HereAndGone2
No bio...
User ID: 4074
HereAndGone2
22m ago
HereAndGone2
32m ago
If anything I'd expect autists to be stubbornly sceptical of transgenderism's manipulation of the categories.
Never formally diagnosed so can't speak for proper autists, but sufficiently weird and isolated that I can throw my tuppence worth in here.
Back at puberty, I was very ignorant (these were the days before easily accessible information was everywhere and society was nowhere near as openly sex-soaked as now) and so it took me by surprise when my body started changing in ways I did not want! did not like! had not agreed to! So straight away that hits the "rigid psychological orthodoxy that gets agitated by change and unexpected, unexplained divergence from a familiar and accustomed situation/routine" buttons.
Second, suddenly all these limitations started popping up via my mother, mostly but not solely: "you can't do this thing you used to do before anymore now/you have to do that thing" and the only explanation, so far as I got one, was "well now you're a girl". But.... wasn't I a girl before? Why did these changes of "becoming a young woman" mean now all these new things I could not/had to do?
Third, I was never a 'girly girl' so never fit very well (physically or mentally, in what I was interested in) into the categories of "girls are like this". Take all those things on board and I was very much at times feeling "Gosh, it would be so much easier if I were a boy".
I grew out of that, eventually, but I can see how if nowadays there is the push for "kids can be trans! transgender is a thing that exists! make sure kids know all about all the options and don't restrict them to two sexes and one sexuality!" information and treatment, somebody who feels the way I did might conclude (because again, being on the spectrum, you go by your intelligence as your main strength and that is how you make decisions and once you convince yourself this is the right solution it's nearly impossible to budge) that they were indeed 'not the right gender'. Particularly for MtF getting the messaging that "wow, women have it so much easier in today's society, we are all forced to agree Women Are Wonderful, everything is set up for them".
If your body already feels alien to you, not really 'you' (that's your brain and your mind and your intelligence), and Science Has The Answer, then why not change to an easier model with clear(er) definitions that you can fit, simply by dressing this way, growing out your hair, wearing makeup, and taking medication to change the vehicle you have been saddled with? If you're already acting/masking to fit 'normie' perceptions, what's a bit more acting along with that?
HereAndGone2
43m ago
Maximal charity, transhumanist Catholic is probably anticipating the glorified body after the Resurrection a bit too early and too mechanically 😁
But, uh, regarding transgenderism (or indeed other bodily alterations of a drastic kind) "letting anyone, including children, do whatever they want to their own bodies" would not be in line with current teaching, no.
HereAndGone2
18hr ago
Nobody gave a rat's ass when girls were distributing pictures of 5-year-old me naked in high school, using them to openly sexually harass me.
They should have done and the adults around failed you.
HereAndGone2
18hr ago
Oh yeah, I think no-fault divorce was a disaster. But society wanted it, so society got it. All in the name of "make divorce amicable, it's better for kids to have separated parents than live in a home where the parents are angry and unhappy, and everyone should be able to move on and start over again".
Lessons don't get learned until much too late.
HereAndGone2
18hr ago
Kids can be surprisingly good at hiding things, and if the parents were liberal they probably didn't want to have a parenting style that would be seen as controlling (the old 'I want to be friends with my kids' style) and most of all not controlling of her sexuality. Very likely to have had no idea that precious daughter was setting up as sugar baby and would have been shocked to discover this.
Does sound like some of the Epstein girls, who earned money as highschoolers and recruited other girls into it with 'hey want to make some easy money, all you have to do is give a massage to this rich guy' and then years later present themselves as helpless victims.
The account sounds so familiar: girls that age thinking they are so adult and grown-up and can make their own decisions and nobody has the right to tell them what to do, getting attention and validation from older men, and not recognising how they are being exploited and exploiting others (even if she did lie about being 18 or 19, I do think if you're 30 or 40 and on such sites hunting for young women there is some responsibility on yourself there, but we've had this argument on here before about "men are attracted to younger females, every guy who is honest thinks 16-17 year olds are hot and bangable, science proves it" and more arguing over it will go nowhere).
I would imagine Aella's survey is very heavily tilted towards "community of people who are disproportionately likely to be outliers" so that a lot of non-cis/other flavours of queer people as respondents is more likely to show up. Ditto for "I was sexually assaulted" in the answers.
