tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post1318970715356087631..comments2024-03-28T21:43:44.433-07:00Comments on Edward Feser: The latest on Catholicism and capital punishmentEdward Feserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13643921537838616224noreply@blogger.comBlogger33125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-81892371973912582592018-12-23T01:36:26.078-08:002018-12-23T01:36:26.078-08:00I know, this might be somewhat provocative, but I ...I know, this might be somewhat provocative, but I haven't noticed anyone make this point yet, apart from all the examples, in The Old and The New Testaments, in support of the death penalty, and the fact, that God has placed the entire human race under a death penalty, because of original sin, it is also a fact, that God Himself, not only, mandates the death penalty, against entire tribes in The Old Testament, He actually, has Saul deposed as king, because he didn't carry out the sentence, as instructed, presuming himself to be more merciful and to know better, than God, but for example, in the cases of Sodom and Gomorrah and the entire Egyptian army drowned in the Red Sea, God carries out the sentence Himself! So, when Francis says that the death penalty, is inadmissible in principle, which is the equivalent of saying that it is intrinsically evil, because only, intrinsically evil acts are inadmissible in principle, he is accusing God of committing an intrinsically evil act. Isn't he? And since, for God, no limits of temporal circumstance, can be imposed, there is no possible get out of jail card for changed circumstances to get God off the hook, in Francis 'logic', is there?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-17810332417545904312018-12-22T16:45:52.418-08:002018-12-22T16:45:52.418-08:00Why can’t The Church be merciful and still believe...Why can’t The Church be merciful and still believe what it has always believed about the death penalty? <br />Neither Francis nor his acolytes ever explain how, justice and mercy, are mutually exclusive, because it is impossible to do so, since Saint Thomas Aquinas proved, that the distinction between subject and predicate, in God, breaks down completely, which is to say, that God’s justice, is God’s mercy, there is no distinction between them or any of God’s attributes or even His person, within the divine reality, and it is therefore incoherent, as Francis did recently, to suggest, that mercy, has primacy, because it not only, ignores divine revelation, it implies, some kind of opposition or lack of perfect harmony, in God, and because The Church is established, by God, and is the sole repository of the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the authoritative interpreter of the Natural Law, which cannot be in conflict, with Divine Law, since God created the Natural Law, it is simply, impossible for a Catholic, to accept this novelty.<br />What lies behind this misunderstanding is incredible hubris against God and the Natural Law, because it is simply, individuals, putting their ‘feelings’ and opinions, above the fact of what The Church has always taught and the logic and authority of the entire magisterial order, because they, quite simply, refuse to accept, that there is a divine plan for the whole of creation, and that however harsh, things might sometimes appear, from certain human and ideological perspectives, God’s will, will be done, in the end, even if within our frail human limits, we cannot see how, we can come to terms, with some of God’s judgements.<br />Although in the case of the death penalty, it is not difficult to see. If someone makes a good confession and receives the Last Rites, it’s almost like being baptised again, and from the perspective of the salvation of the soul, which is the entire mission of The Church, to die, in this state, is to be given every chance to die well, having been given every chance of salvation.<br />Thus, opposition to the Catholic teaching on the death penalty, betrays at least, a certain level of naturalism and anthropomorphism of God, since the objection, is rooted, not in faith and trust in God, and the belief that to behold the beatific vision is the purpose of human existence, but in human moral judgement, independent of belief in God, and a primary concern for material existence in this life, if not indifference, verging on complete denial of the supernatural order and the supernatural purpose, that is of the essence of human existence.<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-75456637940460008492018-12-21T15:18:43.920-08:002018-12-21T15:18:43.920-08:00One of the biggest problems with this death penalt...One of the biggest problems with this death penalty issue, is that the vast majority of self-described Catholics, agree with Francis. <br />Their position is not based on evidence or reason, but purely, on their gut feeling. <br />Arguments that this teaching is a part of the universal ordinary magisterium or that it might actually be right therefore mean nothing to them. <br />What is so dangerous about this, is that the reason people have these ‘gut feelings’, is that western society, is biased against the Catholic teaching on the death penalty, and this bias is broadcast in mainstream and in social media, providing a constant stream of propaganda. <br />If you confess to believing in the death penalty, a great number of people, will brand you as a horrible person and will cease to listen to you. You’re immediately, an inhuman monster in their eyes, and nothing you say, will shift that impression.