PyotrVerkhovensky
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User ID: 2154
PyotrVerkhovensky
9d ago
Making a formal dogmatic declaration is significant. I heard someone speculate that the timing existed to preserve veneration of Mary against a Protestant world that was increasingly dismissive of her. Meaning, without these formal dogmatic declarations, Protestants might have converted into Catholicism without gaining respect for her, bringing in their own "the mother of our Lord is just a woman," attitudes and eventually reducing Catholic devotion to her.
Indeed, what I would have been like would I have become Catholic in the 1800s :).
There are no external constraints on God. I think you are assuming here that Logic and God are different essences, and God's being is constrained by Logic. But instead, Logic is God's unchanging will. Logic is what it is because of God's Being being what it is.
Pretty sure I said the exact opposite (and in agreement with you)?
"Barron seems to be hinting that God could not "make a triangle a square", that is, that God is constrained by logical impossibilities. But this is such a small view of God. God creates our minds and universe. Our minds invent or discover things like logic, or define things like squares or circles. Whether spawned by our intellect or embedded in the structure of the cosmos, these concepts (including logic!) are part of Creation itself. God created the conditions under which we can model physical reality with math, structure, and logic. Logic is a model. Logos is Truth. Logic is created. Logos is the Creator."
PyotrVerkhovensky
9d ago
I don't think there was a single reason. She felt led towards it. The closer she got to Catholicism the closer she felt to God.
PyotrVerkhovensky
9d ago
There could be an atheistic/evolutionary explanation for why we have disgust at certain outcomes or behaviors. But I don't think the atheist could self-consistently apply moral weight or language to that disgust. Yet we still see (many) atheists use the language of justice and morality and often reveal a belief in it through their behavior.
PyotrVerkhovensky
10d ago
Reformed theology is going to have a very different emphasis on predestination.
I think those outside Reformed theology put more emphasis on Reformed theology's supposed preoccupation with predestination than Calvinist's do :) (Many such cases).
I have extended family that go beyond "mere" five-point Calvinism and say that there is no point in evangelism due to predestination...and even they rarely bring it up. They certainly act in this world as if they had agency!
A list of books by Pope Benedict XVI might be a starting point as well.
Thank you, I'll take a look at these.
PyotrVerkhovensky
10d ago
If anything I hope it’s true. If it isn’t, I lose nothing, if it is, I gain everything; if nothing else, it’s a good ideal to live toward.
On the contrary, "And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable."
I'm also reminded of Shatov in Dostoevsky's Demons:
"I believe in Russia. ... I believe in her orthodoxy. ... I believe in the body of Christ. ... ".
"And in God? In God?"
"I … I will believe in God!"
PyotrVerkhovensky
10d ago
Khaled Anatolios is, I believe, Orthodox :). There is much to like about Orthodoxy. I like how slow it is to move (if at all!) and I like the national flavor of the Orthodox churches, which I think is a much better practical model than the Roman model. However, while both Catholicism and Protestantism have rich histories of missionary work in obedience to the Great Commission, I feel like the Orthodox church has become insular and introspective rather than evangelistic.
PyotrVerkhovensky
10d ago
The problem of evil is a thorn in the side of modern Christianity. A benevolent God would never allow something like childhood brain cancer; there are obviously better ways to test the sons of men than to inflict a random child with maximum pain before they have the cognitive capacity to understand what’s going on.
"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the Lord. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."
"Naked I came from my mother’s womb, And naked shall I return there. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; Blessed be the name of the Lord."
Jesus affirms the accuracy of human moral intuition. His parables compare the reasoning of God to the reasoning of man. His sayings are based on a sensible person’s intuition.
I don't consider the human desire for justice to be wrong in and of itself, but it certainly has been fouled and corrupted. Our intuitions may be emotionally "correct" without the object of that emotion being "correct". Eros is not sinful, but Eros outside of Man and Woman united before God is.
