is nothing like it was in Copernicus' day,
when popes made kings and waged wars. My impression is the practices
of fundamentalist Islamic groups today give a taste of what life was
like for the average person when RCC was at its height. Today, people
watch old men wearing funny hats on TV and wonder what all the fuss is
about, not realizing how many people were killed in order to get from
then to now.

Skeptical inquiry and learning don't work well in an environment where
knowledge is frozen in dogma and meted out piecemeal by a self-serving
few issuing encyclicals and bulls. It's no coincidence that the Age of
Enlightenment saw an increase in scientific enquiry and a decrease in
religious authority, and not just of the RCC, but of all institutions
which told people what they must believe.

To threaten people's immortal souls with eternal hellfire isn't quite
the same as to threaten their material bodies with burning at the
stake, but the principle is the same, and practiced for the same
purpose, ie to control what people think and how they act.

--
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Attributed to Voltaire

[Martin Harran]

On Tue, 17 Jul 2018 08:37:45 -0700 (PDT), zencycle

<funkma...@hotmail.com> wrote:

>On Monday, July 16, 2018 at 2:05:03 PM UTC-4, Martin Harran wrote:
>> On Mon, 16 Jul 2018 07:50:27 -0700 (PDT), zencycle

[...]

>> >Different time, different political regime (Ref. my statements in another thread concerning the catholic church as a political organization, rather than a religious movement).
>>
>> I vaguely remember that thread but can't easily locate it. Can you
>> give me a message id or even a title/date will do.
>
>https://groups.google.com/d/msg/talk.origins/5F6WtDhlRgU/X_hTb-vTBAAJ

That's great, I actually wanted to reply to that post but didn't do
it at the time and then couldn't find the post as it got buried into
another older thread - I think that's a problem with Google groups
screwing up references when a thread starts to get long.

Because of that and the fact that the original thread has become so
long and so rambling, I'll post my response her if that's ok with you.

[...]

=========================================

On Fri, 13 Jul 2018 06:28:59 -0700 (PDT), zencycle
<funkma...@hotmail.com> wrote:

>On Wednesday, July 11, 2018 at 4:30:02 PM UTC-4, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>> On Monday, July 9, 2018 at 12:15:02 PM UTC-4, zencycle wrote:
>> >
>> > As with every other catholic 'holy' day, halloween was co-opted from a traditional pagan worship - the Celtic Samhain.
>>
>> Halloween itself is not a holy day, but only the eve of the holy
>> day known as All Saints' Day. This was pointed out to Burkhard
>> by both Joe Cummings and myself.
>
>A distinction without a difference.....
>
>>
>> It seems that All Saints' Day goes back a lot further than
>
><snip>
>
>> for the Friday after Easter.[19]
>>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Saints%27_Day
>
>um, yeah, that article also says "In the British Isles, it is known that churches were already celebrating All Saints on 1 November at the beginning of the 8th century to coincide or replace the Celtic festival of Samhain."
>
>as I wrote - just another co-opted pagan celebration.

Pagan festivals were celebrated at solstices and equinoxes; if
Christianity was adopting a pagan festival, why would it have moved it
9-10 days away from the original celebration? (The same principle
applies to Christmas though in that case the move was more like 4
days.)

-
>
>
>> > Catholicism has no original concepts, whatsoever.
>>
>> On what do you base this sweeping judgment? just how far back
>> does Catholicism go, according to you?
>
>Go back as far as you want. There are no original ideas in catholicism.

So what? A key part of Jesus's teaching was that He wasn't bringing
anything new, he was *fulfilling* what was already believed.

>Jesus was a jew who found spirituality in Buddhism. His philosophy is a blend of Buddhist pacifism and judaism. The council of nicea merely put political structure to a cult religion.
>
>> > While christianity may have started as a cult, catholicism was a political movement, pure and simple.
>>
>> I wouldn't go so far even with the Orthodox, who are often associated
>> with caesaropapism. It is true that Constantine gave Christianity
>> legal status, and even ordered the Christian leaders to have a
>> Council of Nicaea to settle the Arian question. The council condemned
>> Arianism, but when Constantine was baptized (very close to death),
>> it was a bishop who was, at best, a sympathizer for Arius and,
>> at worst, an Arian himself, who baptized Constantine. See:
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusebius_of_Nicomedia
>
>I'm not doubting there were man people associated with the formation of the catholic religion that were devout believers. I'm stating the catholic church was a political regime.
>
>
>> > The christ figure has very, very little to do with catholicism - indeed, any resurrected figure would have sufficed.
>>
>> This statement actually makes me wonder how you define catholicism.
>
>If I wasn't clear enough already, Catholicism was a political movement. The political powers at the time saw christianity as a tool that could be used to subject the masses, and the catholic church as a seat of legislative and judicial authority was established.

You are ignoring the rather inconvenient fact that the
Catholic/Christian Church existed for 300 years before Constantine got
around to doing what you have just described. I would be interested in
hearing your explanation for how a small group of terrified men
huddled in rooms in Jerusalem became such a predominant force that
they became a worthwhile political tool for Constantine.


>
>If Ramen Noodles were available at the time, pastafarianism might well have been the basis for catholicism and you'd be sipping from a ramen bowl as the sacrament for communion instead of gagging a poorly made wheat thin.
>

I somehow doubt that pastafarianism would have withstood the
challenges thrown up by advancements in human knowledge over the last
200 years in the way that Catholicism has.


>> You didn't comment on the rest of what you preserved, but I left
>> it in below just in case you want to refer to it in any reply you make.
>
>nothing else really appealed to me.
>

[zencycle]

On Wednesday, July 18, 2018 at 5:20:02 PM UTC-4, Martin Harran wrote:
> On Tue, 17 Jul 2018 08:37:45 -0700 (PDT), zencycle

> >

> >as I wrote - just another co-opted pagan celebration.
>
> Pagan festivals were celebrated at solstices and equinoxes

Only the celebrations for solstices and equinoxes were celebrated at solstices and equinoxes. Samhain was celebrated halfway between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice for the end of what the celts considered to be the summer season - a combination harvest festival and rememberance festival. Imbolc is a Gaelic traditional festival marking the beginning of spring held on the 1st and 2nd February, or about halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox (snipped from wikipedia)

> if
> Christianity was adopting a pagan festival, why would it have moved it
> 9-10 days away from the original celebration? (The same principle
> applies to Christmas though in that case the move was more like 4
> days.)

Just to be a little bit different, but also allow the indigenous religions to hold onto a piece of their culture. For example, christmas trees are a hold over from the yule celebrations of germanic pagans, but the christians made up a silly story about Saint Boniface declaring it as the sign of the trinity.

> >
> >> > Catholicism has no original concepts, whatsoever.
> >>
> >> On what do you base this sweeping judgment? just how far back
> >> does Catholicism go, according to you?
> >
> >Go back as far as you want. There are no original ideas in catholicism.
>
> So what? A key part of Jesus's teaching was that He wasn't bringing
> anything new, he was *fulfilling* what was already believed.

That's exactly the point I was making.

> >
> >If I wasn't clear enough already, Catholicism was a political movement. The political powers at the time saw christianity as a tool that could be used to subject the masses, and the catholic church as a seat of legislative and judicial authority was established.
>
> You are ignoring the rather inconvenient fact that the
> Catholic/Christian Church existed for 300 years before Constantine got
> around to doing what you have just described.

Prior to the council of nicea, catholicism was just another religion that had experienced growth from a cult to a more formal structure. The council of nicea established it as the political authority.

> I would be interested in
> hearing your explanation for how a small group of terrified men
> huddled in rooms in Jerusalem became such a predominant force that
> they became a worthwhile political tool for Constantine.

Likely the same way that Islam gave christianity an 700 year headstart, but, according to wikipedia: "According to the Pew Research Center, Islam is set to equal Christianity worldwide in number of adherents by the year 2050. Islam is set to grow faster than any other major world religion, reaching a total number of 2.76 billion (an increase of 73%). "

I don't particularly understand the concept of deity worship, so I can't comment on why christianity had such an appeal over other religions that were present at the time.

> >
> >If Ramen Noodles were available at the time, pastafarianism might well have been the basis for catholicism and you'd be sipping from a ramen bowl as the sacrament for communion instead of gagging a poorly made wheat thin.
> >
>
> I somehow doubt that pastafarianism would have withstood the
> challenges thrown up by advancements in human knowledge over the last
> 200 years in the way that Catholicism has.

I should have issued a Poe alert on that.

[jonathan]

The fact is it was the Church that defined
the scientific cutting edge in astronomy
at the time. It was the science of the day
that was holding the idea back, until
the Pope intervened and got it published.



"Nevertheless it was a churchman, Nicholas Copernicus, who
first advanced the contrary doctrine that the sun and not
the earth is the centre of our system, round which our
planet revolves, rotating on its own axis."

"His great work, "De Revolutionibus orbium coelestium", was
published at the earnest solicitation of two distinguished
churchmen, Cardinal Schömberg and Tiedemann Giese, Bishop
of Culm. It was dedicated by permission to Pope Paul III
in order, as Copernicus explained, that it might be thus
protected from the attacks which it was sure to encounter
on the part of the "mathematicians" (i.e. philosophers)
for its apparent contradiction of the evidence of our senses,
and even of common sense. He added that he made no account
of objections which might be brought by ignorant wiseacres
on Scriptural grounds."
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06342b.htm



The changes were merely to call it a theory instead of
proven fact. The Church knew the mathematical proof
was lacking at the time, and the proof didn't arrive
until Kepler.



"On the Catholic side opposition only commenced seventy-three
years later, when it was occasioned by Galileo. On 5 March, 1616,
the work of Copernicus was forbidden by the Congregation of the
Index "until corrected", and in 1620 these corrections were
indicated. Nine sentences, by which the heliocentric system
was represented as certain, had to be either omitted or changed.
This done, the reading of the book was allowed."




In fact Copernicus refused to publish for fear of ridicule
until the Church insisted he publish.



"Twenty-five years after his university career, he had
finished his great work, at least in his own mind, but
hesitated a long time, whether to publish it or to imitate
the Pythagoreans, who transmitted the mysteries of their
philosophy only orally to their own disciples for fear
of exposing them to the contempt of the multitude."

"In 1533 Albert Widmanstadt lectured before Pope Clement VII
on the Copernican solar system. His reward consisted in a
Greek codex which is preserved in the State library of Munich.
Three years later Copernicus was urged by Cardinal Schonberg,
then Archbishop of Capua, in a letter, dated at Rome, 1 November,
1536, to publish his discovery, or at least to have a copy
made at the cardinal's expense. But all the urging of friends
was in vain, until a younger man was providentially sent
to his side."

"Finally Copernicus, feeling the weight of his sixty-eight
years, yielded, as he writes to Paul III, to the entreaties
of Cardinal Schonberg, of Bishop Giese of Culm, and of
other learned men to surrender his manuscripts for
publication."
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04352b.htm























--

[jonathan]

That's not the reason for Galileo's problems with the Church.

Galileo was running around teaching his faulty proof of
heliocentrism which he based on the tides, and the Church
knew it wasn't mathematically sound. The Church believed in
heliocentrism, but the Church also knew a formal
mathematical proof didn't yet exist, which didn't
come until Kepler and Newton, so it needed
to be taught as theory, not fact.

That was the big dispute, whether to teach it as fact
or theory, the Church was right to call it theory.

So the Church told him to stop teaching his proof as if
it were a fact, but to teach it as theory instead.
Galileo agreed to stop in writing, but guess what, he
continued to teach it and as a result the Church felt
compelled to put a stop to his teaching a bad proof
under the auspices of the Church.

He got in trouble with the church for being a liar and
teaching his faulty proof of heliocentrism.

In fact the Church was protecting scientific
integrity by booting Galileo.

An analogy would be if some professor were teaching that
he had a proof for say dark energy that was baseless but
continued to teach it in class as a proven fact after
being instructed to stop by his university.

He'd get tossed, just like Galileo.




"The proof from the phenomenon of the tides, to which Galileo
appealed to establish the rotation of the earth on its axis,
is now universally recognized as a grave error, and he treated
with scorn Kepler's suggestion, foreshadowing Newton's
establishment of the true doctrine, that a certain occult
influence of the moon was in some way responsible.

In regard to comets, again, he maintained no less erroneously
that they were atmospheric phenomena, like meteors, though
Tycho had demonstrated the falsity of such a view, which
was recommended only as the solution of an anti-Copernican
difficulty.

In spite of all deficiency in his arguments, Galileo, profoundly
assured of the truth of his cause, set himself with his
habitual vehemence to convince others, and so contributed
in no small degree to create the troubles which greatly
embittered the latter part of his life."

It was not until four years later that trouble arose, the
ecclesiastical authorities taking alarm at the persistence
with which Galileo proclaimed the truth of the Copernican
doctrine. That their opposition was grounded, as is constantly
assumed, upon a fear lest men should be enlightened by the
diffusion of scientific truth, it is obviously absurd to
maintain. On the contrary, they were firmly convinced, with
Bacon and others, that the new teaching was radically false
and unscientific, while it is now truly admitted that Galileo
himself had no sufficient proof of what he so vehemently
advocated, and Professor Huxley after examining the case
avowed his opinion that the opponents of Galileo
"had rather the best of it"."

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06342b.htm


You know who Huxley is, right?









s



--

[Martin Harran]

On Wed, 18 Jul 2018 15:19:35 -0700 (PDT), zencycle
<funkma...@hotmail.com> wrote:

>On Wednesday, July 18, 2018 at 5:20:02 PM UTC-4, Martin Harran wrote:
>> On Tue, 17 Jul 2018 08:37:45 -0700 (PDT), zencycle
>
>> >
>> >as I wrote - just another co-opted pagan celebration.
>>
>> Pagan festivals were celebrated at solstices and equinoxes
>
>Only the celebrations for solstices and equinoxes were celebrated at solstices and equinoxes. Samhain was celebrated halfway between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice for the end of what the celts considered to be the summer season - a combination harvest festival and rememberance festival. Imbolc is a Gaelic traditional festival marking the beginning of spring held on the 1st and 2nd February, or about halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox (snipped from wikipedia)

Sorry, my bad .... in a senior moment I was counting 22nd October as
autumn equinox. Halfway between the autumn equinox and the winter
solstice, however is about Nov 6 so Halloween is still 6 days off.

>
>
>> if
>> Christianity was adopting a pagan festival, why would it have moved it
>> 9-10 days away from the original celebration? (The same principle
>> applies to Christmas though in that case the move was more like 4
>> days.)
>
>Just to be a little bit different, but also allow the indigenous religions to hold onto a piece of their culture.

Seems like wanting to eat your cake and still have it. That's what I
notice about this regularly trotted-out claim about the Catholic
Church adopting pagan festivals, none of them actually fit date wise,
they all have to be shoe-horned in.

Beats me why people feel the need to do it over something that isn't
of any particular significance; if the Church had adapted dates from
pagan festivals for convenience, so what?

