Damien Mackey Seems to Run Out of Arguments

You see, he gives vocational advice. But, before I serve you that, let's get through the arguments we had, shall we?

I

Me to Damien Mackey

2/2/2024 at 2:04 PM

Who's the astute commentator?

"rightly described Creationism as a form of modernism, attempting to reduce Genesis to science."

Is "rightly" your own assessment?

Either way, I disagree.

Here is the answer to that one, from my essay today:

Damien Mackey is, if so, very far from à jour with current Creationist literature. We regard Genesis, not as true systematic science, but as true, chronological, sequence of events history. When I say "history" and not "historiography", some may object that it's not historic research conducted in the way that modern scholars conduct historic research. It's a very ancient historiography. Yes, but history the way that modern scholars conduct historic research is a very modern historiography. History primarily, throughout history, means what certain modern historians would call historiography.

I don't think modern historians are to be confused with scientists, and the ones doing so are not us Creationists, it's the ones pretending we confuse Genesis with science, when in fact we don't.

And here is the essay:
Does Genesis 1 through 11 have an author prior to Moses?

I'm sorry, but the adverb "rightly" makes your status as fellow Catholic moot, and therefore I leave to God either way how you spend your own experience of the feast day. Btw, it's probably already late on Hobart, maybe even tomorrow, from where I write.

Hans Georg Lundahl

II

Damien Mackey to me

2/3/2024 at 9:02 PM

Re: Who's the astute commentator?

I hope your leaders can understand that H-G, because I had difficulty.

Creationists I know believe that the Flood had a tabula rasa effect - nothing whatsoever left of the old world.

The Bible tells differently, the 4 rivers of Genesis, for instance, were still there after the Flood, still at the time of Sirach, still there today.

From the blood of Abel to Zechariah, a sweep of history from the Beginning to the time of Jesus.
Where is the connection, where the continuity, if the Garden of Eden wasn't the same site as Jerusalem?

III

Me to Damien Mackey

2/4/2024 at 2:19 PM

Re: Who's the astute commentator?

"Creationists I know believe that the Flood had a tabula rasa effect - nothing whatsoever left of the old world."

That's a totally different issue. Habermehl is of that school.

It's an overreading into Genesis 6:7 (much as the Protestants overread a mistranslation of Matthew 6:7, against the Rosary).

You cannot make that a definition of Creationists, just because it happens to be a common position.

You also cannot go from that overreading into the definition you made in the paper.

I highly agree with you the location of certain things very much can be reseen in the post-Flood world.

That does not the least imply I cannot agree with them, that a) there was no significant time (less than a full week) before the creation of Adam and Eve; b) the timeline of the Bible in some of the text versions needs to be believed for what happened after Adam was created. People who don't know you would be prone to see your comment here:

"rightly described Creationism as a form of modernism, attempting to reduce Genesis to science"

as implying you deny the full factual historicity of Genesis. For the record, I think Adam was buried (with Eve) where he was created, and that spot is Calvary, which is therefore West of Eden.

Things certainly have been totally buried by the Flood, some of them, like Henoch in Nod would have been buried under the Himalayas. But some things were simply buried in the ground, also "off the face of the earth" for millennia, like the men laying around under lava that's dated to 100 ky or more. And some had already been buried in caves before, like the cannibals of Atapuerca or of the Neanderthal site in Belgium. El Sidrón, by contrast, is where Neanderthals ate mainly pine nuts and other veggies, which is why I don't think Neanderthals need to have been full blood Nephelim.

ANY reading of the text which states that ANY of the things actually happened as described is very likely to be, by "astute observers" stamped as a "modernist heresy, attempting to reduce Genesis to science" .... that's how I know the liturgically conservative modernists (a category where both Ratzinger and Kirill certainly fit).

Abel was probably also killed West of Eden.

If the Holy Sepulchre is East of Calvary, I think Calvary would have been West of Eden, Holy Sepulchre more likely just inside the borders of Eden. Because the Old and the Last Adam were gardeners ...

Did you read Does Genesis 1 through 11 have an author prior to Moses? or did you miss the point by pretending any defense of Creationism involves automatically subscribing to total annihiliation of the pre-Flood world, none of it recovered, none of it traceable as to place?

I don't think Creationism means that any more than Creationism meant believing in a pre-Flood water canopy.

And if it did, it would still not be more than a misreading, rather than what the "astute observer" claimed it to be, "reducing Genesis to science" ...

Hans Georg Lundahl

IV

Damien Mackey to me

2/5/2024 at 7:39 PM

Re: Who's the astute commentator?

Aren't you hedging your bets, H-G, with a global Flood that would have dumped miles of sediment upon the world - but a world that is still accessible to archaeology?

And I would rather take Our Lord's authoritative geographical connection between Jerusalem and Abel than your "probably" west of Eden.

V

Me to Damien Mackey

2/6/2024 at 10:26 AM

Re: Who's the astute commentator?

1) Our Lord never said Abel was killed inside Eden. Genesis 3 actually implies the opposite.

He also doesn't explicitly state that the moral unity (of Himself with Abel, of Pharisees with Cain) is matched by geographic unity.

2) Miles of sediment depends on area. Henoch in Nod East of Eden is probably buried under the Himalayas. The Sima de los Huesos is accessible to archaeology, but it's still in Mountains, where the Flood dumped Sediments:

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

The archaeological significance of this part of the province of Burgos became increasingly apparent in the 20th century as the result of the construction of a metre-gauge railway (now disused) through the Atapuerca Mountains. Deep cuttings were made through the karst geology exposing rocks and sediments of features known as Gran Dolina, Galería Elefante and Sima de los Huesos.

