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Fiat justitia ruat caelum

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Fiat justitia ruat caelum

				
				
				

				

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					follows 2 users  

					joined 2022 September 05 01:56:25 UTC
				


				
					

					
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 1, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Edit: responded to the wrong comment


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 25, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
"yes, I am the straw man you would imagine, I don't even recognize I am saying exactly what you predicted in exactly the way that proves you right." is a Tumblr reaction screenshot.  For example:


https://corvidiss.tumblr.com/post/744323070415749120/id-screenshot-of-a-tumblr-post-by


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 25, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You have to consider that sometimes  people just go insane and no longer pattern match to left-right, boomer-Gen-Z extreemism.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 25, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I see the predictable responses of, "This is a gun problem."  I want to ask them if they mean Trans-identified people should be forbidden access to guns.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 18, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I actually wouldn't be put out with someone calling Mary a superhero, haha.  "Hail Mary, full of grace, punch the devil in the face!" is something a Catholic gleefully says.  My view of a superhero would be different from yours, perhaps.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 25, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If you enjoy getting a dark, "this is what war is like" perspective from a veteran, Phil Klay's "Missionaries" is educational.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 25, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
There was a suicide note written in plain English, and a journal/diary written in mostly-English but Cyrillic script.  I wouldn't' call either a "mainfesto" though both provide a window into the motive.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 25, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Do you know if it is legal for someone to walk around with a Leatherman in the UK or is that a concealed weapon?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 25, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Yeah, you couldn't hold your ground against someone armed with a real weapon (like a noble or their household) with what the peasants carried around.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 25, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Not weapons as such, but there are many tools the peasants would carry on a daily basis which could be used to hurt/intimidate someone if needed.  You'd need to be able to fight off wild animals outside the cities.  It would be bizarre for someone not to carry a knife at all times - they're just too useful.


Of course, the knife the average person carried looked very different from a jeweled dagger or weapon of war.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 18, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I have a distinction between Honor and Worship.  Because I'm Catholic, this distinction is often rendered in Latin.


Dulia - Veneration. The regular form of honor and respect that is given to saints and angels, but never to the same degree as the adoration reserved for God alone. Dulia involves the veneration of these figures as role models and intercessors, acknowledging their exemplary lives, trying to follow their example, and asking for their prayers.


Hyperdulia - An exceptional form of reverence due to Mary specifically according to her perfections and unique role in humanity's salvation.  If God is as you described, he would be worthy of this.  It is different from Dulia in degree, not in kind.


Proskynesis/Latria - The profound homage, adoration, and worship (sacrifice) that is only given to God as the Supreme Good.  It is different from Hyperdulia in kind, not just degree.  The God you describe is not the Supreme Good, and so would not be worthy of this.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 18, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


it's not like any other human being is omnipotent, omnibenevolent, or omniscient.




Ok, but there are some humans who are more powerful than you, there are some humans who are more good than you, there are some humans who know more than you.  Do you worship them in this capacity?  Is being stronger, smarter, and nicer than a human what distinguishes God to you above, say, your mom?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 25, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I understand - double agents often make the ultimate sacrifice.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 18, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I worship Truth.  If your God is not Truth, then I do not worship him.  Fortunately, Jesus said "I am... the Truth," so I'm happily a Christian.




That's you putting your definition of God above God himself.




What is God to you? I still don't understand.  What differentiates him from another human being?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 25, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
For those not in the know, the above two users have revealed themselves to be Tumblr users.  By saying I recognize this, I am also revealing myself to have logged into Tumblr in the past year.  I hope you all appreciate the sacrifice I made to explain the joke.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 18, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


You said "'the Ten Commandments were really our best guess at moral laws but we are not really the basis for goodness.




Yeah, you didn't really read this accurately.  It the "we are not really the basis for goodness."




This doesn't mean God is "subject" to 2+2=4, or that it's an "outside standard he's held to", and it's utterly nonsensical to think, even if it were a standard he were held to, that one should therefore worship 2+2=4 instead. The law that 2+2=4 isn't written anywhere, it's not even necessarily a "law" at all; it's just how reality is.




Yes, God is subject to 2+2=4 here in this example.  You don't see it?  It's possible for God to want something other than 2+2=4 but not be able to change it.  That makes Him subject to it.  It's an external power He has to work around.  "Just how reality is," - That is putting limits on God. There is something outside of your concept of God that is more powerful than Him.  Why not worship that thing?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 18, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The appeal to me is that it's true. I haven't chosen my opinions based on which ideas I liked most.




Fortunately, it's not true and I have all the proof I need of that.  However, if it were true I should just commit suicide and get it over with.  Maybe that's extreme, the point is I would need to reevaluate quite a lot.