<br />The deeper problem this causes for The Church, is that it inaugurates a terrifying precedent and sets in motion a corrosive trend, that has the capacity, to reduce The Church to a literal remnant. <br />All Francis or his successor needs to do, to change a teaching, they don’t like or don’t believe personally, is to make sure that it is perceived to conflict with an issue or cause, that the vast majority of self-described Catholics support, and statistics show, that the vast majority of self-described Catholics are ignorant of what The Church teaches, and do not agree with fundamental teachings, even certain defined dogmas. <br />As long as Francis keeps the majority on his side, the revolt will only come from a small group of Catholics, who he doesn’t care about or want in his ‘church’, who might make a lot of noise, but who can, ultimately, be ignored and marginalised or forced out, in time, if they don’t die out first.<br />All he needs to do, to change whatever he wants, is to write something resembling a justification, with a slight degree of ambiguity, for the ‘conservatives’ to squeeze themselves through. It doesn’t even have to be credible, let alone convincing, because the majority, quite simply, don’t care, whether it is or not, just as long as it ‘feels’ right to them and it comes from someone perceived to have authority.<br />Thus, instead of being guided and constrained by reason, Francis and his followers, are guided by their feelings and are constrained by nothing outside the limits of their political will and power.<br />What underlies this rejection of all true authority, and the intellect, in favour of ‘feelings’, is a pervasive suspicion, if not an outright rejection of the supernatural and the immaterial. <br />Feelings are real and meaningful to people. The higher doctrine of reason and its conclusions, are perceived to be unreal and unmeaningful. <br />There is no love of truth in them, because ‘truth’ is just an abstraction to them, whereas ‘feelings’ are tangible, and therefore from their naturalistic and materialistic perspective, ‘real’.<br />Like Pilot, the vast majority of Catholics, ask: What is truth? And like Pilot, don’t expect an answer or at least refuse to accept one, beyond: “It’s what feels right to me, and the Pope says …”.<br />I can’t help looking at this rejection of reason and rigour and the exacerbation and manipulation of ignorance, as cynical, if not diabolical, and when one considers that God is reason itself, I cannot see how, one cannot conclude, that it is Anti-Christian.<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-78622489253851545842018-11-25T17:50:28.437-08:002018-11-25T17:50:28.437-08:00Anonymous, why in the world did you just give us m...Anonymous, why in the world did you just give us most of the text of the article in Crux that has the above language, without the appropriate quote marks or citing the sources? None of the above is original to this combox. <br /><br />Also, none of it <b><i>in the least bit</i></b> illuminates the difficulties that so many theologians have pointed out. Nay, all this does is REPEAT the obscurity, the confusion, indeed the nonsense. <br /><br />Just to outline one example: the pope in his allocution said the following: "It is, in itself, contrary to the Gospel, because a decision is voluntarily made to suppress a human life, which is always sacred in the eyes of the Creator and of whom, in the last analysis, only God can be the true judge and guarantor”. <br /><br />In what sense does it make sense to say God is the "guarantor" of human life? Murders have taken place in human society from Cain on down. Warfare has taken even more lives than outright murder. Where was God "guaranteeing" these human lives? And in what way is "only" God the judge, when the Gospels <b>explicitly</b> put judgment in the hands of humans: In John 7:24 Jesus says <i>Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.</i> And lest we imagine (without any foundation) that this is limited only to lesser matters and not to those of life, certainly Paul (Romans 13:1-4) shows otherwise. One can overlook the pope in informal allocutions or when he goes "off text" and speaks extemporanously, by simply admitting that he either mis-spoke himself, or that what he said was confused, inexact, etc. Or one can allow that the pope, while not mis-speaking what he meant, actually meant confused and muddled things. Alternatively, the Vatican could <i>actually explain</i> such sayings - but after 5 years of the pope's faux pas, the Vatican has clearly given up on fixing up the pope's oddities and mistakes, and no longer even tries to spin them as if they meant what Catholicism always meant - now it just <i>asserts</i> the continuity without pretending to show how it might be present. As above. <br /><br />As many have already said: this is not what "development" means. The pope cannot merely wish development into existence at a whim. Tonyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07159134209092031897noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-61325432835584017332018-11-25T17:09:13.751-08:002018-11-25T17:09:13.751-08:00