>For example, christmas trees are a hold over from the yule celebrations of germanic pagans, but the christians made up a silly story about Saint Boniface declaring it as the sign of the trinity.
>
>> >
>> >> > Catholicism has no original concepts, whatsoever.
>> >>
>> >> On what do you base this sweeping judgment? just how far back
>> >> does Catholicism go, according to you?
>> >
>> >Go back as far as you want. There are no original ideas in catholicism.
>>
>> So what? A key part of Jesus's teaching was that He wasn't bringing
>> anything new, he was *fulfilling* what was already believed.
>
>That's exactly the point I was making.
>
>> >
>> >If I wasn't clear enough already, Catholicism was a political movement. The political powers at the time saw christianity as a tool that could be used to subject the masses, and the catholic church as a seat of legislative and judicial authority was established.
>>
>> You are ignoring the rather inconvenient fact that the
>> Catholic/Christian Church existed for 300 years before Constantine got
>> around to doing what you have just described.
>
>Prior to the council of nicea, catholicism was just another religion that had experienced growth from a cult to a more formal structure. The council of nicea established it as the political authority.

So it wasn't a political authority for the firs 300 years of its
existence. I'm lost now as to what point you are actually trying to
make.

>
>> I would be interested in
>> hearing your explanation for how a small group of terrified men
>> huddled in rooms in Jerusalem became such a predominant force that
>> they became a worthwhile political tool for Constantine.
>
>Likely the same way that Islam gave christianity an 700 year headstart, but, according to wikipedia: "According to the Pew Research Center, Islam is set to equal Christianity worldwide in number of adherents by the year 2050. Islam is set to grow faster than any other major world religion, reaching a total number of 2.76 billion (an increase of 73%). "
>
>I don't particularly understand the concept of deity worship, so I can't comment on why christianity had such an appeal over other religions that were present at the time.
>
>
>> >
>> >If Ramen Noodles were available at the time, pastafarianism might well have been the basis for catholicism and you'd be sipping from a ramen bowl as the sacrament for communion instead of gagging a poorly made wheat thin.
>> >
>>
>> I somehow doubt that pastafarianism would have withstood the
>> challenges thrown up by advancements in human knowledge over the last
>> 200 years in the way that Catholicism has.
>
>I should have issued a Poe alert on that.

I understand Poe's Law but you're going to have to explain to me what
it's relevance is there.

[Joe Cummings]

On Sat, 21 Jul 2018 17:26:49 +0100, Martin Harran
<martin...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Wed, 18 Jul 2018 15:19:35 -0700 (PDT), zencycle
><funkma...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>On Wednesday, July 18, 2018 at 5:20:02 PM UTC-4, Martin Harran wrote:
>>> On Tue, 17 Jul 2018 08:37:45 -0700 (PDT), zencycle
>>
>>> >
>>> >as I wrote - just another co-opted pagan celebration.
>>>
>>> Pagan festivals were celebrated at solstices and equinoxes
>>
>>Only the celebrations for solstices and equinoxes were celebrated at solstices and equinoxes. Samhain was celebrated halfway between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice for the end of what the celts considered to be the summer season - a combination harvest festival and rememberance festival. Imbolc is a Gaelic traditional festival marking the beginning of spring held on the 1st and 2nd February, or about halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox (snipped from wikipedia)
>
>Sorry, my bad .... in a senior moment I was counting 22nd October as
>autumn equinox. Halfway between the autumn equinox and the winter
>solstice, however is about Nov 6 so Halloween is still 6 days off.
>>
>>
>>> if
>>> Christianity was adopting a pagan festival, why would it have moved it
>>> 9-10 days away from the original celebration? (The same principle
>>> applies to Christmas though in that case the move was more like 4
>>> days.)
>>
>>Just to be a little bit different, but also allow the indigenous religions to hold onto a piece of their culture.
>
>Seems like wanting to eat your cake and still have it. That's what I
>notice about this regularly trotted-out claim about the Catholic
>Church adopting pagan festivals, none of them actually fit date wise,
>they all have to be shoe-horned in.

An intresting point about adopting or changing festivals:

All Halloween is or was celebrated more in the States than in the UK.

What happened? The Gunpowder Plot. It was decided to celebrate the
defeat of this "Popish Plot" by lighting bonfires on Nov. 5th., and
Halloween just faded out of people's memory - or at least to a large
extent, while in the USA Nov. 5th. wasn't celebrated.


Nowadays,Halloween is celebrated all over the place. Even here in
France supermarket checkout ladies dress up as witches. I think this
is more of a sales gimůmick than anything else.,

Joe Cummings

[Kent Jennings]

Dr revolutionibus was published in 1543 and put on the index in 1616 -- 73 years later. In the interim it was largely ignored except for a few people like Gilbert, Galileo, and Kepler. I might also note that Galileo's main critics were the contemporary philosophers who tried to use the church to silence him.

[jillery]

On Sat, 21 Jul 2018 09:09:06 -0400, jonathan <WriteI...@gmail.com>
wrote:

Here are some facts which don't agree with your theory above:

Copernicus' heliocentric model was at least as mathematically sound as
Ptolemy's geocentric model, in that both yielded similarly accurate
celestial positions. Among other things, heliocentrism explains
retrograde motions without invoking ad hoc equants and epicycles.

Kepler's insight was to introduce elliptical orbits, which agreed with
Brahe's observations more precisely than circular orbits. Newton's
insight was to recognize that both heavenly and earthly motions were
described by the same laws. Neither Kepler nor Newton contributed to
any formal mathematical proof of heliocentrism.

Galileo observed in 1610 the phases of Venus, and the Galilean moons
of Jupiter. Both observations empirically disprove Ptolemy's
geocentric model. This was years before Galileo's first head-to-head
with the Church in 1616, and decades before his last one in 1633.
These are much stronger evidence for a Copernican model than anything
about tides, right or wrong. Galileo included both his observations
in his "Dialogue Concerning The Two Chief World Systems", which would
have convinced anybody who didn't have a religious dogma to defend.

The Church had no consensus view on heliocentrism during Galileo's
lifetime. In 1616, an Inquisitorial commission declared heliocentrism

to be "foolish and absurd in philosophy, and formally heretical since
it explicitly contradicts in many places the sense of Holy Scripture."

[Kent Jennings]

Or similarly inaccurate. Both has errors of similar size with a similar number of parameters.

> Among other things, heliocentrism explains
> retrograde motions without invoking ad hoc equants and epicycles.
>

The biggest gain was eliminating the equant. But Copernicus introduced epicyclets to replace the different.

> Kepler's insight was to introduce elliptical orbits, which agreed with
> Brahe's observations more precisely than circular orbits. Newton's
> insight was to recognize that both heavenly and earthly motions were
> described by the same laws. Neither Kepler nor Newton contributed to
> any formal mathematical proof of heliocentrism.
>
> Galileo observed in 1610 the phases of Venus, and the Galilean moons
> of Jupiter. Both observations empirically disprove Ptolemy's
> geocentric model.

The phases of Venus were observed in 1610 and effectively killed the the Ptolemaic model but not geocentrism as proposed by Brahe. The first direct evidence of heliocentrism was the observation and interpretation of stellar aberration in 1727. The lack of observed stellar parallax was major obstacle to the acceptance of heliocentrism.

>This was years before Galileo's first head-to-head
> with the Church in 1616, and decades before his last one in 1633.
> These are much stronger evidence for a Copernican model than anything
> about tides, right or wrong. Galileo included both his observations
> in his "Dialogue Concerning The Two Chief World Systems", which would
> have convinced anybody who didn't have a religious dogma to defend.
>
> The Church had no consensus view on heliocentrism during Galileo's
> lifetime. In 1616, an Inquisitorial commission declared heliocentrism
> to be "foolish and absurd in philosophy, and formally heretical since
> it explicitly contradicts in many places the sense of Holy Scripture."
>

I might note they quoted the opinion of the philosophers before any consideration of theology. It is probably safe to say that at the time no philosophers (as opposed to mathematicians/astronomers) accepted heliocentrism.

[jillery]

You state a distinction without a difference. The Copernican model
wasn't similarly (in)accurate because of heliocentrism, but instead
because originally it also presumed circular orbits. Either way, the
point remains; the claim that Copernicus' model lacked mathematical
rigor is incorrect, and was not a basis for its rejection.

>> Among other things, heliocentrism explains
>> retrograde motions without invoking ad hoc equants and epicycles.
>>
>
>The biggest gain was eliminating the equant. But Copernicus introduced epicyclets to replace the different.

"Deferent". Copernicus used epicyclets to mitigate errors from
presuming circular motions, a flaw Ptolemy's model shared. However,
Copernicus' model was simpler than Ptolemy's, and for that reason was
used instead, with the caveat that it was only a computational
convenience.

>> Kepler's insight was to introduce elliptical orbits, which agreed with
>> Brahe's observations more precisely than circular orbits. Newton's
>> insight was to recognize that both heavenly and earthly motions were
>> described by the same laws. Neither Kepler nor Newton contributed to
>> any formal mathematical proof of heliocentrism.
>>
>> Galileo observed in 1610 the phases of Venus, and the Galilean moons
>> of Jupiter. Both observations empirically disprove Ptolemy's
>> geocentric model.
>
>The phases of Venus were observed in 1610 and effectively killed the the Ptolemaic model but not geocentrism as proposed by Brahe. The first direct evidence of heliocentrism was the observation and interpretation of stellar aberration in 1727. The lack of observed stellar parallax was major obstacle to the acceptance of heliocentrism.

Brahe's model was a mathematical parlor trick, as it can be used to
"prove" any point in the sky is stationary, even the Sun, not just the
Earth (one of the many facts Tony Pagano repeatedly asserted
incorrectly), which makes Brahe's model a case of special pleading.
Brahe's model has other conceptual flaws; that it eliminated
Aristotelian celestial spheres, a premise as central to astronomy of
the time as a stationary Earth; that it requires multiple central
foci, of the Sun and of the Earth, and with Galilean moons, of
Jupiter, a feature considered unique to Earth.

What really buried Brahe's model was Newton's law of gravitation, made
public in 1686. The Sun can't reasonably be described as revolving
around the Earth[1] unless it's much less massive than the Earth,
which would then destroy the basis for other planets to revolve around
the Sun.

Finally, since you mention both stellar aberration and stellar
parallax, I make the pedantic point these aren't the same thing. As
you say, the former was first explained in 1727, by James Bradley, as
caused by the finite speed of light and the velocity of the observer
relative to the source. This is different from the latter, which is
caused by the apparent displacement of near objects as the observer
changes position. Friedrich Bessel is credited with first observing
this in 1838.

>>This was years before Galileo's first head-to-head
>> with the Church in 1616, and decades before his last one in 1633.
>> These are much stronger evidence for a Copernican model than anything
>> about tides, right or wrong. Galileo included both his observations
>> in his "Dialogue Concerning The Two Chief World Systems", which would
>> have convinced anybody who didn't have a religious dogma to defend.
>>
>> The Church had no consensus view on heliocentrism during Galileo's
>> lifetime. In 1616, an Inquisitorial commission declared heliocentrism
>> to be "foolish and absurd in philosophy, and formally heretical since
>> it explicitly contradicts in many places the sense of Holy Scripture."
>>
>
>
>I might note they quoted the opinion of the philosophers before any consideration of theology.

Note away. It doesn't alter the fact of theology's formal inclusion.

>It is probably safe to say that at the time no philosophers (as opposed to mathematicians/astronomers) accepted heliocentrism.

My impression is those philosophers were as likely members of RCC as
of heretical Protestant faiths, which only shows that RCC had no
monopoly on religious dogmatism. AIUI Calvinist and Lutheran leaders
of Galileo's time also rejected Copernicus' model, as being contrary
to the literal Word of God found in the Bible.

[1] Yes, I know that technically, orbiting bodies don't revolve around
each other, but instead go around common barycenter. Humsoever, the
Sun has 99%+ of all the mass of the entire Solar System, and so said
barycenter only rarely goes even a little bit beyond the circumference
of the Sun, which makes "orbit the Sun" a reasonably accurate
simplification. The Sun doesn't rise or set, either, but those words
still get the point across.

[zencycle]

On Saturday, July 21, 2018 at 12:30:02 PM UTC-4, Martin Harran wrote:
> On Wed, 18 Jul 2018 15:19:35 -0700 (PDT), zencycle
> >

> >Just to be a little bit different, but also allow the indigenous religions to hold onto a piece of their culture.
>
> Seems like wanting to eat your cake and still have it.

That's pretty much been the hallmark of any religious political establishment

> That's what I
> notice about this regularly trotted-out claim about the Catholic
> Church adopting pagan festivals, none of them actually fit date wise,
> they all have to be shoe-horned in.

And? the fact is they did it. Easter was co-opted from Oester. Christmas from saturnalia....

>
> Beats me why people feel the need to do it over something that isn't
> of any particular significance; if the Church had adapted dates from
> pagan festivals for convenience, so what?

It goes to my point that there is no originality in the catholic religion.

> >Prior to the council of nicea, catholicism was just another religion that had experienced growth from a cult to a more formal structure. The council of nicea established it as the political authority.
>
> So it wasn't a political authority for the firs 300 years of its
> existence. I'm lost now as to what point you are actually trying to
> make.

The point is that Catholicism has been a political structure for the vast majority of its' history.

> >> >
> >> >If Ramen Noodles were available at the time, pastafarianism might well have been the basis for catholicism and you'd be sipping from a ramen bowl as the sacrament for communion instead of gagging a poorly made wheat thin.
> >> >
> >>
> >> I somehow doubt that pastafarianism would have withstood the
> >> challenges thrown up by advancements in human knowledge over the last
> >> 200 years in the way that Catholicism has.
> >
> >I should have issued a Poe alert on that.
>
> I understand Poe's Law but you're going to have to explain to me what
> it's relevance is there.

You might need a refresher. Poe's law states:

"without a clear indicator of the author's intent, it is impossible to create a parody of extreme views so obviously exaggerated that it cannot be mistaken by some readers for a sincere expression of the parodied views."

So,

"If Ramen Noodles were available at the time, pastafarianism might well have been the basis for catholicism and you'd be sipping from a ramen bowl as the sacrament for communion instead of gagging a poorly made wheat thin."

is an extreme view that is seriously exaggerated - hence should have had a Poe alert.

[jonathan]

That doesn't prove Heliocentrism, no more than finding a flaw
in Darwinism proves Intelligent Design.

> This was years before Galileo's first head-to-head
> with the Church in 1616, and decades before his last one in 1633.
> These are much stronger evidence for a Copernican model than anything
> about tides, right or wrong. Galileo included both his observations
> in his "Dialogue Concerning The Two Chief World Systems", which would
> have convinced anybody who didn't have a religious dogma to defend.
>

You miss the point, the Church was convinced the Heliocentric
model was the better one for some 70 years before the
Inquisition, and it only became an issue because Galileo
forced the Church to rule against him.

The phases of Venus is not nearly enough to prove Helicentrism
and Galileo was using his tides theory as the primary proof
which was quite faulty. For starters he assumed the Earth not
the Moon caused the tides and his theory only proposed
one tide per day, even laymen of the day knew it was
faulty.

The Church was correct that Galileo failed to prove
Heliocentrism since it didn't become accepted as proven
until the stellar parallax measurements in the
....18th century.

