OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
No bio...
User ID: 359
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
4mo ago
People seem to misunderstand the suit comment. It's not like Zelenskyy cannot afford a suit. It's not a class commentary.
World leaders dress to send a message. Zelenskyy knows this, it's why he has been wearing his black outfit since the start of the invasion. The black outfit shows that he is a wartime president, fighting an existential threat to the last man.
Trump doesn't want the Ukraine to fight to the last man. He wants a peace. Suits are the clothing of negotiations and treaties.
The clothing is one of many things that caused yesterday to break down.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
1yr ago
Speaking for myself, I didn't see any point to dating in high school or college, because I always knew that I would move states afterwards and didn't want to have to breakup. In college my Mom would tell me that I could be a little less practical.
Now that it's been 10 years I realize that the whole point of my Ivy league education was to meet people and that dating would have been a better use of my time than doing my homework. But at the time I didn't understand.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
1mo ago
For my background - I am the mother of four kids, the oldest of which is a handful and the third of which has some kind of birth defect that currently requires a fake eye and may require a kidney transplant when he's a teen.
When I say the oldest is a handful, I mean that she is seven years old and has been suspended from school twice for running away from school and across a busy street without looking. Let's call her A. I have trouble taking her places - either I take her by herself somewhere or I leave her behind and take the 6, 3, and 2 year old. It is much easier to take the 6, 3, and 2 year old places together than it is to take A by herself. She is a wonderful child 90% of the time, but 10% of the time she gets stuck on a Bad Idea. Literally stuck, she repeats a phrase over and over again, does not listen to anything, only snaps out of it after 20 or so minutes.
A babysitter quit because one of her "stuck ideas" was to get revenge on the sitter for some slight (didn't get the right color dinner plate, if I remember correctly.) Another stuck idea was to get to the check out line first in a busy Home Depot garden center - I had a toddler in a stroller, a 3 year old walking as fast as he could, and couldn't keep up with the lithe unencumbered A. I lost sight of her and wandered around Home Depot until the intercom said she was at the front - she tried to run into the parking lot by herself but an employee stopped her.
She officially has ADHD and I am supposed to take A to a therapist to treat her for this. They don't think she has ODD because she always feels remorse after. I think she might have high-functioning autism because she also has a very black/white way of looking at things. If someone doesn't predict the future she calls it a lie. Ex. "Can we go outside this afternoon?" "Yes, if the weather stays nice." then if it rains and we have to stay inside, "You lied!"
However, when I filled out the PIC-2 questionnaire with full candor and honesty, the Neuropsych wrote in her parent-facing notes: "[OracleOutlook] responded to the measure in such a way that she reported a slightly higher number of symptoms than is typical for A’s age. This is likely due to increased stressors in their life and not true feigning of symptoms; however, results were interpreted with caution." I suspect we are years away from getting a full diagnosis for whatever is going on with A.
I don't write all this to complain or ask for advice. I am trying to get across the experience of having a "bad kid." I don't take the other kids to as many places as I would like. I worry that they are picking up bad adaptations to having a turbulent, violent personality living with them. The next oldest has a fawn response. The younger two like to hit back. It's not great.
I also have a lot of medical costs from the third child with the eye prosthetic. When he was an infant he needed a new conformer every month or so, which is pretty pricey.
This isn't even getting into pregnancy, which is a crap shoot as you noted.
Ultimately life is a risk. The question is, is it worth it? I say yes. Humans throughout history said "yes" through worse difficulties and dangers.
There are many good reasons to be done having kids. Mine is that I want to increase the odds that my husband is alive and well up to the point the youngest turns 18.
One consideration is that having one difficult kid is hard, but I actually think it gets easier when you have more kids who are better behaved. I'm glad I didn't stop at A. If I had, I would assume there was something wrong with my parenting that caused her emotional disturbances. I also get to have "normal kid experiences" with the other kids.