I am also partial to my explanation because it elevates evil to a near-Godlike power, which… it is. Why else would Christ be waging a war in the heavenly realms unless it was? Why would his death be needed unless it was? Why else would He call it the ruler of the world? And I think our era needs to see evil as an insanely powerful ruler over the world — this is also conducive to wellbeing.
I appreciate your conception of Evil as being a true/near-equal antagonist (though I don't agree with it). I do think (as hopefully can be seen from my other comments) that we need to take Evil/Satan/Sin more seriously.
The endless speculation and articulating just empties the Cross of its power.
Up to a point, I agree. "Knowledge makes arrogant, but love edifies".
PyotrVerkhovensky
10d ago
Thank you for your thoughtful response, it gives me more to think about.
I agree that the History in general (and the Biblical narrative in particular) is part of a cosmic drama. I think Reformed types can often get lost in the "logic" of religion rather than appreciating the beauty of the story. If Jesus was "Calvinist" (in method if not theology) he wouldn't have spent much time on parables! God sharing in suffering humanity is part of this beautiful story, though as you mention there is a tendency among liberal theologians to make this "identification" the means of atonement (God understands us, and thus forgives us...a very narrow view of God's omnipotence and a very low view of sin).
As an aside, I've never heard any Protestant of any denomination say that Michael is Christ; it is certainly not the understanding that I grew up with. However, I did grow up in an environment where Satan rarely mentioned, and if he was it was almost in embarrassment. He played his part in the temptation of Adam and the mirror in the temptation of Jesus (and pre-millennial, pre-trib, dispensationalist types believed that Satan would be unleashed in the end times), but otherwise holds little place in the story.
PyotrVerkhovensky
23d ago
Thank you for sharing this.
The post-enlightenment condition is one of lost credulity and child-like faith. It is almost a second fall: a loss of innocence that can never be regained. Modernist man can't easily believe in anything outside himself. Post-modern man can't even believe in himself.
There are certainly great scenes.
Taken as a standalone movie, there is uneven pacing, a terrible addition of a Warg battle that eats into runtime with no purpose, and a cringy elf-reinforcement.
But the Two Tower's biggest flaw is how it fails to set up the Return of the King. Very little happens in the movie. By the end of the book, Gandalf and Pippen were on their way to Minas Tirith. Frodo had gotten through Shelob's lair. In the movie Frodo has gone maybe 20 miles and is no closer to Mordor than when the movie started. Isengard is defeated but it was a comparative gadfly next to Mordor.
An inordinate amount of screentime was spent on Rohan and it's plight. We had the sub-plot with the two kids riding to Edoras. We had the Warg battle. We have the "10K Uruk hai are going to destroy the world of men" resulting in an (admittedly epic) battle that feels disproportionate relative to the weight of Sauron's forces in the next movie. We even have Aragorn telling a kid that there is always hope.
In ROTK we don't feel as strongly for Gondor as we do for Rohan. Gondor is not given as much room to breath. There are no sub-plots. Pippen doesn't meet Beregond's son, which would have given us characters to invest in. The activities after Shelob's lair are rushed, with Gondor's army teleporting to the Black Gate and Frodo and Sam covering 50 miles of Mordor in a couple of scenes. Aragorn is never seen speaking to anyone from Gondor in the entire ROTK...because all the time for such conversations was monopolized by TTT.
The trilogy would have been much stronger had the Two Towers been more competently managed.
PyotrVerkhovensky
2mo ago
That is not how it reads:
"Of course, it is likely enough, my friends," he said slowly, "likely enough that we are going to our doom: the last march of the Ents. But if we stayed home and did nothing, doom would find us anyway, sooner or later. That thought has long been growing in our hearts; and that is why we are marching now. It was not a hasty resolve. Now at least the last march of the Ents may be worth a song."
PyotrVerkhovensky
2mo ago
Hard disagree. Evil keeps coming back because the Elves give up on Middle Earth. But even as evil comes back it is less potent: Morgoth was the true baddy, Sauron is but a servant. Saruman becomes a lesser version of his former greatness when he turns to evil, and even his voice fails him. He becomes a mean beggar by the end.