See, without those deep cuttings, the Sima de los Huesos would still be covered by huge chunks of sediment. Pre-Flood archaeology also covers El Sidrón, Denisova Cave and some similar ones:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidr%C3%B3n_Cave

The total length of this huge complex is approximately 3,700 m (12,100 ft), which contains a central hall of 200 m (660 ft) length and the Neanderthal fossil site, called the Ossuary Gallery, which is 28 m (92 ft) long and 12 m (39 ft) wide.[2]

In 1994, human remains were found accidentally in the cave. They were initially suspected to be from the Spanish Civil War because Republican fighters used to hide there; however, later analysis shows that the remains actually belong to Neanderthals.[3]

So, if a cave is 12 thousand feet deep, how much sediment does the mountain above contain?

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

Located in Altai Krai, near the border with Altai Republic, both in Russia, the cave is near the village of Chorny Anui (Чёрный Ануй), and some 150 km (93 mi) south of Barnaul, the regional capital. The cave, which is approximately 28 m (92 ft) above the right bank of the Anuy River (a left tributary of the Ob), has formed in upper Silurian limestone and contains a floor area of about 270 m2 (2,900 sq ft). The cave is composed of three galleries. The central chamber, the Main Gallery, contains a floor of 9 m × 11 m (30 ft × 36 ft) with side galleries, the East Gallery and the South Gallery.[9][10] It has been described both as a karst cave[2] and as a sandstone cave.[10]

It would seem that here the Anuy River did the digging, or cutting, or some post-Flood stream did so, otherwise the Denisova cave would have been inaccessible.

Goreham cave on Gibraltar contains no Neanderthals, only Mousterian tools. It contains charcoals dated to after the Flood, but ... nearby you have caves where Neanderthals have actually been found and carbon dated to before my Flood date.

Show me one item of the things I call pre-Flood archaeology, anything containing a Neanderthal or a Denisovan, is as shallow beneath the surface of a plain as Göbekli Tepe is under the "potbelly hill" that gave the site its name. THEN you'll have a case.

Other wager that you might want to check: I have presumed the "very high mountain" on top of which Noah built the Ark was lifted up above the now flattened by the Flood Meseta. If this is true, no Neanderthals or Antecessors / Denisovans / Heidelbergians should be found there, since the present level is one that in pre-Flood times were covered by a no longer extant mountain. My other alternative for where he built the Ark would be in the vicinity of Denisova cave, another site where both Neanderthals and Denisovans were in pre-Flood times, since the eight on the Ark involved were mainly of the Cro-Magnon or Sapiens sapiens race, but included "half breeds" both Neanderthal and Denisovan ancestry. That's why we find those genes today.

By the way, kudos to Wellington's men for defending the last homestead of Noah (if I'm right) against the Revolutionaries.

Hans Georg Lundahl

VI

Damien Mackey to me

2/7/2024 at 4:17 AM

Re: Who's the astute commentator?

Henoch in Nod East of Eden is probably buried under the Himalayas.

I hope that was meant to be funny, H-G.
I always appreciate a good joke.

If it was not a joke, then I think that you might be better occupied doing something you are good at.

VII

Me to Damien Mackey

2/7/2024 at 10:19 AM

Re: Who's the astute commentator?

I am good at spotting people who prefer snobbery over actual argument.

You just made it to that list.

I am also good at spotting people who don't really believe the Bible.

You gave me a reminder you are on that list too.

I am extremely good at spotting people who want censorship in Academia (de facto, none with hard rules they might actually find applied to themselves, of course) and do that by pretending to give vocational advice.

I'm actually a magnet to those. If everyone who had done me that "favour" (in his own view) had done me the favour of finding me a reader, perhaps a publishing company even, I'm not saying I'd have the income to buy something in Beaconsfield, like Chesterton, but it's not all that far off.

Hans Georg Lundahl

VIII

Damien Mackey to me

2/7/2024 at 8:34 PM

Re: Who's the astute commentator?

It's not a case of snobbery or not believing in the Bible, H-G.

Your comment about Cain's city would have to rank as one of the silliest I have ever read. Please don't buy a publishing company, at least for that.

Wishing you all the best for the future,
Damien.

IX

Me to Damien Mackey

2/7/2024 at 9:20 PM

Re: Who's the astute commentator?

The etymology of "silly" is "sælig" ... I am obviously not intending to put all my carreere or success on hold until I happen to please you.

The silliest thing I have seen in this debate is a tendency on one of the parts to decide things by "it's silly" rather than by an argument.

Perhaps you have misunderstood what "miles of sediment" means. It's not like one single flood layer which is equally high everywere, it's like (according to the Flood geologists I have seen) six different layers, all over the world, deposited in unequal intensity and left in place in unequal depth for each as abrasion events would succeed each other.

What would a) get buried rather than swept away in smaller and smaller scraps, and b) get buried so shallow, or have the depth shallowed by abrasions, would be an extreme lottery.

As for a post-Flood rise of the Himalayas, my mathematical model is supported by the fact that all the time from Flood to Babel and some more, no human occupation is visible even in the lower hills.

Care for a look?

Himalayas ... how fast did they rise? · Himalayas, bis ... and Pyrenees · ter · quater · quinquies ... double-checked

And, like for the widening of the Atlantic (more recently), the overall destructivity and violence is less than what many other Flood Geologists (who actually are Geologists), count it as.

Width of the Atlantic

Hans Georg Lundahl

X

Damien Mackey to me

2/8/2024 at 3:29 AM

Re: Who's the astute commentator?

All the best with your writing endeavors.