If your complicated kid is the youngest, it's probably easier to manage. I've seen families where they keep going until they have 5-7 kids, hit a kid who needs more attention, and then stop. They seem pretty happy, even when they need to have specialized schooling, medical procedures, etc. It seems easier for an experienced parent to manage, and they also have older kids in middle school/high school who can help out more with chores and babysitting.
While having a really needy or psychotic child can be really bad, the odds of it happening without a clear family history are around the same as getting into a really bad car accident. Going into each pregnancy I worried about it around as much as I worry about getting paralyzed on a road trip, which is to say not overly much - certainly not enough to make me reconsider.
I hope this helps give you more to consider. I'm not trying to persuade you to have another kid, just give a different perspective on the "getting unlucky" phenomenon. I love A. I wish she didn't get "stuck" most days, but I'm glad she's here. I'll do whatever it takes to raise her right.
Also, life is sadder without a 1 year old in the house. It just is. I have a long ways to go before I get a grandkid to play with but I look forward to it already.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
26d ago
Breaking news: Trump is saying he will not be deporting illegal immigrants who work on Farms and in Hotels.
Gavin Newsom is claiming it for a win for the violent riots that have taken over LA and other major cities.
This is a bit of a let down for Trump Supporters and anyone who wants to take America back from those who were not invited. Especially with Gavin Newsom rubbing it in the public's face. Especially with American Approval of deportation efforts have been increasing.
Trump's rationale appears to be:
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Hotels/farms are low hanging fruit, it's easy to pick up illegal immigrants from these locations.
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After swooping these groups first, then the only applicants to these positions (at the wages the farms and hotels are willing to pay) are the criminal illegal immigrants.
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So focus on criminality first.
Does this mean that, once every last criminal is deported, he will then do sweeps of farms and hotels? Left ambiguous.
One problem is the effect of exploitable labor goes in one way. Over the past 2 decades, Landscaping businesses that employed high school students and ex cons went out of business because they couldn't compete against undocumented workers.
If one farm gets raided, and one farm growing similar things does not get raided for another year, then the first farm needs to hire more expensive people and raise prices while the second farm will still benefit from the lowered wages. The farm that got raided first goes out of business first, the second farm maybe gets to buy up the first farm, then when they are inevitably raided they still stay in business and make more money now.
It's not fair. It's not fair that the government has not enforced its own rules surrounding hiring employees uniformly across industries.
The fair thing would be to deport 100% of everyone deportable all at once. The shock of that will be destructive to every industry that is predominately illegal immigrants.
The next fair thing might be to deport 10% of employees in every business all together, then another 10% later, and so on until the bottom is reached.
Of course, the above two "fair" plans are ridiculous. We do not have the man-power to do it.
Any other fair ideas? Besides Trump's new plan of "Don't try to tackle this right now."
You use a lot of words without signifiers. If you would like to be understood, try answering the following:
The point here is to explore alternatives.
Alternatives to what?
Most people have never once even considered the possibility
The possibility of what? The possibility of people not having a legal right to exclusive use of land and valuable property?
If so, yes, I have considered it. I read Hardin's "The Tragedy of the Commons" in High School. Every teenager dabbles in the idea of anarchy or communism or such. In the end, the downsides of not allowing people sole use of productive property is too great. It creates very significant coordination and inefficiency issues. If you look at failed states, where there are no longer laws governing ownership, they are not productive places.
Countering with, "Well, don't raise problems until you've got a solution!" is just silly.
Oh. You really don't have an ideology you're trying to push on us and just darkly hinting? Because all your statements sound like you're darkly hinting at some kind of solution that we're all too dumb to get.
Ok, if all you want to do is ask if people have tried to puzzle out alternatives to ownership, yes, they have. The only reason why everyone has all these objections to the idea of structuring a society without ownership is because everyone has already tried to find alternatives and came up with worse situations than what we have now.
