Iconophili's Great Big Thread of Conspiracies!

[patrick]

NOT SUPRISING:, http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=4148

Multi-part FOX News video report on Israel and 911.

[AndyHolland]

Dear CGW and EBor,

Your tag team discourse strains at gnats and swallows camels. When one of you looses, the other picks up. You talk about things that are tangential to the discussion unless the discussion is my personal credibility. Why not start a new thread, entitle it Andy's bad facts and post there and make each other happy?

The Holy Thorn for example you got most things wrong. You saw inconsistencies in internet sources, and pounded on them. But you did not probe to see the consistencies. Do you understand that multiple sources have contradictory information? Do you understand that you are to resolves the contradictions by carefully reading them? Relatively simple analysis would have shown how the traditions associated with presentation of the sprigs changed on again - off again with Monarchs for example. You would only quote one source that would tell you what you wanted to hear.

In science one uses wavelets and other orthogonal functions to find patterns - such as biomarkers for example. That is, one is trained to look for common patterns.

Lawyers look for inconsistencies, but lawyers are not interested in the truth, they are interested in winning a case.

If you want to discuss this topic, stay on topic. Read the Bible and argue from that point of view for example. Especially if you are Protestant and claim Separation of Church and State as a Lutheran doctrine for example.

As to RC Church sizes (congregation sizes) in Southeast Asia or Japan, if I am not writing a book for publication why should I waste my time?

A common name for the nation is E'Pluribus Unum and in the Constitution "We the People." Separation of Church and State has become a dogmatic legal principle since the 14th Amendment has been used to provide for individual rights in the Constitution. We knowingly blew up Hiroshima on the Feast of the Transfiguration and unknowingly blew up the largest RC Church in Japan (if not Southeast Asia - as it is defined as roughly bounded by the India subcontinent, perhaps it depends on when and how one does the defining). Harry Truman referred to it as the fundmental power of the universe, again, these are all symbols.

We knowingly allow ('what-so-ever you do NOT unto the least of these my brethren') the destruction of 3,000 Holy Innocents/day in America. The nation arose from the great sea of politics.

Now, my children are or are becoming fluent in foreign languages just in case we are called upon to leave this nation. Maybe nothing will happen, maybe we'll get burned in 10 years, maybe tommorrow the Chicoms will ship 20 nukes UPS to various cities and kaboom. All of this would be sad and horrible, and not to my personal liking. However, someday, this Babylon like all the rest will go down - probably from her own sorcery - read the Bible. The Lord explicitly commanded us to understand the seasons.

andy holland
sinner

[AndyHolland]

Here, you are proved wrong on one point, does that mean on all? - of course not, this source says Asia for example!

http://www.asianews.it/view.php?l=en&art=3883

google "Largest Church Southeast Asia Atomic Bomb" for 410,000 hits.

How 'bout the definition of Southeast Asia - you will find India both included and excluded.

Stop straining at gnats and swallowing camels!

As to flags with serpents, perhaps they didn't know what they were doing with the Culpepper flag? Does it matter? The symbol of rebellion, engaged in rebellion against Divine Right - read the Bible!Look at history and believe Jesus and the prophets - don't believe me. Find out for yourself!

andy holland
sinner

[CGW]

You talk about things that are tangential to the discussion unless the discussion is my personal credibility.

Your personal credibility is in the one crucial sense completely out of the question. If I want to be sure when the holy thorn blooms, I will ask those who actually see it bloom now. If I want to know whether the great seal appears on or attached to the constitution, I will ask those in whose custody it resides, or better still I will go see it myself. In like matter, my personal credibility doesn't enter into it.

The Holy Thorn for example you got most things wrong. You saw inconsistencies in internet sources, and pounded on them. But you did not probe to see the consistencies.

You are overreaching, for you do not know what I read and thought behind the scenes. Consistencies require a certain context in order to attain argumentative power, and this case (as I recall, and keep in mind this was a while back and that my recollection may well be faulty) consistency on the side of a Julian date was accompanied by consistency of religious intent to the comment. Other sources were unclear or leaned towards an earlier date. I suspect the truth is that the thorn doesn't bloom on the same date every year, and if it be typical of the behavior of other plants, the bloom date may vary by two weeks or even more. I note that in a report on the the actual ceremony of cutting, the date of cutting that years was December 11. I suspect that in other years, it is cut at a later date.

