Felagund
3mo ago
He's opposed to all of those?
I think he's talking more about how publically unhinged you are being, vs how crazy your policies are, because the former is more closely tied to public opinion, even if the latter is objectively more important.
Felagund
4mo ago
Maybe focus on fixing African culture, then, instead of US culture? (unless you also suggest opening immigration way up, which would help the people on its own)
Felagund
4mo ago
Which is a bad sentiment. If you turn out to be incorrect, that is no reason to have contempt for a sacrament that Christ himself instituted.
Felagund
9mo ago
Do you have examples in mind?
(to be clear, this is more to understand than to challenge)
Felagund
9mo ago
One possible difference could be how central they are. They point out in the paper that some types of speech (e.g. incitement or conspiring—see p. 58) are not considered to be protected by the first amendment under the standard doctrine. If expressing support didn't rise to that level, I could see that not applying.
To be clear, if any BLM supporters do rise to that level, them also being disqualified would be good, if it turns out this legal theory is correct.
Felagund
9mo ago
Fair point about the first half, although I'm somewhat less confident on what the supreme court's takes would be—I think several, at least, like to consider themselves impartial, so won't do things merely out of a sense of personal loyalty.
As to the second, I don't see how that's the case? Isn't this clearly a case of the constitution disqualifying people? You can argue that it doesn't apply to the current case, or that it requires more than what the authors say, but you can't just say that the Constitution doesn't impose ineligibility for committing those acts after swearing an oath.
Felagund
9mo ago
Sorry, by contemporary I meant to the time, not to today, if that wasn't clear.
I can't go into details because I can't get the pdf to open, but I believe they referenced assorted earlier cases that were smaller than the civil war (the one I remember was the Whiskey rebellion, but they referenced a bunch more). I don't know the details, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that even those were larger than the Trump events.
Sure, it's novel and not authoritative, but it being more mainstream could make an impact, since all that it needs to do so is convince a few officials. If no one else, I could see state officials in democratic states not listing Trump, and that could make a big difference in the primaries if it doesn't get to the supreme court before then.
Felagund
9mo ago
They go into the cotemporary legal definitions, and note that there were smaller scale insurrections that were considered insurrections.
Their main argument was that the January 6 mob was an attempt to use at least the show and threat of force in opposition to the constitutional order, and maybe, but more dubiously, that the assorted plans, second sets of electors, etc. could be considered rebellion even without force.
But yeah, it's no civil war.
What makes this newsworthy to me isn't so much that people are arguing that January 6th was an insurrection, for the reasons you say, but the fact that actions could be taken because of that that could have a substantial effect on the upcoming election.
Felagund
9mo ago
Sure, you're correct that a crucifixion isn't obviously what's depicted here. I see the similarity more in a propitiatory and substitutionary sacrifice of a messiah. But yes, that does lower the closeness of the match compared to if the text were more explicit. Your point that it could just be an after-the-fact connection is stronger. I think that's less likely of the resurrection since it's unlikely that they'd just claim that, and the scriptural evidence is less manifest.
hardly uncommon
What would be uncommon, I would certainly assume, would be a group hallucination. Paul, the synoptics, John, all testify that he appeared to the twelve (well, to the eleven). Do you think that didn't happen, and they misremembered or misconveyed?
I don't think the story of Joseph of Arimathea's empty tomb is necessarily historical.
It's supported, though, by hostile testimony—the claim in response was that the body was stolen, not that he was never buried there. The simpler option for them to say, if he was never buried there, is just that he was never buried there. (Also, I'm not sure what mechanism would cause that to originate, if you both think that early Christians, including the twelve, were sincere, and the gospels are old.)
Even in the gospels themselves you can see the story of the burial growing in the telling.
I think that's a misreading of Matthew, for the simple reason of it doesn't explain how the body vanished. Rather I read it as that they came, then Matthew realized, Oh, wait, I wanted to talk about the guards and the tomb rolled away, he describes it from the perspective of the guards, and then resumes with the women—else it doesn't give Jesus an opportunity to walk out the tomb.
But clearly there is some minimum standard of evidence a threat of infinite torture has to meet before it is going to motivate us.
