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				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 9, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
In a normal, healthy, average relationship, a single man and a single woman partner together to provide each other with resources that would be difficult for the other to get.  They do this because they have a shared vision of the future, a shared project to raise the next generation.


The historical norm was for a woman to be spinning cotton, wool, or flax from sunup to sundown to make enough thread to weave enough cloth to sew into enough garments for herself, her husband, and her children. There was a gendered world - every civilization had their own norms, but they all had norms surrounding what tasks belong to women (tasks that can be done by weaker people with the tendency to get pregnant and have babies/toddlers hanging off them.)  For example, in a European village a man paid taxes by giving his lord crops, while women owed their taxes in eggs.


Men needed women's labor.  Women needed men's labor.


There was a weird period in the 19th-20th century where machines took over a lot of the labor that women could do, while there was much less automation of male labor.  Then in the later 20th century, the women's labor that wasn't automatable went overseas to cheaper labor. This lead to more "Homemakers" outside the upper class.


But now, the majority of the time, both men and women work outside the home. Both men and women need to labor productively to keep themselves in comfort.  We are reverting back to the historical norm (except for the "women taking jobs they can do while minding their own children" part.  We'd probably need to repeal the CRA and some license regulations before we could get there.)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 9, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Breaking news: Trump is saying he will not be deporting illegal immigrants who work on Farms and in Hotels.


Gavin Newsom is claiming it for a win for the violent riots that have taken over LA and other major cities.


This is a bit of a let down for Trump Supporters and anyone who wants to take America back from those who were not invited.  Especially with Gavin Newsom rubbing it in the public's face.  Especially with American Approval of deportation efforts have been increasing.


Trump's rationale appears to be:


    

  1. 

    Hotels/farms are low hanging fruit, it's easy to pick up illegal immigrants from these locations.
    

    2. 

  2. 

    After swooping these groups first, then the only applicants to these positions (at the wages the farms and hotels are willing to pay) are the criminal illegal immigrants.
    

    3. 

  3. 

    So focus on criminality first.
    

    4. 



Does this mean that, once every last criminal is deported, he will then do sweeps of farms and hotels?  Left ambiguous.


One problem is the effect of exploitable labor goes in one way.  Over the past 2 decades, Landscaping businesses that employed high school students and ex cons went out of business because they couldn't compete against undocumented workers.


If one farm gets raided, and one farm growing similar things does not get raided for another year, then the first farm needs to hire more expensive people and raise prices while the second farm will still benefit from the lowered wages.  The farm that got raided first goes out of business first, the second farm maybe gets to buy up the first farm, then when they are inevitably raided they still stay in business and make more money now.


It's not fair.  It's not fair that the government has not enforced its own rules surrounding hiring employees uniformly across industries.


The fair thing would be to deport 100% of everyone deportable all at once.  The shock of that will be destructive to every industry that is predominately illegal immigrants.


The next fair thing might be to deport 10% of employees in every business all together, then another 10% later, and so on until the bottom is reached.


Of course, the above two "fair" plans are ridiculous.  We do not have the man-power to do it.


Any other fair ideas?  Besides Trump's new plan of "Don't try to tackle this right now."


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 9, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Sounds like a Christian should have reached out to her and told her that she is loved - explained forgiveness, sanctification, and water that does not leave you thirsty.  Instead, she got a mob calling her names.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Transnational Thursday for June 12, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
US has started removing non-essential people from the Middle East.  People assume that this means an attack by Iran is imminent.  https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-embassy-iraq-preparing-ordered-evacuation-due-heightened-security-risks-2025-06-11/


The expected series of events would be:


    

  • Iran is very insistent on making nuclear weapons.
    • 

  • US and Israel cannot allow this
    • 

  • Israel attacks Iran
    • 

  • Iran attacks Israel and US bases in the region directly.
    • 



				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 2, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Usually punishment is confinement to her room for X amount of time, the worst was for two days in a row when she was suspended from school.


We tried spanking for a span when she was four, but it didn't have any effect.  Confining her to her room doesn't really have an effect either, except giving her space to calm down.


My mom just recommends taking the next treat away, but the behavior is so continuous, disruptive, and unsafe that we're at the point where we don't do treats.  We don't get to go to parties, play dates or movies.  We take away the next trip to Costco.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 2, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think I qualify in the "urinary incontinence" bracket, but it's just when I have a very, very bad cold at a specific time of my cycle, and I'm able to wear a regular pad to deal with it.  About as inconvenient as a period. This seems to be the most common version.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 2, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
For my background - I am the mother of four kids, the oldest of which is a handful and the third of which has some kind of birth defect that currently requires a fake eye and may require a kidney transplant when he's a teen.