You need to put the whole issue into context, Copernicus
was afraid to publish his idea for fear of ridicule
by the accepted science of the day.

THE CHURCH spent two years trying to prod Copernicus
into publishing his model, even offering to pay for
it and still Copernicus refused. The Church had to
send someone to live with Copernicus for the sole
purpose to convince him to publish.

And the Pope dedicated the work specifically for
the purpose of protecting it from ridicule by the
science of the day.

It was the Church that coaxed the model into public
view and the next 70 some years it was the accepted
model.

But the fact remains it's not a fair characterization
to say the Church was anti Heliocentrism or anti science.
Quite the contrary, the Church pushed the idea.

"His great work, "De Revolutionibus orbium coelestium", was
published at the earnest solicitation of two distinguished
churchmen, Cardinal Schömberg and Tiedemann Giese, Bishop
of Culm. It was dedicated by permission to Pope Paul III
in order, as Copernicus explained, that it might be thus
protected from the attacks which it was sure to encounter
on the part of the "mathematicians" (i.e. philosophers)
for its apparent contradiction of the evidence of our senses,
and even of common sense. He added that he made no account
of objections which might be brought by ignorant wiseacres
on Scriptural grounds."
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06342b.htm

"Twenty-five years after his university career, he had
finished his great work, at least in his own mind, but
hesitated a long time, whether to publish it or to imitate
the Pythagoreans, who transmitted the mysteries of their
philosophy only orally to their own disciples for fear
of exposing them to the contempt of the multitude."

"In 1533 Albert Widmanstadt lectured before Pope Clement VII
on the Copernican solar system. His reward consisted in a
Greek codex which is preserved in the State library of Munich.

Three years later Copernicus was urged by Cardinal Schonberg,
then Archbishop of Capua, in a letter, dated at Rome, 1 November,
1536, to publish his discovery, or at least to have a copy
made at the cardinal's expense. But all the urging of friends
was in vain, until a younger man was providentially sent
to his side."

"Finally Copernicus, feeling the weight of his sixty-eight
years, yielded, as he writes to Paul III, to the entreaties
of Cardinal Schonberg, of Bishop Giese of Culm, and of
other learned men to surrender his manuscripts for
publication."

"On the Catholic side opposition only commenced seventy-three
years later, when it was occasioned by Galileo. On 5 March, 1616,
the work of Copernicus was forbidden by the Congregation of the
Index "until corrected", and in 1620 these corrections were

indicated. Nine sentences, *by which the heliocentric system
was represented as certain*, had to be either omitted or changed.

This done, the reading of the book was allowed."

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04352b.htm

> The Church had no consensus view on heliocentrism during Galileo's
> lifetime. In 1616, an Inquisitorial commission declared heliocentrism
> to be "foolish and absurd in philosophy, and formally heretical since
> it explicitly contradicts in many places the sense of Holy Scripture."
>
> --
> I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
>
> Evelyn Beatrice Hall
> Attributed to Voltaire
>

--

[jillery]

On Tue, 24 Jul 2018 20:11:26 -0400, jonathan <WriteI...@gmail.com>

Technically correct but irrelevant. As shown in the quoted text, I
said they are *evidence* for heliocentrism, and they empirically
disprove *Ptolemy's* model. Stop spewing straw.

>> This was years before Galileo's first head-to-head
>> with the Church in 1616, and decades before his last one in 1633.
>> These are much stronger evidence for a Copernican model than anything
>> about tides, right or wrong. Galileo included both his observations
>> in his "Dialogue Concerning The Two Chief World Systems", which would
>> have convinced anybody who didn't have a religious dogma to defend.
>>
>
>
>
>You miss the point, the Church was convinced the Heliocentric
>model was the better one for some 70 years before the
>Inquisition, and it only became an issue because Galileo
>forced the Church to rule against him.

Nope, you miss the point. There was no Church consensus on
Heliocentrism at the time. Instead, there were factions competing
within the Church wrt Biblical interpretation, as part of its larger
concerns over Protestant heresies. As I pointed out, some in the
Church thought heliocentrism heretical. That's why Galileo had trouble
with the Inquisition in 1616, even before he had a chance to
supposedly "force" the Church to do anything.

>The phases of Venus is not nearly enough to prove Helicentrism
>and Galileo was using his tides theory as the primary proof
>which was quite faulty.

The phases of Venus are more than enough to disprove Ptolemy's
geocentrism. Galileo's faulty tides theory doesn't change that. Your
strawmen continue to destroy your coherence.

> For starters he assumed the Earth not
>the Moon caused the tides and his theory only proposed
>one tide per day, even laymen of the day knew it was
>faulty.
>
>The Church was correct that Galileo failed to prove
>Heliocentrism since it didn't become accepted as proven
>until the stellar parallax measurements in the
>....18th century.
>
>You need to put the whole issue into context, Copernicus
>was afraid to publish his idea for fear of ridicule
>by the accepted science of the day.

I did put the issue in correct context. The Church was the accepted
science of the day. Do you disagree?

>THE CHURCH spent two years trying to prod Copernicus
>into publishing his model, even offering to pay for
>it and still Copernicus refused. The Church had to
>send someone to live with Copernicus for the sole
>purpose to convince him to publish.
>
>And the Pope dedicated the work specifically for
>the purpose of protecting it from ridicule by the
>science of the day.
>
>It was the Church that coaxed the model into public
>view and the next 70 some years it was the accepted
>model.
>
>But the fact remains it's not a fair characterization
>to say the Church was anti Heliocentrism or anti science.
>Quite the contrary, the Church pushed the idea.

It's not logical to say that because some members of the Church
disagreed with other members of the Church, that the Church as a body
pushed anything. OTOH the Church's actions against Galileo, and its
written statements against heliocentrism, are a matter of historical
record. For you to ignore them weakens your argument. Perhaps you
should read from sources other than Catholic apologetics.

[Martin Harran]

On Mon, 23 Jul 2018 07:49:34 -0700 (PDT), zencycle
<funkma...@hotmail.com> wrote:

>On Saturday, July 21, 2018 at 12:30:02 PM UTC-4, Martin Harran wrote:
>> On Wed, 18 Jul 2018 15:19:35 -0700 (PDT), zencycle
>> >
>> >Just to be a little bit different, but also allow the indigenous religions to hold onto a piece of their culture.
>>

>> Seems likA wanting to eat your cake and still have it.

>
>That's pretty much been the hallmark of any religious political establishment
>
>
>> That's what I
>> notice about this regularly trotted-out claim about the Catholic
>> Church adopting pagan festivals, none of them actually fit date wise,
>> they all have to be shoe-horned in.
>
>And? the fact is they did it. Easter was co-opted from Oester.

Sorry, but your shoehorn has just snapped completely. As Christ's
Crucifixion and Resurrection took place at Passover, the Council of
Nice in 325 based the calculation of Easter - the first Sunday after
the first Full Moon occurring on or after the vernal equinox - on the
Jewish calculation of the date of Passover. Unless, of course, you
want to use a bigger shoehorn to claim that the Jews c3,500 years ago
based their Passover date on some Germanic pagan festival!
Incidentally, the desire to have a very accurate date for the vernal
equinox is part of the reason why the Catholic Church in general and
the Jesuits in particular put so much effort into developing the
astronomical sciences.

>Christmas from saturnalia....

Sorry, wrong again.

"So what then is the real origin of the Christmas date? The earliest
known accounts about Jesus' birth date came from the early Church
Father Irenaeus (130- 202), who connected Mary's conception of Jesus
with the Passion Week (starting with Palm Sunday). Using March 25 as
his Passion Week date, Irenaeus calculated forward nine months to
December 25 as a birth date. Another Church Father, Hippolytus of Rome
(170- 236), specifically related December 25 to the birth of Jesus,
though he may have made this decision based on the earlier tradition
of Irenaeus. And then there is Sextus Julius Africanus (160- 240), who
in the year 221 also noted December 25 as the date of Jesus' birth -
which is long before 274, when Emperor Aurelian officially established
Sol Invictus as the principal cult of the empire on December 25.
Once the date of the Annunciation and Incarnation was established, it
was a simple matter of adding nine months to arrive at the date of our
Lord's birth - December 25. This date would not be made official
immediately, but was established long before Aurelian and Constantine.
It had nothing to do with pagan festivals. In the year 350, Pope
Julius I officially declared that Christ's birth would be celebrated
on December 25, despite the day's possibly pagan significance and
association."
Gerard M. Verschuuren. Forty Anti-Catholic Lies (Kindle Locations
2395-2405). Sophia Institute Press.

>
>
>>
>> Beats me why people feel the need to do it over something that isn't
>> of any particular significance; if the Church had adapted dates from
>> pagan festivals for convenience, so what?
>
>It goes to my point that there is no originality in the catholic religion.

Somebody should have told that to the Jewish religious authorities who
didn't like the message Christ promoted.

>
>> >Prior to the council of nicea, catholicism was just another religion that had experienced growth from a cult to a more formal structure. The council of nicea established it as the political authority.
>>
>> So it wasn't a political authority for the firs 300 years of its
>> existence. I'm lost now as to what point you are actually trying to
>> make.
>
>The point is that Catholicism has been a political structure for the vast majority of its' history.

There is a big difference between the Catholic Church thriving because
it was a political structure and the Catholic Church becoming a
political structure because it was thriving - a difference that you
seem either unwilling of incapable of grasping.

>
>> >> >
>> >> >If Ramen Noodles were available at the time, pastafarianism might well have been the basis for catholicism and you'd be sipping from a ramen bowl as the sacrament for communion instead of gagging a poorly made wheat thin.
>> >> >
>> >>
>> >> I somehow doubt that pastafarianism would have withstood the
>> >> challenges thrown up by advancements in human knowledge over the last
>> >> 200 years in the way that Catholicism has.
>> >
>> >I should have issued a Poe alert on that.
>>
>> I understand Poe's Law but you're going to have to explain to me what
>> it's relevance is there.
>
>You might need a refresher. Poe's law states:
>
>"without a clear indicator of the author's intent, it is impossible to create a parody of extreme views so obviously exaggerated that it cannot be mistaken by some readers for a sincere expression of the parodied views."
>
>So,
>
>"If Ramen Noodles were available at the time, pastafarianism might well have been the basis for catholicism and you'd be sipping from a ramen bowl as the sacrament for communion instead of gagging a poorly made wheat thin."
>
>is an extreme view that is seriously exaggerated - hence should have had a Poe alert.

I understand POE's law, it would only apply if your post had been
targeted at pastafarianism whereas it came across as targeted at the
Catholic Church.

[Martin Harran]

On Sat, 21 Jul 2018 09:09:06 -0400, jonathan <WriteI...@gmail.com>
wrote:

What you described above about Galileo is broadly correct but does not
in any way excuse the Church's treatment of him. Pope Urban knew that
there was no heresy involved but he let a sham, Lenin-like show trial
go ahead to punish Galileo for insulting him personally. That was a
total abuse of his papal authority and an abrogation of his papal
responsibility. The Pope clearly realised this somewhat belatedly and
tried to redeem himself by immediately commuting Galileo's life
imprisonment sentence to a very lightly applied form of house arrest
in a luxury place but it is to his everlasting shame that he allowed
it to happen in the first place. Apart from the direct maltreatment of
Galileo, he handed a big stick to the enemies of the Church which some
of them are still trying to wield nearly 400 years later.

[匽

[*Hemidactylus*]

Well there is at least some non-Christian symbology incorporated into
popular celebration of Easter: rabbits and eggs. Are they about fertility
or selling chocolate?

>
>> Christmas from saturnalia....
>
> Sorry, wrong again.
>
> "So what then is the real origin of the Christmas date? The earliest
> known accounts about Jesus' birth date came from the early Church
> Father Irenaeus (130- 202), who connected Mary's conception of Jesus
> with the Passion Week (starting with Palm Sunday). Using March 25 as
> his Passion Week date, Irenaeus calculated forward nine months to
> December 25 as a birth date. Another Church Father, Hippolytus of Rome
> (170- 236), specifically related December 25 to the birth of Jesus,
> though he may have made this decision based on the earlier tradition
> of Irenaeus. And then there is Sextus Julius Africanus (160- 240), who
> in the year 221 also noted December 25 as the date of Jesus' birth -
> which is long before 274, when Emperor Aurelian officially established
> Sol Invictus as the principal cult of the empire on December 25.
> Once the date of the Annunciation and Incarnation was established, it
> was a simple matter of adding nine months to arrive at the date of our
> Lord's birth - December 25. This date would not be made official
> immediately, but was established long before Aurelian and Constantine.
> It had nothing to do with pagan festivals. In the year 350, Pope
> Julius I officially declared that Christ's birth would be celebrated
> on December 25, despite the day's possibly pagan significance and
> association."
> Gerard M. Verschuuren. Forty Anti-Catholic Lies (Kindle Locations
> 2395-2405). Sophia Institute Press.
>

There are some Germanic-Scandinavian things incorporated into popular
celebrations of Christmas: trees, yule logs, unclean ham etc.

>>
>>
>>>
>>> Beats me why people feel the need to do it over something that isn't
>>> of any particular significance; if the Church had adapted dates from
>>> pagan festivals for convenience, so what?
>>
>> It goes to my point that there is no originality in the catholic religion.
>
> Somebody should have told that to the Jewish religious authorities who
> didn't like the message Christ promoted.
>

There is a tendency toward syncretism or local non-Christian tradition and
symbols being adopted or incorporated, with or without larger Catholic
blessing. I am reminded of San Lazaro being given some African traits
amongst the folk in Cuba. You cannot discount such mild tendencies.

[Martin Harran]

rOn Thu, 26 Jul 2018 07:13:31 -0500, *Hemidactylus*

They have nothing whatsoever to do with the religious celebration of
Easter.

Again, nothing whatsoever to do with the religious celebration of
Christmas.

>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Beats me why people feel the need to do it over something that isn't
>>>> of any particular significance; if the Church had adapted dates from
>>>> pagan festivals for convenience, so what?
>>>
>>> It goes to my point that there is no originality in the catholic religion.
>>
>> Somebody should have told that to the Jewish religious authorities who
>> didn't like the message Christ promoted.
>>
>There is a tendency toward syncretism or local non-Christian tradition and
>symbols being adopted or incorporated, with or without larger Catholic
>blessing. I am reminded of San Lazaro being given some African traits
>amongst the folk in Cuba. You cannot discount such mild tendencies.
>

Equally, you cannot use them as a basis to claim that the Catholic
Church purposely adopted pagan festivals which is what zencycle is
claiming and which is what I have been dismantling.

[Bill Rogers]

This is just a matter of public relations, but as someone watching the Church from outside, I'd be more impressed if, when the institutional Church has done something wrong, members of the Church only spoke about that something's wrongness, and did not go on to lament how that something might have damaged the image of the Church.

[Martin Harran]

>> [?

>
>This is just a matter of public relations, but as someone watching the Church from outside, I'd be more impressed if, when the institutional Church has done something wrong, members of the Church only spoke about that something's wrongness, and did not go on to lament how that something might have damaged the image of the Church.

What on earth was "lamenting" about what I said?