But if you conflate ownership with attachment ("It's mine!", belonging) or even mere physical possession, we can't even discuss whether preemptive principled deprivation is, in fact, a problem like I say it is.
Can you explain the difference between physical possession and belonging and "pre-emptive principled deprivation" is? I am holding a coffee cup in my hand right now. I physically possess it? (Y/N). It was gifted to me by my husband. So is there a principle by which I can deprive others of using it? (Y/N) Is this principle pre-emptive in some way? (Y/N) If no, what would make it pre-emptive (does it have to involve the law, like if I were to get a divorce I would have to have a legal right to exclusive use of the mug?)
I think, if you really want to just explore the topic, you need to start with family life. It is in a healthy family that we see humans at their most cooperative.
But that said, there are the haves and have nots in a family. Kids come into a family with no possessions, everything is preemptively held by the parents. The parents give what they thinks is best in a very paternalistic and condescending way. Even if the toddler has decided for himself that pennies taste delicious, the parent might deprive the child of the pennies - by force if needed! And this is in a loving household where the parents share all in common, and the kids will one day grow to be partakers of this commons.
And then you have to remember the ways in which a society is not a family. It is impossible to love everyone in your city as much as your family, to be as aware of their needs and desires and strengths and weaknesses as you are of your family members. "That only matters if you're trying to be a central-planning-tyrant," you might object. Well, no. It matters when you're trying to figure out if the person next to you, whom you've never met before, isn't going to just lie and cheat you.
"But I'm going to change human nature so that no one lies or cheats.." No, that way leads to death. See also, C.S. Lewis's "Abolition of Man."
So for a starting point (if you're really interested in starting points and don't already have a theory you're nursing that you just haven't shared with us), look at the family, and then see what you can extrapolate out. And then try the following exercises:
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In your new society, who is keeping the power on. What incentivizes them to do so? How do they get the materials they need for power generation?
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In your new society, who is growing food? What incentivizes them to do so? How do they get the materials they need to plant and harvest?
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In your new society, who is making laptops and their component parts? What incentivizes them to do so? How do they get the materials they need to fabricate and manufacture?
If you can answer all three questions convincingly, then people would be more likely to take the idea seriously. The reason why everyone's throwing up their hands and saying they prefer the current system is because no one, despite many people trying, has figured out how answer the above questions without some kind of ownership of productive property, whether it is by the state, by a corporation, or by individuals. My preference would be for everyone to own a portion of productive property, but "owning" is still a part of my ideal society.
Helene will probably be a weekly topic until every last American is rescued or buried, so I will start the conversation now with the latest updates I am aware of:
Biden has ordered "500 active-duty troops with advanced technological assets to move into Western North Carolina." I'm not sure what "advanced technological assets" they are deploying, hopefully it's something like helicopters, bridges, and drones.
There are many people asking why did he wait over a week to deploy these troops. This question is somewhat unfair in itself. In the same document Biden reminds the American people that there are already 1,000 troops on the ground (though it's not clear to me if that is across the affected region or specifically in North Carolina. The numbers he gives for National Guard is the number across Florida to Tennessee.)
I think the real complaint is not that the Federal response has been unusually slow, but that it is insufficient for the "Biblical" levels of destruction. Thousands of dead bodies, "4 Reefer Trucks" full in one county, everyone who is asking for donations asks for more body bags because they keep running out. Young kids naked and crying for their parents, ropes still wrapped around their arms from where their parents desperately tied them to trees above water. People without a roof over their heads or potable water, sewers flooded, hornets unhoused, prime matter for disease and misery. Roads and bridges gone, and no easy path to rebuilding them in the same places due to the banks and cliffs they occupied being washed out.
My husband insists that if things were as bad as I think, the US Army could get everyone out of Western North Carolina in a day. He knows more about the military than I do - he never made it past basic training due to being underweight but has two siblings in the military, one of which who has made it pretty far across 20 years of service. My husband has a very high opinion of our military's capabilities, but I wonder if his model is outdated.
