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

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

#111

Post by jfengel »

Maken wrote: post #78
nabla9 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>.. are aligned. Only on Mercator projection that is younger than many of the sites on the line. Oder of things: 1. There were bunch of monasteries (not cathedrals), not aligned on any direct line. 2. Mercator invented a projection. 3. Someone looked at map using Mercator a projection and invented story about ley lines.

You are right, not all the temples in the "line" are cathedrals, which does make the entire story less credible.

"Cathedral" is a very specific kind of church, but not necessarily all that significant. It's where they happened to have centered a local bishopric. (A cathedra is a chair, specifically one that a bishop sits in.)

So there are a lot of magnificent churches that aren't cathedrals (Sagrada Familia, Westminster Abbey, St. Peter's in the Vatican), and a lot of cathedrals that are actually rather dull architecturally.

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

#112

Post by grahamlee »

arethuza wrote: post #91
gravescale wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I used to read his books as exercises in critical analysis—how does he get from the data to these conclusions, and what does he ignore that doesn't fit his conclusions? Then I discovered that, as stated by Carl Sagan, von Däniken also relies on factual errors in his arguments.

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

#113

Post by buescher »

dhosek wrote: post #62
voidUpdate wrote: post #3

> Did the builders knew the earth was round? Yes. This has been known since ancient greek times, and Aristotle calculated the size reasonably well. Maybe not every labourer knew or cared but the architects almost certainly did

One of the incorrect things about Columbus that I was taught in second grade was that he had trouble getting support for his voyage because his would-not-be patrons thought the earth was flat. In fact, they refused to fund him because he thought the earth was much smaller than it was and they had the correct size of the earth.

It’s historically rooted in Protestant anti-Catholicism, and the most popular version in America of it comes from Washington Irving.

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

#114

Post by dougdimmadome »

jfengel wrote: post #106
dougdimmadome wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...and, fun fact, the "porgs" only exist because the island is also a wildlife refuge and home to thousands of birds who happily walked across the set during takes, so they had to be CGI'ed out.

Under ordinary circumstances they would have kept the birds out of the shoot. But Skellig Michael is extremely protected, and that includes not being allowed to touch the birds. CGI'ing over them is a genius solution that makes me absurdly happy.

me too =)

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

#115

Post by Duanemclemore »

I wish I could link to a great portion of the Eco book Foucault's Pendulum here - it's quite relevant to how we go trying to find meaning in things. If you haven't definitely a novel worth a read.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned From Hell here, which plays with the concept of drawing symbols using lines between landmarks. Alan Moore got a lot of his ideas for that from Iain Sinclair, whose books are well worth a read as well. Specifically, the material Moore references is from Lud Heat iirc.

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

#116

Post by seanhunter »

karaterobot wrote: post #98

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 o…

Well I'll give you one I know: St Michael's mount in Cornwall (second in his list) is definitely not a cathedral. There is a stately home and smallish castle on a small tidal island on the site of an old monastery but I'm pretty sure it has never been a cathedral. It's not in or near a city for starters.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Michael's_Mount

p.s. It's a cool place to visit btw. You can walk over to the house at low tide and then the house is on a steep hill surrounded by a lovely garden which you are compelled to enjoy until the next low tide at which point you can walk back to the mainland. Nearby is a heliport where you can get a passenger helicopter to the Scilly Isles which are also worth a visit.

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

#117

Post by Archelaos »

smeej wrote: post #68
Archelaos wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> most people would actually use and see: a 2D map The expert used spherical mathematics. This was quite widespread knowledge required to build proper sun dials and in the Late Medieval period for long distance navigation. Some were able to use analog computers, called "armillary spheres", for the calculations, which were known since Antiquity.[1] [1] See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armillary_sphere

Most people aren't experts. If I'm setting up a bunch of churches in a line to make a point, I'm doing it to make a point to the vast swath of common people in them, not the handful of experts.

Only the experts of that time could have found out that this churches are all lined up according to the Meracator projection, if they had any idea of that projection at all. It seems rather as if your top-secret St. Michael's conspiracy, which, without leaving any written traces, when carrying out its secrete plan over several centuries using advanced cartographic and geodetic knowledge to determine longitudes, was aimed at the mystery-susceptible people of our times.

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

#118

Post by crabmusket »

smeej wrote: post #68
Archelaos wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> most people would actually use and see: a 2D map The expert used spherical mathematics. This was quite widespread knowledge required to build proper sun dials and in the Late Medieval period for long distance navigation. Some were able to use analog computers, called "armillary spheres", for the calculations, which were known since Antiquity.[1] [1] See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armillary_sphere

Most people aren't experts. If I'm setting up a bunch of churches in a line to make a point, I'm doing it to make a point to the vast swath of common people in them, not the handful of experts.

That's not necessarily true. I recently read Barnabas Calder's Architecture: From Prehistory to Climate Emergency which contains several mentions of the incredible detail architects put into their work- from ancient Greece through mediaeval cathedrals. Details and design which would not have been noticed by any eye but an expert's.

I'll try to look up an exact quote later. But the gist of several passages was that there was an elite or expert community- obviously, or nobody would have been designing buildings like this!

Let's assume for the sake of this discussion that the 7 sites are deliberately aligned by somebody. They would presumably be a powerful elite, and would be doing it to impress other powerful elites.

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

#119

Post by seanhunter »

seanhunter wrote: post #116
karaterobot wrote: post #98

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 o…

Well I'll give you one I know: St Michael's mount in Cornwall (second in his list) is definitely not a cathedral. There is a stately home and smallish castle on a small tidal island on the site of an old monastery but I'm pretty sure it has never been a cathedral. It's not in or near a city for starters. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Michael's_Mount p.s. It's a cool place to visit btw. You can walk over to the hou…

Oh and the last one "Stella Maris monastery" is not at all connected with St Michael, which the wikipedia article acknowledges. It's just somewhat near a mountain that is in a biblical story with St Michael. "Stella Maris" means "Star of the Sea" and actually refers to Mary.[1]

[1] https://epicpew.com/hail-bright-star-ocean-ave-stella-maris/ (worth noting that this source is some sort of Catholic thing and is written in what the Wikipedia banners on some articles used to refer to as an "in-universe style")

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

#120

Post by greggsy »

karaterobot wrote: post #98

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 o…

The author cites this page, which refers to them as ’sites’. I suspect English isn’t their first language, and they’ve missed some nuance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Michael's_line

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