urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
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User ID: 226
urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
6mo ago
If you find yourself in a room with 11 people who are voting to convict after several days of deliberation, then it's unlikely that they're doing so purely for political reasons. If you haven't turned at least a few members around in that time, then you're probably wrong, and unless you're a total moron, you'll probably come around yourself. In a high-profile case such as this, there is going to be a lot of pressure for a verdict, and the judge isn't going to send everyone home just because you say you're deadlocked; the system is willing to keep you there a lot longer than you think they will.
How democratic!
You can make any choice as a juror, so long as you make the one everyone else is making. And if you don’t make the decision everyone else wants you to, the state will use force to intimidate you into changing your mind.
We might as well just use Nazi ballots, if the whole point of juries is to use social and economic pressure to force people to vote the same way, and using confinement and isolation to overcome conscientious disagreement. These are totalitarian tactics, incompatible with freedom.
urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
1yr ago
I would also want proportion to the amount of non-violent usefulness for the item, and the amount of necessity for the item in society. No one needs a firearm to get along in society. Yes, it may have usefulness in a law-abiding way, but even the closest thing to a necessity for firearms in society in self-defense -- which involves, inherently, violence. It may be justified violence, but it is violence. Someone who shoots a carjacker is doing the same thing an armed carjacker-gone-wrong does -- using a firearm against a person. And there is no necessity in the 21st century to hunt for food, and certainly no necessity to hunt or shoot for sport.
A car, however -- using a car to run someone over is incorrectly using a car. No one for a lawful or legitimate purpose runs over a person with a car. There is no sense in which a car is supposed to be used to run someone over. There are no sports in which people get run over by cars. There is no such thing as driving through a crash test barrier made of clay for sport. A car, used properly, is not a weapon, it's a means of transport. Firearms are weapons.
And you also kind of need a car to get along in society -- especially in places where public transportation does not exist or is woefully inadequate. It makes a lot more sense to give your depressed teen (with a drivers' license, of course!) access to the family car than to give them a gun. After all, if they can't use the car to go visit their friends, or go to their after-school job, what they'll be doing is moping around the house. And that just sounds like more depression.
Perhaps he could have used the gun at a firing range to let off some stress. But if I were the parents, and actually paid attention to the kid, I wouldn't let him do that without supervision. And I wouldn't even do that, personally. The parents made an active choice to put a weapon in the hands of their depressed, angry son, unsupervised. That's not bad parenting, that's ludicriously harmful parenting. I would even say negligent.
All that being said, it's interesting to me that owning a firearm is a right, but driving a car is a privilege -- yet the former is optional and the latter, for many people, a necessity.
urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
2yr ago
· Edited 1yr ago
deleted
urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
3d ago
But the changes have happened since, Gallup says, 2022 — I just don’t know what’s happened since 2022 that would make such a big shift make sense! Except for Trump 2. But Trump has shown no indication of reticence about gay marriage.
urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
4d ago
Wow, that’s… massive. Is it just party coalitions reshuffling? But such a massive drop in such a short amount of time makes me want to assume the null hypothesis, measurement error.
urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
5d ago
This was also my reaction.
I am disappointed that the tron theme doesn't look anything like the movie Tron.
urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
17d ago
urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
24d ago
Was "getting matches with available people you find attractive" not an option?
urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
30d ago
I also think that there is a significant subset of men that are BPD and misdiagnosed for various reasons, one of which seems blindingly obvious to me, but only on the BPD side.
One of which?
urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
1mo ago
· Edited 1mo ago
You didn't pick the topic -- but you did choose to engage it, and in a particular way. And I believe there is no such thing as "just a philosophy discussion" when we're speaking of God. Every word we say about him either reveals or conceals his love. "Whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light."
You say that you're just "picking a fight over a specific word" -- but I think that word actually matters. I do affirm God's omnibenevolence. Not because I misunderstand divine simplicity or want to anthropomorphize God, but because the Christian tradition at its best has always taught that God is not just good by analogy, but that his very being is love -- and that love is revealed to us in the person of Jesus Christ. God anthropomorphized himself, "in a plan of sheer goodness," out of love.