PyotrVerkhovensky
2mo ago
I could definitely have been more clear on this point :). In the books they are essentially Vikings on horses who have "settled down" in recent decades but still have an ornery pillaging streak. In the movies they are made to seem more passive, though not pacifist.
PyotrVerkhovensky
2mo ago
Finding a like-minded community that is in my same socio-economic class, age, and willingness to be "apart" from the world is difficult, especially since my wife is more liberal than I. I like what https://becomingnoble.substack.com/ and https://blog.exitgroup.us/ are trying to do, but I think those are too "right-wing" coded for my family.
PyotrVerkhovensky
2mo ago
The Two Towers
It is trivial, with the current "very online right" and with the benefit of a (relatively recent) era that didn’t require "diversity", to impose a reactionary reading on the movie trilogy the Lord of the Rings. Having just finished watching the (otherwise pedestrian, at least in relation to the sublime Fellowship of the Ring) Two Towers, the analogies are almost too on the nose. We have a technocratic leader ("a mind of metal and wheels") who leads a rabid horde of third-worlders in a takeover of a 100% white, peaceful, free nation. In the books, the technocratic leader’s "new" cloak is literally rainbow hued. The free nation just wants to be left alone, but is eventually forced into battle. The leaders pine for a simpler, easier time; where valor, honor, and renown were attainable.
Of course, so do all who live to see such times. The folk in the old tales had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. One of Tolkien’s motifs is how easy evil is to defeat: all good has to do is stand up to it. The Ents think that they go to their doom, before utterly decimating Isengard. The Hobbits cower initially during the scouring of the Shire, then win an almost trivial victory. One of my favorite lines from the book is when Theoden decides to go into battle himself, at which Aragorn proclaims, "Then even the defeat of Rohan will be glorious in song!". This is echoed in the movie during the "Forth Eorlingas" last charge. Yet the only thing in the Lord of the Rings that risks genuine defeat is passivity. Ultimately, Theoden’s death in Return of the King is one through which he does win lasting glory: the great Witch king is forever destroyed. Not only will he have no shame in the halls of his fathers, he has a prominent position in their company.
My grandfather served in WWII but never fought. If it wasn’t for the dropping of the Atom bombs in Japan, he would have been in the invading ground force. Given the casualty estimates of a ground invasion, there is a solid chance that his 5 children, his 20+ grandchildren, and his 40+ great-grandchildren would never have been born. He felt some pride in his service, but also regret and shame. Others fought and died. He didn’t.
Two generations removed from WWII, the very thought of storming Iwo Jima or Normandy is unthinkable; both at the national level as well as the individual level. Watch Saving Private Ryan and try to imagine yourself in that scene. My grandfather felt shame, but I can’t even muster that emotion. When I imagine myself in those boats approaching the beach, the only emotion I feel is terror. I am a product of my time, where even the "good" guys lack ambition and will. The world’s richest man trolls on X. The world’s most powerful man trolls on Truth Social.
Another great movie, the Dark Knight, features the iconic (and ironic) line "You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain". As I stare at the beige walls of my cubicle, were that those were my options! We live in an age where everything is flattened. There is great evil but without an obvious source. There are many who live upright lives, but without valor or victory. Our present evil is the insidious slow drip of poison that seeps into us through our surrounding milieu.
The great project of the "online right" is to identify this evil, to name it, and to then fight it. Yet this evil remains amorphous and elusive. Each "influencer" thinks they have the "correct" answer. These answers are typically mutually contradictory. In the face of this hydra, some have returned to recommending the basics: reproduce, guard your family, stay in shape, weather the storm. This is sound advice. But as long as the evil permeates are society, our children and our spouses risk defecting. The halls of power rot even as their power becomes more entrenched, threatening lives and livelihood. What can men do against such reckless hate? The one option that is certainly not available to us moderns is to ride out and meet it.
