zoologist

Emerald City

Apple Sky said:

Because I believe the Scriptures when it tells me this;

King James Bible
And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

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And you think we don't?

Lee Leonard

jamming

BCP1928 said:

Where did they publish?

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They have not published yet. The tests are only just done. More data has to come from more vases. That will give a more robust sample.

BCP1928 said:

That you know about.

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Actually that everyone knows. This is the orthodox position not my position. Ther potters wheel and bore stick type tech was not introduced until around 2600BC. These vases are 3600BC.

In fact the weird thing is that we also know the Naqada cultures method of pot making which was the coil and slab method because they did not have the potters wheel yet.

BCP1928 said:

Ah, yes. I had forgotten about the "Orthodox narrative."

The precision of that lathe in the video depends on two things: the rigidity of the structure and the closeness of fit of the lathe centers in the countersinks in the workpiece. If the lathe bed is rigid and the centers a tolerably snug fit to the workpiece then there will be rotational symmetry to a high degree of precision. Those two constraints are exactly the same as the constraints on precision of rotational symmetry of work produced on a modern machine tool. Adding electric motors and a computer doesn't help.

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Its just that tech came way later and thats why this is so controversial. Also we are talking about granite and not wood lol. Then your talking a different pressure and stability under massive pressure. Thats why precision tooling machines are often much bigger than the piece to ensure stability under high pressure.

Even todays CNC machines have difficulty making these vases to that precision. As mentioned two attempts were made to replicate the vases and on both occassions the company could not complete the vase because it was beyond their capabilities. One only drilled a straight tube drill on the interior because they could not machine the inside to the same precision.

So imagine a device 5,500 years ago machining granite like in that image I linked earlier like its fresh off a modern machine lathing marks. Not wobbly but precision rings cut sharply into the granite. Even leaving steps as though the cutter pulled back and went in again.

Hentenza said:

Why do you continue to hold on to a lie?

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Because I believe the Scriptures when it tells me this;

King James Bible
And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

Palmfever said:

Unfortunately antifa has aligned and intergrated itself into the policies of the left. .... Veteran journalist flips script on media 'running cover' for Antifa violence: 'Anarchist communism'

Andy Ngo was one of the most prominent journalists covering Antifa violence in 2020​

....
Ngo’s family history living under communism is relevant in the conversation today regarding Antifa, the Portland-born journalist told Fox Digital, given the underlying communist beliefs espoused by radical left movements in the United States today..
"For a century now, communists and anarchists, particularly in Europe, have engaged in violent acts that have sparked revolutions and the Antifa today look to those historical examples in the acts of violence they carry out," Ngo said, adding that many "normal" and mainstream liberals in the country are confused by the "deception and misinformation" in the media regarding Antifa.
"If you read the mainstream, one can leave with the impression that these are people who are opposed just to fascism and racism. So why not come on board with that, right?" Ngo explained. "When really the ideology is anarchist communism and violent anarchist-communism a lot of them engage in violence for the purpose of nihilistic violence. They want to see things burnt down. Their own slogan has become ungovernable. So if you care about democracy, liberal democracy in institutions, civil rights…you should not. You cannot be anywhere on the side of advocating or running cover for these so-called Antifa." Veteran journalist flips script on media 'running cover' for Antifa violence: 'Anarchist communism'

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You can take this fellows statements with a large grain of salt.

orzo

yellow jacket

wing2000 said:

The Labor Department warned in an obscure document filed with the Federal Register last week that “the near total cessation of the inflow of illegal aliens” is threatening “the stability of domestic food production and prices for U.S. consumers.”

Also, contradicting comments made by Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins that the U.S. farm workforce will become “100 percent American” as an effect of mass deportations, the Labor Department noted that Americans are not willing to step into farm work and lack the skills to fill agricultural jobs that undocumented immigrants are abandoning.

“The Department concludes that qualified and eligible U.S. workers will not make themselves available in sufficient numbers,” the agency said.

Doc:
"...the Department concludes, based on all available evidence and studies, that immediate reform to the H-2A program's minimum wage policy, or the AEWRs, is necessary to avoid imminent widespread disruption across the U.S. agricultural sector. Without prompt action, agricultural employers will face severe labor shortages, resulting in disruption to food production, higher prices, and reduced access for U.S. consumers, particularly to fresh fruit and vegetables. Further, the Department concludes that qualified and eligible U.S. workers will not make themselves available in sufficient numbers, even at current wage levels, to fill the significant labor shortage in the agricultural sector. As discussed in detail below, the reforms contained in this IFR of the H-2A program's wage policy are urgently needed to restore the usability of the H-2A program and to provide a practical, lawful workforce alternative to illegal aliens. These changes ensure that agricultural employers offer fair wages to legally authorized workers—consistent with wages paid in comparable farm and non-farm jobs—while maintaining compliance with immigration law and supporting the stability of the nation's food supply.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/10/11/immigration-crackdown-food-prices/

Imagine that? Americans are unwilling to harvest their own food.