In Greenville, SC, FEMA has taken over a runway with 10 helicopters that loitered all Sunday. For the past week, that runway was being utilized by private charities who were sending materials into the disaster area. Yesterday, it was out of commission for no visible or communicated reason.
Meanwhile, a Blackhawk helicopter just wrecked a distribution center in Pine Spruce (Spruce Pine?), North Carolina. Was it intentional? I hope not. But it displays a level of incompetence that boggles the mind.
All the details indicate to me that the Feds think they can just say, "X number of troops, time to deploy" and solve the problem. But there's no real leadership. No one making a plan to actually help people. The Military and National Guard is too slow and cumbersome. Private charities are able to respond quickly in a crisis, because they have a shorter chain of command and fewer rules. This might be a weakness, in that they will make more mistakes, possibly put their own people's lives at risk. But in the face of the disaster, maybe that is what is needed.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
3mo ago
I guess my 31 year old unemployed brother that weighs 400 pounds and plays Halo all day and occasionally destroys the plumbing and breaks the toilet seat and makes my 68 year old mother clean up the mess will just have to get out his tacking hammer and get busy.
These people might be screwed, but it would be nice to catch a guy like this when he's 18-25, before he's 400 lbs and has a decade of habitual sloth. There are many people right now in their prime years who have the potential to turn out like this brother, and changing the incentives might prevent them from falling into such a grim fate.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
7mo ago
For what it's worth, I was raised by Republican parents who listened to Conservative Talk Radio and watched Fox News. Growing up I listened to Michael Medved, Glen Beck, Dr. Laura Schlessinger, Rush Limbaugh, and Micheal Savage in the car. I still follow some of these personalities on X. I feel like I am tuned into normie conservative sentiment. And the Normie Conservative Sentiment is that America is a values-based society. Immigration is great if someone is willing to work hard, not take handouts, assimilate, and parent their kids to do the same.
I only see the "Blood and Soil" types in fringe online groups. The vast majority of American conservatives are not like that, and if you think that the "Values-Based" Americanism is losing I don't know what to say. I don't even know where the fight is taking place - YouTube comment sections?
I say this as someone who thinks it will be very sad if France is not majority French people, Italy not majority Italians, etc. In my heart I almost see Europe as a museum and I will be sad to see that go away. But America is multi-racial and I see that as a good thing.
That being said, seeing America as a Values-Based Society requires limited immigration. To explain, let's say that we brought in 300 million immigrants next year from all over the globe. 50% of Americans would be immigrants, 50% would be born in the USA. Let's ignore the economic pressure that would create, housing and job crises, and just focus on culture. If the population of foreign-born Americans was 50%, would we be able to pass along American values and culture?
I asked my siblings this question once and they said, "Of course, why not?" I think they were pretty stupid for thinking so. If American norms and values were so easily acquired and distributed throughout the globe, why would people need to move to America? They could just turn their existing countries into America themselves.
Instead, we find in immigration-heavy states like California that new structures that resemble the bribery, nepotism, and corruption of immigrant's home countries.
Obviously 50% of foreign-born people residing in the United States would be too big a shift for us to properly integrate them into our culture. But what is the correct percentage? Immigrants today account for 14.3% of the U.S. population. I think this is an under-count, because they list only 11 million "unauthorized" immigrants, when other independent studies have found closer to 20 million..
Is 14.3% of foriegn-born people the sweet spot? I don't think so. At times of greatest stability in America, that number was between 5-10%.
Correct. The complaint is that the helicopters aren't moving. They're not being loaded. They aren't going anywhere.