I think some of the reason is just that there are other infinites in play, and so you have to worry about them—it's not improbable that there are better ways to spend your time in pursuit of the ones you think relatively more worth concerning yourself about.
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Accomodation seems adequate for the other one. Yeah, old earth creationism of some form seems scientifically necessary but also isn't the easiest textually—the broad semantic meaning of day helps somewhat.
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There's a little more than nothing, for eternal life or a resurrection. Job 19:26, Isaiah 25:8, 26:19, Psalm 49:15, Hosea 13:14.
These are all earlier than Daniel. Admittedly they aren't much, and a few are arguable. If Sheol's considered a place, there's a lot more. But you're right that it's undeniable that that's not where the emphasis is put.
For demons, I'm inclined to think that the development is because of an increase in demonic activity at the time—it's unsurprising that this would lead to them playing a greater role. Yahweh's also responsible for everything in the new testament.
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Not especially familiar with Daniel. As to the new testament, well, it explicitly says a thousand years is like a day, so it internally moderates.
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Yahweh, at the very least, is different in the claim to be God over everything. Monotheism is different. I am who am seems to be hinting at something like aseity, even if not put exactly after that manner.
Sorry, the end especially was rushed.
Felagund
9mo ago
What metaphysical sort of thing does this rule exist in? Why is the universe an exception? I don't see why the universe would be the sort of thing that would be uncaused, while that seems much more plausible for a classical theistic God. A priori, I'd be more likely to expect an uncaused God than an uncaused universe, since one seems more likely to be something that would be intrinsically necessary.
Felagund
9mo ago
Leaving aside the long debate over whether the 'suffering servant' is in fact a single messianic figure, a corporate representative, or something else
Yeah, I've heard the suggestion at some point that it's referring to Israel. Penal substitution seems clear enough to me in the passage that I can't see how that would make sense. Keep in mind I don't know Hebrew. And the identity might change within Isaiah, from passage to passage—I think one section probably referred to Cyrus, if I remember correctly.
An argument for a dichotomy between a resurrection being prophesied and it not being the sort of thing they'd make up.*
This is a good point. My impression, though, is that while a suffering and resurrecting Messiah is latent in the Jewish scriptures, it wasn't something that they were particularly aware of. Like, I don't think modern Jews really talk about that, even though it seems like it's in there, though of course some of that could be out of opposition to and distinguishing themselves from Christianity. They of course could have discovered it, but if it's not really in use, I think that objection loses most of its teeth.
But the synoptics also all plagiarize each other, so they aren't independent sources.
Of course. It seems likely to me that there'd be others though, in the actual history. If Paul isn't lying, then there are at least a bunch of claims that the resurrected Christ was witnessed at least somewhat publically (see 1 Corinthians 15), as well as a bunch of other apostles who were with Jesus. Since Paul actually was in Jerusalem sometimes, interacting with the apostles, even if only briefly, it seems unlikely to me that they would have deceived him only in this point—you'd have to assume an earlier conspiracy.
This was roughly what I was trying to use the 500 to support—that Paul thinks it was public. Presumably many of these people would still be alive and Christian, so there should be people he could actually point to, if he's not lying. And I see no reason why he'd lie—he seems sincere in his valuing Christ's resurrection as central, and I don't know especially why he'd feel the need to make up lies to defend that—he could just go along with those who say the resurrection in itself isn't too important if he's insincere. Others lying to him is more plausible.
It's not like there's any hostile testimony to the resurrection.
Well, of course. There is hostile testimony that the body's gone, though.
The main option in competition, to me, would seem to be the one arguing that the disciples stole the body. This doesn't make too much sense to me. Why would they all lie and do this, right after Jesus just died for his religious teaching? And then live out the rest of their lives based on this moment, preaching lies? They'd be desecrating a grave of one of their companions to die the same death, except this time knowingly based on lies. While also being theologically innovative, since it's not at all clear why stealing the body would be so important.
It also seems relatively unlikely that the gospel accounts would have women be the ones to have the lack body discovered first, if they were made up.