It is not always true that we can resolve the contradictions. That's just the way accounts often are.

In science one uses wavelets and other orthogonal functions to find patterns - such as biomarkers for example. That is, one is trained to look for common patterns.

Patterns alone, however, do not make scientific truth; and science must bow before empiricism.

A common name for the nation is E'Pluribus Unum and in the Constitution "We the People."

But as I pointed out at one point, these are rhetorical figures, and not properly names. "E Pluribus Unum" is an example of metonymy; "We the People", a synecdoche.

Separation of Church and State has become a dogmatic legal principle since the 14th Amendment has been used to provide for individual rights in the Constitution.

That's an interesting interpretation, although I would point out that the phrase itself can be traced back to a letter of Thos. Jefferson. The question, however, is really how you and I are going to live knowing that your church and mine are protected from government interference (and perhaps limited in governmental influence).

We knowingly blew up Hiroshima on the Feast of the Transfiguration and unknowingly blew up the largest RC Church in Japan (if not Southeast Asia - as it is defined as roughly bounded by the India subcontinent, perhaps it depends on when and how one does the defining). Harry Truman referred to it as the fundmental power of the universe, again, these are all symbols.

The problem, though, is that they are all your symbols. I haven't and won't argue about Truman's unfortunate choice of words; I think we would agree to some extent about the hubris they express. But beyond that the meaning of these acts doesn't arise in those who committed them; it arises in yourself. I doubt that those who dropped the bomb on Hiroshima chose the date because it was the feast of the Transfiguration, and I expect that most of those involved weren't even aware of any such feast.

It is difficult for me to accept your system of signs and symbols when it does not seem to me that their authors intended the meanings you impute upon them, or (as is too often the case here) the objects and events which are said to be symbolic do not in fact take the forms that you claim they do. You keep asserting that "E Pluribus Unum" is the name of the country when it is not. You claim that the Great Seal is on the constitution, but from what I can tell, it is not. And furthermore, you seem to now have backed down from the implication that, if "E Pluribus Unum" is a violation of godly law, the solution must be to dissolve the union and reduce the former country to a patchwork of sovereign principalities.

Of course we should watch the seasons; yet for two thousand years the signs have been interpreted by one or another as saying that winter is upon us. And in 2006 it is not yet winter. With so many false alarms, is it not reasonable to be skeptical?

(edited to remove a misinterpretation from first version)

[Liudmilla]

Andy:
I have to say that as a fellow Orthodox person, (I am a cradle Orthodox) I find your absorbtion in the mythology of symbols rather disturbing. I was always taught that while it is necessary to be aware of the evil in the world, it was more important that we looked to ourselves first. By that I mean our own spiritual development,and that of our children.

The end of the world, I was taught, will come in GOD's time not ours. Christians get lost in looking for the end and thereby lose themselves in the process. You cannot worry about the end, you must think about the now and ask yourself are you ready to meet your make at this moment? That is where you should be "worrying". A symbol only has as much power as YOU attribute to it.

I have a small story to relate to you. I hope it helps. When the USA fought in Desert Storm, I was working with a young evengelical woman. All I could remember hearing was the end is here, the end is here! All based on the prophesy in Revelations. I went back and reread the entire passage and I knew that we were interpretting things in the wrong way.

This young woman was going crazy with the fear that the end was here. I took it upon myself to tell her she was wrong and that she needed to go back and re-read the whole passage, where it said wars (emphasis on plural) and rumors of wars... the next time I saw her she thanked me because she now understood that the symbology was not as she had thought and perhaps there was still time for her to make her peace in the world before the end.

I wore a star on a chain once, to me it was nothing more than a star on a chain. I happened to wear it to church one day. I cannot tell you the grief my father caught for it. It seems that this simple star, because it had five points, was the "Symbol" of communism and how dare he let his daughter wear it on her neck. That simple star had become the symbol of evil incarnate. I never could wear that stupid necklace ever again. Not because I or my father believed in it, but because my father did not want the hassle ever again.