I think I tend to agree that it's hard to know if early sexual abuse leads to knock-on effects on mental health, including 'more likely to decide I'm some flavour of queer sexually/gender-wise' or if it's the case that 'kids who show signs of being somewhat isolated/outsiders are more likely to be picked as victims by abusers'. That is, if the kids are already inclined to mental problems/struggles with gender identity and/or sexuality and this signals to possible abusers that they are safer choices as victims, since they will be more likely to keep things secret and less likely to be believed if they tell anyone ('oh you're just lying again'/'that is just Uncle Phil being friendly'/'that can't possibly have happened, you must be mistaken or exaggerating').
Do you honestly not see why using pictures of real people to create sexual images might be offensive, even if the woman in question was sexually active? Would you not care if someone used a photo of you to create something like that and distributed it? You can call it a figleaf, but unhappily there are real guys out there who would indeed use a photo of the neighbour's four year old to create images of that child naked and sucking cock, and pass such images around.
Perhaps you don't object because if you got an AI-generated image of some hot chick you know, or a famous woman, or that bitch who refused to go out with you when you were seventeen, and she is used for porn material you can jerk off to, you'd be quite happy to use it that way. Perhaps you wouldn't care if such images were created and disseminated of you, because what harm is done? You never really got fucked by a stallion in real life, who cares if the kinksters are using your beach photo to show you taking horse cock? Maybe you think the guy who persuaded a 12 year old into sending him nudes, then tried to blackmail her with those and she eventually committed suicide, did nothing wrong (some people did comment along those lines before). After all, she freely gave him those images, so it served her right if he showed the world what a horny little bitch she really was, yes?
One of the victims, 12-year-old Cimarron Thomas, from West Virginia in the US, killed herself in May 2018 after McCartney threatened to share intimate images with her father.
After retrieving electronic devices from McCartney’s home, investigators discovered three years later that the girl died by suicide three minutes after the blackmail conversation.
The court heard that Cimarron had become deeply distressed and told McCartney she would go to the police and take her own life. But he said he did not care and gave her a countdown for when he would share the pictures.
Her body was found by her nine-year-old sister, and 18 months later her father, Ben Thomas, a US army veteran, also died by suicide, never knowing what had led his daughter to take her own life.
Some people do care, though. Personally, I think any woman who provides nudes or the like for a boyfriend is extremely stupid, but the betrayal there is that these were supposed to be intimate images for one specific person in the context of a relationship, not to be shared around or used to do reputational harm. That is what feels the most hurtful.
I'm cynical. Of course I think "don't trust men, they only think with their dicks and are vicious when not getting what they consider their right to get laid" but some women don't feel that way - until they get slapped in the face with it.
HereAndGone2
2d ago
Sure, but trying to solve the problem by "let's take away all freedom from women and turn them into property" is going to be the fastest way to breakdown you could try. "Oh but it works fine in Saudi Arabia/other countries that cover women from the crown of their head to the tips of their toes and murders them with impunity if even suspected of looking at a man". Yes, quite, and do you think there is no such thing as adultery or promiscuity or prostitution in those societies?
If no man wanted to fuck a woman outside of marriage, then all the thots and cock carousel and the rest of it could not happen. As ever, it's both sides of the coin: men want sex more than women, but don't want women to be sexually active if it's not with them, and they want the relationship to end when they want it to end, and the woman should both be experienced enough to be able to satisfy the man sexually but also never have had a boyfriend before or after him.
How do you think that happens? How do you think a woman gets to be good in bed if she hasn't been sleeping with other men before you? Why complain about the friendzone if there is not the expectation that "if I'm interested in a woman, it is for sex, and she should reciprocate that"?
I don't want to be unfair to men. But I do think a lot of misery has been caused by Sexual Liberation, where women thought they could behave like men when it came to love and sex, and there would be no pushback and no more double standard and no more unhappiness. Turns out that you cannot have it all, and that men and women do have different expectations around relationships, and women giving in to male sexuality has not in fact made either sex happier. All the old prudish warnings about "men only want one thing" turned out to be correct, and it's deeply ironic that now men are complaining about this (women sleeping with men they find attractive even without commitment on the man's part).