[Bill Rogers]

You may say, of course, that you merely describe what happened. Still, I would be more impressed if defenders of the Church refrained from "merely describing" the effects of institutional malfeasance on the reputation of the Church right after they describe the effects of such malfeasance on the actual victims. Going right to a description of the effect on the Church's reputation suggests that the harm to the Church is of comparable importance to the harm to the victims.

[zencycle]

On Thursday, July 26, 2018 at 7:30:03 AM UTC-4, Martin Harran wrote:
> On Mon, 23 Jul 2018 07:49:34 -0700 (PDT), zencycle
> <funkma...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> >
> >And? the fact is they did it. Easter was co-opted from Oester.
>
> Sorry, but your shoehorn has just snapped completely.

Typical christian apologetic response - and complete bullshit.

> As Christ's
> Crucifixion and Resurrection took place at Passover, the Council of
> Nice in 325 based the calculation of Easter - the first Sunday after
> the first Full Moon occurring on or after the vernal equinox - on the
> Jewish calculation of the date of Passover. Unless, of course, you
> want to use a bigger shoehorn to claim that the Jews c3,500 years ago
> based their Passover date on some Germanic pagan festival!

OK, so now you're claiming that the easter celebration wasn't co-opted from a germanic pagan festival, but from passover. As to your ~1500 BC comment, try looking up the apotropic rite and the canaanite spring festival.

The actual day of the resurrection isn't even clear. Here's a good analysis of the controversy:
https://www.ucg.org/bible-study-tools/booklets/easter-the-rest-of-the-story/three-days-and-three-nights

"The choice of a Sunday date for Easter is based on the assumption that Christ rose from the grave early on a Sunday morning. The popular belief is that Christ was crucified on a Friday and rose on a Sunday. But neither of these suppositions is true. "

The fact is, that the first full moon after the vernal equinox wasn't chosen because it was accurate, it was chosen to allow for pagan traditions to be practiced while enforcing the new political authority.

Let's also look at the characteristics of easter as currently celebrated. Easter eggs, rabbits, and exhibitions of gluttony. What do any of these have to do with the alleged resurrection of christ? absolutely nothing. Eggs are signs of rebirth (the attempt by the early catholic church to reassign the egg as a symbol of rebirth to christs 'rebirth' duly noted), rabbits are a symbol of fertility and have some linkage as being a spirit animal to the goddess Freyja, and the large dinners are a simple homage to the celebration of spring harvests. According to Grimm:

"this Ostarâ, like the [Anglo-Saxon] Eástre, must in heathen religion have denoted a higher being, whose worship was so firmly rooted, that the Christian teachers tolerated the name, and applied it to one of their own grandest anniversaries."

"Ostara, Eástre seems therefore to have been the divinity of the radiant dawn, of upspringing light, a spectacle that brings joy and blessing, whose meaning could be easily adapted by the resurrection-day of the Christian's God."

" through long ages there seem to have lingered among the people Easter-games so-called, which the church itself had to tolerate : I allude especially to the custom of Easter eggs, and to the Easter tale which preachers told from the pulpit for the people's amusement, connecting it with Christian reminiscences."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%92ostre#Jacob_Grimm,_*Ostara,_and_Easter_customs

Even the name of the holiday is rooted in norse mythology. If it were supposedly some original construct of early christians, none of these characteristics would be in place, especially the name. If the idea that the resurrection is an original concept had any merit, there would be no co-opting of any other prechristian festival - jewish, pagan, or anything else.

> >Christmas from saturnalia....
>
> Sorry, wrong again.
>
> "So what then is the real origin of the Christmas date? The earliest

<christian apologetic bullshit snipped>

> on December 25, despite the day's possibly pagan significance and
> association."
> Gerard M. Verschuuren. Forty Anti-Catholic Lies (Kindle Locations
> 2395-2405). Sophia Institute Press.

Nope, more christian apologetic bullshit. The fact that it's published in a book called 'anti-catholic lies' should at least give consideration to editorial bias, and that passage has about as much validity as the ruse of st. boniface, and it even states:

"Pope Julius I officially declared that Christ's birth would be celebrated
on December 25, despite the day's possibly pagan significance and
association."

But let's look at a smattering of references for the real date of the birth of jesus.

From the United Church of God website - the end of september, and notes that december 25 was a compromise with paganism
https://www.ucg.org/the-good-news/biblical-evidence-shows-jesus-christ-wasnt-born-on-dec-25

FRom Beleifnet - a suggestion of either june or october, based on biblical astronomical references.
http://www.beliefnet.com/faiths/christianity/articles/when-was-jesus-really-born.aspx

FRom bibleinfo.com - late september
http://www.bibleinfo.com/en/questions/when-was-jesus-born

FRom christianprophecy.org - late september.
http://christinprophecy.org/articles/when-was-jesus-born/

This last one also has the following snippets:

"Pope Julius I chose to replace the pagan winter solstice feast in honor of Mithra, the “Unconquered Sun,” that had been officially recognized by the emperor Aurelian in 274 AD. From Rome, the new feast celebrating the birthday of the “Sun of Righteousness” "

"he modern Christmas celebration combines many strands of tradition including the ancient Roman pagan festival of Saturnalia (merrymaking, exchange of presents), the old Germanic midwinter customs (Yule log, decorating evergreen trees), the tradition of Francis of Assisi (displaying the crib, or crèche of Jesus), the medieval feast of St. Nicholas (Sinterklaas in Dutch, hence “Santa Claus”),..."

To consider that a christmas celebration on december 25 is a legitimate and original construct is nothing short of delusional. All research and evidence points against it - your apologetic volume notwithstanding.

> >
> >It goes to my point that there is no originality in the catholic religion.
>
> Somebody should have told that to the Jewish religious authorities who
> didn't like the message Christ promoted.

That means they didn't like the message, not that it was original.

> There is a big difference between the Catholic Church thriving because
> it was a political structure and the Catholic Church becoming a
> political structure because it was thriving - a difference that you
> seem either unwilling of incapable of grasping.

In the context of the church becoming the political authority it doesn't matter whether the rabbit came before the egg or vice versa. How it got there is largely irrelevant.

> >is an extreme view that is seriously exaggerated - hence should have had a Poe alert.
>
> I understand POE's law, it would only apply if your post had been
> targeted at pastafarianism whereas it came across as targeted at the
> Catholic Church.

It was targeted at the catholic church, and Poe's law does apply. Whether or not you agree is largely irrelevant.

[Martin Harran]

On Thu, 26 Jul 2018 06:47:54 -0700 (PDT), Bill Rogers

How did I *go right* to the effect on the Church's reputation, when I
started off with:

"What you described above about Galileo is broadly correct but does
not in any way excuse the Church's treatment of him. Pope Urban knew
that there was no heresy involved but he let a sham, Lenin-like show
trial go ahead to punish Galileo for insulting him personally. That
was a total abuse of his papal authority and an abrogation of his
papal responsibility."

I would regard that as an unambiguous and unequivaocal condemnation of
what the Church did to Galileo but apparently it passed you by.

[jillery]

Of course, what jonathan described above isn't even remotely correct.
They are based on alternate facts. And invoking enemies of the Church
suggests a martyr complex.

[Bill Rogers]

Did you read my original post? Yes, you start off with a condemnation of the malfeasance, and then go right to a comment on its effect of the Church's reputation.

>
> I would regard that as an unambiguous and unequivaocal condemnation of
> what the Church did to Galileo but apparently it passed you by.

Hardly, I mentioned it in my original post.

Do you really not get the point that when you talk first about the effect of some institutional wrongdoing on the victim, AND THEN IMMEDIATELY, go on to talk about its effect on the Church's reputation, you give the impression that the harm to the victim and the harm to the Church's image are of similar importance?

[Martin Harran]

On Thu, 26 Jul 2018 07:21:56 -0700 (PDT), Bill Rogers

OK, I misunderstood you, it's simply a matter of timing. Basically
what you were actually saying is that if somebody has done something
completely wrong and that wrong has done secondary damage, you're not
allowed to refer to both the wrong and the secondary damage without
leaving some sort of gap between them.

Two questions:

1) Does this just apply in respect of the Catholic Church or does it
apply more widely; for example, if a German were to condemn the
actions of the Nazis and then immediately go on to point out the
secondary damage that they had done to the image of the German people,
would that somehow undermine their condemnation of the Nazis?

2) What is an appropriate gap; for example, if I had left my
observation of the damage done to the Church to a separate post made
say a couple of hours later, would you have found that ok?

[Bill Rogers]

It's not a question of "being allowed to," it's a question of whether you give equal weight to the harm caused to the victims and the harm caused to the prepetrator's reputation.

>
> Two questions:
>
> 1) Does this just apply in respect of the Catholic Church or does it
> apply more widely; for example, if a German were to condemn the
> actions of the Nazis and then immediately go on to point out the
> secondary damage that they had done to the image of the German people,
> would that somehow undermine their condemnation of the Nazis?
>
> 2) What is an appropriate gap; for example, if I had left my
> observation of the damage done to the Church to a separate post made
> say a couple of hours later, would you have found that ok?

Yes, the point applies beyond the Catholic Church. And the point is NOT timing, the point is whether you consider that the harm done to the victim and the harm done to the reputation of the perpetrator have similar importance.

[Mark Isaak]

Religion is what people do. Saying that what they do as part of the
holiday has nothing to do with the religious celebration smacks of
No-True-Scotsman.

(And I would suggest that helping your children hunt Easter eggs has at
least as much spiritual value as sitting through a mass.)

Again, not your call. I have several times seen Christmas trees inside
churches. The battle to keep trees etc. out of the religious side of
Christmas has been lost, probably because it was never worth fighting in
the first place.

>>>>> Beats me why people feel the need to do it over something that isn't
>>>>> of any particular significance; if the Church had adapted dates from
>>>>> pagan festivals for convenience, so what?
>>>>
>>>> It goes to my point that there is no originality in the catholic religion.
>>>
>>> Somebody should have told that to the Jewish religious authorities who
>>> didn't like the message Christ promoted.
>>>
>> There is a tendency toward syncretism or local non-Christian tradition and
>> symbols being adopted or incorporated, with or without larger Catholic
>> blessing. I am reminded of San Lazaro being given some African traits
>> amongst the folk in Cuba. You cannot discount such mild tendencies.
>>
>
> Equally, you cannot use them as a basis to claim that the Catholic
> Church purposely adopted pagan festivals which is what zencycle is
> claiming and which is what I have been dismantling.

That, I grant, was an excellent point.

--
Mark Isaak eciton (at) curioustaxonomy (dot) net
"Omnia disce. Videbis postea nihil esse superfluum."
- Hugh of St. Victor

[Martin Harran]

On Thu, 26 Jul 2018 06:53:09 -0700 (PDT), zencycle

<funkma...@hotmail.com> wrote:

>On Thursday, July 26, 2018 at 7:30:03 AM UTC-4, Martin Harran wrote:
>> On Mon, 23 Jul 2018 07:49:34 -0700 (PDT), zencycle
>> <funkma...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >And? the fact is they did it. Easter was co-opted from Oester.
>>
>> Sorry, but your shoehorn has just snapped completely.
>
>Typical christian apologetic response - and complete bullshit.
>
>> As Christ's
>> Crucifixion and Resurrection took place at Passover, the Council of
>> Nice in 325 based the calculation of Easter - the first Sunday after
>> the first Full Moon occurring on or after the vernal equinox - on the
>> Jewish calculation of the date of Passover. Unless, of course, you
>> want to use a bigger shoehorn to claim that the Jews c3,500 years ago
>> based their Passover date on some Germanic pagan festival!
>
>OK, so now you're claiming that the easter celebration wasn't co-opted from a germanic pagan festival, but from passover.

Correct, the reasoning was clearly spelled out by the Council of Nicea

> As to your ~1500 BC comment, try looking up the apotropic rite and the canaanite spring festival.
>
>The actual day of the resurrection isn't even clear. Here's a good analysis of the controversy:
>https://www.ucg.org/bible-study-tools/booklets/easter-the-rest-of-the-story/three-days-and-three-nights
>
>"The choice of a Sunday date for Easter is based on the assumption that Christ rose from the grave early on a Sunday morning. The popular belief is that Christ was crucified on a Friday and rose on a Sunday. But neither of these suppositions is true. "

That is a contested claim but whether or not the Church was accurate
in selecting Sunday as the day of the Resurrection does not negate the
fact that they used the traditional Jewish calculation to arrive at
the date, not some pagan tradition.

>
>The fact is, that the first full moon after the vernal equinox wasn't chosen because it was accurate, it was chosen to allow for pagan traditions to be practiced while enforcing the new political authority.
>

So which pagan tradition celebrated something related to the first
full moon after the vernal equinox?

>Let's also look at the characteristics of easter as currently celebrated. Easter eggs, rabbits, and exhibitions of gluttony. What do any of these have to do with the alleged resurrection of christ? absolutely nothing. Eggs are signs of rebirth (the attempt by the early catholic church to reassign the egg as a symbol of rebirth to christs 'rebirth' duly noted), rabbits are a symbol of fertility and have some linkage as being a spirit animal to the goddess Freyja, and the large dinners are a simple homage to the celebration of spring harvests. According to Grimm:
>
>"this Ostarâ, like the [Anglo-Saxon] Eástre, must in heathen religion have denoted a higher being, whose worship was so firmly rooted, that the Christian teachers tolerated the name, and applied it to one of their own grandest anniversaries."
>
>"Ostara, Eástre seems therefore to have been the divinity of the radiant dawn, of upspringing light, a spectacle that brings joy and blessing, whose meaning could be easily adapted by the resurrection-day of the Christian's God."
>

>" through long ages there seem to have lingered among the people Easter-games so-called, which the church itself had to tolerate?: I allude especially to the custom of Easter eggs, and to the Easter tale which preachers told from the pulpit for the people's amusement, connecting it with Christian reminiscences."

>
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%92ostre#Jacob_Grimm,_*Ostara,_and_Easter_customs
>
>Even the name of the holiday is rooted in norse mythology. If it were supposedly some original construct of early christians, none of these characteristics would be in place, especially the name.
>

Actually, there are only two languages in which the name seems to have
any pagan associations at all: the name "Easter" in English and the
name "Oster" in German. In virtually every other European language,
"Easter" is derived from the Jewish word Pesach, or "Passover" e.g. in
Greek and in Latin the term for Easter is Pascha, in Spanish it is
Pascua, in Italian it is Pasqua, in French it is Paques, and in
Portuguese it is Pascoa. Non- Romance languages have variations on
that: in Dutch it is Pasen, and in Danish it is Paaske.

> If the idea that the resurrection is an original concept had any merit, there would be no co-opting of any other prechristian festival - jewish, pagan, or anything else.

Nobody is disputing the Jewish origins of Christianity, on the
contrary the Christian Church places great emphasis on its Jewish
roots. That has nothing to do with it adopting pagan traditions.