Our current establishment is terrible. They are feckless. They are weak. In a very real sense, they've lost.
I don't think we should smile and nod. I think creating strong families is actually one of the great ways to fight back.
PyotrVerkhovensky
3mo ago
Agreed, Trump is not a fascist. But there are "barbaric" inclinations in the MAGA right, and we need a more pro-civilization (though still right-wing) counter to this barbaric instinct.
PyotrVerkhovensky
3mo ago
If Chesterton is correct about Barbarism, one of the key attributes is a lack of introspection. Yes, there is barbarism in the far left. But that is my out-group. It takes no introspection, or indeed effort, for me to enumerate the sins of the left. And I would be tempted to do so, but I only have 500,000 characters at my disposal.
PyotrVerkhovensky
3mo ago
GK Chesterton and MAGA
Chesterton personifies the paradoxes he loves to pursue in his writing. A member of the Fabian (socialist) party, he is remembered primarily as a bulwark of conservatism. Deeply immersed in early 20th century high British society and culture, he was Catholic rather than Church of England. Writing prose and poetry on the transcendence of family, he never had children.
A populist, he writes a warning to MAGA.
To be sure, Chesterton does not shy away from condemning progressive society. In one memorable anecdote he tells a relativist that in a functioning democracy, the relativist would be burned on a pyre. In his pithy essay "The Return of the Barbarian" (1934), Chesterton states "I do not mean that any of that sort of liberty or laxity or liberal-mindedness has ever had anything to do with civilization." Yet Chesterton writes the essay not as a warning against Liberalism, but to identify the rising Nationalist Socialism of Germany as the true enemy of civilization. Even though the civilization may be decadent, flabby, and decayed, civilization must still fight for civilization. For barbarism is an uncontrollable beast. It contains no introspection, no self-corrective. Chesterton ends the essay in his typical incisive style:
"There are many marks by which anybody of historical imagination can recognize the recurrence: the monstrous and monotonous omnipresence of one symbol, and that a symbol of which nobody knows the meaning; the relish of the tyrant for exaggerating even his own tyranny, and barking so loud that nobody can even suspect that his bark is worse than his bite; the impatient indifference to all the former friends of Germany, among those who are yet making Germany the only test—all these things have a savor of savage and hasty simplification, which may, in many individuals, correspond to an honest indignation or even idealism, but which, when taken altogether, give an uncomfortable impression of wild men who have merely grown weary of the complexity that we call civilization." [Emphasis added].
As a confirmed MAGAt myself, I feel a distinct discomfort reading this warning. There is a cold nihilism and gleeful cruelty in the MAGA intelligentsia. The rank-and-file MAGA populists cower from modern complexity, preferring the comfort of totalizing and simple narratives. If MAGA feels less barbaric than the Brown Shirts it may only be because our civilization doesn’t have the will or vitality to produce real barbarians.
Yet what is else is the solution when faced with Weimar problems? Chesterton lived in the relatively prudish Britain, and did not need to directly confront the debauchery of Weimar Germany. Easy for him to work within his civilization to promote his conceptualization of the common good. What would he have suggested when faced with the ubiquitous celebration of buggery or an importation of an alternative "civilization"?
But, of course, Chesterton (or rather, custom and common sense as channeled by Chesterton) does have the solution. In his essay "On the Instability of the State" he counters the prevailing notions of the Total State by satirizing the ephemerality of modern nations. In contrast, true societal stability is only found in the Family, the bedrock on which all civilization stands. And while the modern assault on the Family threatens to break civilization as assuredly as any barbarian uprising, it is still an institution that takes only two willing companions and the providence of God to initiate. And it is on this rock that the next great civilization will be built. "In the break-up of the modern world, the Family will stand out stark and strong as it did before the beginning of history."
PyotrVerkhovensky
3mo ago
This idea, if implemented, would effectively cut off unsecured credit for borrowers with low credit. I could see an argument where as a society we say we won't give individuals with 530 credit scores any more credit, but doing it via interest rate caps is a very blunt tool to achieve this outcome (and I doubt this is the outcome Trump intends).