The god of the philosophers cannot be the Triune God, precisely because of the apophaticism that you're defending! The God who is unknowable, ineffable, utterly perfect, cannot be grasped in his essence by philosophical categories. And pure reason would never imagine a God who is communion, who is Father, Son, and Spirit in an eternal relation of love. The Trinity is not the culmination of metaphysical logic. It is a revealed mystery that overturns what unaided reason would expect from the Absolute.
When someone comes asking whether the God of Christianity is morally trustworthy, the absolute wrong response is to retreat into terms like "God wills the good according to nature," as if that settles it. That may be defensible in scholastic language, but it's interpersonally and evangelically devastating, and empties the Christian message of the relational content that is its essence.
I think the fundamental problem with your position is you've emptied the concept of "goodness" of its volitional, transcendent, and glorious attributes, as though "well-behaved" exhausts what it means to describe someone as "good." You're affirming the universal love of God and yet denying the fundamental omnibenevolence of God -- as though "benevolent" is not a wonderful and precise way to describe willing the good for all things according to their nature!
Look at how Merriam-Webster discusses the history of the term 'benevolent':
One who is benevolent genuinely wishes other people well, a meaning reflected clearly in the word's Latin roots: benevolent comes from bene, meaning "good," and velle, meaning "to wish." Other descendants of velle in English include volition, which refers to the power to make one's own choices or decisions, and voluntary.
In other words, to be "omnibenevolent" is "to voluntarily will the good for all things"... which is exactly what you just said about God!
If God is love, then we should be able to say he is good -- recognizably good. Good in a way that people can see, and praise for his goodness. Not just metaphysically perfect. Not just consistent with his own essence. But gracious, merciful, near to the brokenhearted, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. That's not a mistake of sentiment. That's the Psalms. That's the saints. That's the Cross.
So I don't think this was just a fight about a word. I think it was a moment when someone asked whether Christians actually believe God is good, and critiqued a motte and bailey in which God's goodness is affirmed in analogical terms -- but then, more deeply, denied as something humans can actually recognize or trust. You affirmed his view, by saying that Catholic Answers is an apologetics outreach and not a theological article, and thus that its answers are misleading or incomplete! You've been distracted by the term 'omnibenevolent' to the extent that you've affirmed exactly what he was arguing in a way that makes Christians appear untrustworthy and dissembling.
If we answer questions about God's goodness with hedging, precision, or tone-deaf abstractions, we've not preserved orthodoxy -- we've made it unbelievable. That's what I'm indicating here: that your vision of God's goodness is thoroughly orthodox, impeccably scholastic, and philosophically integrated... and yet utterly uncompelling, even horrifying. No one who was not raised in the Church would look at the vision of God you've outlined and say, "wow, sounds like someone I should worship." They would walk away thinking: "These people are clever. But their God? He sounds like a narcissist."
You can try to protect God from accusations of malevolence by retreating to apophaticism, but that is not the mind of God on the matter. God's answer to those who would accuse him of evil was to enter into evil, to experience suffering, to face death. God's answer to Job was not "my goodness is unfathomable to you," it was "my omnipotence is unfathomable to you." But his goodness and his love he demonstrated in his body on the Cross.
urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
1mo ago
· Edited 1mo ago
Therefore the claim "The phrase 'God's goodness' means no more or less than 'Orcus's goodness', and refers to being a perfect fulfillment of His own nature" is a motte, and everyday discussion of God by Catholics is frolicking in a bailey where God's "goodness" encompasses positive moral qualities.
Yes, that's the reaction I had to the claims being made as well. But I want to reassure you that the Catholic, and broader Christian, tradition does affirm the benevolence of God, as shown in the person of Jesus Christ, who healed the sick, forgave the penitent, judged the oppressor, and died for the ungodly. Any account of God's goodness that doesn't center on the person of Jesus simply isn't a representation of the Christian approach to the divine nature.
In particular, the unique Christian claim of a divine trinity is often seen by theology as a rebuff to God as pure will and impersonal power, and instead reorients him as pure love: the Father loves the Son, and thus "God is love." (1 John 4:8) God's moral quality is known through his nature, which he enacts in the world with his will; and that nature is perfectly loving, serene, self-giving, and joyful. While it is true that Christian theology is ultimately apophatic and analogical, those analogies are often viewed as evidence of God's goodness and not merely nice things we're comparing to him. The Christian tradition insists that those who know God will be "known by their fruits," and so it is with God himself:
Why, one will hardly die for a righteous man—though perhaps for a good man one will dare even to die. But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. (Romans 5:7-8)
I'm sure you won't find that to be a good enough answer to your questions, and probably creates more questions than answers, about how the wrath of God interacts with or seems often in human perception to counteract the goodness of God. Those are real questions, and they require a real answer. But your questions are good, your intuition about what would be a satisfying answer to them is good, and your ability to perceive mottes and baileys in the severe differences between the God of the philosophers (and theology journals) and the God of the Christian revelation is very, very good.