>> >Christmas from saturnalia....
>>
>> Sorry, wrong again.
>>
>> "So what then is the real origin of the Christmas date? The earliest
>
><christian apologetic bullshit snipped>
>
>> on December 25, despite the day's possibly pagan significance and
>> association."
>> Gerard M. Verschuuren. Forty Anti-Catholic Lies (Kindle Locations
>> 2395-2405). Sophia Institute Press.
>
>Nope, more christian apologetic bullshit. The fact that it's published in a book called 'anti-catholic lies' should at least give consideration to editorial bias, and that passage has about as much validity as the ruse of st. boniface, and it even states:
>"Pope Julius I officially declared that Christ's birth would be celebrated
>on December 25, despite the day's possibly pagan significance and
>association."
>

As opposed to your anti-Christian apologetic bullshit? TBH, I give a
bit more weight to points coming from someone who taught biology,
biological anthropology, genetics, human genetics, statistics,
philosophy, philosophy of biology, logic, and programming at Aloysius
College, Utrecht University, the Dutch Open University, Merrimack
College and Boston College and was the leader of a team of textbook
writers that developed three consecutive series of biology textbooks
for high-schools and colleges.

Apparently in your eyes, those qualifications don't count simply
because he is a Catholic and writes about Catholicism. Actually, your
stance on that would possibly have been justified if you had offered
anything to contradict what he cited from Irenaeus, Hippolytus of
Romea nd Sextus Julius Africanus, all writing in the century
following Christ, rather than just snipping it.

>But let's look at a smattering of references for the real date of the birth of jesus.
>
>From the United Church of God website - the end of september, and notes that december 25 was a compromise with paganism
>https://www.ucg.org/the-good-news/biblical-evidence-shows-jesus-christ-wasnt-born-on-dec-25
>
>FRom Beleifnet - a suggestion of either june or october, based on biblical astronomical references.
>http://www.beliefnet.com/faiths/christianity/articles/when-was-jesus-really-born.aspx
>
>FRom bibleinfo.com - late september
>http://www.bibleinfo.com/en/questions/when-was-jesus-born
>
>FRom christianprophecy.org - late september.
>http://christinprophecy.org/articles/when-was-jesus-born/
>
>This last one also has the following snippets:
>
>"Pope Julius I chose to replace the pagan winter solstice feast in honor of Mithra, the "Unconquered Sun," that had been officially recognized by the emperor Aurelian in 274 AD. From Rome, the new feast celebrating the birthday of the "Sun of Righteousness" "
>

>"he modern Christmas celebration combines many strands of tradition including the ancient Roman pagan festival of Saturnalia (merrymaking, exchange of presents), the old Germanic midwinter customs (Yule log, decorating evergreen trees), the tradition of Francis of Assisi (displaying the crib, or crčche of Jesus), the medieval feast of St. Nicholas (Sinterklaas in Dutch, hence "Santa Claus"),..."

>
>To consider that a christmas celebration on december 25 is a legitimate and original construct is nothing short of delusional. All research and evidence points against it - your apologetic volume notwithstanding.
>

Hmm, let's take a closer look at those "references".

The first one is from a Digital Media Manager & Editor at Beliefnet
who describes herself as "Writer. Dreamer. Activist." The second one
is from an unnamed writer on a site that seems to be run by Biblical
literalists. The third one is by from a guy whose qualifications are
in International Relations but that didn't stop him from founding his
own "Lamb & Lion Ministries.

Sorry, I think I'll give a bit more weight to Verschuuren's
credentials.

Anyway, you completely ignore the point that the Catholic Church did
not set the date for Christmas on the basis of any calculation of the
actual date of Christ's birth, it fell out as the date 9 months on
from the Annunciation.

Oh, wait a minute, it's just struck me that the feast of the
Annunciation when Mary conceived Jesus is 25th March, only 3 or 4 days
away from the vernal equinox so maybe Christmas is indirectlyrelated
to the vernal equinox rather than the winter solstice …. <roll eyes />

>> >
>> >It goes to my point that there is no originality in the catholic religion.
>>
>> Somebody should have told that to the Jewish religious authorities who
>> didn't like the message Christ promoted.
>
>That means they didn't like the message, not that it was original.
>
>> There is a big difference between the Catholic Church thriving because
>> it was a political structure and the Catholic Church becoming a
>> political structure because it was thriving - a difference that you
>> seem either unwilling of incapable of grasping.
>
>In the context of the church becoming the political authority it doesn't matter whether the rabbit came before the egg or vice versa. How it got there is largely irrelevant.

It matters very much if you want to persist in your claim that the
Church only had an impact because it was a political authority.

[Martin Harran]

On Thu, 26 Jul 2018 08:13:10 -0700 (PDT), Bill Rogers
<broger...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Thursday, July 26, 2018 at 10:45:03 AM UTC-4, Martin Harran wrote:

[...]

>> >> >> >This is just a matter of public relations, but as someone watching the Church from outside, I'd be more impressed if, when the institutional Church has done something wrong, members of the Church only spoke about that something's wrongness, and did not go on to lament how that something might have damaged the image of the Church.
>> >> >>
>> >> >> What on earth was "lamenting" about what I said?
>> >> >
>> >> >"Apart from the direct maltreatment of Galileo, he handed a big stick to the enemies of the Church which some of them are still trying to wield nearly 400 years later."
>> >> >
>> >> >You may say, of course, that you merely describe what happened. Still, I would be more impressed if defenders of the Church refrained from "merely describing" the effects of institutional malfeasance on the reputation of the Church right after they describe the effects of such malfeasance on the actual victims. Going right to a description of the effect on the Church's reputation suggests that the harm to the Church is of comparable importance to the harm to the victims.
>> >>
>> >> How did I *go right* to the effect on the Church's reputation, when I
>> >> started off with:
>> >>
>> >> "What you described above about Galileo is broadly correct but does
>> >> not in any way excuse the Church's treatment of him. Pope Urban knew
>> >> that there was no heresy involved but he let a sham, Lenin-like show
>> >> trial go ahead to punish Galileo for insulting him personally. That
>> >> was a total abuse of his papal authority and an abrogation of his
>> >> papal responsibility."
>> >
>> >Did you read my original post? Yes, you start off with a condemnation of the malfeasance, and then go right to a comment on its effect of the Church's reputation.
>> >
>> >>
>> >> I would regard that as an unambiguous and unequivaocal condemnation of
>> >> what the Church did to Galileo but apparently it passed you by.
>> >
>> >Hardly, I mentioned it in my original post.
>> >
>> >Do you really not get the point that when you talk first about the effect of some institutional wrongdoing on the victim, AND THEN IMMEDIATELY, go on to talk about its effect on the Church's reputation, you give the impression that the harm to the victim and the harm to the Church's image are of similar importance?
>> >
>>
>> OK, I misunderstood you, it's simply a matter of timing. Basically
>> what you were actually saying is that if somebody has done something
>> completely wrong and that wrong has done secondary damage, you're not
>> allowed to refer to both the wrong and the secondary damage without
>> leaving some sort of gap between them.
>
>It's not a question of "being allowed to," it's a question of whether you give equal weight to the harm caused to the victims and the harm caused to the prepetrator's reputation.

Where did I give equal weight to the harm caused to Galileo and the
damage done to the Church's reputation?

>
>
>>
>> Two questions:
>>
>> 1) Does this just apply in respect of the Catholic Church or does it
>> apply more widely; for example, if a German were to condemn the
>> actions of the Nazis and then immediately go on to point out the
>> secondary damage that they had done to the image of the German people,
>> would that somehow undermine their condemnation of the Nazis?
>>
>> 2) What is an appropriate gap; for example, if I had left my
>> observation of the damage done to the Church to a separate post made
>> say a couple of hours later, would you have found that ok?
>
>Yes, the point applies beyond the Catholic Church. And the point is NOT timing,

So when you said "Do you really not get the point that when you talk

first about the effect of some institutional wrongdoing on the victim,
AND THEN IMMEDIATELY, go on to talk about its effect on the Church's
reputation, you give the impression that the harm to the victim and

the harm to the Church's image are of similar importance?", the bit
about "AND THEN IMMEDIATELY" [your emphasis] had nothing to do with
timing.

I trust you will forgive my confusion.

[Bill Rogers]

I doubt anyone else is confused. I've nothing to add to the argument that I've already made.

[jillery]

The English population proved that point right after Oliver Cromwell
died.

>>>>>> Beats me why people feel the need to do it over something that isn't
>>>>>> of any particular significance; if the Church had adapted dates from
>>>>>> pagan festivals for convenience, so what?
>>>>>
>>>>> It goes to my point that there is no originality in the catholic religion.
>>>>
>>>> Somebody should have told that to the Jewish religious authorities who
>>>> didn't like the message Christ promoted.
>>>>
>>> There is a tendency toward syncretism or local non-Christian tradition and
>>> symbols being adopted or incorporated, with or without larger Catholic
>>> blessing. I am reminded of San Lazaro being given some African traits
>>> amongst the folk in Cuba. You cannot discount such mild tendencies.
>>>
>>
>> Equally, you cannot use them as a basis to claim that the Catholic
>> Church purposely adopted pagan festivals which is what zencycle is
>> claiming and which is what I have been dismantling.
>
>That, I grant, was an excellent point.

--

[Burkhard]

Couple of problems with that I'd say. Grimm worked in the early 19th
century, and his research was driven also by a political desire to
establish a pan-German culture (at a time when that sort of thinking was
seditious and could get you into a lot of trouble with your local Duke,
King, Baron ect) In a way rather typical for that time (think the fake
Ossian in Scotland) he combined research into linguistic, folk culture
and mythology to show a uniform and distinct"Germanic" tradition that
cut across the 300+ states. While academically more sound of course than
Macpherson, quite a lot of what he and his contemporaries did does not
stand up to modern academic scrutiny.

Ostara/Eastre herself is a rather problematic and badly documented deity
herself, Neil Gaiman notwithstanding. Almost all of it goes back to
Bede, who mentions her in only one passage - the rest is sometimes
colorful, sometimes plain wrong etymological speculation.

Not as bad as the one by that old fraud Hislop, that favourite of Ray
Martinez, who linked Easter to Ishtar, but extremely speculative to say
the least. So even if such a deity existed, she'd be marginal and at
best almost-forgotten by the time Eastern became established, so also no
political reason to use her day as a foil.

[Martin Harran]

On Thu, 26 Jul 2018 08:37:58 -0700, Mark Isaak
<eciton@curiousta/xyz/xonomy.net> wrote:

It is not that simple in respect of the Catholic Church which is
possibly unique in that it has such detailed documentation of its
beliefs and teachings, right back to its original foundation 2000
years ago. Assessing the Catholic Church on "what people do" rather
than the official documentation is akin to assessing the Theory of
Evolution on how people popularly perceive it - e.g. "we're all
descended from monkeys" - rather than the published work of scientists
in the field.

Well, as Catholic who is very active in church affairs, I think I am
better placed than most people here to comment on what does and does
not go on inside that church!

> I have several times seen Christmas trees inside
>churches.

That is a fairly recent practice, at least in my part of the world,
and is officially frowned on by Church authorities:
"Because some Christmas decorations have often lost their original
religious meaning, churches should be rather circumspect about
employing them and should do so with great discretion. If used at all,
these decorations are best set up on Christmas Eve so as to respect
the integrity of the Advent season.
Christmas trees are preferably located outside the sanctuary and
church proper, and are best left in vestibules or church grounds. This
has been the practice in St. Peter's Square from the time of Pope John
Paul II.
As far as possible, decorations should be religiously themed, leaving
plastic reindeer, sugar canes and Santa Clauses in the local shopping
mall or at least within the confines of the parish hall for children's
events."
http://www.ewtn.com/library/liturgy/zlitur108.htm

>The battle to keep trees etc. out of the religious side of
>Christmas has been lost, probably because it was never worth fighting in
>the first place.
>

I personally don't have any problem with Christmas trees inside the
church if they are used properly as is the case in my parish where the
tree is placed adjacent to the sanctuary at the start of Advent where
it is used as a Jesse tree; each week during Mass, local
schoolchildren attach tags to it with the names of Biblical characters
from the Creation story through to the Nativity.

[Martin Harran]

On Thu, 26 Jul 2018 09:49:04 -0700 (PDT), Bill Rogers

OK, I'll take your ignoring of my questions as a belated realisation
that you engaged keyboard before brain.

[Bill Rogers]

I answered your questions. Didn't you read my post?

Ah, I see that place your answer to me in the middle of my sentence, perhaps making it harder to recognize that I'd answered your question already....

"Yes, the point applies beyond the Catholic Church [answering the first of your questions]. And the point is NOT timing, [here's where you plunked your response to me, ignoring what came after] the point is whether you consider that the harm done to the victim and the harm done to the reputation of the perpetrator have similar importance. [Answering the second of your questions]."

Let me make it clear with an analogy. Imagine I said
"It was terrible and unforgivable of me to drive drunk and to kill that innocent child. Also, the whole episode really did a number on my reputation."

You can ignore the point all you like, but whenever you bring up the damage to the Church's reputation, or the ammunition given to opponents of the Church, by some institutional misdeed, you inevitably make it look like you place the harm done to the Church's reputation on the same level as the harm done to the victim.

[Mark Isaak]

First, keep in mind that neither Christmas nor Easter are purely
Catholic holidays. They are celebrated by other Christians and maybe
even by Pastafarians.

Second, yes, Catholicism is what people do. Where it differs is that a
large part of what its members do is to respect its authority. But even
that is far from absolute. People can and do leave it because they
disagree with the authority, and other people ignore large parts. The
Church's stupidity regarding birth control, for example, is widely
ignored in the United States, to everyone's benefit.

[zencycle]

On Thursday, July 26, 2018 at 12:15:03 PM UTC-4, Martin Harran wrote:
> On Thu, 26 Jul 2018 06:53:09 -0700 (PDT), zencycle
> >

> >OK, so now you're claiming that the easter celebration wasn't co-opted from a germanic pagan festival, but from passover.
>
> Correct, the reasoning was clearly spelled out by the Council of Nicea

confirming my original premise - there is nothing original in christianity. Catholic propaganda may disavow linkage to pagan ritual, but history tells us otherwise.

> > As to your ~1500 BC comment, try looking up the apotropic rite
> > and the canaanite spring festival.

your lack of response to this is duly noted.

> >
> >"The choice of a Sunday date for Easter is based on the assumption that Christ rose from the grave early on a Sunday morning. The popular belief is that Christ was crucified on a Friday and rose on a Sunday. But neither of these suppositions is true. "

> That is a contested claim but whether or not the Church was accurate
> in selecting Sunday as the day of the Resurrection does not negate the
> fact that they used the traditional Jewish calculation to arrive at
> the date, not some pagan tradition.

And they merged the resurrection with traditional easter celebrations - this is why you still color eggs and eat chocolate rabbits.

>
> So which pagan tradition celebrated something related to the first
> full moon after the vernal equinox?

The resurrection celebration replaced the equinox celebrations. I've been saying that all along. pay attention.

> >Let's also look at the characteristics of easter as currently celebrated.
> >

> > <snipped for brevity>
> >
> >https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%92ostre#Jacob_Grimm,_*Ostara,_and_Easter_customs
> >

The fact that you completely ignored this whole section speaks volumes about the strength of you argument.