You really don't get it.  Your question is, "What if I rip all the significance out of the world?  Would you still call someone by their chosen name?"  And the answer is, "Why on Earth do you think a name matters?"


\3. If morality doesn't inherently proceed from God, then God cannot possibly have a perfect understanding of morality


This is not the objection. The objection is, if morality is outside of God, then God is held to an outside standard.  There is something outside God which is sovereign to God.  In which case, cut out the middle man.  Also, God can now be evil.  If He can't then He's not free.  If He can be evil, then following Him unreservedly is unwise.


Also, He could be lying to us about morality.  A classical understanding of God provides the necessary background for something that "Cannot deceive nor be deceived."  Take that away and we open up both doors.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 18, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


This is why I opened with the question I did--if God himself were to tell you your definition of him is wrong, would you believe him? Or does your definition take precedence over his own words?




I think we have fundamental differences here but I am going to try my best to explain it.


I fully expect that my understanding of God is limited, inaccurate in some ways, etc.  My current theological opinion of Divine Middle Knowledge, for example, and its implications on Free Will and creating souls destined for Hell, is currently permitted.  But I wouldn't be particularly surprised if it was wrong and eventually declared heretical. If God through His Catholic Church forbade my current theological opinion, I would swiftly change course.


But if Jesus were to show up to me, prove to me that he's Jesus, then say something like, "Actually, what you call "God" in the Bible isn't transcendental at all.  We're pretty powerful, but don't actually have the ability to create matter out of nothing, we are not actively sustaining your being, the Ten Commandments were really our best guess at moral laws but we are not really the basis for goodness.  The universe has always existed and we never figured out why.  We're just playing around in it.  I'm offering you a good afterlife, at great personal cost to myself, so you should do what I say..."


That sounds really sketchy and dissatisfying.  What would be the difference between this God and a powerful alien?  If your conception of God is one that a sufficiently bored and long-lived alien species could imitate, then I really don't understand what the appeal of religion is to you.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 18, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Thanks, a title like that is worth the immediate Kindle buy!


I listen to a podcast, "What God is Not," and the title has been in my head a lot in this conversation.  But also so much of the Podcast is the spiritual experiences of a Byzantine priest and nun, and their spirituality is so clearly dependent on God being so Other to them.  It's really beautiful and inspiring to see the witness of a healthy spiritual life going though everyday matters.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 18, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


If your concept of God is more closely tied to the definitional one (God as the first cause) then to your direct experiences with him, then in my hypothetical, the being who performed everything in the Old Testament, performs miracles, atoned for our sins, etc. would not be God.




We are running into the problem here where I believe it is clear that the God of the Old and New Testament clearly identifies with Being itself, "I Am Who Is."  St. Paul explicitly links together the Greek concept of the God of the philosophers with the God of the Bible in Acts 17 by quoting a Greek philosopher and identifying that definition of God as the one he has come to preach.  Then there are hundreds of other places where it's clear that God is not in the created order, not changing, sustaining the being of everything at all times. (Psalm 102:25-27):




In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth,
and the heavens are the work of your hands.






They will perish, but you remain;
they will all wear out like a garment.






Like clothing you will change them
and they will be discarded.






But you remain the same,
and your years will never end.




Acts 17:27-28:




God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’




My belief in God is based on my direct experience of Him in my life, including revelations through contemplation and meditation.  It is based on the Divine revelation of the Bible and the personal revelation that Christians have recorded throughout the centuries.  And these both point to the Classical conception of God.  Learning more about the classical conception of God helps me then go back and interpret the revelation I have received and which was revealed through the public ministry of Jesus Christ.  It is all a positive feedback loop bringing me deeper and deeper into Love.


Without the positive feedback of the classical conception of God, though, my spiritual life went nowhere.  What does it matter if God isn't all that He is?  If he's just like some alien dude who did everything in the Bible?  That has no implications on who I am, what morality is, the Good, the True, the Beautiful.  If He doesn't actually explain anything, if He's not actually the Summum Bonum?  I'd be left with a cool role model but if I disagreed with His actions it's conceivable that my judgements are better than his.  The Cool Role Model called God is just a potential tyrant.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 18, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


This still isn't first principles; first principles would be something like inventing the concept of women from whole cloth based on extremely abstract ideals.




It's reasoning from nature.  You deduce your wife's nature from your senses and then reason from that nature to other things.


It's the same with me and God, just His nature is different from your wife's.


Have you ever had someone who agrees with the Cosmological argument explain it, asked them questions, etc?  Or is your exposure mainly by people who don't agree with it giving their rebuttals?




And this is where we disagree! I think the entity that is described in the Old and New Testament is God even if his actual nature is very different from what I expect.