“The death penalty is inadmissible because it i... <br /><br />“The death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person,” reads the Catechism of the Catholic Church now on the death penalty, with the addition that the Church “works with determination for its abolition worldwide.”<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />The statement released by the Vatican’s press office on Thursday says that Francis approved the new changes to point number 2267 of the Catechism on May 11, 2018, during a meeting with the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Spanish Cardinal Luis Ladaria.<br /><br />As it’s been re-written, the Catechism now also says that “Recourse to the death penalty on the part of legitimate authority, following a fair trial, was long considered an appropriate response to the gravity of certain crimes and an acceptable, albeit extreme, means of safeguarding the common good.”<br /><br />Yet today, “there is an increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes. In addition, a new understanding has emerged of the significance of penal sanctions imposed by the state.”<br /><br />“Lastly, more effective systems of detention have been developed, which ensure the due protection of citizens but, at the same time, do not definitively deprive the guilty of the possibility of redemption,” reads the Catechism now, as it was approved by Francis.<br /><br />It’s for this reason, and “in light of the Gospel,” that the Church teaches that the practice is now inadmissible.<br /><br /><br /><br />In it, he explains the decision, saying it was Francis who on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the promulgation of the Catechism, had asked for the teaching on the death penalty to be reformulated to “better reflect the development of the doctrine on this point.”<br /><br />The pope’s words came on Oct. 11, when Francis said that capital punishment “heavily wounds human dignity” and is an “inhuman measure.”<br /><br />“It is, in itself, contrary to the Gospel, because a decision is voluntarily made to suppress a human life, which is always sacred in the eyes of the Creator and of whom, in the last analysis, only God can be the true judge and guarantor,” he said.<br /><br />According to Ladaria, the new formulation of the Catechism expresses “an authentic development of doctrine that is not in contradiction with the prior teachings of the Magisterium.”<br /><br />He then explains that previous Church teaching with regards to the death penalty can be explained in a social context in which the penal sanctions were understood differently, and “had developed in an environment in which it was more difficult to guarantee that the criminal could not repeat his crime.”<br /><br />Marking down the development, Ladaria quotes from Francis’s two immediate predecessors, first saying that John Paul II’s document Evangelium vitae is key in this development of the doctrine. In it, the Polish pope enumerated the signs of hope for a new culture of life, including “a growing public opposition to the death penalty, even when such a penalty is seen as a kind of ‘legitimate defense’ on the part of society.”<br /><br />Criminals, the late pontiff wrote, shouldn’t be “definitively” denied the chance to reform. It was this document, as Ladaria points out in his letter, that led to the first change in the Catechism on this issue, saying the cases in which the death penalty is justified are, in reality, “practically non-existent.”<br /><br />Ladaria then goes on to say that John Paul’s commitment to the abolition of the death penalty was then continued by Pope emeritus Benedict XVI, who recalled “the attention of society’s leaders to the need to make every effort to eliminate the death penalty.”<br /><br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-90567520351186013112018-11-21T21:46:53.294-08:002018-11-21T21:46:53.294-08:00The inevitable answer must be sovereignty of the p...The inevitable answer must be sovereignty of the polis. Contrary to the liberal idea that each individual is sovereign in himself and only bands together with other sovereign individuals for conveneince's sake, the pre-liberal tradition holds only the political community to be sovereign. All actions taken by entities within the polis, be it punishments meted out by fathers or abbot, must be ultimately permitted by the laws of a particular polis. <br />As my definition of the polis--a particular, self-ruling morally authoritative community--has it, the polis itself is the source of political authority (Belloc, the French Revolution, chap1 "Political theory of the Revolution). <br />The Belloc cite is noteworthy. The pre-modern idea that the political authority of the polis requires no explanation from something other than the polis itself is held to be the idea moving the French revolution itself!<br /><br />Gyanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09941686166886986037noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-61277585476049477472018-11-21T09:03:47.967-08:002018-11-21T09:03:47.967-08:00You mention nihilism. That was, 30 years or more a...You mention nihilism. That was, 30 years or more ago, a relatively rare topic; usually encountered in retrospective terms in the classroom ... during courses in philosophical anthropology, and the study of the Lebenswelt notion and its possibilities.