It is not for us to know when the end will come, it said that even the angels do not know when. Symbols will come and go, will change and manifest. It is for us to teach our children not to be seduced by them, to be good christians and to give to GOD and his Son what is due them before all else.

Pray, hope and God will take care of you.

Milla

[AndyHolland]

Again, read Psalm 22, the book of Jonas, the Gospels - particularly when Jesus speaks of signs, and the crucifixon. Good thing to do for Lent anyway. Psalm 22 even gets the fact that the Roman's would get their mercenaries from Bashan 700 years (400 at least) before the fact. When you start seeing those symbols and patterns, the others become easier (though perhaps not correct - check with the Fathers). Ther eis a reason Jesus says, "My God, My God, why hast thou foresaken me...." Find it, and notice how the Scripture poetically but powerfully gets even the details perfect.

You talk about things that are tangential to the discussion unless the discussion is my personal credibility.

Your personal credibility is in the one crucial sense completely out of the question. If I want to be sure when the holy thorn blooms, I will ask those who actually see it bloom now. If I want to know whether the great seal appears on or attached to the constitution, I will ask those in whose custody it resides, or better still I will go see it myself. In like matter, my personal credibility doesn't enter into it.

The Holy Thorn for example you got most things wrong. You saw inconsistencies in internet sources, and pounded on them. But you did not probe to see the consistencies.

You are overreaching, for you do not know what I read and thought behind the scenes. Consistencies require a certain context in order to attain argumentative power, and this case (as I recall, and keep in mind this was a while back and that my recollection may well be faulty) consistency on the side of a Julian date was accompanied by consistency of religious intent to the comment. Other sources were unclear or leaned towards an earlier date. I suspect the truth is that the thorn doesn't bloom on the same date every year, and if it be typical of the behavior of other plants, the bloom date may vary by two weeks or even more. I note that in a report on the the actual ceremony of cutting, the date of cutting that years was December 11. I suspect that in other years, it is cut at a later date.

It is not always true that we can resolve the contradictions. That's just the way accounts often are.

[/quote]
The fact the thorn was grafted in modern times solves the inconsistencies. The fact that Dr. Layton reported that the bloom occurred at exactly midnight to Henry VIII. The fact that it is famous that the local people refrained from Christmas until the tree bloomed on Orthodox Christmas in the mid-1700s and the Monarchs stopped getting the bloom also is telling (made the papers of the day). I have heard the bloom on a website from a modern observation at midnight satisfy me as to the inconsistencies. Different dates for Orthodox Christmas were reported in accordance with the local dates and times. Someone might write January 6th because it occurs on midnight. You have to be careful and read with understanding.

A common name for the nation is E'Pluribus Unum and in the Constitution "We the People."

But as I pointed out at one point, these are rhetorical figures, and not properly names. "E Pluribus Unum" is an example of metonymy; "We the People", a synecdoche.

Semantics. You know very well that the United States led even France in establishment of a secular order apart from Divine Right. That is the point, "Why do the nations so furiously rage together, and why do the People imagine a vain thing...." - Why do you think Jennen's emphasized these things in Handel's Messiah for example? He probably slanted his liberetto picking up on the undercurrents of the day (1742). People know what is going down in their times - they aren't at all dull.

People know how to make points with symbols. The Austrian Emperor was not slow to pick up the counter point to what was going on in Europe, and knew when to stand when he heard the chorus.

People do things for reasons. Sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously. They make points in films, music and books using various devices. When they occur in history in accordance with prophecy, you should be prepared because the prophets were not wasting their breath.

Separation of Church and State has become a dogmatic legal principle since the 14th Amendment has been used to provide for individual rights in the Constitution.

That's an interesting interpretation, although I would point out that the phrase itself can be traced back to a letter of Thos. Jefferson. The question, however, is really how you and I are going to live knowing that your church and mine are protected from government interference (and perhaps limited in governmental influence).

[/quote]
If a conservative churchmen says vote for X, chances are his church will loose tax exempt status. If a liberal churchmen insults the President of the US in front of his face, as has happened recently - nothing will happen. You have less freedom than you imagine.