When I say the oldest is a handful, I mean that she is seven years old and has been suspended from school twice for running away from school and across a busy street without looking.  Let's call her A.  I have trouble taking her places - either I take her by herself somewhere or I leave her behind and take the 6, 3, and 2 year old.  It is much easier to take the 6, 3, and 2 year old places together than it is to take A by herself.  She is a wonderful child 90% of the time, but 10% of the time she gets stuck on a Bad Idea.  Literally stuck, she repeats a phrase over and over again, does not listen to anything, only snaps out of it after 20 or so minutes.


A babysitter quit because one of her "stuck ideas" was to get revenge on the sitter for some slight (didn't get the right color dinner plate, if I remember correctly.)  Another stuck idea was to get to the check out line first in a busy Home Depot garden center - I had a toddler in a stroller, a 3 year old walking as fast as he could, and couldn't keep up with the lithe unencumbered A.  I lost sight of her and wandered around Home Depot until the intercom said she was at the front - she tried to run into the parking lot by herself but an employee stopped her.


She officially has ADHD and I am supposed to take A to a therapist to treat her for this.  They don't think she has ODD because she always feels remorse after.  I think she might have high-functioning autism because she also has a very black/white way of looking at things.  If someone doesn't predict the future she calls it a lie.  Ex. "Can we go outside this afternoon?"  "Yes, if the weather stays nice." then if it rains and we have to stay inside, "You lied!"


However, when I filled out the PIC-2 questionnaire with full candor and honesty, the Neuropsych wrote in her parent-facing notes: "[OracleOutlook] responded to the measure in such a way that she reported a slightly higher number of symptoms than is typical for A’s age. This is likely due to increased stressors in their life and not true feigning of symptoms; however, results were interpreted with caution."  I suspect we are years away from getting a full diagnosis for whatever is going on with A.


I don't write all this to complain or ask for advice.  I am trying to get across the experience of having a "bad kid."  I don't take the other kids to as many places as I would like.  I worry that they are picking up bad adaptations to having a turbulent, violent personality living with them.  The next oldest has a fawn response.  The younger two like to hit back.  It's not great.


I also have a lot of medical costs from the third child with the eye prosthetic.  When he was an infant he needed a new conformer every month or so, which is pretty pricey.


This isn't even getting into pregnancy, which is a crap shoot as you noted.


Ultimately life is a risk.  The question is, is it worth it?  I say yes.  Humans throughout history said "yes" through worse difficulties and dangers.


There are many good reasons to be done having kids.  Mine is that I want to increase the odds that my husband is alive and well up to the point the youngest turns 18.


One consideration is that having one difficult kid is hard, but I actually think it gets easier when you have more kids who are better behaved. I'm glad I didn't stop at A.   If I had, I would assume there was something wrong with my parenting that caused her emotional disturbances. I also get to have "normal kid experiences" with the other kids.


If your complicated kid is the youngest, it's probably easier to manage.  I've seen families where they keep going until they have 5-7 kids, hit a kid who needs more attention, and then stop.  They seem pretty happy, even when they need to have specialized schooling, medical procedures, etc.  It seems easier for an experienced parent to manage, and they also have older kids in middle school/high school who can help out more with chores and babysitting.


While having a really needy or psychotic child can be really bad, the odds of it happening without a clear family history are around the same as getting into a really bad car accident.  Going into each pregnancy I worried about it around as much as I worry about getting paralyzed on a road trip, which is to say not overly much - certainly not enough to make me reconsider.


I hope this helps give you more to consider.  I'm not trying to persuade you to have another kid, just give a different perspective on the "getting unlucky" phenomenon.  I love A.  I wish she didn't get "stuck" most days, but I'm glad she's here.  I'll do whatever it takes to raise her right.


Also, life is sadder without a 1 year old in the house.  It just is.  I have a long ways to go before I get a grandkid to play with but I look forward to it already.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 2, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


While conservatives report much higher mental health ratings, asking instead about overall mood eliminated the gap between liberals and conservatives.




Isn't this just a replication of hedonic adaptation?  No matter how good you have it, most people feel "average" most of the time.