But then what does God mean?  Is it any different from telling me that the entity described in the Old Testament is a Lion or a Blogalsnarf?  It doesn't mean anything to be God unless there is a something that God means.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 18, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Why is the Father God and not Jesus?


God to me isn't a Person, He's a Nature that three Persons share.  That's why I can't tell you if someone is God without knowing what it is.  That is probably a huge unspoken difference here, when I say God does something I could be referencing the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit.


So you hold the Father specifically in esteem because He is our creator, and when you say God you mean the Father.  How odd my responses must seem to you!  In that case, if you tautologically define God as the Father, then the question becomes different as to would God be God if he did not have God's nature.   I don't feel like that brings me any closer to understanding why God matters to you.  The word "God" has great significance that I feel like you're copying the vibe of but then using it to refer to something else.  Like having a conversation about Jesus and then someone reveals they've been talking about their gardener this whole time.


With your wife, I'm wiling to bet you do reason from first principles sometimes.  By this I mean, you know she is a woman, which means that she has weeks where one hormone is dominant, weeks were another hormone is dominant, sometimes gets pregnant, etc.  Knowing this, I suspect that your response to her changes depending on knowledge you have of her that pre-exists knowing her. You know pregnant women need late night ice cream randomly, for example, even before the experience of your wife kicking you out of bed at 11PM to go get pickle juice and chocolate.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 18, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I asked if he was God




What do you define God to be?  My definition of what God is is the Classical definition.  "We do not know what God is. God Himself does not know what He is because He is not anything [i.e., "not any created thing"]. Literally God is not, because He transcends being."




(only in very esoteric ways--not in any tangible way whose difference you'd ever experience)




I don't think you understand just how significant attributes are that you think are esoteric.  Classical Theism entails:


    

  • 

    God is closer to me than I am to myself.  He is always at all times the source and grounding of my being.  It's not a domino situation.    It's more of a Molecules > Atoms > Elementary Particles > ... > God situation.  God cannot blink out of existence.  For one thing, it is not in His nature to do so.  But for another thing, it would be the end of existence for everything.
    

    • 

  • 

    Morality and the Euthyphro dilemma.  Is Goodness a standard outside God or is goodness whatever God decides?  Pick one of these and there are problems.  Classical Theism solves this dilemma because Goodness is tied to God's nature and to ours.  It is not a standard outside God, it is not an arbitrary decision by God, it is sourced in God's nature and flows out into our own natures.    You hint at this, "if God were not Good then he would not be deserving of worship."  I agree!  If God and Goodness are different things there is a problem worshiping Him.
    

    • 

  • 

    There is an order and explanation to everything.  All is willed by God, there are no competing powers.  There is a consistency to the universe that we can trust.
    

    • 

  • 

    God is unchanging and perfect.  He cannot become more perfect.  He already is absolutely perfect and there is no defect in Him.
    

    • 

  • 

    In His very nature we find the grounding and explanation of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.
    

    • 



If you take all this away, I'm not sure what is left that is worship-worthy.  I'm not going to say "nothing," because I really would need a year or so to try to fill up the holes left by rejecting Classical Theism and see where the balance lies.  I do know that when I was a teen/young adult, before I began to learn about Classical Theism, I was well on my way to becoming atheistic because Open Theism just isn't satisfactory to me.


Even when there are miracles, all that tells me is that there are things we don't understand about the universe yet or that there are aliens/fairies out there with superpowers.  Especially if you believe like I do that humans have a natural psychic ability.  The importance of God isn't clear until I understand His relationship with everything.


And this relationship with everything wholly informs what I understand to be the goal of the Spiritual life.  This comment is already long enough but if you are curious about what I mean, "Fire Within" is one of the best books on the topic.




The reason I believe in God is due to firsthand experience. That's not to say that I've met him, but I've felt his Spirit and experienced miracles that are difficult to explain otherwise.




That's great, God loves all His creatures and it is certainly possible that you have experienced His intervention in your life.  Most Catholics I know would say the same.  I wouldn't say there are 0 philosophical converts to Catholicism, but the more normal situation is to have an encounter with Jesus, Mary, the rest of the saints, etc.


What would you say to someone who had a direct vision of God telling her, "I am He who Is, you are she who is not?"  It's a very Classical Theist way for God to describe Himself


I have definitely heard God's voice.  He told me who my husband was going to be.  I honestly find it more surprising that someone hasn't heard God's voice than someone has, though perhaps it is hard to recognize.




Just as I see no need to say something like "I am human, and humans have parents, therefore I have parents," since I have met my parents personally, so too do I see no need to logically prove God's existence, nor do I think that such logical proofs can or should define him.




Fair, but there are biologists who do study such things and in general I expect you trust what they say about inheritable traits.  Likewise, a personal relationship with God does not preclude trying to learn more about Him through the methods we have available, and many people do interrogate this area.


