OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
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User ID: 359
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
9mo ago
The filter works in reverse too. If a woman acts crazy because a man asked her out, then the man is better off not dating her. Best to figure that out early, instead of pining and waiting for her to ask him.
I also think the idea of a woman liking a man first is flawed. Women's sexuality is responsive. Read romance novels. How many women-centered romance novels are about the woman meeting a guy, liking him first, and pursuing him? How many feature one or more men adoring the female protagonist first, then the protagonist coming around to the idea of loving one of the men?
Women have crushes, but a strong component of their desire is the feeling of being pursued (in a safe, playful manner.)
If we're building a whole dating culture where men can't ask women out first, then no wonder nobody's having sex.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
1mo ago
It doesn't help to just continue abuse because, "well, she's already been abused before so now it's on her to repent." Which is what it comes across as when all I said is that Christians should love her instead of verbally abuse her and people are objecting to that.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
1mo ago
I didn't say that anywhere. I'm saying, love comes first, then repentance. Repentance is necessary. But it doesn't happen first.
Les Miserables is on the mind, consider Jean Valjean and his moment of repentance. After a life of getting kicked around, he steals the Bishop's valuables. And in response, the Bishop loves him, saves him from going to Prison again, gives him more than he stole. And that is the moment that Jean Valjean actually feels sorry for his actions. Once he experiences true love.
You can say, that's just a story. But there is a reason why it rings true. The world is full of bitter people who will stay bitter forever unless someone breaks their shell with love.
Will it always work? No. But does it work? In my experience, yes.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
1mo ago
I, of course, agree that God is love and spend more time rejoicing in His love than getting into philosophical debates. I didn't pick the topic of conversation.
I am 100% correct to contest the word Omnibenevolence as it is not the Theist claim.
To say God is Love is to say God wills the good of all. What is that good? It depends on the nature. The God of philosophy is the Triune God.
As Catherine of Sienna reports God said to her, "I am He who is, and you are she who is not." When she wrote this, was she expressing how far away she was from God or expressing a closeness unfathomable?
I'm not writing about infused prayer over here. I'm picking a fight over a specific word.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
1mo ago
To be merciful is to exceed justice, to give someone something more than they deserve. To be less merciful would not indicate moral deficiency on God's part. We can be grateful for God's great mercy to us. But if God was less merciful we would not be able to judge God negatively.
Funny you bring mercy up here, I recently heard a priest say, in summary, "God's mercy to us is justice to Himself. Divine simplicity entails that God's mercy and justice are the same thing. It would be just to humanity for humans to never be redeemed, but it would have offended against what God owes to Himself - God's justice due to Himself. He deserves our reconciliation because that is what He created us for. Therefore He offers to us salvation, which is mercy to us but justice to Him."
I still insist, that when Catholics talk about God, we are taking in analogy. There are very few statements we can positively say that are true about God. Most of what we can say about God is what He is Not. This is called Apophatic theology.
It is true that Catholic.com uses unspecific language, because it is a apologetic outreach website and not a university-level publication.
that did not permit making any deeper claims about the supreme deity than can be made about a pretty sunset or a cuddly kitten!
Obviously God's greatness is far greater than a sunset or a kitten! I'm also arguing that His greatness is far greater than human understanding of good behavior. These are all poor analogies to the reality of the full significance of God's goodness.
If Orcus existed, I maintain that Catholics would not routinely say "Orcus is good", even if the statement could be narrowly defended.
Ok, here. Dolphins are good. They also rape and murder other sea creatures. Explain to me in your example the significant difference between Orcus and Dolphins so I can understand what you think I would object to.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
1mo ago
Why should we praise Him, if we cannot actually come to any conclusions of our own about whether he's morally good or not?
Do you praise a sunset for being morally good? Do you praise a cat because purring nicely on your lap is morally good? What does praise have to do with this?
I think something that may be confusing is that Jesus is praiseworthy in a moral way - He actually has a human nature and can be described in the framework of "well-behaved." But God the Creator can be praised for his steadfastness, the largeness of His creation, etc, without being praised for being a moral agent that does the right thing when its hard.
I am asking you to picture an entity with abilities comparable to those ascribed to Satan, but which never used to be an angel; a being for whom it is instinctive to maim and torture and corrupt in the same way that it is instinctive for a scorpion to sting.
Ok, I think I understand the question better. I thought you were asking if there was no God, but instead the Devil was God. Which confused me obviously.