We can't go back to the past, and unless people all suddenly convert to traditional Catholicism regarding sexual mores (and even many/the majority of Catholics don't stick to the rules), we're not going to put the sexual genie back in the bottle. Men want sex, but they seem to resent women both not wanting sex as much as they do, and thus not being sexually available, and wanting sex and being too available. Women are not blameless, but it's hard to be blamed for being frigid (if you won't sleep with Ted) and a whore if you will sleep with Ted, and with Joe before him when he was your boyfriend, and with Bill after him when he is your new boyfriend.
Suppose that by some act of the simulation overlords in the morning all women refused to have sex outside of marriage, demanded that their boyfriends commit to proposing marriage before entering into a serious relationship, and everyone had to wait until marriage to have sex. There would still be a ton of male sexual frustration around this, there would be the demand for porn and prostitutes, and where do you get prostitutes if not women who either have high sex drives or are driven to it by economic necessity? And so do we then go back to the happy days of silver nitrate eyewash for newborns, due to the risk of blindness from gonorrhoeal infection of the mothers, often given to them by their husbands who frequented prostitutes? The kind of historical background to this story by Arthur Conan Doyle, based on medical experience, where the grandson of a man who contracted venereal disease is suffering from the transmission of the same down the generations?
“Perhaps I spoke a little abruptly,” said the doctor, “but you must have known the nature of your complaint. Why, otherwise, should you have come to me?”
“God help me, I suspected it; but only today when my leg grew bad. My father had a leg like this.”
“It was from him, then——?”
“No, from my grandfather. You have heard of Sir Rupert Norton, the great Corinthian?”
The doctor was a man of wide reading with a retentive, memory. The name brought back instantly to him the remembrance of the sinister reputation of its owner—a notorious buck of the thirties—who had gambled and duelled and steeped himself in drink and debauchery, until even the vile set with whom he consorted had shrunk away from him in horror, and left him to a sinister old age with the barmaid wife whom he had married in some drunken frolic. As he looked at the young man still leaning back in the leather chair, there seemed for the instant to flicker up behind him some vague presentiment of that foul old dandy with his dangling seals, many-wreathed scarf, and dark satyric face. What was he now? An armful of bones in a mouldy box. But his deeds— they were living and rotting the blood in the veins of an innocent man.
“I see that you have heard of him,” said the young baronet. “He died horribly, I have been told; but not more horribly than he had lived. My father was his only son. He was a studious man, fond of books and canaries and the country; but his innocent life did not save him.”
“His symptoms were cutaneous, I understand.”
“He wore gloves in the house. That was the first thing I can remember. And then it was his throat. And then his legs. He used to ask me so often about my own health, and I thought him so fussy, for how could I tell what the meaning of it was. He was always watching me—always with a sidelong eye fixed upon me. Now, at last, I know what he was watching for.”
“Had you brothers or sisters?”
“None, thank God.”
“Well, well, it is a sad case, and very typical of many which come in my way. You are no lonely sufferer, Sir Francis. There are many thousands who bear the same cross as you do.”
“But where is the justice of it, doctor?” cried the young man, springing from his chair and pacing up and down the consulting-room. “If I were heir to my grandfather’s sins as well as to their results, I could understand it, but I am of my father’s type. I love all that is gentle and beautiful—music and poetry and art. The coarse and animal is abhorrent to me. Ask any of my friends and they would tell you that. And now that this vile, loathsome thing—ach, I am polluted to the marrow, soaked in abomination! And why? Haven’t I a right to ask why? Did I do it? Was it my fault? Could I help being born? And look at me now, blighted and blasted, just as life was at its sweetest. Talk about the sins of the father—how about the sins of the Creator?” He shook his two clinched hands in the air—the poor impotent atom with his pin-point of brain caught in the whirl of the infinite.
The doctor rose and placing his hands upon his shoulders he pressed him back into his chair once more. “There, there, my dear lad,” said he; “you must not excite yourself. You are trembling all over. Your nerves cannot stand it. We must take these great questions upon trust. What are we, after all? Half-evolved creatures in a transition stage, nearer perhaps to the Medusa on the one side than to perfected humanity on the other. With half a complete brain we can’t expect to understand the whole of a complete fact, can we, now? It is all very dim and dark, no doubt; but I think that Pope’s famous couplet sums up the whole matter, and from my heart, after fifty years of varied experience, I can say——”
But the young baronet gave a cry of impatience and disgust. “Words, words, words! You can sit comfortably there in your chair and say them—and think them too, no doubt. You’ve had your life, but I’ve never had mine. You’ve healthy blood in your veins; mine is putrid. And yet I am as innocent as you. What would words do for you if you were in this chair and I in that? Ah, it’s such a mockery and a make-believe! Don’t think me rude, though, doctor. I don’t mean to be that. I only say that it is impossible for you or any other man to realise it. But I’ve a question to ask you, doctor. It’s one on which my whole life must depend.” He writhed his fingers together in an agony of apprehension.
