OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
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User ID: 359
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
6d ago
If it's an impenetrable fortress type thing, why keep these people in a city at all? There's lot's of land in America that is undeveloped.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
4d ago
Anyone here concerned about bird flu passing to cattle? Anyone avoiding dairy, beef, or chicken?
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
2d ago
I think you did a good job. One note:
So far as I'm aware, the Church does not teach that you must believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ to be saved.
The concept you're referring to here is Invincible Ignorance. And here's an official Church document explaining:
(Lumen Gentium 16) "those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience—those too may achieve eternal salvation” (847).
Genesis is literally supposed to be how the world came about, and people interpreted it this way and believed it for hundreds of years until the theory of evolution and uniformitarianism came about.
Origen:
I do not suppose that anyone doubts that these things figuratively indicate certain mysteries, the history having taken place in appearance and not literally" (The Fundamental Doctrines 4:1:16 [A.D. 225]).
Augustine:
"at least we know that [the Genesis creation day] is different from the ordinary day with which we are familiar" (Genesi Ad Litteram).
Edit:
Also St. Augustine:
It not infrequently happens that something about the earth, about the sky, about other elements of this world, about the motion and rotation or even the magnitude and distances of the stars, about definite eclipses of the sun and moon, about the passage of years and seasons, about the nature of animals, of fruits, of stones, and of other such things, may be known with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by experience, even by one who is not a Christian. It is too disgraceful and ruinous, though, and greatly to be avoided, that he [the non-Christian] should hear a Christian speaking so idiotically on these matters, and as if in accord with Christian writings, that he might say that he could scarcely keep from laughing when he saw how totally in error they are. In view of this and in keeping it in mind constantly while dealing with the book of Genesis, I have, insofar as I was able, explained in detail and set forth for consideration the meanings of obscure passages, taking care not to affirm rashly some one meaning to the prejudice of another and perhaps better explanation.[17]
With the scriptures it is a matter of treating about the faith. For that reason, as I have noted repeatedly, if anyone, not understanding the mode of divine eloquence, should find something about these matters [about the physical universe] in our books, or hear of the same from those books, of such a kind that it seems to be at variance with the perceptions of his own rational faculties, let him believe that these other things are in no way necessary to the admonitions or accounts or predictions of the scriptures. In short, it must be said that our authors knew the truth about the nature of the skies, but it was not the intention of the Spirit of God, who spoke through them, to teach men anything that would not be of use to them for their salvation.[18]
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
1d ago
I am not a trained apologist either, but I think I can provide further background to your question about Scriptural Infallibility in a Catholic Context.
The Catholic Church would say that the Bible is infallible, but in a very narrow way. I don't want to quibble about words, so it makes sense to just say, the Bible isn't 100% infallible, in the way that word is commonly used today.
The Bible contains exactly what God wanted it to contain. It contains every spiritual revelation necessary for a person to be granted peace with God and know, love, and serve Him. That said, God didn't set out to give us a treatise on Natural Science.
Every Scriptural passage contains four meanings in it: literal, allegorical, tropological and anagogical. The fourfold senses of Scripture—the literal, allegorical,moral (tropological), and anagogic senses—were first proposed by John Cassian (ca. 360-435). By way of example, Cassian wrote, “The one Jerusalem can be understood in four different ways, in the historical sense as the city of the Jews, in allegory as the Church of Christ, in anagoge as the heavenly city of God ‘which is the mother of us all’ (Gal 4:26), in the tropological sense as the human soul.”
The allegorical, tropological and anagogical senses are infallible. The literal is infallible only as far as it points to an allegorical, tropological or anagogical meaning.
For example, Genesis is clearly begins with myths parodying Babylonian and other Near Eastern myths. The author of Genesis takes a Babylonian myth about a flood, and then says, "there's only one God, and He made humans out of love, so how would this myth play out if the true God was involved instead of these false gods." The writing style is mythic. I don't think there was ever an intention to deceive, their original audience knew the original myths that were being parodied. That's what made the parody so powerful.
Early Christian converts from Greco-Roman paganism took Genesis as allegorical from the start. They knew given the state of natural science at the time, that the world was created in one instant and the four elements were Earth, Fire, Air, and Water, but Genesis only refers to Water and Earth. So obviously Genesis left some important things out from a natural science perspective, but the moral and anagogical truths are still infallible.
The second half of Genesis moves to Folklore. Did George Washington really chop down a cherry tree? I don't think so. Would I include that anecdote if I was writing down oral traditions for George Washington's biography? Probably. Because it portrays something important about his character with a conciseness that only a story can draw out. Did Abraham really pretend his wife was his sister twice? I don't know. The authors of Genesis thought that it conveyed something important about his character and his relationship with God though.
Meanwhile, the four Gospels are very clearly portraying themselves as Eye Witness accounts or collections of Eye Witness accounts of the strangest thing to have ever happened on Earth. Theistic and atheistic scholars recognize that the genre is Ancient Biography. Noted skeptic Bart Erhman calls them Greco-Roman biographies. The writers of the Gospels really do want their audience to believe the events described genuinely took place.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
1d ago
I minored in Linguistics and one of the introductory classes used an older edition of this book: https://www.amazon.com/Language-Files-Materials-Introduction-Linguistics/dp/0814252702
It's a pretty good place to get started and then figure out what topics interest you the most. For example, historical linguistics was the most interesting to me and it was fun to use it to make up fantasy languages that sound realistic (Because it's just a real language with some common deletions and vowel shifts.)
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
22hr ago
I once lived in a place where bears occasionally appeared on our driveway. Pretty awkward.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
14hr ago
Agreed, "stuck in the woods with" sounds like a "Most Dangerous Game" situation. "Stuck on a deserted island" prompts the listener to think of cooperation.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
14hr ago
Yep, make some sort of paid "Minimalist Phone UI plus timed app/website blocker" if you can program.
If you have the start-up capital, make a clubhouse. I think the trick to making a third space is to make it so that you don't have to pay every time you visit. Something with a monthly or even annual fee. Keep costs down by encouraging patrons to clean up after every event. Maintain a few vending machines, offer free clean water.
Have bookshelfs with a "take a book, leave a book behind" kind of policy. Board games, cards, a kitchen playset for young kids. Have scheduled learning/crafting events, but encourage people to come in even if there's nothing going on. Maybe have sex-segregated areas if you can manage.
Gyms aren't really pleasant places to linger. Coffee Shops and Bars become expensive if you visit every day and they aren't suitable for a whole family.
A beggar/bum has a strong incentive to be as close as possible to the largest number of people with disposable income in their pockets (and places with free services, like public parks w/ restrooms, libraries, and charities.) This is in tension with most people's desire to be able to use the public goods their tax dollars pay for in the way they were intended, and their desire to be left alone while walking from place to place.
I became accustomed to a public library not being accessible. In the Seattle area, they were generally over-crowded and unpleasant to visit. I only accessed my library from the Libby app.
After moving to Indiana it took me six months to gather courage to bring my kids to the library and it turns out that when a library is used for its intended purpose it's really nice! They had toys for the preschool-aged kids (for them to be distracted with while their parent selects books.) When patrons only spend a couple hours there more people can visit without it getting crowded. It was how I remembered libraries when I was a child (except for all the Pride stuff, but that's impossible to run away from I guess.)
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