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Growing up in Indiana, kids used to work in the cornfields detasseling corn over their summer vacations, or picking blueberries for money.

...There's nothing wrong with hiring kids to do work over their summer vacations.

Are Pentecostal Holiness Pentecostal?
Are Church of God Pentecostal?
Are Congregational Holiness Pentecostal?

A grim reality I have run across over the years is that just because a doctrine states people as spiritual does not mean they are actually spiritual.

HARK! said:

I like the way that you think. I believe that gold is undervalued.

As gold is the primary monetary metal, for simplicity of a superficial calculation, let's pretend for a moment that the secondary monetary metal (silver) is out of the equation.

If we take all of the debt (fiat currency) in the world; and divide it by the number of ounces of gold in the world; we can begin to get an approximation of gold's true value per once.

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Doesn't seem like a particularly useful number.

HARK! said:

How is that market crash coming along?

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What crash is that?

HARK! said:

There was another time in a month of September that the market took a dive on a Friday, then crashed the following Tuesday.

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I'm not sure you understand what a crash is.

HARK! said:

It will be interesting to see what happens on Tuesday. Gold and silver remained at all time highs this past Friday.

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Markets have been at all-time highs too.

HARK! said:

The Chinese are dumping them.

You can buy that with gold too.

However I think that metals will continue to appreciate at a fast pace; and I believe that real estate is in a huge bubble that is fit to burst soon.

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Affordable housing might be nice.

Always in His Presence said:

I'm glad you like the poster and have respect for them - it has zero to do with my question.

Neither are common terms - and neither have anything to do with either my question or the subject of the thread.

Which would be:
theologoumenon
Which is: : a theological statement or concept in the area of individual opinion rather than of authoritative doctrine


Which is a contradiction of the definition you said you followed.

Which again has zero to do with the topic of the thread - or my inquiry.

I'm not interested (in this thread) in information on anything other than the topic of the thread - which you still have not addressed.

Congratulations - again - what does any of that have to do with the two questions I asked, or the topic of the thread?

While I offer congratulations on your education and piety - 95% of what you have posted has anything to do with the topic of the thread. I appreciate your insight - I just wish you would give it on the subject rather than pontificating on things not germane to the topic.

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Egads.
It seems obvious that my friend @The Liturgist speaks a language of which you are in need of interpretation.
(how's that for being on-topic? )
Earlier, in your initial question to The Liturgist you said:

Always in His Presence said:

Please indulge me -

Doesn't theolougoumemnon mean something that cannot be supported by Holy Scripture?

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You subsequently posted the formal definition, of which there's no disagreement as far as I can see.

Always in His Presence said:

Which would be:
theologoumenon
Which is: : a theological statement or concept in the area of individual opinion rather than of authoritative doctrine

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Yet you have said that the Liturgist contradicts that formal definition in his repsonse.
To that, I say untrue. There are areas of faith where there is little in the way of dogma but those areas can not be said to have "no scriptural support."
THis took some thought but I offer as way of example:

There is very little stated as dogma in the Orthodox Church concerning eschatology beyond the lines in the Creed which states:
He will come again with glory to judge the living and dead. His kingdom shall have no end..
.. I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the age to come.

To say the study of eschatology lacks Scriptural support or lacks a Scriptural basis would be false. There are a wide variety of opinions and writings and statements of faith dealing with the subject of eschatology, yet for the Orhodox that would lie squarely in the realm of theologoumenon.
Why? because many (most? perhaps all?) statements about eschatology contain human conjecture.. post, mid, Premillennialism all have varying degrees of Scriptural support but none are reflected in the dogma of the Orthodox.
Thus, those concepts are theological statements or concepts in the area of individual opinion rather than of authoritative doctrine of the Church.

If one is intrested, a nice article on Eschatology in Orthodoxy can be found--> here

Paulwat said:

Do you think Donald Trump should've been banned from running for president?

I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that Donald Trump was allowed to run for president again after everything that happened on January 6th, 2021. The Capitol riots weren’t just a random protest that got out of hand they were a direct result of months of Trump spreading lies about a “stolen” election and pressuring officials to overturn the results.


A sitting president encouraged his supporters to march on Congress during the certification of an election he lost, and people died because of it. That alone should’ve disqualified him from holding office again under the 14th Amendment (Section 3), which literally bans anyone who engaged in or incited an insurrection from serving in government.


On top of that, there are his criminal indictments... from trying to interfere in Georgia’s election results to mishandling classified documents. Any one of those cases would’ve ended most politicians’ careers, but somehow Trump’s using them as campaign fuel.