“Speak out, my dear sir. I have every sympathy with you.”
“Do you think—do you think the poison has spent itself on me? Do you think that if I had children they would suffer?”
“I can only give one answer to that. ‘The third and fourth generation,’ says the trite old text. You may in time eliminate it from your system, but many years must pass before you can think of marriage.”
“I am to be married on Tuesday,” whispered the patient.
It was the doctor’s turn to be thrilled with horror. There were not many situations which would yield such a sensation to his seasoned nerves. He sat in silence while the babble of the card-table broke in upon them again. “We had a double ruff if you had returned a heart.” “I was bound to clear the trumps.” They were hot and angry about it.
“How could you?” cried the doctor severely. “It was criminal.”
“You forget that I have only learned how I stand to-day.” He put his two hands to his temples and pressed them convulsively. “You are a man of the world, Dr. Selby. You have seen or heard of such things before. Give me some advice. I’m in your hands. It is all very sudden and horrible, and I don’t think I am strong enough to bear it.”
The doctor’s heavy brows thickened into two straight lines, and he bit his nails in perplexity.
“The marriage must not take place.”
“Then what am I to do?”
“At all costs it must not take place.”
“And I must give her up?”
“There can be no question about that.”
The young man took out a pocketbook and drew from it a small photograph, holding it out towards the doctor. The firm face softened as he looked at it.
“It is very hard on you, no doubt. I can appreciate it more now that I have seen that. But there is no alternative at all. You must give up all thought of it.”
I have no idea what the solution is. But it certainly won't come from people like our friend speaking of "my wife" in the same sense they mean "my car" or "my shoes". We've had that, and it wasn't happy families, it was the kind of thing satirised by Dean Swift in "A Modest Proposal":
Men would become as fond of their wives, during the time of their pregnancy, as they are now of their mares in foal, their cows in calf, or sows when they are ready to farrow; nor offer to beat or kick them (as is too frequent a practice) for fear of a miscarriage.
HereAndGone2
2d ago
I mean, I read complaints on here about how women have it so easy in the dating market and that pretty much any woman can get sexual attention from pretty much any man.
Why is this? Because men are willing/desperate to stick their dick in a hole. So the male sex drive forces them to go to extremes to get that pussy, which means that providing she's not actively repugnant, Average Jane can have a hundred men competing to stick their dick in her. This then gives the Average Janes of the world way too high an opinion of their sexual marketplace value and they get too picky and fussy and won't even answer the desperate dating app cries of the Nice Guys.
Well, gentlemen, if you don't women to be spoiled, try turning the dial down so you are the ones more fussy about "if I don't get to stick my dick in someone soon, I'll literally die". Demand is outstripping supply in the sexual marketplace, and the dissatisfaction with women becoming more promiscuous to meet that demand is also the cri-de-coeur of the men out there. If you want women who are discriminating and only willing to date and eager to marry Nice Guys, then be more discriminating and stop dating (even for the single night it takes to get to stick your dick in her) the easy women.
Problem solved?
I don't mean to be mean, but I do get continually surprised - which is on me - how easy male sexuality is, based on comments elsewhere about "when I was 11/12/13 years old, I was fantasising about my hot teacher and jerking off to thoughts of the girls in my class". Just have the appropriate bits (be that for leg men, breast men, etc.) and they will reliably go "sproing!" and want to hit that. Then they are surprised and hurt when the objects of their sproinging do not want to reciprocate, and yet also angry that women will go around letting guys sproing them much too easily so they are not suitable wife-objects.
A man needs to know, when he marries, that he owns his woman from that day forth, the same a man needs to know, when he buys a car, that he owns that car from that day forth
I understand the usual response to that is "Lincoln done freed the slaves".
If, in the year of our Lord 2026, you unironically want to own a woman, then no wonder there's a problem getting women to marry and have kids. Why, if you have the choice between "get a job, earn a living, pay your own way and be free" versus "be totally dependent economically on a man who puts you in the same category as a possession like his car", would you pick the man?