Mental health isn't really related to how someone's mood.  Mental health is a measurement for how well a person can respond appropriately to life's challenges and has a good working model of the world.  Even something like a "mood disorder" is one where there is a disconnect between actual life circumstances and the person's state of mind or feeling.  If someone was feeling miserable because of actual life circumstances - say they're locked in a basement and getting tortured, no one would consider that a mood disorder.  And a mood disorder also covers feelings of elation caused by BPD, feelings of anger, etc.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 26, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm mostly perplexed by the whiplash the two dating threads this week have. On the first, we have men bemoaning that they can't find women who haven't had lots of sexual partners.  On this one, we have a man  talking about how, on the "women seeking lots of sexual partners app" they seem to disproportionately glom onto some men, and so these men must be visually hot and men who aren't being glomed onto are not.


Well, if you don't want women with lots of sexual partners, stop trying to figure out how to attract the women on the "women seeking lots of sexual partners app."  Find out how to attract the women who aren't on those apps.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 26, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


More than 61% of relationships start online.




This is not the same as "more than 61% of relationships start on a dating app," as I believe you have mentioned elsewhere.  Also in this comment thread it is mentioned that "Studies consistently show that approximately 75-85% of Tinder users identify as male, while women make up only 25-15%."  Women signing up for dating apps are the odd ones here.  And signing up for dating apps is not the same as using dating apps as consistently as men.


About 1/3 of American adults have ever tried out a dating app.  1/10 partnered adults – meaning those who are married, living with a partner or in a committed romantic relationship – met their current significant other through a dating site or app.


So about 4/5ths of relationships that started online started somewhere other than a dating service.  How does that work?  I would speculate that it takes place in environments where there is more 1:1 interaction - Discord servers, online gaming, twitter - I know more than one couple that met on Tumblr.  Places with mixed media - both text and photo posts.  Places where women can post photos but men don't have to in order to create their niche.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 26, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Look, I'm a woman.  I married someone a decade  older than me, so I am an outlier.  For what it's worth, he didn't make more money than me at the time.  I saw him as undervalued and received an excellent return on the investment.  He was the first person I found very sexy, which was a feeling that only occurred after three dates.  Mostly, we could talk to each other for hours and it was really nice to hang out with him, and then I felt real sexual attraction for the first time at the age of 26.  (But also it was tied up in the thrill of the hope of a future together. Sexual attraction is different now, having attained that future.)


I feel 0 sexual attraction to Niko or Finn, just like I felt 0 sexual attraction to anyone who didn't first show interest in me.  I would say that at least half my college classmates were not overweight and didn't have obvious deformities so that is why Niko and Finn go into the top half of the assessment.  Every boy in High School and College seemed like a child to me - who would want to marry a child?  Niko and Finn seem like children, too.


I think we're really hitting on something here if you can hear me out.  Women are not men.  Look at what my first comment was about - the words he chose to describe  himself.  I noticed that it's weird he put incest on his blurb.  I don't know who that is attracting.  I looked at words first to see if I would find this guy attractive.


The other woman here zeroed in on clothing choices and location of the photos.  Not any immutable facial characteristic.


If a man is not obviously deformed or overweight, then to me it's not the photos causing the problem.  Maybe there is some kind of woman out there who feels sexual attraction to a photograph, and these are the kinds of women who respond on Tindr?  But I cannot tell you what motivates these women, because I have never been in a social circle with such a woman.  From what I have heard, sexual abuse can lead to sexually promiscuous behavior in women.  Maybe that's what's going on?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 26, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The point of by grandparent commment was that it shouldn't be hard for people to match that guy's rizz. At least half the men at my college were as attractive as Finn. I didn't mean it in a sour grapes way. I have a husband who I think is much more attractive (though he has the benefit of being older.)


Edit to add on reflection: I just realized that the youngest guy I ever found attractive based on photos/videos (and not in-person interactions) is David Boreanaz in Buffy season 1 and he was 28.  When I was young I found classmates attractive at times, but that was generally only after they had shown some kind of interest in me.  (By doing me a favor, making art for me, something personal, not just a swipe or like.)  A man who makes it to his 30s with under 25% body fat is likely going to have an ok time if he knows how to dress and style his hair.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 26, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'll look for any relevant stats, but it looks like women are more likely to report dissatisfaction with Dating Apps than men.  (51% vs 42%) https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/02/02/key-findings-about-online-dating-in-the-u-s/


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 26, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If a woman is downloading an app, she's saying, "No guy in real life wants me."  Or, "I don't care about being loved, I just want to fuck."