Christianity does not proclaim a mere abstraction. It proclaims a Father, a Son, and a Spirit who loves, gives, forgives, and indwells. Any Christian view that does not ground everything about God's acts in the world in his steadfast love for humanity is not mine, and it is not the Christianity of the saints, who found God in encounter with love and not in the perfect recitation of scholastic categories. As Teresa of Avila once said, "It is love alone that gives worth to all things."
urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
1mo ago
In fact, if you follow through with their logic, it’s basically: “we’re Christians, and you’re not.”
Correct. And in fact, this is exactly what you're saying to them.
urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
1mo ago
I'm not denying that our God can be characterized as an astronaut.
I realize you’re saying this because you find the comparison offensive, but this statement is pretty funny, outside of its context.
urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
1mo ago
The soteriological approach also allows Protestants having it to reach a truce with Catholics, Orthodox, confessional Protestants, etc- the internal spiritual relationship with Jesus is more important than having a particular theological belief.
Yes, I have heard the common refrain from people of evangelical upbringing that "it's okay, as long as you love Jesus." As you said, this is almost certainly a huge part of why American evangelicals are much more open to good relations with Catholics than confessional Protestants: for the evangelicals I know, the tension with Rome is less "they believe doctrines I believe to be heretical," and more "I do not believe that Catholics love Jesus Christ."
urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
5mo ago
You've missed the second part of what I said: I said that antisemites often both deny the Holocaust and despise the concept of a Jewish state. If you "believe races in general should have their own nations", but not the Jews, and also don't want to live around them, essentially what you're saying is that the Jews should go away, but there's not any place on earth you can put them... well, that rather sounds like the public position of the Nazi party before the Holocaust. The final solution was final because they decided the other solutions wouldn't work to get rid of the Jews they despised. If someone doesn't want to live around Jews, hates the concept of a Jewish state, and despises mass murder, it rather prompts the question of what exactly they want Jewish people to do.
Which brings me back to my point: the crux of antisemitism isn't about trying to do something with Jews, even though that can spiral out of control -- it's about finding a scapegoat for the ingroup's problems. "Our society would be grand and peaceful and glorious, were it not for those dastardly Jews!" is a refrain heard from Toledo to Berlin to Little Rock; somehow the cause of good German Aryans white liberals being liberal isn't white people's culture, but the Jews, because good German Aryans white people are, of course, the master race with protagonist energy, they've just been duped by the Jews and their damn verbal intelligence. It lets people rectify the purity of the ingroup, by blaming all its problems on the outgroup. But it also says some pretty pathetic things about the ingroup, if you think about it.
I get why Jews make an easy scapegoat -- they do have a strong sense of ingroup-loyalty, they do have a lot of success in fields requiring high verbal fluency, and they do have a unique, even odd, culture, which makes them easily distrusted, especially in pre-modern societies that never prized pluralism. But I think the error of the Zionists who claimed antisemites would be on their side is they thought the point of antisemitism was about trying to not live near Jews or wanting an ethnostate -- in fact the very things you're saying -- rather than getting really, really angry at Jews for problems they didn't actually cause, because they're an easy scapegoat.
urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
5mo ago
I'm not necessarily sure this is the case; I suspect fewer options encourages more active attempts to garner attention.
More beautiful people can wait for love to fall out of the sky, but less conventionally attractive people don't have this option and tend to have to fight for it. Attractive people can afford to be coquettish, less attractive people need to be direct. You can tell this is the case by how strongly many women react to the idea of asking men out: the implication is that you're a loser if you have to ask a man out -- what are you, a pick me?
urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
5mo ago
Ok, challenge question: Indians?
urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
5mo ago
How does it broadcast its request if it doesn't have an IP address?
It’s certainly only a model, but answering questions like this is why the OSI model is taught to students: this is the glory of the data link layer! (Or Network Access layer in the more accurate TCP/IP model)
It’s possible, though not really useful, to run a local network over purely MAC addressing, but few pieces of software actually can. But if you’ve ever used wake-on-LAN, digging deeper than IP is how it works!