We knowingly blew up Hiroshima on the Feast of the Transfiguration and unknowingly blew up the largest RC Church in Japan (if not Southeast Asia - as it is defined as roughly bounded by the India subcontinent, perhaps it depends on when and how one does the defining). Harry Truman referred to it as the fundmental power of the universe, again, these are all symbols.

The problem, though, is that they are all your symbols. I haven't and won't argue about Truman's unfortunate choice of words; I think we would agree to some extent about the hubris they express. But beyond that the meaning of these acts doesn't arise in those who committed them; it arises in yourself. I doubt that those who dropped the bomb on Hiroshima chose the date because it was the feast of the Transfiguration, and I expect that most of those involved weren't even aware of any such feast. Of course, that explosion didn't damage Urakami Cathedral, which is in Nagasaki.

It is difficult for me to accept your system of signs and symbols when it does not seem to me that their authors intended the meanings you impute upon them, or (as is too often the case here) the objects and events which are said to be symbolic do not in fact take the forms that you claim they do. Here you have moved the cathedral to a different city in order to perfect your symbol. You keep asserting that "E Pluribus Unum" is the name of the country when it is not. You claim that the Great Seal is on the constitution, but from what I can tell, it is not. And furthermore, you seem to now have backed down from the implication that, if "E Pluribus Unum" is a violation of godly law, the solution must be to dissolve the union and reduce the former country to a patchwork of sovereign principalities.

You don't know what the human authors intended because they didn't. That is the point. As a Church Elder pointed out, 'we are less than demons because we are subject to them.' When you abandon Christ, the inevitable bitter fruit is as foretold. This is a pattern of human history.

Of course we should watch the seasons; yet for two thousand years the signs have been interpreted by one or another as saying that winter is upon us. And in 2006 it is not yet winter. With so many false alarms, is it not reasonable to be skeptical?

Certainly, I encourage that. However, read the Bible. Read the Gospels. Read Holy Scripture and the Church Fathers and get a real picture.

Do not rely on corrupt worldly sources because the world is corrupt. Those sources are so false and contradictory. So many "facts" aren't facts at all - just half truths.

Rely on the Bible and the Church; see things from the perspective of those who are trampled on, hated and despised by the world. If you want to find Jesus, find the innocent who are destroyed. Then you'll get a belly full of the world and all its wickedness.

andy holland
sinner

[CGW]

The fact the thorn was grafted in modern times solves the inconsistencies. The fact that Dr. Layton reported that the bloom occurred at exactly midnight to Henry VIII. The fact that it is famous that the local people refrained from Christmas until the tree bloomed on Orthodox Christmas in the mid-1700s and the Monarchs stopped getting the bloom also is telling (made the papers of the day). I have heard the bloom on a website from a modern observation at midnight satisfy me as to the inconsistencies. Different dates for Orthodox Christmas were reported in accordance with the local dates and times. Someone might write January 6th because it occurs on midnight. You have to be careful and read with understanding.

You keep saying "fact" here, but when push comes to shove what we have are accounts, not all entirely consistent. It's not entirely clear that the current tree (or trees) at St. John's is a cutting or has been grafted. The Wikipedia article claims that current efforts at propagation only succeed through grafting but leaves open the question of whether the current tree at St. John's was so propagated. The cuttings for the queen's table are taken in the second week of December-- that is clear.

As for the importance of grafting versus growing from cuttings, ordinarily this doesn't make a difference. Different varieties of apple, for instance, flower and bear fruit at their characteristic times regardless of what rootstock they are grafted upon. Thus, the inconsistency isn't so "solved", but merely explained in a manner which is plausible to you, but is untested and implausible to me (who raises apples and roses and has grown azaleas from cuttings).

I would also note that you've once again slipped into pushing the actual events back where they cannot be tested, for you have all but admitted that the Thorn does not now flower in January. The tale of many a year back may be considered to have less weight than an event which any man in England on the proper dates may observe; if the tree may be considered a sign of Christmas in general, it would appear that in this day it is not the sign of traditionalist Orthodoxy's triumph over the West that was your original thesis. If one were stubborn enough, one might even interpret it as signifying the triumph of the West over the East. But the point in any case is that if these are supernatural signs, it seems to me that their correct reading must rely upon their correct recounting. If the sign is not what actually happens, but only what you say happens, then it's not unreasonable to conclude that the sign does not come from above, but only comes from you.