Pascal's wager fails because there are too many options*
You could say being a Christian of some kind is still better than being a non-believer, but since there are Christians who don't think non-believers necessarily go to hell, I'm not sure it really increases your chances all that much.
Yeah, this last bit is the only part that could get you out of Pascal's wager, I think. But you have to do better than "I'm not sure it really increases your chances all that much." It should have to be exactly 0 or negative, or the size of the reward or penalty will be enough to overcome any finite benefit or penalty. So you'd have to be committed to thinking that you'll be better off between all these worlds following none of them than any pro-Christianity course of action in any one of them. Given what the actual new testament seems to say (that no one can be saved except through Christ), I think that's less likely. Further, if anyone thinks non-believers don't necessarily go to hell, that's usually because they either think that those who didn't have a chance go to heaven (guess what, you've read this, you have a chance), or they think that good works, are sufficient, which would encourage pretty heavily some action on your part. At least, that's how that method to escape the wager seems to work to me.
Could you expand on your four main points?
*Summary put there for organizational purposes, not direct quotes
Felagund
9mo ago
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Well, I don't think God has a cause, so that's not quite the argument. It's pretty dangerous epistemically, to say that things can be arbitrary, though, unless you manage to justify restricting that. I mean, why not think this comment I'm writing is uncaused? Or that a black hole is about to causelessly appear in your house? Or that the universe will vanish in two seconds?
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Sort of. But you also get orderly worlds which are more bizarre (remember, think how many ways there are for unusual things to happen), and it also destroys induction, because of all the worlds where it was ordinary for the past however many billion years except for a bizarre change three seconds from now dwarfs the ones where it continues ordinarily, but anthropically look identical.
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It doesn't require an enormous level of credulity to require ordering one's life around it, for pascal's wager type reasons.
Felagund
9mo ago
Sure, I'll try my hand.
Let's start with the existence of God. What's seemed the strongest argument to me is just the question, why is there something rather than nothing?
Why does anything exist? What caused the big bang? The only answer that doesn't lead to an infinite regress, so far as I can tell, is that something must necessarily exist. The main candidates for this that I've heard of are a God of some form, or a Tegmark IV multiverse—the extreme of mathematical platonism, where everything possible exists.
(What about just things happening utterly randomly and causelessly? I'd be really worried about that breaking induction—why doesn't that happen again. To be clear, I'm not talking about the constrained randomness of quantum mechanics. What about a loop or an infinite regress? I'd think we can just collect all the terms and ask if that has a cause.)
The first hypothesis seems more likely than the second, because it seems to better explain why I'd find myself in an orderly world. There are many more ways to disorder something than to order them—e.g. there's only one world where the laws of physics continue as usual, but a much greater number where they broke down 3 seconds ago. I'd also be worried about whether things like Boltzmann brains could end up being common enough to harm our epistemology—not in itself a measure of likelihood, but one hurting pretty severely the ability to do epistemology, since again, the law of induction becomes pretty broken. I'm also unsure whether consciousness harms the ability encapsulate everything mathematically, which the Tegmark hypothesis would seem to require.
Let's say there's some a pretty good chance there's some necessarily existent thing out there. What sort of thing might it be? One perfect in every way seems like one of the relatively more likely possibilities, though it might be hard to say what's a perfection. Not sure how to do anything more exact here, but a pretty decent a priori probability is enough to matter, I'd think.
Okay, that's all towards some form of theism. What about Christianity in particular? The largest obstacle, I think, to most people is that miracles seem really unlikely. This is mitigated to a pretty substantial extent if you think that a god exists. Once there's a mechanism to account for miracles existing, that seems to raise the probability a good bit. If you will, it's no longer something beyond some unbreakable laws of physics, since it's something allowed under the true laws of physics that aren't usually in play. (If you still find it hard to believe that this sort of thing can happen, do you also treat the simulation hypothesis as absurd—at least, if it thinks that there could be intervention once in a while.) But in any case, some documentary evidence and some accompanying historical evidence seem rather sparse to believe in a resurrection from the dead. I think the accompanying teachings of the christian scriptures significantly raise the reasonableness of thinking that it took place, since it places it in a context where this is at least something not improbably, where this is the way to accomplish some aims. This is especially the case since descriptions of what took place were written hundreds of years beforehand—see Isaiah 52:13 through to the end of Isaiah 53. The gospels and epistles are also better than average for ancient historical texts in some other respects—they're written not too long after the death of Jesus, within the lifetime of those who knew him when he was alive. Paul, at one point, refers to 500 people who witnessed Christ after his death.