If the question is then, "Can God create a creature for whom their good involves hurting other creatures?" and the answer is yes. He makes spiders and flies and calls them good, even though to us their value is difficult to identify.
But that is hardly the only thing Satan does. He also tempts people to chose depravity over behaving according to their own nature and God's will for them. Can God create a creature where this behavior is good for their nature? I think not, because it would be a contradiction in God's active will.
I think another confusion comes from the question, is it human nature to be prey, or is that a deprivation caused by the fall? Christianity teaches that it is not human nature to be prey, and that had there been no fall there would be no predation of humans by viruses or organisms. Natural disasters would not harm us somehow. Etc.
So a creature who's own good involves hurting humans, I would say that creating such a nature would be a contradiction to God.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
1mo ago
Angles live in an eternal moment. They do not have time and so do not change. They have free will, in which they make one choice - the choice to serve God or reject God.
Every being that can love has free will. God made angels to love, and so they have that choice - love God or not. Everything they do is a consequence of the single choice they made at the moment of their creation.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
1mo ago
When the Bible says "God is good" it is usually in the Psalms, sometimes in the prophets, and refers to God's faithfulness to His covenant with Israel. God is good = God keeps promises. I would argue that His nature doesn't let Him do anything but keep His promises, so it's not a statement that "God is well-behaved."
The other place we see God is good is when Jesus says, "What do you mean by calling me good? No one is good but God alone." Which you have to admit is cryptic and does not necessarily point to God being well-behaved.
it seems incoherent to conclude that God is beyond human judgement, while also asking man to sing His praises. Praise is by definition a value judgement. If God isn't an admirable being, then on what basis could the Church recommend that I praise Him, i.e. express admiration?
God is adorable, but He is definitely beyond human judgement. We can only adore him and praise him by analogy.
supposing you substitute your preferred nonexistent deity whose nature is destructive and malevolent
You are assuming that malevolence is a presence instead of a lack. A being that is pure act without any potential cannot be destructive, only creative. Destruction is a privation of the good, not an active existence. Your arguments have lots of assumptions that you have not examined.
And then you go on to say that the theology that is routinely mocked for arguing about friction-less thought experiments like "how many angels can fit on the head of a pin" isn't set up for friction-less thought experiments. :) There is a lot for you to learn if you want to open up a few philosophy books. Good day to you.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
1mo ago
I'm not sure I would agree that God has principles. He has a nature, and this nature cannot deceive or be deceived. Would you describe that as a principle that God has to live up to? I wouldn't.
if God punished people for being kind and generous, he'd still be good.
I don't see how. Or rather, I think you need to expand upon the scenario a lot more. What are these people's natures, can God make a creature whose nature is to not be kind/generous, does God punish people or simple refrain from rewarding people?
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
2mo ago
It's not a very abstract decision. It's what makes the "Liar, Lord, Lunatic" trilemma distinct about Jesus compared to the Buddha. The Buddha could simply be earnestly mistaken. He fasted and meditated, entered some weird mental/physical state, thought he understood something no one else did, passed it along. With Jesus, "earnestly mistaken" isn't an option.
If a guy like Jesus appeared in 2025, healing the sick and raising the dead and multiplying food in front of crowds of 5,000, some would call him mentally ill. But I don't think they'd be right to do so.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
4mo ago
First of all, it’s dependent on getting the money in the first place, and it’s probably pretty trivial to renounce citizenship and bugger off to a tax haven today, and given that “owning AI” doesn’t require you to be in the country at all, there’s nothing tying the guy who owns the company to the country the AI is in.
Say what you want about Andrew Yang, but his idea to tie UBI to a VAT might work. It doesn't matter where the wealthy are, if they want to buy or sell in the American market it pays into the system.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
6mo ago
Outbreeding and not killing their offspring. It seems to have been a numbers game.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
8mo ago
If america were to raid India or China or Israel, will people of the respective ethnicities not have a very high chance of siding with nations they come from?
This has been a concern throughout American history and there have been some level of sabatuar and unrest during wars from time to time. But most Americans, especially immigrants who choose to assimilate, side with America. People who drop everything with the dream of Being American, a sovereign in themselves, with unalienable rights and infinite opportunity, don't defect so easily. At least not when selected carefully.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
9mo ago
Then why don't you vote for a third party that aligns further with your preferences? People like to be a part of a movement, they want to have a good chance of winning instead of "throwing their vote away."