> >Even the name of the holiday is rooted in norse mythology. If it were supposedly some original construct of early christians, none of these characteristics would be in place, especially the name.
> >
>
> Actually, there are only two languages in which the name seems to have
> any pagan associations at all: the name "Easter" in English and the
> name "Oster" in German.

This is because the nordic culture celebrated the vernal equinox as easter.

> In virtually every other European language,
> "Easter" is derived from the Jewish word Pesach, or

um...no. Paschal is derived from "Pascha", the Aramaic word meaning Passover.

> "Passover" e.g. in
> Greek and in Latin the term for Easter is Pascha, in Spanish it is
> Pascua, in Italian it is Pasqua, in French it is Paques, and in
> Portuguese it is Pascoa. Non- Romance languages have variations on
> that: in Dutch it is Pasen, and in Danish it is Paaske.

Yes, the romance languages are derived from latin. From wikipedia "In Latin and Greek, the Christian celebration was, and still is, called Pascha (Greek: Πάσχα), a word derived from Aramaic פסחא (Paskha), cognate to Hebrew פֶּסַח (Pesach). "

>
> > If the idea that the resurrection is an original concept had any merit, there would be no co-opting of any other prechristian festival - jewish, pagan, or anything else.
>
> Nobody is disputing the Jewish origins of Christianity, on the
> contrary the Christian Church places great emphasis on its Jewish
> roots. That has nothing to do with it adopting pagan traditions.

I'm not disputing christianity's roots in judaism. I'm saying they co-opted all their holidays.

>
> >> >Christmas from saturnalia....
> >>
> >> Sorry, wrong again.
> >>
> >> "So what then is the real origin of the Christmas date? The earliest
> >
> ><christian apologetic bullshit snipped>
> >
> >> on December 25, despite the day's possibly pagan significance and
> >> association."
> >> Gerard M. Verschuuren. Forty Anti-Catholic Lies (Kindle Locations
> >> 2395-2405). Sophia Institute Press.
> >
> >Nope, more christian apologetic bullshit. The fact that it's published in a book called 'anti-catholic lies' should at least give consideration to editorial bias, and that passage has about as much validity as the ruse of st. boniface, and it even states:
> >"Pope Julius I officially declared that Christ's birth would be celebrated
> >on December 25, despite the day's possibly pagan significance and
> >association."
> >
> As opposed to your anti-Christian apologetic bullshit?

it carries just as much weight and validity.

TBH, I give a
> bit more weight to points coming from someone who taught biology,
> biological anthropology, genetics, human genetics, statistics,
> philosophy, philosophy of biology, logic, and programming at Aloysius
> College, Utrecht University, the Dutch Open University, Merrimack
> College and Boston College and was the leader of a team of textbook
> writers that developed three consecutive series of biology textbooks
> for high-schools and colleges.

An impressive resume doesn't mean he doesn't have extreme bias. I would have though that recent experiences in this forum with individuals having impressive resumes (kleinamn) would have taught you that.

>
> Apparently in your eyes, those qualifications don't count simply
> because he is a Catholic and writes about Catholicism.

Pre-judge much?

> Actually, your
> stance on that would possibly have been justified if you had offered
> anything to contradict what he cited from Irenaeus, Hippolytus of
> Romea nd Sextus Julius Africanus, all writing in the century
> following Christ, rather than just snipping it.

I offered an alternative view from people who justified their positions in scripture and historical references. Verschuuren offered statements from members of the church hierarchy. This is like taking nikki haley and john bolton's word for trumps motivations.

>
> Hmm, let's take a closer look at those "references".
>
> The first one is from a Digital Media Manager & Editor at Beliefnet
> who describes herself as "Writer. Dreamer. Activist." The second one
> is from an unnamed writer on a site that seems to be run by Biblical
> literalists. The third one is by from a guy whose qualifications are
> in International Relations but that didn't stop him from founding his
> own "Lamb & Lion Ministries.
>
> Sorry, I think I'll give a bit more weight to Verschuuren's
> credentials.

Congratulations, you just committed ad hominem and appeal to authority fallacies in one sentence

>
> Anyway, you completely ignore the point that the Catholic Church did
> not set the date for Christmas on the basis of any calculation of the
> actual date of Christ's birth, it fell out as the date 9 months on
> from the Annunciation.

Scripture doesn't share your premise.

>
> Oh, wait a minute, it's just struck me that the feast of the
> Annunciation when Mary conceived Jesus is 25th March, only 3 or 4 days
> away from the vernal equinox so maybe Christmas is indirectlyrelated
> to the vernal equinox rather than the winter solstice …. <roll eyes />

Oh wait, it just occurred to me that that I'm trying to have a rational discussion with someone who thinks god is real <roll eyes />

>
> >In the context of the church becoming the political authority it doesn't matter whether the rabbit came before the egg or vice versa. How it got there is largely irrelevant.
>
> It matters very much if you want to persist in your claim that the
> Church only had an impact because it was a political authority.

That's likely the case.

[Martin Harran]

On Thu, 26 Jul 2018 14:01:03 -0700 (PDT), zencycle
<funkma...@hotmail.com> wrote:

[...]

>Oh wait, it just occurred to me that that I'm trying to have a rational discussion with someone who thinks god is real <roll eyes />

I think that statement sums up far better than I ever could exactly
what is driving your own beliefs here.

There's not much point in trying to have a rational discussion with
somebody who thinks my religious beliefs make me incapable of having a
rational discussion

[...]

[Martin Harran]

On Thu, 26 Jul 2018 11:39:36 -0700 (PDT), Bill Rogers

Yes I did and I've read it again but I still don't see you identify
where I gave the same weight to the impact of the Church's treatment
upon Galileo and the damage it did to the Church.

>
>Ah, I see that place your answer to me in the middle of my sentence, perhaps making it harder to recognize that I'd answered your question already....
>
>"Yes, the point applies beyond the Catholic Church [answering the first of your questions]. And the point is NOT timing, [here's where you plunked your response to me, ignoring what came after] the point is whether you consider that the harm done to the victim and the harm done to the reputation of the perpetrator have similar importance. [Answering the second of your questions]."
>
>Let me make it clear with an analogy. Imagine I said
>"It was terrible and unforgivable of me to drive drunk and to kill that innocent child. Also, the whole episode really did a number on my reputation."
>

I'd much rather you deal with my specific comments on the Church and
Galileo to which you reacted rather than some hypothetical scenario
about a drunken driver bemoaning the damage to his reputation.

>You can ignore the point all you like, but whenever you bring up the damage to the Church's reputation, or the ammunition given to opponents of the Church, by some institutional misdeed, you inevitably make it look like you place the harm done to the Church's reputation on the same level as the harm done to the victim.

Seems to me that the only people who react that way are people who
have a problem accepting anything that does not place the catholic
Church in anything except a bad light. Perhaps coincidentally, perhaps
not, the same sort of people who are inclined to dismiss anything I
say about the Church, no matter how well founded, as knee-jerking

[zencycle]

On Thursday, July 26, 2018 at 5:25:02 PM UTC-4, Martin Harran wrote:
> On Thu, 26 Jul 2018 14:01:03 -0700 (PDT), zencycle
>

> >Oh wait, it just occurred to me that that I'm trying to have a rational discussion with someone who thinks god is real <roll eyes />
>
> I think that statement sums up far better than I ever could exactly
> what is driving your own beliefs here.
>
> There's not much point in trying to have a rational discussion with
> somebody who thinks my religious beliefs make me incapable of having a
> rational discussion
>

I hardly think basing an entire argument on quasi-catholic propaganda is rational.

[jillery]

to add your analogy:

"... not to mention the increased insurance rates, and all those
court-mandated classes. It's enough to drive a person to drink!"

or

"How thoughtless of that child to stand where I was going to drive."

>You can ignore the point all you like, but whenever you bring up the damage to the Church's reputation, or the ammunition given to opponents of the Church, by some institutional misdeed, you inevitably make it look like you place the harm done to the Church's reputation on the same level as the harm done to the victim.

[Bill Rogers]

If you don't see it, you don't see it. I suspect others may indeed see it, though. I suspect it is not conscious on your part. If you speak about the wrongs the Church has done to Galileo (or to anybody else) and then it just naturally occurs to you to comment on the harm such wrongs do to the Church's reputation, then you ARE, consciously or not, putting the harm done to the victims on the same level as the harm done to the reputation of the perpetrator. You disagree. I know. I'm unlikely to change your mind, and vice versa.

[*Hemidactylus*]

Martin Harran <martin...@gmail.com> wrote:
> rOn Thu, 26 Jul 2018 07:13:31 -0500, *Hemidactylus*
> <ecph...@allspamis.invalid> wrote:
>
>> Martin Harran <martin...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>

Too much of a generalization. I accept that the Catholic establishment may
not consider syncretic incorporations as part of the Catholic way of doing
things but they cannot define things for individuals or other faith stances
such as Wicca. And the free market is a religion that makes chocolate sales
sacred.

>
>>>
>>>> Christmas from saturnalia....
>>>
>>> Sorry, wrong again.
>>>
>>> "So what then is the real origin of the Christmas date? The earliest

>>> known accounts about Jesus' birth date came from the early Church
>>> Father Irenaeus (130- 202), who connected Mary's conception of Jesus
>>> with the Passion Week (starting with Palm Sunday). Using March 25 as
>>> his Passion Week date, Irenaeus calculated forward nine months to
>>> December 25 as a birth date. Another Church Father, Hippolytus of Rome
>>> (170- 236), specifically related December 25 to the birth of Jesus,
>>> though he may have made this decision based on the earlier tradition
>>> of Irenaeus. And then there is Sextus Julius Africanus (160- 240), who
>>> in the year 221 also noted December 25 as the date of Jesus' birth -
>>> which is long before 274, when Emperor Aurelian officially established
>>> Sol Invictus as the principal cult of the empire on December 25.
>>> Once the date of the Annunciation and Incarnation was established, it
>>> was a simple matter of adding nine months to arrive at the date of our
>>> Lord's birth - December 25. This date would not be made official
>>> immediately, but was established long before Aurelian and Constantine.

>>> It had nothing to do with pagan festivals. In the year 350, Pope

>>> Julius I officially declared that Christ's birth would be celebrated
>>> on December 25, despite the day's possibly pagan significance and
>>> association."

>>> Gerard M. Verschuuren. Forty Anti-Catholic Lies (Kindle Locations
>>> 2395-2405). Sophia Institute Press.
>>>

>> There are some Germanic-Scandinavian things incorporated into popular
>> celebrations of Christmas: trees, yule logs, unclean ham etc.
>

> Again, nothing whatsoever to do with the religious celebration of
> Christmas.
>
People cap trees with angels. Trees mix with creches. The free market
dictates we go into debt by the escalation of potlatch every year. Status
and guilt loom large. Not exactly the message I thought Jesus tried to
convey.

>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Beats me why people feel the need to do it over something that isn't
>>>>> of any particular significance; if the Church had adapted dates from
>>>>> pagan festivals for convenience, so what?
>>>>
>>>> It goes to my point that there is no originality in the catholic religion.
>>>
>>> Somebody should have told that to the Jewish religious authorities who
>>> didn't like the message Christ promoted.
>>>
>> There is a tendency toward syncretism or local non-Christian tradition and
>> symbols being adopted or incorporated, with or without larger Catholic
>> blessing. I am reminded of San Lazaro being given some African traits
>> amongst the folk in Cuba. You cannot discount such mild tendencies.
>>
>
> Equally, you cannot use them as a basis to claim that the Catholic
> Church purposely adopted pagan festivals which is what zencycle is
> claiming and which is what I have been dismantling.
>

Well I can imagine the stuffy Catholic establishment doesn’t condone the
drunken debauchery leading into Lent in New Orleans, Brazil or elsewhere.
They take all the profane fun out of celebrating the sacred 🙁

But at least they host Bingo halls (the sacred gambling dens of senior
citizens). That’s fun right?

[*Hemidactylus*]

Santa Muerte is an interesting twist in Mexico. It was an apt theme in
AMC’s Fear the Walking Dead when it trekked into Mexico. Reza Aslan has
taken plenty of flak from folks including New Atheists. I found his short
lived CNN series Believer interesting, especially the episode where he
explored Santa Muerte. His stint on CNN died on the hill of a tweet where
he said of Trump: “This piece of s--- is not just an embarrassment to
America and a stain on the presidency. He’s an embarrassment to
humankind,”. He apologized for that? It was a statement of fact. He lost
his show for that? CNN is spineless.

https://www.newsweek.com/cnn-reza-aslan-profane-trump-tweets-623869

[Martin Harran]

On Thu, 26 Jul 2018 13:47:43 -0700, Mark Isaak

<eciton@curiousta/xyz/xonomy.net> wrote:

>On 7/26/18 10:26 AM, Martin Harran wrote:
>> On Thu, 26 Jul 2018 08:37:58 -0700, Mark Isaak
>> <eciton@curiousta/xyz/xonomy.net> wrote:

[snip for focus]

>>> Religion is what people do.
>>
>> It is not that simple in respect of the Catholic Church which is
>> possibly unique in that it has such detailed documentation of its
>> beliefs and teachings, right back to its original foundation 2000
>> years ago. Assessing the Catholic Church on "what people do" rather
>> than the official documentation is akin to assessing the Theory of
>> Evolution on how people popularly perceive it - e.g. "we're all
>> descended from monkeys" - rather than the published work of scientists
>> in the field.
>
>First, keep in mind that neither Christmas nor Easter are purely
>Catholic holidays. They are celebrated by other Christians and maybe
>even by Pastafarians.

Yes, I realise that but my comments were specifically in regard to the
Catholic Church whom zencycle originally accused of adopting pagan
festivals.

>
>Second, yes, Catholicism is what people do. Where it differs is that a
>large part of what its members do is to respect its authority. But even
>that is far from absolute. People can and do leave it because they
>disagree with the authority, and other people ignore large parts. The
>Church's stupidity regarding birth control, for example, is widely
>ignored in the United States, to everyone's benefit.

If someone wants to criticise or attack or the religious beliefs of
Catholicism, then they must do so on what the Church authorities
formally enunciate in regard to those beliefs, not popular
interpretation or ignorance of the beliefs.

Take your example of birth control. I happen to be a harsh critic of
the Church's position on this, I am convinced - as are many, probably
most, theologians - that the official position itself is inherently
wrong. According to your logic of religion being "what people do", I'm
wasting my time attacking the Church position because, based on what
people do, the Catholic church is not anti-contraception!

[Martin Harran]

I don't think that simply dismissing a well documented fact as
"bullshit" is particularly rational.

I don't think that dismissing a book you haven't read simply because
you don't like its title is particularly rational.

I don't think that dismissing an author of the unread book, despite
his distinguished credentials, simply because he is a Catholic is
particularly rational.

[Martin Harran]

On Thu, 26 Jul 2018 19:29:37 -0700 (PDT), Bill Rogers

I have been accused by various posters around here of defending the
Catholic Church even when it is in the wrong. They can never produce
any examples of me actually defending such things, their argument is
essentially that I never overtly condemn them. I have explained ad
nauseum that this ng has nothing to do with matters outside of science
and I have no interest whatsoever in getting into polemical debate in
this ng about the Church on matters that have nothing to do with
science. Apparently, that is not enough - my disinclination to engage
in such debate is touted as clear evidence that I won't condemn things
that are clearly wrong.