Why are some comments here making me (1) eternally thankful to God Almighty for leaving out the wiring in my brain that goes "I want to fall in love with a man and be his" and (2) want very much for those producing such comments to be reborn as a woman under the conditions they so want to impose?
Can you not hear yourselves? Do you think any decent woman would want to go within a mile of a man who thinks she should be literal chattel? Do you understand why such comments and attitudes drive feminism, and indeed drive it to the extremes which are bad for everyone? Is anyone really surprised Chinese or Japanese or Korean women would prefer to be spinsters?
'revenge porn' is yet more salami-slicing away of that ability
Okay, let me put this question to everybody here.
Suppose women lose all sense of shame. They've sent intimate photos and videos to their boyfriend because that's how modern relationships work. Then they break up. Maybe it was a bad breakup. Former boyfriend is now pissed-off and is threatening them that unless they get back together, all their intimate photos and videos will be shared with everyone. Or maybe former boyfriend skips the threats and goes straight to uploading this on porn websites etc.
And the woman goes "Go right ahead, I don't care. Sure, send that full-frontal all-angles nothing concealed nude photo of me to my employer and my work colleagues. That video you wanted of me fucking myself with a vibrator? Yeah, send it to my granny. Hey, if you make any money off all that, remember to split it with me!"
That takes revenge porn off the table, because how can there be revenge if the blackmail element is removed? If women behave like men and are "I don't care if he's using my nudes to AI deepfake videos of me fucking dogs"? EDIT: I'm asking that in the context of the comments on here about "but what harm is really done if photos of women and children are used to create fake porn? why is this a concern? why are people worried about their images being used as masturbation material, if a guy wants to jerk off imagining a particular woman he knows, he can do that in his imagination so you can't stop it, and if you don't know why would you feel hurt about it?"
But would you like women to be like that? Or would it just be more "women are sluts who need their sexual autonomy removed and to be controlled by fathers and husbands" fuel for the fire?
EDIT: Oh, and gentlemen, if you find success with the ladies eludes you, could it be because you are neglecting your intimate hygiene? Luckily Lysol will solve that for you! Regular douching with something that makes you smell like coal tar down there will surely be irresistible!
HereAndGone2
6d ago
Russia not great, Putin definitely not great, but we're all friends now (or at least back then) because it's no longer the USSR, the Cold War is over, and we have no reason to be flinging nukes at each other anymore, right?
The reset was an Obama initiative in 2009. There have been swings in the "friends/not friends" arc between the West and Russia over those "decades and decades" of being an enemy.
Hunter Biden was a different matter, but I think yes, he got paid to basically be Dad's Boy and be the introduction between Ukrainian (and Chinese, let's not forget that either) interests and the White House due precisely and solely to Joe's position. Without Joe being in power or near to it, Hunter is not getting paid spit.
HereAndGone2
6d ago
Oh, indeed, but if OP was wanting breaking up into separate denominations to compete on attractive art and something, then they have to accept that some of that competition results in the likes of megachurches, which copied the poor parts of secular pop culture and decided this was the future of church.
I can't throw stones when it comes to terrible architecture and crimes against liturgy, because we have our fill of concrete warehouses post-Vatican II as churches, not to mention one horrible example of wreckovation from my own town where an inoffensive 19th century Gothic Revival parish church was pulled to pieces in the name of accessibility or some stupidity, and now the interior is a mess and the marble etc. that past generations proudly contributed towards, for the sake of beauty, has been ripped out and would have been dumped or otherwise disposed of, had not a local group managed to repurpose some of it for a grotto on a main road.
There's also the other example, where cherrypicking from liturgies and architecture and vestments and icons of Orthodox traditions has been co-opted by liberal churches; they have the beautiful visuals but they also burnish their LGBT+ credentials. One has one's own opinion on how fruitful this is, and indeed it may well be, but it's not producing anything of its own, it's copying the past because it's aesthetically appealing.
I think a church/denomination needs more than merely aesthetic appeal.
HereAndGone2
8d ago
I would even like the Catholic Church to split into different denominations so that the one with the best spirit and art can triumph.
We did that. It's called the Protestant Reformation. How do you like your megachurches?
There's also the splinter 'Catholic' denominations like the Old Catholics or the Women Priests (a couple at least separate ones of these) or the liberal parishes still formally within the Church or the very traditionalist ones which split off around Vatican II and eventually went either full-bore liberal themselves or totally nuts (I'm distinguishing these from the traditionalist ones who remained in communion).