<br /><br />Now however, nihilism in all its varieties and subdivisions - values, metaphysical, social, and even political - has become the stuff of near-everyday conversation even among modestly educated people. <br /><br />They see it all around them. They see the grinning proponents of it on television, who will admit it as the basis of their worldview just one layer down into the conversation. It has become the default metaphysical stance in academia, accompanies many pop science introductions, and is celebrated and talked about in the same smug way and with the same malicious glee that older children might employ when tormenting younger children with the notion of death. <br /><br />And whether its Hawking or the Churchlands or the kid next door, it is essentially an expression of the same phenomenon.<br /><br />That is why this Peterson craze has developed. Like Feser, he "talks back". Bluntly. Unlike Feser, he implies and insinuates and describes scenarios, rather than argues explicitly in syllogisms.<br /><br />I segued into this broader "argument" years ago during debates on the RKBA: when I realized that those affirming self-defense rights, inhabited a different mental world than the restrictionsts did. The good guys at that time had for most part or on average, what was in some ways a more naive worldview. They didn't realize that citing the Constitution and the Founders was of no more use than pounding a bible was when arguing with an atheist. They didn't realize they were so out of step with that intellectual spirit of the age imbibed by those who scoffed at any idea of "real" or "discovered" rights.<br /><br />I think what we are seeing in the last decade and a bit more, is that those who perceive the negative effects of chaos, have been forced to revisit and newly articulate the foundations of their worldview. Because, they have found that their premises are not taken for granted anymore, and that if the social antagonist with whom you are forced to share a political space is going to say, "prove it", you had better be prepared to do something like that, or to submit, or to literally fight in a contest of pure wills and power. You will have no other choice; unless that is, one of "them" has offered you a first class ticket to one of the plush seats on their train to hell.<br /><br />So, because the supposed shepherds and the wise-men have abdicated their hard duties and decided instead to roll around in their sinecures like a dog in its own shit, we have to do what has to be done; even if we don't agree on all the details. Feser has had to do it. Peterson has to do it. And I guess, you and I need to do what we can, little as that might be.DNWnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-20927316070084979492018-11-21T08:05:58.222-08:002018-11-21T08:05:58.222-08:00Something off the instant topic but possibly of in...Something off the instant topic but possibly of interest for Ed Feser, re. consciousness and free will. Easier than an e-mail. It doesn't need to be posted up.<br /><br />Yes, Peterson is so omnipresent that even his fans may tire of him ... though, it is demand for his product that has driven his ubiquity.<br /><br />But, an <a href="https://youtube.com/embed/bj7TIS69D28?start=1486" rel="nofollow">interesting fragment</a> as he responds on the matter of determinism and consciousness to the remark of a philosophically informed interviewer.DNWnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-15918706714170255132018-11-21T06:52:53.203-08:002018-11-21T06:52:53.203-08:00If we're talking among Christians, the anti de...If we're talking among Christians, the anti death penalty arguments fall apart on the basis that it is ultimately an attempt to be holier than Scripture, so far as I can tell.<br /><br />The death penalty precedes the mosaic code (Gen. 9:6), is throughout the Mosaic code, in Romans the properly constituted authorities are give a sword to be an instrument of God's vengeance.<br /><br />Just because it's abused is no argument at all, because there is nothing that is not subject to abuse.<br /><br />This world is grim. The death penalty, when applied with rigor and only on the grave crimes that require it, lead to it's rarity. Failure to apply it and you get the chaos of Mexico, South Africa, and other nations where chaos reigns and honest men are unprotected. Proverbs 20:26Hoyosnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-74895383497174254982018-11-20T23:33:31.749-08:002018-11-20T23:33:31.749-08:00Ed,
I was wondering if you could make a post stri...Ed,<br /><br />I was wondering if you could make a post strictly on justification for the theory of prime matter. It seems like we are supposed to take it as a given, rather than have reason to believe it over a brute form of nature. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-75110154442778506702018-11-19T17:10:08.899-08:002018-11-19T17:10:08.899-08:00I know of Aristotle's argument for the suprema...I know of Aristotle's argument for the supremacy of the polis based on its self-sufficiency (in "Politics"), but if he ever connected that to a unique right to kill, I'm not aware of it. In fact, I'd be surprised if Aristotle thought that only the state had the right to kill, since such a restriction was very far from the norm in the ancient world. Does STA, for example, give any explicit argument like this?Billy Jacknoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-23468902439943736662018-11-19T14:55:09.951-08:002018-11-19T14:55:09.951-08:00These compromised shepherds are the culmination of...These compromised shepherds are the culmination of the influence of the sexual revolution and post modern ideologies that have influenced the Church's and culture at large thinking on capital punishment and other sexual