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Notes -
A common argument in trans discourse is "who are you to say someone isn't the gender he says he is? No one would know better than the person himself."
I've spent years operating on the opposite assumption about myself, that I'm a bad judge of myself. Furthermore, everyone has dissatisfaction with themselves and the world. Personally, I flip-flop, get dissatisfied about my life and direction, but most people tell me "that's life, get over it". But if I had a trans-like belief that "I know what I am, but the world won't let me be it," with tons of people telling me over and over that I'm right and there are evil people out to get me, I think I'd have latched onto it hard. Not because it's necessarily true, though. It converts vague restlessness into a clear enemy and a fixed identity, and that provides false stability and obsession for a feeling of listlessness.
So I don't buy that conviction is evidence of accuracy. If anything, the more invested I am in a belief about my identity, the less I honestly should trust it. I think it's at least possible that having an outside view is more accurate than one's own personal beliefs.
Is having skin in the game a reason to trust your self-read more, or less?
If the pope followed that advice, he would need to question his identity as a Catholic a lot.
I think that a gender identity (as used by pro-trans people) is not something falsifiable. Other unfalsifiable beliefs might be the belief that you are a good person or that you are among the elect. Or more mundanely, that you prefer strawberry to vanilla ice cream -- which is technically not something unfalsifiable, but very few people would care to quantify that objectively and correct people who claim the wrong flavor preference. ("Actually, we have analyzed your ice cream buying behavior and EEG responses and you are definitely a vanilla-lover.")
That's an interesting point. If being the Pope is like being the best at any other profession, he probably DOES question his identity as a Catholic a lot. The Dunning kreuger effect; anyone who's really good at something feels like they're not good (even if they consciously know they are) because they pay so much attention to the nuance of their skill that they can see every little mistake.
Being the Pope, you're probably in constant war with yourself seeing all the sin in your own heart that you must overcome all the time. Just a guess.
If the pope has only little grain of actual faith, he knows that nothing happens by accident (at least at such spiritual pinnacle of the world as Vatican), he knows that Pope is not picked by fallible sinful men, but Holy Spirit personally.
(sometimes as inspiration and reward, sometimes as warning and chastisement)
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