Edit: It's like someone said, "We need helicopters" and brought helicopters over, but hasn't decided how to use them yet. Just bringing helicopters over doesn't win any brownie points.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
1yr ago
I'm willing to bet that chart is used to diagnose hoarders, and it gives that much variation to trick people into being more comfortable saying, "I'm a six," because six is towards the middle and there are worse options. My grandparent's house had rooms that were between 5 and 10. My grandmother had Alzheimers and would purchase things for her 'baby' (all her children were grown adults) and stuff them in one of the vacated bedrooms until you couldn't enter the room, then start over again in a different bedroom.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
1yr ago
Nobody seriously defends the superstitions of Christianity
The different bubbles that we are in fascinate me. If someone asked me, I would say that Christianity has never been more or better defended before now. In fact, I have heard a Catholic Bishop thank New Atheism for revitalizing Christian Apologetics.
The content coming out from Capturing Christianity, Jimmy Akin, and Bishop Barron is both sophisticated and unafraid to defend the foundational positions of Christianity, dive into thorny philosophical weeds, take atheistic arguments seriously, and approach topics from a scientific, rational perspective.
I can feel your disbelief across time and space, so let me give an example: In his video on "Time Travel Prayer," Jimmy Akin explains the methodology of a study where patient records from prior years were randomly assigned to a prayer group or control group. After praying for the patients in prayer group to have gotten better in the past, the researchers looked at the outcomes for the patients and found a statistically significant correlation between the prayer group and recovery.
Despite this result supporting his argument, he took the time in his show to talk about how studies can be done hundreds of times, with only the results that the researchers like getting published. And that this practice can make even random chance look statistically significant on paper. And that, though he has no evidence this happened in this case, it is important to keep in mind when papers shows weak significance around surprising things.
Sounds a lot like how a rationalist would approach a topic, no? I highly recommend checking out Jimmy Akin's Mysterious world - most of the topics are not religious in nature but they are a lot of fun. He has pretty soundly debunked the Loch Ness Monster, Loretto Staircase, and a number of odd things.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
2yr ago
It's already happened - with a registered Democrat arrested for trying to interfere with a voting machine.
But it heightened concerns among election officials and security experts that conspiracy theories related to the 2020 presidential election could inspire some voters to meddle with - or even attempt to sabotage - election equipment.
But it's ok! Even when it's registered Democrats doing the meddling, it's the fault of the Republicans for their conspiracy theories of Democratic meddling.
Election officials in Colorado use locks and tamper-evident seals on voting equipment, so it becomes apparent if someone has tried to access it. Trigger alerts make machines inoperable if someone tries to tamper with them, which is what happened in Pueblo, according to Ortiz and the Colorado Secretary of State's office.
That is good. This means that people can't hack election infrastructure without detection and we have nothing to worry about. Hopefully no one will make any claims to the contrary.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
26d ago
But then there's no more American people. Who will our elected leaders serve? "The people currently standing on the territory formally known as the USA?" Whose long-term interests do they protect?
Our leaders should have a referent "American people" and put the interests of these "American people" first. I assure you that leaders of other countries understand who "their people" are and serve their interests to the detriment of our own. If we do not have leaders who look out for our interest, then we will taken advantage of at every turn.
Who are the American people? Citizens, their children, and those they adopt in. Adoption isn't an uncaring, unnoticed act. It's always personal and usually planned for. The adoptee needs to want to join the family and take on the family's customs.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
7mo ago
he literally said she had made it up to sell books.
Didn't she?
Let's say I accuse you of raping me. You know that you have never raped me. You can honestly say you're innocent! You can also say, with 100% certainty that I am making it up. It shouldn't be libel for you to say that I'm making it up, because you are in a position where you can say that with certainty. Maybe I made it up because I am mentally unstable. But if I was also publicizing a book at the time, then you could reasonably infer that I made up to sell the book.
And this seems like the inference that everyone makes. Most liberals take this libel suit as evidence that Trump has been proven of rape in court.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
8mo ago
The video clearly has Biden saying "supporters (period)" It was the end of the sentence. His voice tone went down. He took in a breath after. The words "garbage" and "supporters" were both emphasized and Biden was linking the two.
How on Earth do people fall for this? "An expert transcriber told me it was actually an apostrophe-S. Trust the Experts!" What is wrong with people?