mores. Not provocative DNW....... Keep speaking the truth.Seanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16012920623189227706noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-71052613072769423532018-11-19T14:33:48.850-08:002018-11-19T14:33:48.850-08:00"My suggestion is whoever believes in the dea..."My suggestion is whoever believes in the death penalty should also be willing to kill someone themselves." Please send me information on how I can participate in the execution of child murderers. Donhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11451660326673235862noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-18458809441019491182018-11-19T09:37:49.729-08:002018-11-19T09:37:49.729-08:00"Walter Van den AckerNovember 17, 2018 at 3:1..."Walter Van den AckerNovember 17, 2018 at 3:14 AM<br /><br />DNW<br /><br />If what you say about the "infiltration of the Church over decades now, and at the highest levels by virtual cadres of sexually disordered males",is true, and that therefore you find it virtually impossible to trust the current Church authorities on theqse matters, how can you trust the Church authorities of the past?"<br /><br />Well, I suppose, more than suppose, by reading what they had written in the past concerning issues of justice, morality, love of family and country and neighbors, and the like; say, in the late editions of the old Baltimore Catechism which was admittedly directed at students in the middle and higher forms; but should not have fundamentally misrepresented the position of the Church. And then, by observing how the doctrines of the Church seem to have "evolved" ... as increasing numbers of what were quite obviously mild, simpering, "man centric" (double entendre intended) males concerned primarily with "inclusion" and "acceptance", found niches to inhabit in the institutional Church, and began their undermining work as "Liturgists". The infamous pronouncements of a youngish Rembert Weakland on distancing the liturgical sensibility from that of transcendence or a telephone to the beyond, and refocusing the mass on the condition of he and his brothers in the 20th Century, is a good example. And we know how that sensibility played out in practice.<br /><br />So, yeah, there have been perverts scandalizing the Church for years ... turning monasteries into spas, and nunneries into whorehouses, so said critics. But so far as I know, no matter how corrupt any given pope might have been, none tried to sacramentalize the nihilistic masochism we see nowadays under the guise of faithfulness to the Christian ideal of sacrifice for a higher good.DNWnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-24873255366431130472018-11-18T22:05:55.356-08:002018-11-18T22:05:55.356-08:00It is political nature of man whereby man lives or...It is political nature of man whereby man lives organized into three irreducible levels:<br />i) Individual<br />ii) Families<br />iii) The polis or the political community or the tribe or the nation. <br /><br />Individuals are normally embedded into families which are normally embedded into a political community or another. The political community is self-sufficient for long-term survival as Aristotle observed. Families and individuals are not. <br /><br />Man exists organized into particular self-ruling morally authoritative communities we call polis etc. <br /><br />A family or a religious order or a business corporation lacks these features. They are not ordered to long-term survival and flourishing.<br /><br /><br />A political community is ordered to Justice as well. The end of a political community is its particular instantiation of the Natural Law. Justice in classical thought means the same as the Way, for example as we talk about the American Way. It is also called Dharma by the Hindus. So, the American political community seeks to realize the American Way and the Indian political community seeks to realize the Indian Way and so on. Punishments serve the cause of justice and realizing the particular Way. Gyanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09941686166886986037noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-21678012030200069642018-11-18T21:55:42.416-08:002018-11-18T21:55:42.416-08:00There were, I suppose, disordered males here and t...There were, I suppose, disordered males here and there in the past but not this massive inf literation by cadres of them. Gyanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09941686166886986037noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-47271064217138718452018-11-18T11:07:21.860-08:002018-11-18T11:07:21.860-08:00Taking for granted that it is (sometimes) morally ...Taking for granted that it is (sometimes) morally permissible to kill a member of a political community for the sake of the political community, but not permissible to kill a member of a family for the sake of the family, or a member of a religious order, business corporation, etc for the sake of those communities, Aquinas's answer as to why only the public authorities may authorize the execution of death sentences makes complete sense. I would be interested to hear more, though, on what it is that sets political communities apart from other communities in this regard. The heads of those other communities may punish, after all, just not with death.Billy Jacknoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-57312230486255728042018-11-18T11:02:41.716-08:002018-11-18T11:02:41.716-08:00The pope is