distic
11mo ago
The catholic dogma was interpreted this way at the time of the Council of Florence (see also Dante), but it stopped to be long before Vatican II. For example:
To be in the communion of the Catholic Church and to be a member of the Church are two different things. They are in the communion of profession of her faith and participation of her sacraments, through the ministry and government of her lawful pastors. The members of the Catholic Church are all those who with a sincere heart seek the true religion and are in unfeigned disposition to embrace the truth wherever they find it. It never was our doctrine that salvation can be obtained only by the former.
John Carroll, first bishop of the US.
For the protestant, I don't get it. I was taught that they believe in fate, so that your salvation was decided by God before your birth and your actions don't matter, but I'm no expert.
distic
10mo ago
In practice, neutrality would have meant that Ukraine will always remain weaker than Russia and can be invaded at any time. Russia would just have to wait for a time where NATO is occupied somewhere else. Russia violated the Budapest memorandum and the Minsk agreement. How could Ukraine trust them to not invade them?
Moreover, the fact that Ukraine is or is not in NATO is not very relevant for the security of Russia. They are American nukes in the baltic countries, so the threat would not be any bigger. On the other side, Russia would still have nukes, so the invasion risks aren't any higher. So if Ukraine joining NATO does not change anything for Russia security, you have to find another reason why it matters to them. The only thing Russia can do if Ukraine is "neutral" but not if it is in NATO is invading them.
has destroyed the country
No, the invasion has.
has cost enormous sums of money
The invasion has. The US are not responsible for it.
has wasted American influence in Ukraine
Are you kidding? American influence is stronger than ever in Ukraine.
has pressured Russia into developing better drone technology
No, their invasion has pressured them to do so.
has finalized the alienation of Russia from the West
Once again, it's their choice to invade Ukraine that has alienated them. Even after 2014 the west was totally OK negotiating with Russia. Have you heard about Nord Stream 2?
has influenced Arab nations into cozying with Russia
They always did... They are not democratic countries, they have an interest in helping authoritarian regimes. It has not much to do with Ukraine.
and all we get in return is some dead Russians
And the reassurance that you won't abandon your allies, which was in doubt after the Afghanistan retreat.
distic
11mo ago
Well it was also the opinion of vatican II that everyone could be saved on his own merits, if they did not reject jesus. So it seems that you can actually reinterpret dogma, because that's what vatican II did. Just like the catholic church always had a dogma that you could not make money from money, yet there are catholic bankers now.
distic
7mo ago
It's called paradox of value, or water-diamond paradox (water is a lot more useful than diamonds, but the price of diamonds is higher).
distic
10mo ago
An angry Bob in middle America has no power to formulate plans for middle East invasions and then put them into action.
Democracy means that everyone is responsible for what happens. Especially everyone which was in favor of the choice that was made. Sure, a guy in middle America wouldn't have been able to change anything himself, but it would have made a huge difference if a lot of angry Bob in middle America had opposed the war, instead of being in favor of it. The jews weren't a majority of the Bush electorate, and it's pretty clear that the Bush electorate supported the war.
Many Americans wanted revenge for 9/11. The direction those emotions were guided in and the actions those emotions were used to justify were completely the work of neocons and zionists. To pretend those two movements are not extremely jewish goes beyond any reason.
People were angry. They wanted a war. So they are not completely innocent. Moreover, the problem of the war in Irak was more the war than the fact that it happened in Irak. All the other possible targets of the "revenge" were even worse: Pakistan has nukes, Saudi Arabia has oil. Other countries had no responsibilities in 9/11. They could have argued for peace, but you know very well that it wouldn't have worked. Some people have tried (some of them jewish), but they have never been heard. So the neocons provided you with what you wanted: the best (or the least bad) target they could find. That was not the main problem. The problem was that an angry mob was asking for blood. Being dumb and emotional is no excuse.
distic
11mo ago
It depends how you define catholicism, but it seems to me that there is in practice only one type of catholicism. They recognize the same pope, they go to the same churches. That is why you can actually reinterpret dogmas, even if you said you couldn't. Because the dogmas are defined by the catholic community, not the other way.
distic
2mo ago
There are "elections" in Russia one month from now. Elections are a dangerous time for the power in place, even in Russia, because people can choose this time to protest. Putin just wanted to make it clear that no opposition will be allowed.
distic
7mo ago
The paradox of value is that things that are more useful than others as a whole, like water, have a lower price than other scarcer things like diamonds.
Replace water with cleaning ladies and diamonds with software engineers and you get exactly the same situation as above
distic
2mo ago
Now Dmitri Markov is also dead. The probability thatthey weren't both directly murdered is now very low...
distic
6mo ago
You are assuming that the only way the war might propagate to Iran is if Iran decides to. But Israel could very well decide that for them. Iran has been weakened by recent anti regime protests and Israel's government needs to prove they do something about the security of their citizen without hurting Hamas too much because Hamas has hostages. It's not the most plausible issue, but game-theoretically hurting Iran is somewhat sound, just like nuking Belarus as a retaliation against Russia (see The Bomb by Fred Kaplan)
distic
11mo ago
The catholic community is the set of people that go the the same churches, that recognize the same pope, that have the same theology courses (be it catechism or university courses). Obviously you can ask whether south america catholics are really in the same community as rome catholics, but catholicism is heavily centralized and ultimately it's the pope who chooses the priests everywhere (through the bishops and the cardinals). If you recognize the priest the pope has chosen for you, you are a member of the community.