But as I pointed out at one point, these are rhetorical figures, and not properly names. "E Pluribus Unum" is an example of metonymy; "We the People", a synecdoche.

Semantics.

Yes, and sometimes semantics are important. A mere figure of speech is not the same as a formal (or even informal) naming.

Why do you think Jennen's emphasized these things in Handel's Messiah for example? He probably slanted his liberetto picking up on the undercurrents of the day (1742).

"Probably" is the tell-tale sign of speculation. I am no student of the 1740s, but perhaps the Bonnie Prince was more apropos.

People do things for reasons.

But they rather often do them for reasons that are bad or even incoherent. Again, you are failing to take either human fallibility or human sinfulness seriously.

If a conservative churchmen says vote for X, chances are his church will loose tax exempt status. If a liberal churchmen insults the President of the US in front of his face, as has happened recently - nothing will happen.

As it happens, these matters are not the parallels which you imply. Churches may not say "vote" for anyone-- liberal or conservative. Churches may denounce any politician-- liberal or conservative. You may consider this hairsplitting, and so might I, but in any case the law is clear about which side of the line each behavior falls upon, without regard to political persuasion.

The problem, though, is that they are all your symbols. I haven't and won't argue about Truman's unfortunate choice of words; I think we would agree to some extent about the hubris they express. But beyond that the meaning of these acts doesn't arise in those who committed them; it arises in yourself. I doubt that those who dropped the bomb on Hiroshima chose the date because it was the feast of the Transfiguration, and I expect that most of those involved weren't even aware of any such feast. Of course, that explosion didn't damage Urakami Cathedral, which is in Nagasaki.

It is difficult for me to accept your system of signs and symbols when it does not seem to me that their authors intended the meanings you impute upon them, or (as is too often the case here) the objects and events which are said to be symbolic do not in fact take the forms that you claim they do. Here you have moved the cathedral to a different city in order to perfect your symbol. You keep asserting that "E Pluribus Unum" is the name of the country when it is not. You claim that the Great Seal is on the constitution, but from what I can tell, it is not. And furthermore, you seem to now have backed down from the implication that, if "E Pluribus Unum" is a violation of godly law, the solution must be to dissolve the union and reduce the former country to a patchwork of sovereign principalities.

You don't know what the human authors intended because they didn't. That is the point. As a Church Elder pointed out, 'we are less than demons because we are subject to them.' When you abandon Christ, the inevitable bitter fruit is as foretold. This is a pattern of human history.

And thus, perhaps, the demons mislead you, by having you see patterns that are not really there. After all, if the demons are smart and powerful enough to arrange these matters, they are able to set up patterns that seem meaningful but which really signify nothing. Or perhaps sinful humans don't need demons to arrange their evils.

Again, the question is incapable of being tested. There are so many different ways to assign meanings or meaninglessness to these things that the significance to any one person is almost completely arbitrary. You see portents of doom because you are so inclined to do so. I am inclined to trust humans to do their own sinning.

Of course we should watch the seasons; yet for two thousand years the signs have been interpreted by one or another as saying that winter is upon us. And in 2006 it is not yet winter. With so many false alarms, is it not reasonable to be skeptical?

Certainly, I encourage that. However, read the Bible. Read the Gospels. Read Holy Scripture and the Church Fathers and get a real picture.

Do not rely on corrupt worldly sources because the world is corrupt. Those sources are so false and contradictory. So many "facts" aren't facts at all - just half truths.

When you get to the point of saying things like that, you have essentially demolished any reason to heed your alarums. The timing of the Thorn's blooms, the origin of the Great Seal, its presence on the constitution-- and for that matter, the resurrection of Jesus-- are in crucial ways ordinary, worldly facts. When you get to the point of saying that these worldly things don't matter, you can make any story say anything and you might as well become a liberal Protestant. "Perspective" then becomes just another way of lying.

Rely on the Bible and the Church; see things from the perspective of those who are trampled on, hated and despised by the world.

You aren't the church; you do not speak for the church; and the church is made to suffer by what you presume to say in her name.