Every device is intended to have a factory-unique MAC address, though virtual machines, software overrides, and newfangled privacy features just go with the randomize-and-pray model. Since there’s a unique MAC for each device, a host connected to a local network can perform a MAC broadcast without any IP bootstrapping, and hopefully find a DHCP server to hand it IP configuration.
I really love MAC addressing and layer 2 stuff, precisely because this stuff works so transparently in most cases and so you don’t have to think about it. It’s very elegant in that way, and I like elegance and autoconfiguration; it’s the computer’s job to worry about the numbers.
On a tangent: admiration for this elegance was the driving force behind IPv6, and I’d argue the only way to understand IPv6 is to see it’s a design intended to bring the fluidity and elegance of local networks to the internet. This runs into a lot of real-world roadblocks and administrative preferences towards centralized control — yet decentralized but coordinated systems are the great triumph of software engineering and I find it beautiful even if there are real-world obstacles.
urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
5mo ago
I’m right there with you, I like giant robots but mecha just feels odd. I attribute my feeling to growing up on Transformers; I’m used to my robots having souls and so seeing people sit inside of them and pilot them has the same sort of creepy feeling as those stories where human beings turn out to be robots piloted by tiny aliens.
(Mecha has always been more popular in Japan and the Transformers began as a line of mecha robots with human pilots, but the American adaptation went in the complete opposite direction and turned them into living characters.)
urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
7mo ago
Yeah. Going mainstream as a part of the platform of people devoted to preserving American power so it can protect Israeli interests.
Which is only a problem if you explicitly believe the replacement and opposition to whites is happening because of Jewish influence, instead of being done by elite progressive white people who hate their co-ethnics.
urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
7mo ago
Well, do these stats break out into Munchausens and Munchausen's by proxy? Because you might have it exactly backwards, and the reason it's so common in these groups is that they're doing it to their children.
urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
7mo ago
· Edited 7mo ago
Bombastic language aside, I think what's actually being stated is the problem of evil. And I agree it's a serious objection, though it's not one I personally struggle with.
Additionally, I think the gnostic comment wasn't directed at you, but more generally at the concept of religion grasping for answers to the problem of evil that can seem bizarre or improbable. It can be surprising, but the congenitally irreligious often find it hard to distinguish between the various tenets of faiths: they all glom together as one gurgling mass of irrationality. What's the difference between Nicene Christianity and gnosticism to someone convinced that the supernatural is an invented cope?
Before engaging in protracted apologetics, I would invite you to consider that your interlocutor has gone on record that he prefers a child rapist to a man whose worldview he found insufficiently nihilistic, and judge your likelihood of a productive exchange accordingly.
urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
9mo ago
I agree that'd be interesting to find out. And I also think you might be right, and if you're looking for firsthand accounts from xenophobic Japanese... you're going to have to read Japanese.
A good starting point might be to look into the controversies surrounding the Yasukuni Shrine, which Hirohito and his successors have boycotted because it enshrined some Japanese leaders convicted of war crimes. Politicians who visit the shrine signal affiliation with more nationalistic and far-right elements in Japanese society -- for example, Abe, and Kishida (who asked Germany to take down its statue commemorating Korean comfort women). I'm no expert, but really what you want to look into is Nippon Kaigi, which has as its mission to "change the postwar national consciousness based on the Tokyo Tribunal's view of history as a fundamental problem"... i.e. to not apologize for historical atrocities. If they don't hold a great deal of anti-Americanism... safe to say nobody in Japanese leadership does.
urquan
Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.
10mo ago
· Edited 10mo ago
I'm not familiar with the canon law nor am I at this time a practicing Catholic, but from glancing online the radical sanation path might make a lot of sense.
You know much more about your wife's concerns than I do. But speaking as someone from a protestant background -- any sort of formal submission to Catholic authority, even on a matter about which there is agreement, can be very, very scary. I mean, I hope you and your wife both meant your vows to be for life, considering foreseeable possibilities, in accordance with the divine teaching. Do you think she's more concerned about signing a document that says she's signing on to Catholic teaching, or more concerned about making a pledge that she interprets as closing her off from a divorce should you do something radical, which of course you would never do, like have an affair?
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