I
Whether you’re left, right, or independent, how does this not set a terrifying precedent? If someone can try to overturn an election and still be allowed to run again, what’s stopping future leaders from doing the same — maybe more effectively next time?

It's dangerous to allow a man like hin to have power.

What do you think?should the courts or Congress have acted to enforce the insurrection clause?

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I don't hide my feelings about Trump. I am emphatically anti-Trump. I think the entire Trump-movement is dangerous, anti-American, anti-democratic, anti-republican--and we are seeing the decay of our Constitutional Republic in real time right here and right now.

And yes, I think Trump's actions when he called on his supporters to march on the Capitol, and the ensuing violence of the insurrection at the Capitol building is one of a litany of reasons as to why this man is not only unfit to hold the office he currently holds; but should be held criminally liable.

However, legal precedent has effectively rendered that a president is essentially unable to be indicted for what they do in their capacity as president--which I think is an extremely dangerous position for us to take legally--and so I am unable or at least unaware of anything that could have legally prevented Trump from running for his second term. The political system in the US is such that even Donald Trump, given everything he has done, is still able to run--and even be voted in--as POTUS.

I am more disturbed and saddened that, given all the facts, we as a people, allowed this to happen. It's one thing that our systems in place are the way they are; but that we as the American People, were able to give him enough votes that the Electoral College could vote him into office for a second term demonstrates the terrible darkness that exists over this nation. It speaks to American apathy and antipathy toward basic morality, to the fundamental comprehension of right and wrong, to our apathy and antipathy toward truth. It speaks--it shouts--at the brokenness of this nation and her people.

This is our national scandal. This is our international shame. That we should be so easily duped by such an obvious conman and wretch of a human who plainly and explicitly told us to our faces that he wanted power, he wants to hurt those who don't like him, who has spoken openly of wanting to be a dictator, of hunting down his political rivals and opponents, and is not hung up on any moral scruples about what it means to not only be a decent person, but who is so brazen and obvious in his corruption, hunger for power, and his bottomless gluttony for pettiness--is a testament to the crisis of the American national soul.

If God judges whole nations, then Donald Trump is a scourge, a force of evil permitted to sweep through the nation and shatter and break us. Will we, like Israel of old when Assyria and Babylon swept in bringing destruction and sowing death, repent--or shall we be utterly annihilated? This last statement is, in part, intentional hyperbole. But I do, in truth, believe that if we do not recognize the crisis of this moment in American history, then the future books written and taught in schools will speak of the United States that once was, but is no longer. How soon will those books be written? Who can say? And that isn't hyperbole.

-CryptoLutheran

Hentenza said:

Cause you said so. lol

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How important do you think it is, for your Christian faith, to be right in this question?

Richard T said:

Seems to me that Speaker Johnson is also anti-American for not seating the Arozona Congresswoman. Talk about suppressing democracy and denying votes. Commentary: She won a landslide election. But Trump and Jeffrey Epstein have her stuck in limbo

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Be fair to poor Johnson. He's a Christian Nationalist, so he naturally considers that anyone who opposes Christian Nationalist policies to "hate America." He's just a little confused about what America really is.

It is difficult to form a relationship between and individual and an organization. This can leave people at loose ends. It might be more satisfying to see if you can observe an individual who clearly show the love of Christ in their service and conduct. You might ask that person to help you know Jesus as well as they do.

The key would be to make relational connections with individuals on your own or finding a church so samll that you can help but have relational connections.

Servus said:

Not according to news reports that Jewish students have been mistreated and abused on college campuses by the pro-Palestinian left. And Antisemitism in general from the left.

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Being pro-Palestinian is not necessarily being anti-semitic.

stevevw said:

I do defend them lol. Thats the point. I would rather believe the researchers who have done the work and formally published the results. Than someone on a social media platform objecting to them. Until there is a formal refutation of their work thats all I can go with.

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Where did they publish?

stevevw said:

Then why are they objecting to the view of those who propose these unorthodox ideas about ancient advanced knowledge. The two positions are clearly destinguished.

That is the orthodox tools and methods which are on the walls such as the Bore stick or bow drill method, chisels and pounders and rubbing.

Or some sort of lathing like modern machining.

There are two different industries. The Bore stick, pounding, chiseling and rubbing produce the imprecise vases as per tests and experiments done. The precision vases belong to a different method with different signatures which are more like modern day than the ancient methods as mentioned.

Simple as that. Except if these vases are from the pre dynastics and Naqada people. Then this is a problem and these vases are out of place artifacts or evidence of lost advanced knowledge because at that time there was no Bore stick, bow saw, potters wheel let alone a sophisticated lathe.