But while I could see an argument for not giving people with low credit scores more credit, it is not an argument I would make. Building back from a low credit score is a torturous process, but it takes much longer if you don't have...credit. And people with bad credit scores are often in financial situations where they need liquidity. There are plenty of shady loan sharks and pawn shops willing to provide it; at much more usurious rates and with much more deleterious consequences for failing to pay.
This is a populist play pure and simple. It does not seem to have been well thought through and would not be wise policy to implement. I've defended Trump's economic agenda in the past and thought (and still think) tariffs are a useful policy tool, but this proposal is simply a knee-jerk reaction to the Democrat narrative around affordability. Hopefully it has as short a shelf-life as the proposal for a 50 year mortgage.
PyotrVerkhovensky
3mo ago
I'm reminded of a couple years ago when a friend and I stopped at a Texas Roadhouse. I had not been to one since college when it was the highest-end eatery I could afford. The place was packed. I often eat 80 dollar filets at high-end steak houses, but I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of my steak. For 14.99 I enjoyed a flavorful (if slightly chewy) eight-ounce sirloin, two sides, and endless rolls. If I recall correctly, the same meal cost 9.99 when I was in college 15 years ago, while beef prices have tripled during that time.
The biggest change was in how the service was provided. In college, Texas Roadhouse was a standard sit-down restaurant with waiters who served a small number of tables. While the trappings of this model were still in place, the methodology was far more optimized. There is a well-defined mechanism for assigning parties to tables. Once parties are seated, the server "tags" the table with a sticky-note receipt with the party name and number, presumably to assist the waitstaff in delivering the correct order and to facilitate accurate billing. Despite my rather dim assessment of the waitstaff's mental faculties, we were delivered accurate orders in minutes. Once our plates were taken away, we were able to pay via the mobile payment device connected to each table. We left within thirty minutes from when we were seated.
The efficiency of this process was evident. The crowded restaurant was staffed by no more than 4 or 5 waiters. Yet there was something tangibly missing from the experience for both the patrons and the servers. Waiting tables at a Texas Roadhouse would have been a good job for a high-school or college student: the student would gain experience and acquire a certain amount of responsibility. Now, the waitstaff is not expected or encouraged to show any individuality or responsibility. Any deviation from the process is a flaw. When we were being seated, there was a slight breakdown in this process. A wayward plate from another table had been set on the table at which were to be seated. Our seater was flummoxed. Eventually she and another waiter contrived to put the plate back on the original table, at which point she continued to seat us. Addressing a trivial mix-up like this should be done without a second thought by even the most inexperienced waiter.
When we were paying, our electronic payment device asked for a tip. Given the impersonal experience in which our only possible interactions with our waiter were transactional (except, oddly, for the monetary transaction itself), a tip seemed pointless. The waiters had no opportunity to independently provide a pleasant dining experience, instead relying on customers' habit and largesse.
While my natural inclination towards productivity and efficiency makes me appreciate what Texas Roadhouse has accomplished, as a diner I felt like a commoditized agent being pushed through an assembly line. I, too, was expected to participate in the well-run ordering of the establishment. If I had been a little quicker with the credit card, maybe we could have spent only 25 minutes eating and not wasted 5 minutes of a table meant for the next faceless consumer.
So what am I to take from this? The dining experience felt demeaning and dehumanizing to both the servers and the customers. It feels like Wall-E. It won't be long before we do have robot waiters. We will all have adequate, but unsatisfying, commoditized consumption experiences. The majority will be content to consume and over-consume. I only can hope that a few of us will not want to just survive, but to live.
And yet, while the experience may have been grotesque, aesthetics are a low priority in any hierarchy of needs. The clientele were much more concerned about getting a decent meal at a reasonable price. I believe that making steak relatively more affordable for more people is a good thing. Better to gorge on sirloin than to go hungry in the streets. Better to be in a cog in a machine than for the machine not to exist at all. The economic engine that drives us towards efficiency may not always be pretty, but it generates results.
