@LangLangC Given that the Pope is, and has always been, Catholic, I don't see how it could be credible that he worships Mitre. Besides, it's a question about faith, which is not OK.

@LangLangC I don't think it's the same. For example the Church set its own festivities on the same days as Roman holidays on purpose, but certainly has never been celebrating Saturn during the Christmas holidays on the same days as Saturnalia.

In other words: a question about repurposing of the symbol is fine if that's what's claimed. A question about the Pope being secretly a believer in a different, precedent faith... not so much.

@Sklivvz Why not read it as: it's a claim used to smear a faith. And that claim of symbolic fashion continuity (or usurpation of pagan symbols, like dates you mentioned). Why shouldn't that be answerable? The answer to that has just to compare the timeline, the symbols used. Dagan worshipped when, Christian churched established when, headgear used when. Then we see a gap of 1200 years if premise 1 is true: Dagan priests wore these hats from 3000–130BCE.

Since even that seems to be not true and based on abuse and misinterpretation of archaeological evidence of the rare kind, incompatible to what archaeologists say about their finds, the argument falls apart way before getting into anything faith, purely on materialistic history grounds.

That the faith aspects are mentioned as well seems necessary since that's what the claim I want checked is then used for and prove of its notability. And – Who'd be interested in that topic otherwise on an SE site?(And seems to useful to include to get this into the result llists google offers people).

Further, I'd like to make callback to other 'faith-based' questions. Of which there are numerous examples on this site, this being but one examole: skeptics.stackexchange.com/q/1624 It should be evident that the very nature of this sites precludes any question from even being tried to be answered with faith based reasoning (as the examole shows: from a 'believers PoV', there can be only one answer…).

@LangLangC Some thoughts about the linked question; I agree that "is the Pope's Mitre hat derived, historically, from similar Babylonian headdresses?" is probably answerable under site guidelines.

I think, frankly, that the question could be edited way, way down to include just those relevant elements of the quotes; because @Sklivvz is right, the "does this mean the Pope worships Dagon?" is a question for Christianity.SE

But I also have a pretty big notability concern with those sources: those quoted claims come from pretty virulent anti-catholic pro-fundamentalist Christian sources

The same kinds of sources that we could probably find claims about the devil being in rock music and DnD inviting demons into your house

And we certainly wouldn't consider those kinds of claims notable

Here's a gem: biblelight.net/nephilim.htm

(about ancient half-angel giants on Earth before the flood that mated with humans)

Final thought: I haven't done any research myself, but "this hat looks kinda like that other hat from a thousand years earlier" doesn't seem that compelling, at least to me

And even if true (even if the Pope's hat maker used a picture of the Babylonian one as a guide), that wouldn't support any of the conclusions the authors are attempting to make

Ok, I lied, one more thought: I doubt we'd be able to find historical sources out there to "debunk" this claim; because the claimed association is just too random and clearly a motivated attack from those opposed to the Catholic faith

Actually, looks like some of those sites are 7th-day Adventist conspiracy sites (who claim that all other Christian faiths, Catholic and Protestant, have it wrong, and only they are right)

Here's a good headline: 10 Reasons Why Satan Wants Women To Wear Pants

another totally-should-be-taken-seriously claim on the same site: Bill Gates Is Planning NWO Agenda 21 With George Soros: To Depopulate The World

@BradC Many thanks for these thoughts! But I just do not get the notability angle and how most seem to read the question. (And I am sure "Pope worships Dagon?" would get the flak on C:SE…), Yes, ultimately this is something about faith, right or wrong – but not as asked (at least as I intended). It is relevant for forming an opinion on those conspiracy sites and to compete with their claims on searchngine hits to mention the faith angle.

As they use the fashion & tradition aspect to form their argument. But my Q is about this a priori for the argument. The base is built on sand. To compare that to the "Devil in Rock'n'Roll": isn't this a perfect example for Skeptics when just mentioning the devil's message and then looking specifically for "if you play Beatles' records backwards…" (Something Tipper Gore used to say in the 80s?)

@BradC That is true. But the point is that there are people out out there construczing a world around falsely interpreted evidence. There is 1. zero evidence for any Dagon priests' clothing at all in archaelogy, 2. Some Abgals/apkulls from Mesotamia/Babylon are depicted as mythological fish-man hybrids (like chimeras, but these aern't any priests, more mermen, like Roman Triton)

3. Dagan-cult spread westward from 3000– bronze age collapse, then went down as pop-icon being replaced by other deities/playing leser and lesser fiddles in the pantheons 4 Dagan of Babylon became Dagon of the Phiistines from the Bible, there being the main god, while everwhere else this pretty much disppeared 5. Still no Dagon priest clothing info (or really pretty much anything about what ecatly Philistines thought),

but in our knowledge it is pretty clear that the last message about Dagon is his last adherents went down when in the 2nd century BCE his main temple got destroyed, burnt own and the inhabitants of the town killed.

6. Only after that came Romans to the area, and 200 hundred years later Christianity is invented as a Jewish sect in which a Galilean carpenter's son rose to prominence.

7. This new sect spreads slowly around the Mediterrenean, at first very close to Jewish temples (which at the time were prety radically against any pictures…) and split slowly off (parting of the ways) into teo distinct religions during the next 300 years.