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
1yr ago
When I was a teenager I found a community of fanfic writers who I adored. They had their own shared canon and one of them was a Powerhouse of writing. Spitting out chapters longer than some books, filled with classical and pop-culture references, philosophical musings, good-vs-evil clashes, tense heroism, etc.
I would check their bio pages every day. Eventually they got a forum and I lurked there too. I watched them talk amongst each other and I wanted so badly to be their friend. A couple of problems:
They were clearly adults, and I very much was not. My parents forbade me from reading fanfiction. Obviously I ignored this directive, but I wasn't able to make an account because my parents also managed my email address.
But it would not be an exaggeration to state that this group of fanfic writers had a strong impact on my outlook today. These fanfics formed me the same way the Aeneid formed generations before me.
And more than that, I wanted to be one of them. I wanted to be their friend so badly. They were the coolest people ever.
By the time I was an adult and could sign up for an account, they had slowed down publishing. I re-read the corpus of work, commented on chapters, joined the forum, but I was an interloper, an outsider. I never could explain to them just how much they meant to me. I tried not to be weird, but I think I was probably very weird from their perspective.
Around the time I created an account, fewer chapters were published. Eventually it was all gone. No more posts on the forum, no more chapters published. They all knew each other outside the forum. Maybe they moved to discord.
Ten years later, I still have dreams where I find them, they welcome my presence, and we become online BFFs.
My husband thinks it's not weird that I had a fandom interest that defined my adolescence, but the damaging part was that I thought I could be one of them. The biggest Star Trek fan never harbored delusions that they would one day be friends with Gene Roddenberry, but through the magic of the Internet and semi-public spaces I had a sense of intimacy with these people who had no idea I existed. To some extent the Internet is mostly lurkers and I am certainly not the only kid who lurked on their forum.
I think people call this a Parasocial relationship, and it is one of the dangers of the Internet that was never explained to me as a kid. I knew not to share my real name or address. I knew not to talk with strangers. I didn't know not to lurk and pine for a friendship I would never form.
I think I came out of it mostly unscathed except for the occasional twinge of sadness or embarrassment.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
1yr ago
Also isn't this problem solved if people just... Not cede territory to the crazy. How is the evaporative cooling so strong here?
Seattle adjusted for Covid hard. So for two months, it was immoral to walk around outside. And then for two years it became immoral to walk around outside without a mask. And going for a walk with a mask gets uncomfortable. So by the time people felt like they could go outside again, the streets were already, percentage-wise, more homeless than not.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
1yr ago
You can't escape from the problem of low-effort posting by stroking everyone's ego. (I don't think most people on this board are actually all that smart, we just have diverse interests and collectively can come up with some interesting conversations.) This is not the board that is going to enforce Liberal Orthodoxy and provide apologetics for why something on the Internet is Problematic.
If you read something that seems incorrect to you, but you are having trouble putting your finger on it, then explain what exactly (with your own words) you think is most convincing about the article and then give reasons why you think it might be wrong. (link to the article, do not copy/paste it.) Maybe it does not correlate with your personal experience. Maybe if you accept the argument you need to throw out some other component of your mental model of the world.
Or, if you cannot give a reason for it being wrong, defend it. Steelman it as best you can. That is the only way to get a strong rebuttal.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
1yr ago
I don't think what you are saying contradicts each other. A la "The Last Psychiatrist," having incorrect beliefs and assumptions about your own skills and relationship with the world is what craters self esteem. Fewer kids testing themselves on dangerous playground equipment created a rise in anxiety disorders and people who cannot perform risk management.
No one knows what Liriope and Cephisus did, but whatever they did, it worked: he didn't even recognize his own reflection. That's a man who doesn't know himself. That's a man who never had to look at himself from the outside.
How do you make a child know himself? You surround him with mirrors. "This is what everyone else sees when you do what you do. This is who everyone thinks you are."