Women want to have a man fall for them naturally, just by being in her presence.  Going on a dating app is admitting defeat.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 26, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
As a woman, it's hard to figure out who his "incest, cannibalism and John 3:16" blub is attracting.  Finn looks pretty average, kind of douchy.


My advice in general would be for guys to take photos from below, girls take photos from above, maybe seek a professional photographer if it's that important.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 19, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


conventional values




And what are the conventional values of being good?  I would argue that any instance of "being good" has its source in God's nature and so cannot contradict God's nature.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 19, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Ok, sure.  And when they do, they can see that God's acts can only be consistent with his nature.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 19, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Agreed.  Imagineering is not a joke..  Nvidia-Disney will have the most expressive robots in different varieties of your favorite characters.  Tesla won't stand a chance in the marketing.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 19, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
What we needed were expedited Challenge Trials.  The first thing I thought was ridiculous is how the virus was dangerous enough that it made sense to shut down everything, but not so important that we could do challenge trials for treatments on volunteers.  I know many people who would have willingly been exposed to the virus to test out a treatment/vaccine.


A challenge trail would have shut down a lot of this vaccine effectiveness debate.  Isolate a group of 400 people, vaccinate half, expose half of each group to the virus, and record the data.  Hard to argue with that, fast results, save a million lives.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 19, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
This was the reasoning behind vaccine passports.  If you were vaccinated, then you wouldn't be passing on the virus.  I lived in a place that required vaccine passports to go entertainment venues.  Grocery stores technically didn't require a vaccine passport but if you wanted to take your mask off you needed to show proof of vaccination first.  The rationale behind these things is that the vaccinated can't (or are significantly less likely) to be infected and infect others.


These were public policies made by public health professionals.  The public health professionals thought the vaccines reduced infection rates and that's why they set the policy the way they did.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 19, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It is a lot like the blind-men-elephant analogy.  I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing though.  We can see how that goodness interacts with us.  Our own human goodness has its source in His goodness as well.  Since our goodness has its source in His goodness, we can say that it really is something like a goodness we recognize.  It's not some kind of alien shrimp colors.  But it is vastly beyond our morality as well, encompassing it and exceeding it.


The average normie Christian hugs the elephant's leg and thinks it's just like us.  Look, it has a torso to hug!  And that's wrong, but not necessarily dangerous.  The average normie 8th grader thinks that the Earth goes around the sun in a circle and that's wrong but not necessarily dangerous or impactful to how they go about their daily life.


But those who have reasoned more about it or have further experience with the Goodness of God start to see other parts of the elephant.  The goodness of God inspires such sentiments as:




One evening, not knowing in what words to tell Our Lord how much I loved him,
and how much I wished that He was served and honoured everywhere, I thought
sorrowfully that from the depths of hell there does not go up to Him one single
act of love. Then, from my inmost heart, I cried out that I would gladly be cast
into that place of torment and blasphemy so that He might be eternally loved
even there! (Story of a Soul, St. Therese of Lisieux.)




or




St. Catherine of Sienna had a vision where God told her, "I am He who is; and you are she who is not."




Or the desire many Catholics have to suffer, their only desired relief being the presence of mind to offer that suffering to God as a sacrifice for the salvation of souls.


The goodness of God starts to look kind of distorted and weird the deeper a soul dwells in it.  A human can reach beyond just a leg and we start to see something immense, kinda scary, but still recognizable and connected to the leg.  We have every reason to believe it goes on further and further, beyond our comprehension but still Goodness because it's all part of the same animal, connected together.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 19, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


To me mercy and justness simply seem like different virtues




Justice classically defined is to give someone exactly what they deserve.


Mercy classically defined is to give someone more than they deserve.


They are contradictory, and calling God both Just and Merciful is one of the classic "mysteries of faith."


In God they are all the same virtue, because God is one simple thing. The most simple thing in existence.  He is composed of no components.  He has no composite parts.




then you are "judging" God if your praise of His merciful treatment of mankind constitutes a positive claim that it is present; if you can imagine a world where God was less, or was not, merciful, and in which consequently you would not be moved to compliment Him in this particular way. This seems to hold even if you think no negative judgement would be warranted in the absence of that mercy.




I guess we are judging as in assessing.  Like I judge an apple to be an apple when I eat it.  I can assess that God is merciful.  And by merciful I mean something like, "humans are merciful sometimes, and God is doing something analogous to that when He paved a way for our salvation."  But not that God is merciful in the same way a human is merciful. Our version of mercy is a pale comparison.  The reality of mercy that has its source in God's nature is beyond our comprehension and our own behavior.