(I'm with Cardinal Arinze on this kind of thing).
A separate denomination means separate theology and separate doctrines, so you can't call it "the" Catholic Church if it splits. You're looking for something more like the Anglican Communion where it's all separate national churches who can go their own way if they feel like it but are in loose bonds of association.
It also depends how you measure "spiritual change" and "fruits"; 'we now accept and ordain gay trans lady bishops in polyamorous relationships who refer to God as 'she' amongst one set of the deities of your choice or none and are also Muslim Buddhist Wiccan rabbis' may be deemed the greatest, most advanced, spiritual fruit by one set of measurements and completely the opposite by a different set of measurements.
HereAndGone2
9d ago
I do see what you are getting at, but (for one) I hadn't heard about the Bigfoot news so that was genuinely new and informative for me. Maybe this would have worked better for Friday Fun Thread, but thanks for that one, Eetan!
HereAndGone2
9d ago
there hasn't been much of an investigation into why the Adams County Sheriff's Office so erroneously believed that he smuggled drugs or kidnapped people
That is what is fascinating. They got the wrong address and the real drug-smuggling kidnapper rap star was someone else? An anonymous tip? Did Afroman have a bad breakup or is in a beef with another rap star? The mind boggles.
HereAndGone2
9d ago
I can genuinely say I never heard that song. Huh.
HereAndGone2
9d ago
MAGA seems fine with age-gap relationships and men using power to get sex from of-age girls.
See the case mentioned below, about the 26 year old professor and the 22 (or 20? I saw that age elsewhere) undergraduate. Oh, the age gap involved! Clearly he abused his power over her! A whopping 4 to 6 years difference!
Worrying about age gaps can get ridiculous. No, an adult man (or woman) should not be trying to get intimate with a child. No, 'X is 6 years older than Y' when they're both in their 20s or 30s is not the same thing.
HereAndGone2
11d ago
To be fair, a lot of people have no idea what Purgatory is intended to be, even among Catholics (we like to joke that nobody is as ignorant of the doctrines of the faith as a born-and-bred Catholic). Pop culture depictions sure don't help, either, because pop culture is where most people get their information today. Even otherwise smart and informed people, I've winced a time or two watching old Time Team episodes where they cover things like monasteries or early British Isles saints or pre-Reformation churches in Britain and they get it sorta right in a way but clearly have no idea of the doctrine behind it or why people did that in that way.
It's not a 'second chance', it's not "get out of Hell free" card, it's not "well if you're not bad enough for Hell you go there to get into Heaven". The souls in Purgatory are saved, they just need the refiner's fire.
Years back I did some explaining of Catholic doctrines to interested post-Evangelicals on a now-defunct site, and having to look up the exact doctrinal definitions did a lot for my own understanding. Most people know about it from "oh yeah, the Reformation, selling indulgences, 'penny pops into the box soul pops out of Purgatory'" and that is not it.
To be fair, it is a tricky definition that relies on legalism as it were, so it's not surprising people get it wrong. It's easy to get confused. To quote myself from that explanation post of yore:
Purgatory deals with the temporal effects of sin, the satisfaction of Divine Justice. Once again, the Catechism:
“The punishments of sin
1472 To understand this doctrine and practice of the Church, it is necessary to understand that sin has a double consequence. Grave sin deprives us of communion with God and therefore makes us incapable of eternal life, the privation of which is called the “eternal punishment” of sin. On the other hand every sin, even venial, entails an unhealthy attachment to creatures, which must be purified either here on earth, or after death in the state called Purgatory. This purification frees one from what is called the “temporal punishment” of sin. These two punishments must not be conceived of as a kind of vengeance inflicted by God from without, but as following from the very nature of sin. A conversion which proceeds from a fervent charity can attain the complete purification of the sinner in such a way that no punishment would remain.
1473 The forgiveness of sin and restoration of communion with God entail the remission of the eternal punishment of sin, but temporal punishment of sin remains. While patiently bearing sufferings and trials of all kinds and, when the day comes, serenely facing death, the Christian must strive to accept this temporal punishment of sin as a grace. He should strive by works of mercy and charity, as well as by prayer and the various practices of penance, to put off completely the “old man” and to put on the “new man.”