I have a mental model for economic markets that they behave much like a stochastic gradient descent algorithm. Firms and entrepreneurs explore the economic domain and move ever towards optimization. Whether this exploration results in a globally optimal solution depends greatly on the initial conditions. Initial conditions such as culture, institutions, and societal norms can have a major impact on how close the market engine comes to global optimization. An optimization problem is considered relatively stable if many different initial conditions can result in similar minima.
While this mental model is useful, it is incomplete: the very act of economic optimization can lead to eventual changes in the topology of the economy. In the case of Texas Roadhouse, the optimization begets atomized consumption and labor. Neither buyer nor seller is being acclimated to experiences outside of a prepackaged box. This may well lead to a fragile stasis as we lose initiative and dynamism and as the economic system becomes incapable of accommodating any deviation from the norm. Hence I can simultaneously applaud the innovations that lead to greater abundance, and decry the resulting changes to our society that can lead to stagnation and collapse.
The clear intellectual inferiority of the waitstaff is a microcosm of the entire labor market. For the first time in history, most labor is sorted (roughly) by intellect. In the agrarian days, farmers were more or less intelligent, but as long as the farmers could plow their fields their intellect was sufficient for the job. The higher intelligent farmers would naturally become community leaders and occasional inventors. With jobs now bifurcated by intellectual capability the "lower skill" jobs are essentially only occupied by lower capability individuals. There is limited interaction among individuals of different capacity as many of our social circles are dominated by work colleagues. Lower skill jobs atrophy with no innovation and no leadership. Hence the gross incompetence of many fast food restaurants and the disaster of manual construction and landscape labor. It genuinely was better service in the old days, when a diversity of intellects occupied these jobs. Conversely, the "high skill" workplace is now almost entirely staffed by high intellects. The menial jobs that would still have required interaction across intellects have been replaced by computers.
AI may be the great leveler. Robots are increasingly good at "high skill" jobs, but can't (yet) perform the types of physical tasks that even a 70 IQ individual can do. If job loss in "high skill" industries occurs en-masse, we may see the intellectual class starting to perform "low skill" jobs, with positive benefits for all.
PyotrVerkhovensky
4mo ago
There are at least two ways to reconcile these two beliefs.
- Modern jobs are fake and gay because most associates are diversity hires and prevent real work from being done
- Modern jobs are fake and gay, so companies may as well fill them with diversity hires.
In the first case, we can make the economy much more dynamic and worthwhile by reducing DEI.
In the second case, the economy is unsustainable and any "solution" would fundamentally change the nature of the economy. Even fake and gay jobs can inculcate leadership and administrative skills that will be invaluable during such an upheaval. Society would benefit from putting the best and brightest into these positions to better prepare itself for the transition.
PyotrVerkhovensky
5mo ago
I've argued since at least 2015 that the US government should invest, on the behalf of its citizens, in AI and automation companies. In the event that such automation pans out, each citizen reaps the benefits through his capital stake. This is inherently solvent (there is no promise of continued UBI payments). It would only "pay out" if automation was in fact successful. And it would help unify US citizens, who would feel pride of ownership in their country rather than a beggar for handouts.
Unfortunately, it looks like the time to do this would have been 2015. Genesis not withstanding, OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic are in too late a stage to need or desire government investment on behalf of US citizens.
PyotrVerkhovensky
5mo ago
Conceptually the same gods as in any age: anything we place above God or are more key to our identity than God.
I think some specific gods of this age are "comfort", "tolerance", political affiliation, sexual orientation, "reason", educational achievement, careers. Not all these are bad in and of themselves, but they become gods when we place our faith or find our identity in them.
There is a chasm between "get people to act in ways that benefit society (and themselves)" and "there is a transcendental/objective morality". The first is certainly explainable through natural means. My point is that many atheists speak and act as if we live in a universe with the second. I can think of three explanations for this behavior:
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