The difference is that Orcus, as a pseudo-Devil (though not a fallen angel), would be a scriptural figure and thus one priests had cause to talk about




Ok, Dolphins aren't explicitly in there, but Genesis Chapter 1 does come up and I was actually explicitly thinking of it when I called dolphins good:




And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.




God saw that it was good.  Great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems.  God saw that it was good.  This is one of those places we see that word.  I hear homilies all the time on the significance of this. So is there something else that is different between Orcus and Dolphins?




he's good in the sense of being a good person;




Don't get me wrong, He is both good and a person.  Just our idea of a good person is limited by our overemphasis on our own species and nature.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 19, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


that God is not just good by analogy,




God is not just good by analogy, but what humans like you and I can understand about His goodness is only by analogy.  He is not good the same way you are (presumably) good.  When we see a saint, we see God's goodness there.  A saint is good in the way God is, but God is so far beyond human behavior that we can't work the other way back to him.  It's directionally confused.




And pure reason would never imagine a God who is communion, who is Father, Son, and Spirit in an eternal relation of love.




Yes, we learned something additional to God's nature through revelation, that doesn't discount the things we can reason about His nature and is revealed in Scripture as well.




as though "well-behaved" exhausts what it means to describe someone as "good."




No, explicitly God is good but not in the sense we mean when we say a human is good.  When we say a human is good, we colloquially mean something along the lines of a human behaves well.  That is not what we mean when we describe God as good, that is entirely the point I am trying to make!


Omnibenevolence is a recent term and I object strongly to people outside the religious tradition inventing it and then using their own invention as an attack against the logical consistency of God.  I have no objection to calling God benevolent.  He is.  I object to Omnibenevolent, because it can be defined any which way.  It's the "omni" part that I object to.


Goodness, must I sing God's praises with every Motte Post!


God is great, He created us for such good things.  He is an ocean of love. He holds nothing back, He takes pity on my who is weak and has entered into the depth of God-forsakennesss for our sake.  God went out from God to the furthest reaches of not-God, to the furthest reaches of degradation, torture, despair, guilt, shame, DEATH!  So that no matter how far we run away from him, He will always be there first.  So we can always find our way back to Him.  Forever His praise shall be on my heart!


If I start every theological discussion like that will it make people listen better?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 19, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I, of course, agree that God is love and spend more time rejoicing in His love than getting into philosophical debates. I didn't pick the topic of conversation.


I am 100% correct to contest the word Omnibenevolence as it is not the Theist claim.


To say God is Love is to say God wills the good of all. What is that good? It depends on the nature. The God of philosophy is the Triune God.


As Catherine of Sienna reports God said to her, "I am He who is, and you are she who is not." When she wrote this, was she expressing how far away she was from God or expressing a closeness unfathomable?


I'm not writing about infused prayer over here. I'm picking a fight over a specific word.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 19, 2025
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
To be merciful is to exceed justice, to give someone something more than they deserve.  To be less merciful would not indicate moral deficiency on God's part.  We can be grateful for God's great mercy to us.  But if God was less merciful we would not be able to judge God negatively.


Funny you bring mercy up here, I recently heard a priest say, in summary, "God's mercy to us is justice to Himself.  Divine simplicity entails that God's mercy and justice are the same thing.  It would be just to humanity for humans to never be redeemed, but it would have offended against what God owes to Himself - God's justice due to Himself.  He deserves our reconciliation because that is what He created us for.  Therefore He offers to us salvation, which is mercy to us but justice to Him."


I still insist, that when Catholics talk about God, we are taking in analogy.  There are very few statements we can positively say that are true about God.  Most of what we can say about God is what He is Not.  This is called Apophatic theology.


It is true that Catholic.com uses unspecific language, because it is a apologetic outreach website and not a university-level publication.




that did not permit making any deeper claims about the supreme deity than can be made about a pretty sunset or a cuddly kitten!




Obviously God's greatness is far greater than a sunset or a kitten!  I'm also arguing that His greatness is far greater than human understanding of good behavior.  These are all poor analogies to the reality of the full significance of God's goodness.




If Orcus existed, I maintain that Catholics would not routinely say "Orcus is good", even if the statement could be narrowly defended.




Ok, here. Dolphins are good.  They also rape and murder other sea creatures.  Explain to me in your example the significant difference between Orcus and Dolphins so I can understand what you think I would object to.