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
9mo ago
I don't have data on the "average illegal alien," but it does seem like some will make the attempt.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
10mo ago
How would you feel if two asexual people got married and didn't have a kid through intercourse or adopt?
This would closely resemble a Josephite marriage, which still has the potential of one of the partners saying, "I feel called to have sex now" and then the other partner owes the marriage debt. It works because they can still perform the action (a conjugal relationship) that makes a marriage a marriage.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
11mo ago
Do people sneer at Junior Varsity, Paralympics, and club sports? In the US at least we seem to be happy that someone's moving around at all, and will set up leagues for all sorts of ability levels and shower them with participation awards until kingdom come.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
11d ago
It seems like you are conflating things. Why would having sexual intercourse in general be the equivalent of shooting to kill? Where is that even coming from?
For my metaphor, the equivalent of shooting to kill would be having intercourse specifically on a day the woman is expected to be most fertile, in the hopes that it will bring forth new life. In fact, there are supposed tricks to time sexual intercourse to have a male or female baby (male sperm swim faster, so if you abstain from sex up until the moment of ovulation, there's like a 30% higher chance a male sperm will get there first.) Something like that would be shooting to kill. But just any old act of sexual intercourse is not this.
"Fufilling the act's primary purpose" - I'm not talking about the act's purpose. I'm talking about the object's purpose. That's the conflation many people are making on this thread. The object (Genitals, guns and bullets) and the act (firing a gun, engaging in sexual intercourse) are different. Still different are the things that the act can do (have a kid, target practice, etc). I'm not appealing to the Act's purpose at any point to describe what someone should do with the object.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
11d ago
No, by that logic, it's "using/having a gun for a reason other than shooting to kill [its primary purpose] is suspect" (so 'I'm just here to shoot targets because it's fun' is immoral and weird).
Where is this coming from? I really don't know what you are arguing against.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
30d ago
You are correct.
However, we still ought to show her love. Because "this is not working" doesn't immediately lead to "this is what I should be doing instead." I think she is at the point of "This is not working." Now would be a good time to show her the unconditional fierce love that Christians in her life have so far failed to provide.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
1mo ago
It is a lot like the blind-men-elephant analogy. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing though. We can see how that goodness interacts with us. Our own human goodness has its source in His goodness as well. Since our goodness has its source in His goodness, we can say that it really is something like a goodness we recognize. It's not some kind of alien shrimp colors. But it is vastly beyond our morality as well, encompassing it and exceeding it.
The average normie Christian hugs the elephant's leg and thinks it's just like us. Look, it has a torso to hug! And that's wrong, but not necessarily dangerous. The average normie 8th grader thinks that the Earth goes around the sun in a circle and that's wrong but not necessarily dangerous or impactful to how they go about their daily life.
But those who have reasoned more about it or have further experience with the Goodness of God start to see other parts of the elephant. The goodness of God inspires such sentiments as:
One evening, not knowing in what words to tell Our Lord how much I loved him, and how much I wished that He was served and honoured everywhere, I thought sorrowfully that from the depths of hell there does not go up to Him one single act of love. Then, from my inmost heart, I cried out that I would gladly be cast into that place of torment and blasphemy so that He might be eternally loved even there! (Story of a Soul, St. Therese of Lisieux.)
or
St. Catherine of Sienna had a vision where God told her, "I am He who is; and you are she who is not."
Or the desire many Catholics have to suffer, their only desired relief being the presence of mind to offer that suffering to God as a sacrifice for the salvation of souls.
The goodness of God starts to look kind of distorted and weird the deeper a soul dwells in it. A human can reach beyond just a leg and we start to see something immense, kinda scary, but still recognizable and connected to the leg. We have every reason to believe it goes on further and further, beyond our comprehension but still Goodness because it's all part of the same animal, connected together.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
2mo ago
Have you read The Sun Eater series?
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
2mo ago
Ugh! I had a comment almost 100% finished and then closed out the tab by accident.
Basically here are the four things Vatican I requires someone believe:
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The Pope is the chief bishop, primate and leader of the whole Church of Christ on earth
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He has episcopal jurisdiction over all members of the Church
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To be a member of the Catholic Church a man must be in communion with the Pope
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The providential guidance of God will see to it that the Pope shall never commit the Church to error in any matter of religion.
There are many, many people in the East, outside of Constantinople, who wrote things that either explicit agreed with these statements or logically entailed them.