Let's say that all that argumentation fails. There still seem to be reasons that it might be a sensible thing to adhere to, even if you think it's relatively unlikely. Pascal's wager is formidable, for one. Ethics or purpose seem a good bit easier to come by, which, by no means necessary, do mean that those worlds might be ones that you should concern yourself with more.
Felagund
10mo ago
What I mean by deterrence is that the excellent philosophers of antiquity (probably including Philo) crafted Christianity in an attempt at an optimal way of life, which included the essential concepts of reinforcement and punishment baked in — or, incentive and deterrence.
But that isn't really the case, at least, universally across Christianity. Protestant strains of Christianity separate works from reward in a way that removes much of the incentives. Protestants do of course believe that you should do good things, and they do believe that those who are changed will be sanctified, not remaining in the mire of sin to the same extent, but salvation in the end is not based upon the quality of the subsequent works. This lessens the incentives, and ends up with good works being done more out of duty or gratitude or, well, just thinking that it's a good thing to do.
I guess I also don't really see why you identify as a Christian (which I assume you do by the final us), if you seem to think of it as a merely human sociological phenomenon. Do you think it's beneficial, but not true? A noble lie?
This view of Christ is sorely lacking. You seem to view Christianity as an attempt to make people good. And so, it seems that Christ is useful, but not essential.
I see Christianity as the manifestation of the divine work of reconciling God and man. Christ cannot be dispensed with in this, he is at the center of everything. The second Adam, our substitute, the mediator between God and man, our intercessor, the firstborn from the dead. In Ephesians, this is shown powerfully, as over and over again we are told that every blessing that we have, from predestination to adoption to redemption to our inheritance is all "in Christ." Our being made better is merely one (important) aspect of that work.
Felagund
10mo ago
It wasn't about incorporation, it was about federal funding and Title VI, I believe?
Felagund
10mo ago
I don't think that's Caplan's primary cases for immigration; though I admittedly haven't read enough of him in a while. My impression was that it was mostly economics-oriented, in that it relocates a lot of people to much more efficient jobs (since the market is willing to pay them vastly higher quantities), driving economic growth.
Felagund
11mo ago
By starting with "given that you exist," you're assuming away the part you can learn from. Starting from an objective not-taking-into-account-yet-that-you-exist estimate of likelihood that a random universe would be able to contain life, you should have some estimate of a likelihood that a universe could contain life.
But now that there's some agent, that's data! That's information! You can use that to shift your beliefs. Now you're about to respond that there will always be an agent whenever you have the opportunity to think about these things. Maybe so. But there won't always be an agent in the universes in the world-model we were just talking about. And those worlds where there is one look different from the worlds where there isn't one. They were created by mechanisms that result in a higher probability that such agents come to exist. And so you should assume that you, in actuality, are more likely to be in the higher-probability portions, than you'd think on a basis that ignores your coming to exist.
Per your surgery case, I don't think your conclusion is true? Most people who survive a surgery do it in cases where survival is likely, so I would think that you should think that you're among that pool. That seems like another case where the bare fact of your existence provides evidence about the world.
Well, that's not quite just your existence, since what I just said requires knowing how often other people survive surgery, but it would still seem in the general case that you should update to some extent (it may be a small one, depending on your prior knowledge) towards your surgery having odds of survival by waking up.
See Joe Carlsmith's account of SIA here for one analysis that would incline one towards being in universes where more people exist. It's fairly rigorous, but not without difficulties. I don't remember it addressing the question exactly as we've posed it, but it's definitely very relevant.
I'm not convinced that it's quite the same framing as I had used above for the first two paragraphs, so maybe I'll have to think about whether any of that needs revising. But I'm still pretty confident that you coming to exist provides you information that you can use to shift your beliefs.