Let's say you have a wife who you love.  Imagine saying, "I don't need to know more about her, I love her!  Asking her questions about how her day went or what she's thinking right now would be getting in the way of the personal relationship I have with her."  It doesn't work that way!  Instead, love generates a desire to learn more about the beloved.  Philosophy is one means of truth finding.


The majority of Catholics do not study philosophy.  The majority of Christians are probably not Classical Theists.  Open Theism has been very common for many centuries among those who aren't into philosophy.  At least it's not Moralistic Theraputic Deism, which is what most people in America fall under.


You aren't sure about our ability to come up with satisfactory axioms.  That's not uncommon.  You are creating philosophical axioms in your comments that I do not believe hold water - but you are likely unaware that you are doing so.  Rejection of philosophy does not mean you can get away from doing philosophy.  Instead it just means you are doing bad philosophy.


One uncontroversial thing we can do with philosophy is demonstrate logical contradictions.  This doesn't require the underlying axioms to be correct, in fact we are proving the axioms false.  This is why most theology surrounding God's nature is called Negative - or Apophatic - theology.  I can say a lot about what God is not, and He is not embodied, He is not limited, He is not confined to one place.  He is not composed of many parts.  He is not beholden to an outside standard of Goodness.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 25, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The one thing missing is that the people inside a business who select the Health Insurer also usually is subject to the choice they make.  I have watched a company switch to a cheap horrid plan, then switch back after two years when the chief HR lady had a cancer scare.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 18, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Say that instead, there was some proto-cause that created God and then blipped out of existence, because that's just how reality happened to happen.




From my point of view, that's incoherent.  If there is an eternal uncaused cause it cannot stop existing.  If it stops existing it's not the explanation for the grounding of being right now.


Let me try to give my best response to the question:


Let's say there is a uncaused cause that created matter but did not directly will our existence in a special degree.  In addition to unformed matter it created Elohim , who then went on to do 95% of what is described in the Bible.  I say 95%, because to accept that the God of the Bible is not the uncaused creator of the universe requires me to ignore the parts of the Bible that say He is.  Most notably (but not solely) Acts Chapter 17, where St. Paul explicitly identified the God of the Bible with the uncaused cause of Greek Philosophy.


It's not clear to me what sin even is if it's not a crime against existence itself, but I guess sin is now some kind of crime against Elohim.  So then he saves us from our sin by sending His son to die for us.  In doing so he makes some kind of paradise afterlife possible.  I feel like this soteriology needs to be worked out much further, but that's a lot to unpack and I don't think matters too much to the question.


But accepting all that, I would owe this Elohim a debt.  He would be a cool dude, a role model, praiseworthy.  I should probably listen to what he said to do.


Would he be as awesome as the God I worship right now?  No, he would not be.  Would he be a god?  In the same way Loki in Marvel is a god.  At least he intentionally willed my existence so that makes me belong to him in a certain way?  But does he actually have the power to do that?  Or is he relying on the power of the actual First Cause, and the actual First Cause could constrain him from creating me.  It gets messy.  I think the most confident thing I can state without doing a years worth of research into a hypothetical is that he wouldn't be as awesome as the God I worship right now.




Since Gnosticism’s God was too perfect to ever have any reason to do anything, he didn’t create anything – not even Heaven.




God did not have to create anything, but choose to create out of an overabundance on generous love.


Gnosticsm can be right on some things and wrong on others.  Just because Gnosticsm in general is a Heresy doesn't mean that only the opposite of what they taught is true.  They taught Jesus is divine, Gnosticsm being wrong does not mean that Jesus is suddenly not divine.


Gnosticsm holds several incorrect teachings that is incompatible with what you would call Creedal Christianity.  The most obvious is that matter is evil.  This is contrary to the Gospel.  What I would consider the actual biggest problem with Gnosticism is their belief that there is some kind of knowledge, secret words, etc, that is not publicly taught by the Apostles and their successors which is necessary for true paradise.


There were Gnostics who taught that the body is evil - so just commit sins of the flesh. It doesn't hurt anything but the flesh which is evil already.


There were Gnostics who taught that the body is evil - so flee from all bodily temptations and live an asture life because desiring things of the flesh is like desiring dung.


But all Gnostics agreed that the only way to the best afterlife was to learn some secret code phrase only they knew, to know the true history of the Divinities, to learn something only they were peddling.


That is what made them so horrible and it's also why I think the Internet has brought in a reign of atheistic gnosticsm.  We spend all our time dissasociated from our bodies following the influencers that claim to have found that one weird trick to understanding Geopolitics or how to live longer.  But that's another topic.


Classical Christians are not necessarily Platonist either.  I don't believe in a world of forms.  Classical Christians don't have to be Aristotelians either.