8. Early pitures – icons, mosaics – of Christian saints and bishops show just one headgear the halo.

9. Early medieval and high medieval pictures, illuminations etc then show what the Catholic encyclopedia, quoted on WP, also shows: that from one source that's best described as 'turban', then 'conical felt-cap' the epsicopal hats evolve to 11th century forms, kept since, with a strong divergenece between East and West.

10. What 'they' believe in is entirely irrelevant for this, unneeded. What is observable is that the claimants built an argument out of nothing that's really in archaeology, even "Dagon - fish-god is a secondary folk-etymology". And even if that part were in any way even a slitghly remote bit 'true', then there is still a gap in fashionable tradition of at least more than 1200 years, entirely explained by other influences.

@BradC Your headlines are all a delight to read. But 'the Nephilim' is just a literary reading of what the text actually states. Would be a perfect candidate for HermeneuticsSE (if not for a bigger part of the audience there). In fact, that angels once interbred with human women is often interpreted as the reason for Apostle Paul requiring women to cover their hair in church, so not to arouse them again…

But that is either doctrinal faith or analysis of literature. Something I'd agree instantly not on-topic on Skeptics.

There is absolutely no evidence on the factual side for the Genesis passage to expect.

But for who did wear what hat when (and even why?)? I say we should be able to tackle that.

If anyone sees an opportunity to edit this down in terms of reducing redundancy )of the notability patrs) while keeping the keywords the wrong-faith-conspiracy-theorists use, then I am all ears. As stated, anything derived from the materialistic history part is secondary and a matter of opinion. But the theory is based on a few claimed facts. Those can be evaluated independently and with scientific methods and rigour, as far as archaeology and history allow?

@LangLangC So I know we don't really have a formal definition of "notable", just a notion. The problem with this question is that to me, it breaks down to (possibly) 3 separate aspects:

The (primary) religious claim that Catholicism is from Satan and the Pope worships the devil

The (obvious) superficial resemblance to an existing older hat

The (missing) claim of some evidence of an actual historical link between the two hats

The first is off-topic, the second is opinion based (do these hats look similar?)

and the third, well, it isn't entirely clear whether there is enough left to form the basis of an on-topic question

And your extended quotes, in my opinion, don't aid in disentangling these aspects

I'm having a hard time coming up with an analogy in a different field that makes sense: "are vaccines effective in preventing disease" is on-topic for the site, "Bill Gates and the Illuminati wants to exterminate humanity through vaccines using the UN's Project 21" to me just isn't

Well, that's a bit strange. The your-called 'primary claim' should be only the one 'secondary' that builds on the claim inquired about (and is built on by those crazy guys out there). And why is it a 'missing claim' that eg Hislop directly says that 'the one is identical to the other, and therefore…'? Do you think it'll be clearer to just point to a few links, quoting only Hislop? (I am actually not sure on such 'recent' history, whether he is indeed the source for this theory)

Or, at least, its un-focused and laden with raving falsehoods enough that is makes for a poor question

(this last comment was about the Bill Gates headline analogy)

@LangLangC Frankly I didn't read all your links, but the first two ("amredeemed.com" and "biblelight.net") were, in my opinion, raving lunatic sites, so I didn't continue. Looking now, even "romancatholicbeliefs.org" is another anti-Catholic site

@BradC But the falsehoods are the ones we are to be skeptical about? (If 'BG and Illumniati…' should have something to either verify or falsify objectively in it. As presented, I'd struggle to find sth like that there too). It seems to be a bit contradictory to mission statement read too much into a question and the asker's motivation (or what claim is to be investigated)? 'Did (Moses, David, Jesus, Mohammed) exist' were all fine Qs here.

@BradC And that's what they are. The only relevant point about them is that they appear all high in the list if one wants to know anything about "bishop mitre fish mouth" from a search engine. That's why I think Skeptics should have an answer dealing with one of the basic premises these sites (ab)use to spin their tales.

So, would it be a valid answer to say simply, 1) These attacks are motivated by those strongly opposed to the Catholic religion and 2) There are only so many different ways you can make a hat, its not surprising that some end up looking similar and 3) No notable references can be found suggesting that the Vatican based their hat on the ancient Babylonian design

Because that's what I imagine a "real" answer might end up looking like

Now, I haven't done the research to know that 3) is in fact, correct (although I suspect it)

On that topic there are few in between 'debunking' sites in the hits. That's not ideal, even if you dislike the pope or the whole topic.

Ok. Not sure I'll have time to attempt an answer, but for now I gotta go.

@BradC Calling up the motivation might be relevant in an answer, although that's 1: difficult 2: certainly no main point to base an argument on. Your point 2 would be stronger, but be based on logic. Your point 3 is misphrased: I qupte 'notable' references, but we want reliable references. And these are indeed not existing.

–– I outlined above some points to note regarding what I'd expect in a 'good answer'. On H:SE you find part of another angle and sources. On this site ; I hoped to see more, and further a different angle to what I already wrote. I'd let it sit for a while and await more feedback on how the question is framed and phrased. Or how it should be optimised ;)

@LangLangC Sure, it couldn't be the sole explanation, but motivated reasoning could in fact be part of a good answer

If you find a way to tackle this, I'd be probably delighted. If you are using other arguments or sources than I suggested, all the better.

@BradC No disagreement.

In fact, I probably would drop a line like that.

@BradC CU around ;)