Felagund
1yr ago
I think libel is still useful for thinking about it. Not to say that it violates the laws, and so should be illegal already (well, I assume there's no case for it being libel with the current laws, a lawyer would know better), just to say that the same reason that we might think libel laws are good laws might apply here. I was more arguing that it's fundamentally the same sort of thing as libel is, not that it's actually legally libel.
But again, I'm not sure how much of that is me rationalizing.
Felagund
6d ago
To the owner of the self-driving car would be another option, maybe? This seems like it would better work with cars that have a full self-driving mode, but could also be driven ordinarily.
I'm not convinced that self-driving cars would be banned, instead of just way more expensive. It would depend on how much liability they would tend to have.
Felagund
7d ago
I'm trying to parse that translation you offered, but it's very dense and I'm having trouble making sense of it. Could you summarize the point of view Quenstedt is offering here?
What Quenstedt is doing there is summarizing the views of Roman Catholics, on the question of what worship is due to the human nature of Christ. This is in the midst of a list of groups that he presents as disagreeing with his (the Lutheran) position on it. As to what's happening in the paragraph: he cites Thomas, Alexander of Hales, and Tanner as what seems essentially your view: Christ's human nature can be worshiped with latria, but per se, only hyperdulia. He then says that Bellarmine and Petavius disagree, in that they would not think that latria can be ascribed to Christ's human body, because latria can only be applied to things per se, not by a habitus. (At least, that's how I read it.) Then, he finishes by citing places for further reading.
My guess is he's saying Christ's humanity deserves latria ipso facto, which would be fair, I get that, I'm actually rather uncomfortable with the whole presupposition here that we can separate our worship of Christ's humanity from that of his divinity, even in thought, I'd rather not even conceive of categories here, let's just worship Christ the Incarnate Son of God.
I think Lutherans would reject the latria/dulia distinction outright, but I could be misremembering. If you want to read it for yourself, and know Latin, here it is. Pages 200-201 are what I quoted, in the midst of a larger passage. He does a nice job formatting, so it should be fairly organized. But yes, he would just say that it deserves latria. Lutherans have a more thoroughgoing view of the effects of the hypostatic union and the communicatio idiomatum, hence why they sometimes do things like ascribe ubiquity to the human nature of Christ.
I read a bunch of authors on this topic across denominations in the 17th century not too long ago, and it was funny how they were all saying that one of the problems with the positions of the other people was that they were too much like that of the Catholics, since their positions would imply something too similar to a dulia/latria distinction.
That being said, while there's clearly a strain of theological opinion here, I don't actually think there's a dogmatic definition on the matter even in Catholicism. I know of no teaching authority in the Catholic Church that focuses on this issue, though maybe one exists. More solemnly, Church councils have resisted talking about Christ's humanity and divinity separately, probably because talking about offering different worship to each hypostasis is incredibly misleading and dangerous.
This seems correct.
I think it's enough to say that Christ deserves to be worshipped as God because he is God, and also to be devoutly honored as the greatest among men because he is the greatest possible man. Delving too deep into where both things come from and how that relates to the hypostatic union and such strikes me as perhaps scholasticism delving a bit too deep into the mystery of the Incarnation in a way that could easily lead someone who's not incredibly careful into serious error. This seems like something where a non-Chalcedonian could easily say, "see, look how Chalcedon is misleading!" Let's just agree not to send this to the Oriental Orthodox, hm?
Seems reasonable.
I was on mobile when I typed my comment so I didn't see the hyperdulia reference in the Summa. Good catch! This is something that's never talked about in lay theology, I have never seen hyperdulia in reference to anyone but the Virgin Mary. It's generally treated as a gerrymandered category for her alone. But saying that Christ deserves hyperdulia with respect to his humanity makes a lot of sense, it puts it as essentially "dulia intimately connected with the incarnation of the Word."
Yup, this was essentially all that I was trying to get at with my original comment.
The problem is that it reads to me as having a higher chance of biasing the typical person against you rather than for you, unless done very carefully.
You could point to culture, but yes, it's to answer that sort of question when it might be most reasonable to bring it up.
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