It allows reinterpretation because in practice it does not change the community to reinterpret. People won't leave the churches, they won't stop recognizing the priests. In fact, some might: some communities do not recognize vatican II, but they are very small minorities that do not matter much. Most catholics aren't theology nerds and the point of catholicism is that they don't have to. Knowing the dogmas and reading the bible is good for the priests, but the people just have to follow what the priests say. So why would they care if the dogmas change?
distic
7mo ago
But the second situation is not even possible, you cannot have a factory without any workers...
distic
7mo ago
Paradox of value is not a market, it's a phenomenon that can appear in any market: some things have a higher price than others that seem more necessary. It's something that must be explaned by the theory, and every economical theory (eg theory of labour value) has tried to explain it.
Supply and demand cruve intersecting is just a possible explanation of this phenomenon in marginal utility theory. Perhaps someone one day will come with a better theory and a better explanation, but as long as it is an economical theory it will have to provide an explanation for the paradox of value.
distic
2mo ago
Yes he was a drug addict but he had been for years and he dies the same day as Navalny.
And now a pilot who defected to Ukraine and lived in Spain...
distic
6mo ago
The question is not about the legitimacy of Israel. Israel was founded on blood like any other state in the world. Before that the territory was british, and before that it was ottoman (turkish) for centuries. So do you think Turkey was the legitimate owner of this territory? Anyway they didn't get it peacefully from the crusaders, who took it by force from the arabs. Those arabs took it by force from the byzantine empire. I don't think I need to continue.
Nowadays, Israel is a strong state and a nuclear power. Perhaps it has no right to exist but it will exist anyway. The earlier you accept it, the earlier a more acceptable solution than this awful status quo can be found.
distic
11mo ago
For the record, I'm not really a christian, I'm just telling you how I understand it from (almost) outside.
If I cut your arm, what is "you" after the cut? Yourself, or your cut arm? I was made to chant "we are the body of the christ, each of us is a member of this body". It's pretty clear, isn't it?
The size of the party, or the pope, do not matter. What matters is that the community remains functional if you remove a part of it. Sure, it will be less functional if you split it in half or if the pope is heretic, because that would have important consequences on the functionality of the church.
As I said Christians say that they are concerned by truth, but it does not mean they actually are. Yes, the protestant churches are organized in such a way that communities split if they don't have the same faith. So perhaps the protestants are more concerned by the truth than the catholics. But it can't really work. There is no practical way to discover the truth, as proved by the number of protestant churches. You can say if you wish that god will lead you toward the truth, but then you have to explain why God leads so few people toward it, even among the protestant. Making religion about faith and truth is deemed to disolve it. Ultimately everyone will have his own beliefs and there will be no religion at all.
The catholic way, to stick together and let the hierarchy decide what must be believed seems a bit dishonest, but at least it's not provably false that God leads the Catholic church as a whole toward the truth. Sure, individual belivers might be false (perhaps even all of them), but at the end of the day the Church will remain and improve. And as catholics care more about charity than about faith, it's not even that important if it happens that they are mistaken for all of their life. Remember that charity is love, and love is what make people want to live together and seek unity.
distic
7mo ago
No I'm just explaining you the difference between the facts (the explicanda of the theory), like the price of diamonds and water, and the explanation of those facts (the theory itself), like supply and demand. It is true, however, that the theory is always more precarious than the facts
distic
2mo ago
I think we won't be able to agree but it's still quite weird that 3 people opposed to Putin in a way or another die within a week... what's the probability that it happens at random?
Why not them?
I guess he cannot just choose to kill anyone, there are practical limits. They must have searched for the pilot since he defected.
If two people have different interpretations, how do you decide which one is correct? The number of protestant churches is still not reducing. Actually, it would be quite magic if everyone agreed. Look at the american constitution: it's a lot easier to interpret than the Bible, yet not everyone agrees. So if all well-intended people agreed on a religious doctrine, it would actually be some kind of proof that this religion is correct. But it seems to me that everyone agrees there will never be any such a proof (until the return of the christ if you prefer).
And for the record, I think catholics are concerned about the truth of their dogmas, but I also think they are more concerned avout other things like unity of the church. It's a very intellectual belief to think that religion must necessarily be about truth
distic
11mo ago
The fact that they use sma and ema does not mean that it is what makes them earn money. If I use both astrology and science for agriculture, I will make money (astrology is useless, thus it is harmless) but it won't prove anything about astrology.
And what he is saying is that there are strictly more informations in the order book than in the price.
distic
6mo ago
Well, it wasn't clear from my comment but the brutality and the settlements are not necessary for Israel to exist, so they aren't justified at all. I mean, if you are searching for a peaceful solution and not to justify your own crimes.
distic
6mo ago
Even if you live in the west, China may use informations about you. Do you work for the army? Do you work for a competitor of a chinese company? Do you hold anti chinese views? Are you an obstacle on the way of a chinese agent?
I understand that you don't trust your government, but trusting a foreign government more is something weird...
There is always this stupid idea that if only we were a bit kinder with those leaders (be it Hitler, Putin or others), if we had made just one or two small concessions, there would have been no war. But this is a complete misunderstanding of the nature of their regime. Whatever you give them, they see as a sign of weakness, a proof that they can push harder. You negociated with me about Syria, so that I can do anything there? I will also take Ukraine. You give me Danzig? I will also take Alsace. It's a game where they can only win: either you give them what they want, and they are stronger and can push for more, or you don't, and they get a casus belli.
EDIT:
By the way, I remember quite precisely what happened, and the jews were not responsible of it. All of America wanted this war. The people who opposed it took a ton of shit. You probably wanted this war yourself. But I guess it is easier to blame the stupid choices you made on the jews.
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