Where I do make comment about the Catholic Church, it is to correct
specific errors that people post; for example, the most recent one was
that Bruno was burned at the stake for his scientific beliefs when he
wasn't. In that case, one poster accused me of defending the Church's
execution of people for their wider beliefs; another accused me of
knee jerking.

In this particular thread, Jonathan tried to defend the Church's
treatment of Galileo and I unambiguously told him that he was wrong,
that the Inquisition's actions amounted to a Lenin-like show trial and
that the Pope was guilty of a total abuse of his papal authority and

an abrogation of his papal responsibility.

I don't think there was any holding-back on my denunciation of the
Church's treatment of Galileo but you chose to question its
credibility simply because I then went on to point out that *in
addition* to the direct harm done to Galileo, the Pope had also caused
harm to the Church which he is supposed to correct.

I see a clear tendency there, apparently you don't.

>If you speak about the wrongs the Church has done to Galileo (or to anybody else) and then it just naturally occurs to you to comment on the harm such wrongs do to the Church's reputation, then you ARE, consciously or not, putting the harm done to the victims on the same level as the harm done to the reputation of the perpetrator. You disagree. I know. I'm unlikely to change your mind, and vice versa.

I have identified two entirely different types of harm, one is done by
an organisation to an individual for which I have unequivocally said
there is no excuse; the second type is self-inflicted harm done to an
organisation by its own officials.

It beats me how simply identifying those two entirely different types
of harm means I am putting them on the same level or how identifying
the secondary type of harm somehow negates recognising the first type.

It seems that just like the accusations of me elsewhere about me
knee-jerking, it's not a case of there being anything wrong with what
I actually said, it was simply a case of me actually saying it.

[匽

[jillery]

Since you claim to fail to recognize the problem under discussion,
here's an analogy which might remove your hands from your eyes:

Suppose person X discussed the Holocaust as a specific instance of
Nazi policy generally, and said that 10 million Jews were hunted down
and murdered. Now suppose person Y replied that number is factually
incorrect, that only 6 million Jews were killed, not murdered, that
other groups besides Jews were similarly treated, and that not all
Nazi Party members participated or supported these actions. And then
suppose person Y went on to enumerate the injustices Germany suffered
and the Western powers' failure to approve Jewish emigration prior to
WWII, and that occupied governments cooperation in hunting down Jews.
Most people I know would conclude that person Y obsessively focused on
technical points irrelevant to the larger issue, and would wonder why
person Y didn't even mention the larger point. Apparently your
mileage varies.

[zencycle]

On Friday, July 27, 2018 at 3:50:02 AM UTC-4, Martin Harran wrote:
> On Thu, 26 Jul 2018 14:43:40 -0700 (PDT), zencycle
> <funkma...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> >On Thursday, July 26, 2018 at 5:25:02 PM UTC-4, Martin Harran wrote:
> >> On Thu, 26 Jul 2018 14:01:03 -0700 (PDT), zencycle
> >>
> >> >Oh wait, it just occurred to me that that I'm trying to have a rational discussion with someone who thinks god is real <roll eyes />
> >>
> >> I think that statement sums up far better than I ever could exactly
> >> what is driving your own beliefs here.
> >>
> >> There's not much point in trying to have a rational discussion with
> >> somebody who thinks my religious beliefs make me incapable of having a
> >> rational discussion
> >>
> >
> >I hardly think basing an entire argument on quasi-catholic propaganda is rational.
>
> I don't think that simply dismissing a well documented fact as
> "bullshit" is particularly rational.

And what "well-documented fact" would that be?

>
> I don't think that dismissing a book you haven't read simply because
> you don't like its title is particularly rational.

I didn't dismiss the book simply because of the title, I dismissed it because of both your and verschuurens your argument from authority, as well as because the title of the book is inflammatory and I perceived it as being highly biased due to that. You dismissed the links I posted simply due to your perception of the authors credentials. Verschuurens evidence of december 25th is based on a proclamation by a church leader. He gave no historical evidence or rationale. The links I provided went though scripture and analysed the conditions surrounding the timeline. You're way more guilty of irrationally dismissing the evidence that I am.

>
> I don't think that dismissing an author of the unread book, despite
> his distinguished credentials, simply because he is a Catholic is
> particularly rational.

I didn't dismiss the author simply because he is catholic. I dismissed the passage you posted , because the author doesn't support his assertion of the the birthdate of christ with anything more than a claim from a church leader.

You really have no argument. Argument from authority is a fallacy. December 25th is a contrivance, and all analysis of the evidence points to a vastly different date.

If you want to have a rational discussion, you're going to have to do better than Verschuuren as proof.

[Martin Harran]

Gerard M. Verschuuren

On Wed, 15 Aug 2018 07:54:23 -0700 (PDT), zencycle

<funkma...@hotmail.com> wrote:

>On Friday, July 27, 2018 at 3:50:02 AM UTC-4, Martin Harran wrote:
>> On Thu, 26 Jul 2018 14:43:40 -0700 (PDT), zencycle
>> <funkma...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> >On Thursday, July 26, 2018 at 5:25:02 PM UTC-4, Martin Harran wrote:
>> >> On Thu, 26 Jul 2018 14:01:03 -0700 (PDT), zencycle
>> >>
>> >> >Oh wait, it just occurred to me that that I'm trying to have a rational discussion with someone who thinks god is real <roll eyes />
>> >>
>> >> I think that statement sums up far better than I ever could exactly
>> >> what is driving your own beliefs here.
>> >>
>> >> There's not much point in trying to have a rational discussion with
>> >> somebody who thinks my religious beliefs make me incapable of having a
>> >> rational discussion
>> >>
>> >
>> >I hardly think basing an entire argument on quasi-catholic propaganda is rational.
>>
>> I don't think that simply dismissing a well documented fact as
>> "bullshit" is particularly rational.
>
>And what "well-documented fact" would that be?

That the Christian feast of Easter is based upon the Jewish Passover
calculation.

>
>>
>> I don't think that dismissing a book you haven't read simply because
>> you don't like its title is particularly rational.
>
>I didn't dismiss the book simply because of the title, I dismissed it because of both your and verschuurens your argument from authority,

You clearly don't grasp what the 'argument from authority' fallacy
actually is. You really should read up on it before accusing people of
it.

>as well as because the title of the book is inflammatory and I perceived it as being highly biased due to that.

So it *was* because of the title of the book.

Out of curiosity, what do you find inflammatory about the title 'Forty
Anti-Catholic Lies', do you think lies aren't told about the Catholic
Church?

>You dismissed the links I posted simply due to your perception of the authors credentials. Verschuurens evidence of december 25th is based on a proclamation by a church leader.

You think a church leader isn't a good source for explain what that
church believes? Again, I strongly recommend that you read up what an
Argument from Authority fallacy actually is.

>He gave no historical evidence or rationale. The links I provided went though scripture and analysed the conditions surrounding the timeline. You're way more guilty of irrationally dismissing the evidence that I am.

I make no apology for not giving much credence to an article by an
unnamed author, published by a fundamentalist church which believes in
biblical literacy; I must admit that I'm somewhat surprised to find
you citing it as a reliable source.

>
>>
>> I don't think that dismissing an author of the unread book, despite
>> his distinguished credentials, simply because he is a Catholic is
>> particularly rational.
>
>I didn't dismiss the author simply because he is catholic. I dismissed the passage you posted , because the author doesn't support his assertion of the the birthdate of christ with anything more than a claim from a church leader.
>
>You really have no argument. Argument from authority is a fallacy. December 25th is a contrivance, and all analysis of the evidence points to a vastly different date.
>
>If you want to have a rational discussion, you're going to have to do better than Verschuuren as proof.

I think you are the one that needs to find better sources to support
your arguments than fundamentalist website.

[匽

[zencycle]

On Wednesday, August 15, 2018 at 11:50:03 AM UTC-4, Martin Harran wrote:
> Gerard M. Verschuuren

>
> >>
> >> I don't think that simply dismissing a well documented fact as
> >> "bullshit" is particularly rational.
> >
> >And what "well-documented fact" would that be?
>
> That the Christian feast of Easter is based upon the Jewish Passover
> calculation.

It's a well-documented claim, not a fact.

> >I didn't dismiss the book simply because of the title,
> >I dismissed it because of both your and verschuurens your argument from authority,
>
> You clearly don't grasp what the 'argument from authority' fallacy
> actually is. You really should read up on it before accusing people of
> it.

right...you wrote " I think I'll give a bit more weight to Verschuuren's
credentials. ". Not verschuuren's facts or reasoning, his credentials. That's an argument from authority.

> >as well as because the title of the book is inflammatory and I perceived it as being highly biased due to that.
>
> So it *was* because of the title of the book.

what is it about "as well as" that you don't understand?

>
> Out of curiosity, what do you find inflammatory about the title 'Forty
> Anti-Catholic Lies', do you think lies aren't told about the Catholic
> Church?

The two questions are completely unrelated. Any book titled "forty anti(insert subject here) lies" is inflammatory. And of course the catholic church has been lied about.

>
> >You dismissed the links I posted simply due to your perception of the authors credentials. Verschuurens evidence of december 25th is based on a proclamation by a church leader.
>
> You think a church leader isn't a good source for explain what that
> church believes? Again, I strongly recommend that you read up what an
> Argument from Authority fallacy actually is.

explaining a position, and justifying it are two entirely different things. Verschuuren claimed "the earliest

known accounts about Jesus' birth date came from the early Church
Father Irenaeus (130- 202), who connected Mary's conception of Jesus

with the Passion Week (starting with Palm Sunday).". Sorry, that isn't anywhere near a rationalization. It's just a claim made by a church leader. No proof, no justification in any research. IOW - bullshit.

>
> >He gave no historical evidence or rationale. The links I provided went though scripture and analysed the conditions surrounding the timeline. You're way more guilty of irrationally dismissing the evidence that I am.
>
> I make no apology for not giving much credence to an article by an
> unnamed author, published by a fundamentalist church which believes in
> biblical literacy; I must admit that I'm somewhat surprised to find
> you citing it as a reliable source.

I'm citing to show the idea of december 25 as christs birth are in serious doubt, and not just by atheists.

> I think you are the one that needs to find better sources to support
> your arguments than fundamentalist website.

not just one, but several, and there are likely many many more. Can you point to astronomical, meteorological, and cultural evidence to support the decemeber 25 claim? Did verschuuren? no, and no. You bought verschuurens claim without question based purely on his position of authority. The argument from authority is believing a statement made by someone strictly due to their credentials. Live with it. Not only that, you've dismissed a point of view simply due to the fact that the authors have different religious perspectives than you (christians, no less). Look up Bigot.

[Martin Harran]

On Wed, 15 Aug 2018 10:00:25 -0700 (PDT), zencycle
<funkma...@hotmail.com> wrote:

>On Wednesday, August 15, 2018 at 11:50:03 AM UTC-4, Martin Harran wrote:
>> Gerard M. Verschuuren
>>
>> >>
>> >> I don't think that simply dismissing a well documented fact as
>> >> "bullshit" is particularly rational.
>> >
>> >And what "well-documented fact" would that be?
>>
>> That the Christian feast of Easter is based upon the Jewish Passover
>> calculation.
>
>It's a well-documented claim, not a fact.

So you know better than, for example, the Encyclopędia Britannica:

"Fixing the date on which the Resurrection of Jesus was to be observed
and celebrated triggered a major controversy in early Christianity in
which an Eastern and a Western position can be distinguished. The
dispute, known as the Paschal controversies, was not definitively
resolved until the 8th century. In Asia Minor, Christians observed the
day of the Crucifixion on the same day that Jews celebrated the
Passover offering—that is, on the 14th day of the first full moon of
spring, 14 Nisan (see Jewish calendar). The Resurrection, then, was
observed two days later, on 16 Nisan, regardless of the day of the
week. In the West the Resurrection of Jesus was celebrated on the
first day of the week, Sunday, when Jesus had risen from the dead.
Consequently, Easter was always celebrated on the first Sunday after
the 14th day of the month of Nisan. Increasingly, the churches opted
for the Sunday celebration, and the Quartodecimans (“14th day”
proponents) remained a minority. The Council of Nicaea in 325 decreed
that Easter should be observed on the first Sunday following the first
full moon after the spring equinox (March 21). Easter, therefore, can
fall on any Sunday between March 22 and April 25."

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Easter-holiday#ref231526

[Burkhard]

zencycle wrote:
> On Wednesday, August 15, 2018 at 11:50:03 AM UTC-4, Martin Harran wrote:
>> Gerard M. Verschuuren
>>
>>>>
>>>> I don't think that simply dismissing a well documented fact as
>>>> "bullshit" is particularly rational.
>>>
>>> And what "well-documented fact" would that be?
>>
>> That the Christian feast of Easter is based upon the Jewish Passover
>> calculation.
>
> It's a well-documented claim, not a fact.
>
>
>
>>> I didn't dismiss the book simply because of the title,
>>> I dismissed it because of both your and verschuurens your argument from authority,
>>
>> You clearly don't grasp what the 'argument from authority' fallacy
>> actually is. You really should read up on it before accusing people of
>> it.
>
> right...you wrote " I think I'll give a bit more weight to Verschuuren's
> credentials. ". Not verschuuren's facts or reasoning, his credentials. That's an argument from authority.

Possibly, but not a fallacious one - it is an "argument from a position
to know" (in Doug Walton's terminology) which like all inference schemes
has valid and invalid instantiations.

That's why it is perfectly OK to tell the ID folks that the peer
reviewed literature does not support their claims, though some of us are
more demanding than others - John e.g. would insist that not only is an
idea published, but in a journal where the editors are authorities in
the very specific field.

At any given point in time, I'd say 95%+ of what we know we know because
we learned it from an authoritative source. Which is also why we use
things like expert evidence, and the first thing a lawyer will test is
if the credentials of the expert are on point.

Arguments from authority are only invalid if there is no relevant
connection between the authority/credentials and the subject matter,
that is if the person given as source is not in any better position to
know the truth of the matter than any one else, i.e. a philosopher or
bishop opining about the number of ribs a woman has - that was the
target for the enlightenment, not rejection of authority as such.

In the case at hand if the issue is the history of church teaching, I'd
say a historian of church history is indeed in a position to know.