preaching Leftist Socialism. I imagine...The pope is preaching Leftist Socialism. I imagine he must think that that is the message of the NT. Avraham https://www.blogger.com/profile/07822433921393627746noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-31778980737956750882018-11-18T04:04:51.444-08:002018-11-18T04:04:51.444-08:00I am not Catholic but I like the classical and med...I am not Catholic but I like the classical and medieval people a lot. I never got very far with Aquinas, but I did try learning Anselm. To me they represent what the Catholic faith ought to be and what it ought to be saying. Maybe my opinion does not count since I do not have stake in this, but that is my two cents worth. Philosophy has changed since Aquinas in dealing with the problem raised by Descartes. But is that any reason to reject Aquinas? I do not think so.Avraham https://www.blogger.com/profile/07822433921393627746noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-7472507147008959582018-11-17T14:07:48.028-08:002018-11-17T14:07:48.028-08:00The Thomist Guy: alfred R mele's book "fr...The Thomist Guy: alfred R mele's book "free" and ed's book "philosophy of mind" are both good starting points!Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13255851032906984129noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-46855158756921878582018-11-17T12:28:56.541-08:002018-11-17T12:28:56.541-08:00I will give it a look. ThanksI will give it a look. ThanksThe Thomist Guyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06529345392140792728noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-54307237384832085322018-11-17T03:32:38.006-08:002018-11-17T03:32:38.006-08:00Stragton: Your comment makes no substantive point ...Stragton: Your comment makes no substantive point and it contributes nothing of value to the discussion. Your remarks about medieval torture and the entirety of your last two paragraphs are of zero relevance here. It is clear to all that you wrote this comment simply to gratify that powerful psychic urge that you and many other liberals often feel when you hear opposing views- you felt an uncontrollable urge to verbalize your disdain for conservatives and to adopt a visible posture of moral superiority. That was the end you had in mind, and you clearly did not care that your remarks were completely otiose.<br /><br />I have no doubt that typing up that comment and hitting "publish" felt really good for about minute because it took some of the stress off of your amygdala. But it doesn't exactly advance the discussion.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-35268146606700016232018-11-17T03:14:57.135-08:002018-11-17T03:14:57.135-08:00DNW
If what you say about the "infiltration ...DNW<br /><br />If what you say about the "infiltration of the Church over decades now, and at the highest levels by virtual cadres of sexually disordered males",is true, and that therefore you find it virtually impossible to trust the current Church authorities on theqse matters, how can you trust the Church authorities of the past?<br />We have evidence of "disordered males" in the Church in the last decades, but I see little or no reason to believe that there were no "disordered" males in the past. <br />How can we trust the authority of the Church at all if what you say is true? Walter Van den Ackerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16101735542155226072noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-12500125250576534312018-11-17T01:00:27.892-08:002018-11-17T01:00:27.892-08:00Stragton's remark: "If you can't kill...Stragton's remark: "If you can't kill your own food then you should be a vegetarian."<br />I can't repair my car so I should be a pedestrian? Specialisation...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-15629538530687984192018-11-16T22:56:32.517-08:002018-11-16T22:56:32.517-08:00Stragton,
That was a low-quality comment in nearl...Stragton,<br /><br />That was a low-quality comment in nearly every aspect.<br /><br />There is little adult-level reasoning to be found in it; and no sign of familiarity with how this topic has been previously discussed here. Even some of your phrasing is adolescently clumsy; e.g., "The final portion I have a problem with this debate...." I can commend you, I suppose, for not making obvious <i>punctuation</i> errors.<br /><br />Your first line ("Conservatism. Sanctity of life ends after birth.") is somewhere between straw-man and blood libel, and closer to the latter. Not an auspicious beginning, friend!<br /><br />You have a lot of growing to do, when it comes to formulating arguments. You probably don't like hearing that, but it's true. (Now, it's up to you whether you stomp away without learning anything. Many people would.)<br /><br />You'll be better-served, though, if you do the hard work of reformulating your arguments for precision, limiting them to what's topical, and arguing only against the <i>strongest form</i> of the objections of others. That's how, famously, St. Thomas Aquinas did it. It's the best approach.<br /><br />At present, there is so much murk, irrelevancy, and straw-manning in your post that I'm uncertain whether you know clearly what your own opinions are. I can only be confident you don't know anything about the opinions of those with whom you disagree.<br /><br />Work on those things, and the resulting conversations will become more fruitful.R.C.https://www.blogger.com/profile/03679435933685771007noreply@blogger.com