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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?

#121

Post by svieira »

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 extra interesting wrinkle here is that each of the Burger Kings in the straight line are associated with an appearance of the Burger King himself explicitly asking for a shrine in the location, while the others are mostly random franchises stuck up by someone who decided they would like a fast food restaurant here and it might as well be a Burger King.

(i. e. Mont Saint Michele the bishop who saw St. Michael originally refused to construct the shrine because he wasn't sure of the veracity of the vision. It was only after he was wounded by St. Michael's sword and the wound refused to heal that he went to establish the shrine. And only then did the wound closed up.)

Make of that what you will.

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

#122

Post by dark-star »

> Certainly 7 cathedrals are too many to be a coincidence

A very far-fetched claim without any proof. Simple answer: selection bias

> Did the builders knew the earth was round?

If he had just googled that he would have gotten the answer, which is, of course, "yes"

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

#123

Post by mrbonner »

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…

A cathedral has nothing to do with size of the church. If a church has a bishop resides, it's a cathedral.

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

#124

Post by Maken »

jfengel wrote: post #111
Maken wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Precisely cathedrals are rare enough that seven of them in a line dedicated to the same archangel could no be a coincidence. I bet you can make similar lines if you look for churchess and sanctuaries dedicated to another important saint or saintess.

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

#125

Post by jvanderbot »

svieira wrote: post #121
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 extra interesting wrinkle here is that each of the Burger Kings in the straight line are associated with an appearance of the Burger King himself explicitly asking for a shrine in the location, while the others are mostly random franchises stuck up by someone who decided they would like a fast food restaurant here and it might as well be a Burger King. (i. e. Mont Saint Michele the bishop who saw St. Michael orig…

That's neat! However, if each burger king was so enshrined by king burger, then there would again be nothing interesting. So, were these the only sites that were selected in that way?

Second, is this a post-hoc story we told about the shrines (perhaps to avoid destruction / re-purposing by a greedy local lord?)

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

#128

Post by addaon »

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…

> smallish castle

This makes more sense, as castles tend to move in straight lines. As another comment mentions, if these were cathedrals that would mean a bishop in residence, and we all know bishops prefer to move diagonally.

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

#129

Post by pdabbadabba »

mrbonner wrote: post #123
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…

A cathedral has nothing to do with size of the church. If a church has a bishop resides, it's a cathedral.

Sure. But is that inconsistent with anything GP said? If you look at the list[1], I think you'll see that the sites are obviously not all cathedrals by that definition. The Wikipedia article doesn't claim otherwise; it calls them "sacred sites dedicated to the Archangel Michael." In fact, two of them are just islands named after St. Michael. Another is a religious site, but one that is not dedicated to St. Michael—rather it is located on Mt. Carmel which is associated with St. Michael.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Michael%27s_line

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

#130

Post by neaden »

deepsun wrote: post #105

> Did the builders knew the earth was round? Long before St. Michael was born, yes.

St. Michael is an Angel, so either has existed since before the Earth was made or if you want the earliest literary reference from the Book of Enoch which dates to around 300 BCE but might have existed in an oral tradition before that. Earth being round dates to around 500 BCE so depending on how old the oral tradition of the angel Michael were around was probably earlier but maybe contemporary.
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