[Oxyaena]

On 8/15/2018 3:06 PM, Martin Harran wrote:
> On Wed, 15 Aug 2018 10:00:25 -0700 (PDT), zencycle
> <funkma...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Wednesday, August 15, 2018 at 11:50:03 AM UTC-4, Martin Harran wrote:
>>> Gerard M. Verschuuren
>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> I don't think that simply dismissing a well documented fact as
>>>>> "bullshit" is particularly rational.
>>>>
>>>> And what "well-documented fact" would that be?
>>>
>>> That the Christian feast of Easter is based upon the Jewish Passover
>>> calculation.
>>
>> It's a well-documented claim, not a fact.
>

> So you know better than, for example, the Encyclopædia Britannica:

>
> "Fixing the date on which the Resurrection of Jesus was to be observed
> and celebrated triggered a major controversy in early Christianity in
> which an Eastern and a Western position can be distinguished. The
> dispute, known as the Paschal controversies, was not definitively
> resolved until the 8th century. In Asia Minor, Christians observed the
> day of the Crucifixion on the same day that Jews celebrated the
> Passover offering—that is, on the 14th day of the first full moon of
> spring, 14 Nisan (see Jewish calendar). The Resurrection, then, was
> observed two days later, on 16 Nisan, regardless of the day of the
> week. In the West the Resurrection of Jesus was celebrated on the
> first day of the week, Sunday, when Jesus had risen from the dead.
> Consequently, Easter was always celebrated on the first Sunday after
> the 14th day of the month of Nisan. Increasingly, the churches opted
> for the Sunday celebration, and the Quartodecimans (“14th day”
> proponents) remained a minority. The Council of Nicaea in 325 decreed
> that Easter should be observed on the first Sunday following the first
> full moon after the spring equinox (March 21). Easter, therefore, can
> fall on any Sunday between March 22 and April 25."
>
> https://www.britannica.com/topic/Easter-holiday#ref231526
>

Yes, he does. That entry was presumably written by a Christian, and all
evidence points to Council of Nicaea putting the celebration of
Christmas soon after the winter equinox, so as to placate potential
converts from paganism. The *Britannica Encyclopaedia* isn't the
end-all-be-all it used to be, and is hardly unbiased. And insomuch as it
refers to the basis for the celebration of Easter upon the Jewish
festival Passover I am neutral, for I do not know enough about the
subject at hand to say anything about it, but what I *will* point out is
that you snipped almost the entirety of his post, wherein he pointed out
to you your horseshit, so your claims that you're not like Nyikos ring
hollow, Martin.

--
"There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance." -
Socrates, as recorded by Diogenes Laertius

[Burkhard]

that seems like a classical poisoning the well fallacy.

and all
> evidence points to Council of Nicaea putting the celebration of
> Christmas soon after the winter equinox, so as to placate potential
> converts from paganism.

So far you haven't really given any evidence, as far as I can see. And
this account does face several problems, even though it was widely held
from the 1905 (when Herman Usener proposed it) to around the 1995.
Since then though, there has been increasing skepticism.

One problem with the idea tat this was Constanine and the Council of
Nicea is that Constantinople, the city inaugurated by Constantine
himself in 330 as the new capital of his empire, did not have a
Christmas celebrated until 380

The biggest though is that is seems to assume that Christmas was a
significant event, similar to what it is today. That is most certainly
not the case indeed, the early Christian communities were more or less
hostile to the entire idea of birthdays, which they saw as inherently
pagan. For the Christian communities, what mattered was Easter. Which
means that throughout the 2 and 3 century,lots of dates were suggested,
and nobody took the issue particularly serious. And of course, several
Christian churches never accepted the 25th - Orthodox and Armenians have
it on January 7th.

Several churches taught that Christ had no birthday at all (as he was
always identical with his father and therefore always existed), others
that while he had a material birth, the only relevant one was the
spiritual birth at epiphany etc. So the main driver to decide on one
specific date was to resolve diverging interpretations of the nature of
Christ within the Church. So the main driver was an intra-faith
(Christian vs Christian) rather than an intra-faith (Christians vs
pagans). And in such a climate, choosing a well known pagan festival as
"the" date sounds positively counterproductive. Which means you can
argue as well that the 25th was chosen despite, and not because, it was
close to Sol invictus.

And that is anyway the only thing one could show - despite the certainty
with which some have expressed the "takeover hypothesis", there is scant
evidence that the 25th played a major role in the Roman calendar.In
fact, October 19th and 22th would have been the dates to chose in this
case, that's when the big chariot races were held as a public celebration.

So the Church chose the date a) to settle an intra-Christian dispute and
b) because Eastern, the only really important event at that time, set up
one constraint and possibly c) because it fitted to the astrological
thinking that was held universally at that time, and in all communities
(the whole Christian vs pagan idea is anyway ahistorical 19th century
thinking). Thiwas, John the baptist is born in the summer equinox, and
conceived in the autumnal equinox, while Jesus was conceived on the
vernal equinox.

A comprehensive and up to date discussion that comes to this result is
Hijmans, Steven. "Sol Invictus, the winter solstice, and the origins of
Christmas." Mouseion: Journal of the Classical Association of Canada 3.3
(2003): 377-398.

The most balanced summary of the discussion I know is here:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/3767138672A4C2DFBED6BD1B004FB78A/S0009640712001941a.pdf/origins_of_the_christmas_date_some_recent_trends_in_historical_research.pdf

[Robert Carnegie]

So which came first - Christians celebrating Passover,
or the story that Jesus was executed at Passover, which
made it the logical time to celebrate? (Since apparently
he /meant/ to do that.)

[Martin Harran]

On Fri, 17 Aug 2018 19:21:45 +0100, Burkhard <b.sc...@ed.ac.uk>
wrote:

>Oxyaena wrote:
>> On 8/15/2018 3:06 PM, Martin Harran wrote:
>>> On Wed, 15 Aug 2018 10:00:25 -0700 (PDT), zencycle
>>> <funkma...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Wednesday, August 15, 2018 at 11:50:03 AM UTC-4, Martin Harran wrote:
>>>>> Gerard M. Verschuuren
>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I don't think that simply dismissing a well documented fact as
>>>>>>> "bullshit" is particularly rational.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> And what "well-documented fact" would that be?
>>>>>
>>>>> That the Christian feast of Easter is based upon the Jewish Passover
>>>>> calculation.
>>>>
>>>> It's a well-documented claim, not a fact.
>>>
>>> So you know better than, for example, the Encyclopædia Britannica:
>>>
>>> "Fixing the date on which the Resurrection of Jesus was to be observed
>>> and celebrated triggered a major controversy in early Christianity in
>>> which an Eastern and a Western position can be distinguished. The
>>> dispute, known as the Paschal controversies, was not definitively
>>> resolved until the 8th century. In Asia Minor, Christians observed the
>>> day of the Crucifixion on the same day that Jews celebrated the

>>> Passover offering-that is, on the 14th day of the first full moon of

I think what Oxyaena is probably getting confused about is that the
declaration by Pope Julius I in 350 that Christ's birth would be
celebrated on December 25 was simply an official recognition of
something that had been going on informally for several hundred years
before then.

As I quoted earlier from Verschuuren, the earliest known reference to
25th December came from Irenaeus (130- 202). He didn't calculate the
date directly; he calculated the 25th March as the date of the
Annunciation - again based on the Jewish Passover - and adding nine
months gave him the date for the birth of Jesus, nothing whatsoever to
do with the winter solstice.

The fact that it took something like 200 years for the Church to get
around to officially recognising that date reflects what you are
saying about Christmas not being a particularly significant event in
the early Church.

[Martin Harran]

On Fri, 17 Aug 2018 11:40:40 -0700 (PDT), Robert Carnegie
<rja.ca...@excite.com> wrote:

>On Wednesday, 15 August 2018 20:10:03 UTC+1, Martin Harran wrote:
>> On Wed, 15 Aug 2018 10:00:25 -0700 (PDT), zencycle
>> <funkma...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> >On Wednesday, August 15, 2018 at 11:50:03 AM UTC-4, Martin Harran wrote:
>> >> Gerard M. Verschuuren
>> >>
>> >> >>
>> >> >> I don't think that simply dismissing a well documented fact as
>> >> >> "bullshit" is particularly rational.
>> >> >
>> >> >And what "well-documented fact" would that be?
>> >>
>> >> That the Christian feast of Easter is based upon the Jewish Passover
>> >> calculation.
>> >
>> >It's a well-documented claim, not a fact.
>>

>> So you know better than, for example, the Encyclop?dia Britannica:

>>
>> "Fixing the date on which the Resurrection of Jesus was to be observed
>> and celebrated triggered a major controversy in early Christianity in
>> which an Eastern and a Western position can be distinguished. The
>> dispute, known as the Paschal controversies, was not definitively
>> resolved until the 8th century. In Asia Minor, Christians observed the
>> day of the Crucifixion on the same day that Jews celebrated the
>> Passover offering—that is, on the 14th day of the first full moon of
>> spring, 14 Nisan (see Jewish calendar). The Resurrection, then, was
>> observed two days later, on 16 Nisan, regardless of the day of the
>> week. In the West the Resurrection of Jesus was celebrated on the
>> first day of the week, Sunday, when Jesus had risen from the dead.
>> Consequently, Easter was always celebrated on the first Sunday after
>> the 14th day of the month of Nisan. Increasingly, the churches opted
>> for the Sunday celebration, and the Quartodecimans (“14th day”
>> proponents) remained a minority. The Council of Nicaea in 325 decreed
>> that Easter should be observed on the first Sunday following the first
>> full moon after the spring equinox (March 21). Easter, therefore, can
>> fall on any Sunday between March 22 and April 25."
>>
>> https://www.britannica.com/topic/Easter-holiday#ref231526
>
>So which came first - Christians celebrating Passover,
>or the story that Jesus was executed at Passover, which
>made it the logical time to celebrate? (Since apparently
>he /meant/ to do that.)

I don't know what point you are trying to make there.

The first Christians were Jews so they would always have celebrated
the Passover even before the coming of Christ. The Crucifixion took
place at Passover so the ongoing celebration of it takes place at
Passover.[1]

Whether or not Christ /meant/ his crucifixion to take place at that
time doesn't affect that.

============================

[1] With the slight tweak of it being always celebrated on a Sunday.

[zencycle]

Britannica offers no more proof than Verschuuren. It offers as a "fact" that the dispute was settled by decree . This is like claiming a dispute over a teenager taking a car out for the night is settled when the parent offers as a reason "because I said so".

What this circles back to is simply you providing proof for my claim that the catholic church offered nothing new. The only difference is that you claim easter was based on a judaic holiday, and I claim (with equal amount, if not more evidence), that it was co-opted from pagan spring rite festivals.

[zencycle]

On Friday, August 17, 2018 at 2:25:03 PM UTC-4, Burkhard wrote:
> >
>
> and all
> > evidence points to Council of Nicaea putting the celebration of
> > Christmas soon after the winter equinox, so as to placate potential
> > converts from paganism.
>
> So far you haven't really given any evidence, as far as I can see. And
> this account does face several problems, even though it was widely held
> from the 1905 (when Herman Usener proposed it) to around the 1995.
> Since then though, there has been increasing skepticism.
>
> One problem with the idea tat this was Constanine and the Council of
> Nicea is that Constantinople, the city inaugurated by Constantine
> himself in 330 as the new capital of his empire, did not have a
> Christmas celebrated until 380

The birthday of jesus wasn't on the agenda for the council of nicea. Constantine aligned himself with Sol Invictus (until his conversion), had temples built for sol invictus, so to assume Dies Natalis Solis Invicti wasn't celebrated on december 25th prior to 380 AD makes no sense whatsoever.

> The biggest though is that is seems to assume that Christmas was a
> significant event, similar to what it is today.

I don't see anywhere in this thread (or others that have discussed it) where there is that assumption was made. In fact, anyone who has done any studying knows that christmas wasn't a significant celebration until the middle ages.

However, the idea that the birth of jesus was aligned with the winter solstice was even an idea promoted by Augustine in his Sermon 192:

"Hence it is that He was born on the day which is the shortest in our earthly reckoning and from which subsequent days begin to increase in length. He, therefore, who bent low and lifted us up chose the shortest day, yet the one whence light begins to increase."

That's the point: Winter solstice celebrations were significant in antiquity. As paganism became less practiced, traditions from those celebrations crept in. In short, there's a lot more evidence to support the idea that the 25th of december was selected to celebrate birth of christ because of it's alignment with the winter solstice, and was later rationalized to be a result of calculation. This wasn't unlike the silliness that the christmas tree was a representation of the trinity selected by st. boniface. Christian apologists will always point to the calculation, but there is little evidence to support that other than church decree.

> That is most certainly
> not the case indeed, the early Christian communities were more or less
> hostile to the entire idea of birthdays, which they saw as inherently
> pagan. For the Christian communities, what mattered was Easter. Which
> means that throughout the 2 and 3 century,lots of dates were suggested,
> and nobody took the issue particularly serious. And of course, several
> Christian churches never accepted the 25th - Orthodox and Armenians have
> it on January 7th.
>
> Several churches taught that Christ had no birthday at all (as he was
> always identical with his father and therefore always existed), others
> that while he had a material birth, the only relevant one was the
> spiritual birth at epiphany etc. So the main driver to decide on one
> specific date was to resolve diverging interpretations of the nature of
> Christ within the Church. So the main driver was an intra-faith
> (Christian vs Christian) rather than an intra-faith (Christians vs
> pagans). And in such a climate, choosing a well known pagan festival as
> "the" date sounds positively counterproductive. Which means you can
> argue as well that the 25th was chosen despite, and not because, it was
> close to Sol invictus.
>

> And that is anyway the only thing one could show - despite the certainty
> with which some have expressed the "takeover hypothesis", there is scant
> evidence that the 25th played a major role in the Roman calendar.In
> fact, October 19th and 22th would have been the dates to chose in this
> case, that's when the big chariot races were held as a public celebration.

Saturnalia was a much more diversly celebrated holiday, held across the entire roman empire, not restricted to rome.

> So the Church chose the date a) to settle an intra-Christian dispute and
> b) because Eastern, the only really important event at that time, set up
> one constraint and possibly c) because it fitted to the astrological
> thinking that was held universally at that time, and in all communities
> (the whole Christian vs pagan idea is anyway ahistorical 19th century
> thinking).

I really don't think your going to find any official church documents that state they picked december 25 to placate the pagans.

> The most balanced summary of the discussion I know is here:
> https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/3767138672A4C2DFBED6BD1B004FB78A/S0009640712001941a.pdf/origins_of_the_christmas_date_some_recent_trends_in_historical_research.pdf
>

I have requested that paper.

[John Harshman]

On 8/17/18 11:21 AM, Burkhard wrote:

> And of course, several
> Christian churches never accepted the 25th - Orthodox and Armenians have
> it on January 7th.

That's because January 7 (Gregorian) = December 25 (Julian), the
Gregorian calendar being a Popish innovation not completely accepted in
the East to this day.

[Earle JOnes]

*
Jesus was born on Haloween.

Dec 25 = Oct 31.

earle
*

[zencycle]

I would have thought that was obvious, but in light of Burkhard's comment "The biggest [problem] though is that is seems to assume that Christmas was a significant event, similar to what it is today", I guess it's worthy to point out.

[Robert Carnegie]

Some versions of the "Cherry Tree Carol" have the
unborn Jesus speaking up to predict his birth date as
5th or 6th January. e.g.
<http://christmascarols.365greetings.com/2011/10/cherry-tree-carol.html>
"it is still uncertain if this ever really occurred"

In some other versions he explains Easter, but not the
calculation of it.

As explained by Stephen Fry on a "QI" episode,
there was a traditional belief in parts of Britain
that bees recognised Christmas Day, such as by buzzing
in their hive at midnight. When the country switched
to Gregorian calendar, so did the bees.