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That you know about.

stevevw said:

Sophisticated lathe because such tight tolerances of precision require a sophisticated lath that is tight, stable and the cutter is fixed or the vase is fixed and spinning at a fair speed. Or the cutter is very stable that it can handle high pressure to cut into granite. THis level of tech seems unreal for basically a mud brick and flint tool Neolithic culture according to the orthodox narrative.

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Ah, yes. I had forgotten about the "Orthodox narrative."

stevevw said:

Yes, its a good example of a bush lathe. Basic wheels, pullies, leverage ect. But thsi was not yet introduced to these ancient people. This is the point. Its not that later dyansties or in fact the potters wheel came from Mesopotamia to Egypt around 2600BC. But these vases go back 1,000 years earlier.

The weird thing is even the later Flywheel type lathing that wobbled could not produce such precision vases even in soft stones. So the tech 1,000 years later was not as advanced as the tech that went into these predynastic vases.

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The precision of that lathe in the video depends on two things: the rigidity of the structure and the closeness of fit of the lathe centers in the countersinks in the workpiece. If the lathe bed is rigid and the centers a tolerably snug fit to the workpiece then there will be rotational symmetry to a high degree of precision. Those two constraints are exactly the same as the constraints on precision of rotational symmetry of work produced on a modern machine tool. Adding electric motors and a computer doesn't help.

By the way speaking of the word Immaculate which I put an asterisk next to in my earlier post, no. 51, I forgot to provide a footnote:

While the Orthodox deny the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception as superfluous and an innovation, since our understanding of original sin which is derived from St. John Cassian is more sophisticated than that proposed by St. Augustine*, we absolutely describe the Theotokos in our hymnody as immaculate.

For example, today the Tone of the Week is the First Tone (or Mode, equivalent to Mode I in Gregorian Chant), and the hymns appointed for Matins in Tone 1 refer to the Blessed Virgin Mary thrice using the word Immaculate, and to the Body of Christ our True God four times as Immaculate. This makes sense, because the immaculate body of the Theotokos, immaculate because of her self-restraint, gave birth to He who is the Incarnation of Purity and Virtue, for according to St. Basil the Great,
“God is the fullness of all qualities and perfections in their highest and infinite form.”

These three hymns from Matins include such beautiful Theotokia as this:

The Forefathers of mankind rejoice in thee, immaculate Virgin, for through thee they regain Eden, which they had lost through transgression; for thou art pure both before child-bearing and after giving birth.





*St. Augustine we instead venerate for his morality, his moving repentence from sin, the exquisite hymn he wrote with St. Ambrose, Te Deum Laudamus (of which there is a Byzantine Rite version, although I’m not sure where it is actually used; the recording I have of it is in the context of a Russian Orthodox marriage liturgy, but it is not sung at every Matins, which is good, because there are so many other things sung at every Byzantine Rite Matins such as the Six Psalms that if we dared include it St. Ambrose might reprimand us for having made the service too long to the point of tedium … forgive the pun.** Nonetheless this hymn is exquisite and is also used by the Western Rite Orthodox at Matins, just like in the Western liturgical tradition. Many of us, myself included, also love his work The CIty of God, for it moves our mind away from material distractions and lifts it up to things spiritual, thus helping guide us away from the sinful passions, and it provided a great comfort for the people of Rome by causing them to focus on their salvation even as their city collapsed around them due to a failing government and the predations of Gothic tribes.
**But St. Ambrose cared a great deal about liturgy being beautiful - during the vigil he held in a church that Emperor Theodosius had been frightened by the thought of unrest into offering to the Arians, which St. Ambrose would not allow - he was not giving the Arians so much as a disused storage shed in Milan, not under his Episcopate, but the laity and clergy who volunteered to hold the vigil with him, for his benefit he introduced antiphonal singing “in the manner of the Greeks, lest they perish in soulless monotony”, for indeed at the time the very traditional Roman church only sang in monotone, and in this manner antiphonal music finally was introduced into the Western church, and in the late 6th century St. Gregory the Great would introduce a system of chant in eight modes based on Byzantine Chant (in turn closely related to West Syriac Chant, both of which use eight modes, although the numbering of the modes differs between them, but the core idea of having eight sets of melodies and eight sets of lyrics to go with them originated with the Syriac hymnal, the Beth Gazo (Treasury) and the Byzantine hymnal, known as the Parakletike or less romantically as the Octoechos. However, as late as the ninth century, the Low Mass was still being chanted in monotone, before the Roman church decided to say it quietly or silently. In the Slavonic churches, we still use something very close to monotone for the Third, Sixth and Ninth hours, except on the eves of certain feasts such as Christmas, the Baptism of Christ and Pentecost Sunday, and also on Good Friday, when we sing much longer and more beautiful services at those hours, more akin to the Syriac third, sixth and ninth hours, which are known as the Royal Hours.