If you want to imagine the longer version of my comment, I was mostly summarizing https://www.calledtocommunion.com/2012/08/archbishop-minnerath-on-rome-the-papacy-and-the-east/
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
2mo ago
The Orthodox would grant the Pope primacy, but for the Orthodox that means a position of honor as the first among equals. The Pope would not have direct universal jurisdiction over the whole church and could not alter dogma, as he did neither of those things prior to (the lead-up to) the schism.
The Council of Rimini in 359 had over 400 bishops in attendance. This council produced and agreed to the Arian formulas that, "the Son is like the Father according to the Scriptures" and "the Son is not a creature like other creatures." Pope Liberius recognized this as an attempt from Arians to lead to statements that Jesus is not God Begotten and rejected the council. Many who signed the council documents then repudiated it. In view of the lack of approbation by the Holy See, it had no universal authority. We see Papal Authority define dogma, superseding the findings of a council of over 400 bishops from the East and West.
but at the Ecumenical Councils did everyone just defer to the Pope? (at some he was barely involved) Did all the apostles just defer to St. Peter? St. Paul resisted him "to his face". The Council of Jerusalem was not decided by St. Peter and was presided over by St. James (if you want to go all the way back).
Papal primacy does not require the Pope to be always correct, to never be resisted, or for him to be involved with every dispute. However, for there to be a teaching out of a Council that is binding on the whole Church, it does require the acceptance of the Successor of Peter. Peter was present at the Council of Jerusalem, even if he's not the one who wrote the Council documents he set the tone and James promulgated it:
After much discussion, Peter got up and addressed them: “Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe. God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. He did not discriminate between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith. Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of Gentiles a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear? No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.”
I think most people don't understand that the Catholic Church does not make claims that the Pope is always correct or that he can just make up a new doctrine. The claim is not that the Pope is the one who has to call each council or determine the final council documents. We don't want the Orthodox to believe anything like that. We would just like for the same position of honor that was held in the past, because that is the road to unity instead of division.
Prior to the last 50 years or so there wasn't much discussion between the East and the West, and lots of misconceptions flourished. We didn't have as clear communication as we have now. The Petrine Doctrine is not the cartoon that (some) Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants act like it is.
I think from the Orthodox perspective what you are leaving out about the schism is that the Roman Catholics made an addition to the Creed.
That's because Dag said Catholics went off the rails in 1054, which is after the Filioque controversy. I would argue that the Filioque controversy is another instance of the East being intolerant towards Latin customs and usages.
Rome has never asked the East to say the words in their Creed. Eastern Catholic Churches do not say the Filioque. The East grew upset that the West created a new translation of the Latin text for internal Latin use.
The trouble with the Filioque is that, in Latin, there is no obvious difference between Spirate and Generate. In Greek it is clearer. The Greek word ἐκπορευόμενον (ekporeuomenon) refers to the ultimate source from which the proceeding occurs, but the Latin verb procedere (and the corresponding terms used to translate it into other languages) can apply also to proceeding through a mediate channel.
But if the persons of the Trinity are only distinct in relation to each other, and there is no distinction in the Latin Creed, then the Latins risk falling into heresy that either the Son and Spirit are the same or that there are differences in the Trinity that are not relational. In the Latin Church, the formulation "From the Father and the Son" has ancient roots, far older than the schism. Tertullian, Jereome, Ambrose, and Augustine all used this formula.
What about Ephesus I canon 7? Didn't that say that no other creed than the one promulgated at the First Council of Nicaea should be used? If that's the case, the East is in as much trouble as the West here. Because the creed from the First Council of Nicea isn't the one you say at your Divine Liturgy. Both the East and the West use the creed from the First Council of Constantinople. Take a look here, which do you use?
Ephesus I Canon 7 wasn't actually considered a part of the universal deposit of faith. Ephesus I canons 7 and 8 are omitted in some collections of canons and the collection of Dionysius Exiguus omitted all the Ephesus I canons. At the time, it was not held that they concerned the Church as a whole.
Indeed: https://www.npr.org/2025/04/14/nx-s1-5364502/trump-bukele-el-salvador-deportation
"The question is preposterous: how can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States?" Bukele said.
And video, the quote goes longer: https://x.com/Osint613/status/1911845751606423938
"We're not very fond of releasing terrorists into our country. You want us to go back to releasing criminals, so we go back to being the murder capitol of the world?"
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