You cause him to be tested: this is the kind of person you are, you are good at this but not that. This other person is better than you at this, but not better than you at that. These are the limits by which you are defined. Narcissus was never allowed to meet real danger, glory, struggle, honor, success, failure; only artificial versions manipulated by his parents. He was never allowed to ask, "am I a coward? Am I a fool?" To ensure his boring longevity his parents wouldn't have wanted a definite answer in either direction.
I would expect such a person to have very low self esteem once they are grown.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
2yr ago
Regarding the second example, it's been widely accepted that actors are an exception to any kind of visual discrimination and that many roles require picking someone who just has the right vibe and look (which includes their race and gender.) When casting a family/clan/isolated society, people usually pick actors who look the most alike.
Imagine that there is a long running series that needs to record a flashback for their main black female lead. If we used the usual standards for hiring, where race and sex don't matter, the series might cast a Asian male. Casting black hobbits in a predominantly white insulated society is as jarring to me as that.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
2mo ago
How can a Catholic distinguish between a Tradition that's OK to change, and one that isn't?
First, we need to establish what actually counts as Church teaching. And that can be challenging, because there are lots of people running around on the internet and in real life saying, "My personal theological interpretation is the one true teaching of the Catholic Church, I know this because it is the personal theological theory my favorite saint expounded, who are you to say you're smarter than St X of X?"
So what is Catholic teaching? Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma by Ott is an encyclopedia of doctrine that is still used in Seminaries today. You can read it with a free account here. The introduction lays out seven categories in shades of certitude, ranging from "De Fide Definita" (which are defined by a solemn judgement of faith of the Pope or of a General Council) to "Tolerable Opinions" (which are weakly founded, but currently tolerated by the Church.)
Traditions that are "De Fide Definita" are not able to change. But they are pretty rare. There are about 1000 of them, and no, there isn't an infallible list of infallible teachings. People have read through every Church document and made lists, Ott's book above is one such list (though it then gives non-dogmatic explanations under each dogmatic statement. The explanations could be wrong.) Not every statement by a Pope or by a Church Council is infallible. Most are not. To make a De Fide Definita requires the magisterial source saying something like, "This pertains to the deposit of faith and binds everyone forever universally" before the statement. The statement itself is then considered infallible. The justification or explanation of the statement is not infallible even if it is given by the same authority that made the infallible statement.
So questions like "How many people are supposed to elect the pope?" is not infallible. It's not even a question of faith or morals. There are lots of disciplinary questions, like should priests marry or what songs should be sung at Mass, which are not even in the category of Faith and Morals, and therefore cannot by principle have an infallible answer.
How does doctrine develop? Acts gives us a good, basic example of what it looks like. At the beginning of the Church, every follower of Jesus was a Jew. Everyone was circumcised. There was no conflict to resolve, no debate. While it was true, even at that time in the past, that Jesus died for all, gentile and Jew, there was no need for the Church to have a clear teaching on circumcision yet. The truth was the same, but there was no clear teaching.
And then Gentiles started converting. Peter had a vision that he interpreted as God saying to baptize Gentiles. It fit into prior revelation - with Jesus' command to make disciples of all nations. There was a prior teaching which was held in tension to this one - that Jews should not visit with Gentiles. But Peter recognized the voice of God calling him to baptize Gentiles and that Jesus also commanded the baptism of all nations.
Over time, this theological tension grew. Conflicts arose with people who thought Gentiles needed to be circumcised and basically become Jewish first before receiving salvation. There was genuine disagreement with both sides thinking they were following the tradition handed to them.
So a council was called. The Council of Jerusalem declared that Gentiles did not need to be circumcised. The council found other portions of scripture that supported this doctrine, and then promulgated the new doctrine that uncircumcised Gentiles can be baptized and saved.
So the fundamental aspects of doctrinal development are:
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Due to a temporal change in circumstances, a legitimate disagreement has developed between two or more groups of well-intentioned believers. Both groups believe they find support in tradition and scripture.