To take the very concrete example which we discussed in the post on the Seal of the Confessional, many commenters were of the opinion that, regardless of the absolution of the sin, the necessity for the punishment of the crime remained. Temporal justice must be satisfied. The priest should break the seal and inform the civil authorities of the matter so that the law of the land could be followed. This was not just for vengeance, but to protect the victims, prevent further crime, and as evidence of true repentance and for reparation and restitution.
Congratulations, you all realised the purpose of Purgatory!
HereAndGone2
11d ago
Ah, you mean like where he has pagan characters both real and from fiction among the saved? Yeah, he pushes the envelope a lot. And he uses literary devices to suit his own purposes, e.g. the terraces of the mountain of Purgatory and the circles of Hell.
But he doesn't go straight into heresy or other definitely contradictory to doctrine issues (sure, he picks and chooses amongst the listing of the nine choirs of angels and it's maybe a bit presumptuous of him to put his preference into the mouth of a saved soul in Heaven, but it's not something that is definitively sinful).
He's solid on the basics, and good grief did I need that, because like I said: the old catechism had been tossed out, the new thing was all the social-justice stuff (even if not under that name) with the result that years later, I was the only person in a group of about twenty women who could recite the Ten Commandments. I'll take "unorthodox but not heretical approach to theology" over "how many what now?" modern 'education'.
HereAndGone2
11d ago
This was at a time when the best known lesbian musician was Melissa Ethridge, was a conventional rock and roller who sang about love and loss but always in gender nonspecific terms.
Hey! What about k.d. lang? I've heard of her and I've heard her songs, I can't think of a single Melissa Etheridge song off the top of my head.
Kids these days, don't even know they're born!
HereAndGone2
11d ago
Oh, there's a lot of ignorance around. The problem in the immediate wake of Vatican II was that the baby got thrown out with the bathwater; religious education/Christian Doctrine/catechism classes in schools got scrapped or turned into "let's discuss social justice!" instead of teaching doctrine. The idea was that we'd get rid of all the old legalistic formulism and have personal relationships with Jesus and be people of the Spirit, unfortunately part of that relied on "well the family and the home should be where faith is transmitted, it's not the job of the school".
So the schools thought the parents would teach the basics. But the problem there was (1) the parents were used to the schools being the place where the catechism was taught (2) they had learned it all off by rote but didn't have a solid understanding (this was the problem the new paradigm was trying to address) so they couldn't explain and teach basic doctrines because they didn't understand themselves in the first place.
So that left the kids falling between two stools. I'm just old enough that I did get the old-fashioned "these are the Ten Commandments" type teaching up to sixth class, but I'm not joking (or only half-joking) when I say I get all my theology out of Dante. The notes for non-Catholics as to what he's talking about in the various translations published are really useful.
HereAndGone2
11d ago
Some kind of proper ID would be great because it's inconvenient both for the person applying and the person processing the application to have to deal with "okay we need this physical piece of paper with your address on it, no that physical piece of paper won't do" (there was a case of someone applying for social housing who tried using 'address envelope from magazine subscription' as proof of address and got very het-up when we wouldn't accept it. The reason, in part, why it wasn't accepted was local knowledge; the applicant was trying to claim they were living in a shed on family property and had no other accommodation, while we knew the family house was large enough that they could live inside and probably were living inside and were not in technical need).
Irish government tried this with the Public Services Card as a universal ID card but the Usual Suspects put the kibosh on it as an identity card for the usual reasons. So now there's the ironic situation where a state-issued photo ID card can't be used as proof of identity, but if you have a photo ID card from an employer or a passport, sure that's fine!
I know part of the objection is that people could lie about the details on the official ID card, but if they're gonna lie, they'll lie anyway about driver's licence or passport or the likes.
Do you know what she told her parents? Did she lie about going to a friend's house, or that she was meeting Teacher Jones for extra tuition, or just going to the library/other activity where she could plausibly be out of the house for a few hours?
People can also be very trusting of motives, and if they had no idea in their heads that "my 14 year old daughter is being sexually active", then her meeting up with respectable older men where she's explaining it as "that's Janey's dad, Janey is a girl in my class, he's just driving me over to Janey's house" can work. Or they could have known and have been trying to control her but not able to, that happens as well. Locking a teenager in their room might not be illegal but it could be presented (especially if she was manipulative) as a pattern of abusive behaviour by the parents.
More options
Context Copy link