Saint Michael Sword: Are the cathedrals really on a straight line? • Hacker News Board

Re: Saint Michael Sword: Are the cathedrals really on a straight line?

#91

Post by arethuza » Thu, Jun 06, 2024, 1:06 PM UTC

gravescale wrote: post #49

arethuza wrote: post #14

When I was a kid (11/12 or so) I was fascinated by finding alignments between ancient things in the landscape (of which there are many here in Scotland!) - eventually I came to the realisation that given the scale of the maps I was looking at (1:25,000) that you can find loads of meaningless alignments if you look hard enough...

The Ancient Aliens discovered the same laws of engineering: 5. (Miller's Law) Three points determine a curve. 6. (Mar's Law) Everything is linear if plotted log-log with a fat magic marker. https://spacecraft.ssl.umd.edu/akins_laws.html

Speaking of Ancient Aliens - I did have also read a book by Erich von Däniken when I was younger (9 or so) although I had realised that was nonsense by my stage of hunting maps for alignments it probably influenced me to think about it.

Re: Saint Michael Sword: Are the cathedrals really on a straight line?

#92

Post by mensetmanusman » Thu, Jun 06, 2024, 1:07 PM UTC

randomtoast wrote: post #12

One might begin to calculate the odds of seven cathedrals aligning perfectly in a straight line purely as a result of chance.

This would be an extremely difficult calculation to build consensus around, because so many assumptions would go into where exactly one could even consider building such sites.

They would have to be near enough to water to maintain life, or have access to freshwater for the religious communities there, they would have to be near building materials, they would have to be near population centers, etc.

Re: Saint Michael Sword: Are the cathedrals really on a straight line?

#93

Post by Shrezzing » Thu, Jun 06, 2024, 1:09 PM UTC

Oarch wrote: post #47

arethuza wrote: post #14

When I was a kid (11/12 or so) I was fascinated by finding alignments between ancient things in the landscape (of which there are many here in Scotland!) - eventually I came to the realisation that given the scale of the maps I was looking at (1:25,000) that you can find loads of meaningless alignments if you look hard enough...

The Great Glen Fault is beautifully straight line across Scotland. Once seen it can't really be unseen.

I'm not sure if this is concrete fact, or just a theory, but you can continue the line up Norway's western coast too. Then in the other direction, the line was broken, but restarts & progresses from Nova Scotia down through the Appalachians in North America.

Re: Saint Michael Sword: Are the cathedrals really on a straight line?

#94

Post by abrenuntio » Thu, Jun 06, 2024, 1:09 PM UTC

logtempo wrote: post #13

Are they aligned because they are famous, or are they famous because they are aligned? Or are they aligned because if I pick 7 famous monuments aligned I can draw a line, look over my shoulder and say "ho look, if we draw a line it match!" From wikipedia, the list of St Michael churches: St. Michael's Church (disambiguation) Parroquia de San Miguel Arcángel (es), San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato Mexico World Heritag…

Definitely not ordinary places. Perhaps Stella Maris, the end point, is the most fascinating of all because of its association with the prophet Elijah.

Re: Saint Michael Sword: Are the cathedrals really on a straight line?

#95

Post by TillE » Thu, Jun 06, 2024, 1:17 PM UTC

More interesting to me here is the history of the "line". Is this a medieval idea or a modern one? Wikipedia is surprisingly unhelpful. "According to legend", yeah ok.

Who first wrote about this? Who picked those seven sites? The earliest source mentioned is from 1969, and it's not even about this particular line.

There's no shortage of writing about esoteric Christian topics throughout the centuries, but this one seems really thin and really modern.

Re: Saint Michael Sword: Are the cathedrals really on a straight line?

#96

Post by calvinmorrison » Thu, Jun 06, 2024, 1:18 PM UTC

noduerme wrote: post #89

wolframhempel wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I studied art history, and this always bothered me when learning about Christian symbolism. When reading about numbers related to cathedrals, such as the number of statues on a ledge or the number of archivolts (the bands around doors), so much emphasis was put on the meaning of these particular numbers by whoever authored the piece. Three related to the Holy Trinity, four represented the four Gospels, five alluded t…

Wasn't the whole point of building the thing to make physical all that symbolic stuff in the first place?

The temple _is_ God's physical dwelling place

Re: Saint Michael Sword: Are the cathedrals really on a straight line?

#97

Post by jfengel » Thu, Jun 06, 2024, 1:21 PM UTC

Oarch wrote: post #47

arethuza wrote: post #14

When I was a kid (11/12 or so) I was fascinated by finding alignments between ancient things in the landscape (of which there are many here in Scotland!) - eventually I came to the realisation that given the scale of the maps I was looking at (1:25,000) that you can find loads of meaningless alignments if you look hard enough...

The Great Glen Fault is beautifully straight line across Scotland. Once seen it can't really be unseen.

I'm gonna be driving along most of Loch Ness early this autumn. Anything in particular I should look out for with respect to the Great Glen Fault? Any less-obvious geologic features?

Re: Saint Michael Sword: Are the cathedrals really on a straight line?

#98

Post by karaterobot » Thu, Jun 06, 2024, 1:22 PM UTC

Are any of these actually cathedrals? I see some monasteries and sacred sites, I don't see any cathedrals in that list. The difference is that 7 cathedrals, all named after St. Michael, found in a basically straight line would certainly not be a coincidence. It would be like there being 7 Google complexes in a straight line spread around the world: something's going on here. But 7 random religious sites named after one of the most famous saints is more like there being 7 Burger Kings in a basically straight line: much easier to believe as a coincidence.

Re: Saint Michael Sword: Are the cathedrals really on a straight line?

#99

Post by jfengel » Thu, Jun 06, 2024, 1:23 PM UTC

rob74 wrote: post #45

tecleandor wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think none of them are cathedrals. There's a couple islands, a mount, a shrine, a monastery, a temple...

Yup... actually the linked Wikipedia page doesn't use the word "cathedrals", but they are remarkable in other ways (long history, pilgrimage sites etc.). Ok, Skellig Michael is now remembered mainly for being Luke Skywalker's island in Star Wars VII/VIII, but still...

It annoyed me as soon as it appeared at the tail end of TLJ. I've wanted to visit it for a long time, but it's a bit of a hassle to get to. I can only imagine that it's even harder now that it's a pilgrimage site for Star Wars fans, and not just rock-botherers like myself.

Re: Saint Michael Sword: Are the cathedrals really on a straight line?

#100

Post by randomtoast » Thu, Jun 06, 2024, 1:24 PM UTC

jimktrains2 wrote: post #80

randomtoast wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, GPT4 said there a just 189 non-overlapping 50km bands (horizontal, vertical, and diagnoal) in Europe and then continued to calculate the chance to land those 7 points in any of the 189 bands and gave a result in the order of 10^-12.

You could have two points in 2 of your non overlapping bands that are less than a band's width apart. Also, the probability of the first 2 points will always be 100% because they define the line. Also, it's not 7 random points, it's 7 of thousands of random points.

Alright, I suppose it's not as simple to formulate the question accurately and correctly.