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A large number of bishops gather together to discuss the differences. (Catholics would say it's important that this gathering has either Peter or one of his successors promulgating the findings of the council, but outside of that distinction I think most Orthodox and many Protestants would agree without this point added.)
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The gathering comes to a conclusion. Since both sides had some justification based on prior teaching, the conclusion will also be based on prior teaching, but will close off one of the previously acceptable theological positions.
And that is how Doctrine develops in the Catholic Church.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
4mo ago
A male feminist makes the mistake of thinking a woman is like a man. If a straight man (I'm less certain of gay men) was propositioned like Scarlett Pavlovich, he would be more assertive that he did not want sex with Gaiman. As a male feminist, Gaiman would have expected that kind of reaction if Pavlovich really didn't want sex with Gaiman. Because she didn't react the way a straight man would have reacted to being propositioned, Gaiman thought they were entering something consensual.
Alternatively:
BDSM and Feminism have a huge overlap with assuming the word "consensual" makes any sexual encounter acceptable. Male feminists may be more into BDSM, and regretted BDSM sounds gross when put into a news article.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
11mo ago
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
1yr ago
Biden has signed an Executive Order "that will temporarily shut down asylum requests once the average number of daily encounters tops 2,500." Given that the current number of asylum requests far exceeds this figure, the border is effectively shut down now.
On one level, this vindicated conservative commentators and legislators who argued that Congress didn't need to pass any bills to shut down the border. Biden apparently agrees!
On the other level, does this take away some steam from Republicans seeking re-election? That's probably what the Democrats are hoping. "See? We care about border security too! Ignore our behavior for the last 40 months." But is it actually going to be effective? And will they just turn on the spigot once the election is over?
Going back to the bill, was there anything on the bill that would have been allowed Biden to accomplish this executive order better? Does the DHS and Border Patrol need more funds to enact this Executive Order? Or is this something well within their existing abilities?
It also appears that this Executive Order contains some gaping holes. It does not apply to the obvious categories (US Citizens, lawful immigrants who make appointments ahead of time) as well as:
- Unaccompanied children (UCs);
- Noncitizens who are determined to be victims of severe forms of trafficking;
- Noncitizens who a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer permits to enter, based on the totality of the circumstances, including consideration of significant law enforcement, officer and public safety, urgent humanitarian, and public health interests that warrant permitting the noncitizen to enter; and
- Noncitizens who a CBP officer permits to enter due to operational considerations that warrant permitting the noncitizen to enter.
Does this render this toothless and just good PR? Or are Border Patrol Agents likely to be very restrictive in their interpretation of the order?
My son got his 15 month well-child check today. At the appointment everyone was really trying to upsell me the COVID Vaccine. I had a conversation that went:
Dr: "Are you sure, just the regular 15 month vaccines?"
Me: "And the flu shot."
Dr: "The regular 15 month vaccines, COVID, and the flu shot?"
Me: 'Ye-no, no COVID. Just the flu shot if that's possible."
Dr: "Yes, it's possible."
Then with the nurse administering the vaccines:
Nurse: "I noticed on the paper it said just the 15 month vaccines, would you like the flu shot as well?"
Me: "Yes, the flu shot."
Nurse: "COVID, too?"
Me: "No COVID."
Nurse administers 3 shots. I get the paper home with my son's weight, height, and shots administered. They list COVID as administered, no flu shot. My husband called them, he was put on hold then disconnected.
I'm sure the pediatrician thinks I'm crazy, but I don't think a boy less than 2 years of age gets a huge benefit from a Covid vaccine, he's already on an aggressive vaccine schedule, getting multiple vaccines every three months, and I really wanted him to have that flu shot.
There also needs to be a clearer way to consent to medications/procedures than a verbal conversation that apparently two separate people misunderstood. I'm still hoping he got the flu shot but the paper was marked wrong.
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