Felagund
3mo ago
Somehow Harris has a degree in economics, and, as an undergrad, chaired the college's economics society (per wikipedia)?
Felagund
3mo ago
We really need to teach all this in schools. Sure, two thirds of the people will forget it all, but it would be really useful if that additional third of people exists.
Felagund
3mo ago
Waymo exists, and Tesla's tech is pretty advanced, I believe. I wonder how much of why we haven't seen it much yet is fear of heavy lawsuits and regulation.
Felagund
3mo ago
I wonder how this will interact with population effects. Birth rates are below replacement and falling (though thankfully not as much as in some other places), which if that were the only effect, would mean that demand for residential housing should be decreasing. That hasn't been happening, because of other factors: increasing lifespans, a lower person:household ratio, and immigration. But we shouldn't expect that to continue, except maybe immigration—otherwise housing values will start falling as the population declines. So we can't expect houses to be a permanently appreciating asset (adjusting for inflation), without changes to society, or immigration.
Felagund
3mo ago
I mostly have hope in the legal structure and republican opposition stopping the craziest parts of this slide into a leftist dystopia. Of course they have to spend political effort and will to stop these things, and while they are busy stopping things from getting worse things certainly aren't going to get better.
26% chance of a dem trifecta following this election. Let's hope Sheehy pulls through in Montana.
Felagund
3mo ago
I think it's more just that it's not a conceivable possibility—surely my kid won't be the one thinking they're the other gender? Right? They're reasonable enough?
Felagund
3mo ago
What I find interesting is that, as best as I can tell, MTF trans people are more prominent than FTM ones, though I've heard that FTM is more common,
I haven't actually seen stats I trust, but the brief amount of looking I've done seems to suggest that there used to be more MTF, but that might not be true anymore, or is at least less true.
Felagund
3mo ago
Bohemia (following Wycliffe) had already realized a bunch of the problems with papal teachings and practices, prior to the invention of the printing press.
The printing press merely allowed it to be scaled up.
Felagund
3mo ago
I'm actually not sure of that. That would be pretty disappointing if it turns out that Kagan is only pretending to care about free speech.
Felagund
3mo ago
At the same time, the failure seems to illustrate that the Republican congressmen don't just always go along with everything.
Felagund
3mo ago
Nothing stops you. But a loyal enough congress is a pretty big stipulation, especially when Republicans disproportionately seem to care about what the text of the Constitution actually says, and are used to having to worry about how things look for the purpose of reelection.
We really need a constitutional amendment safeguarding the supreme court, as that would make the particular avenue you describe significantly harder to pull off.
Felagund
3mo ago
I am not an American, but I think one has to register as Democrat or Republican to be able to vote in the primaries?
Depends on the state. I think all three of:
- anyone can vote in either primary,
- independents can choose which primary to vote in (else, you're stuck with your own),
- and you can only vote with your own,
exist in different states.
I'm sure some people change their registrations to the opposing party for the sake of primaries, but that is probably fairly uncommon.
Felagund
3mo ago
It didn't look like it was the wrong comment to me?
Well, that's seems a little silly. It shouldn't depend on patristic interpretations. Setting aside that they disagree with each other on things all the time (And then what. Pick your favorites?), that would imply that the status of whether they were laws was up in the air until some subsequent fathers wrote down their opinions and everyone decided to accept them as fathers. No, rather, whether the laws retain their force post-Christ objectively follows from the nature of the laws, and patristic interpretations could maybe provide some guidance as to what was already the case. But I'm perfectly willing to affirm that we have developed a more thorough grasp of things than was understood by many of the fathers.
At least, that is the take of this Protestant.
(And, seriously, dealing with laws, covenants, etc. is one field that Protestants put significantly more work into developing than did any of their predecessors. There is far more than I know. Maybe I'll get to reading some more Witsius or (J. H.) Heidegger or something some day.)
Felagund
3mo ago
The motivations are different. One doesn't really care all that much about details, as long as the point is gotten across. The other is perfectly willing to mislead about the overall point, as long as it's defensible in the details. When a lot of people are judging and making decisions based on the overall thrust of what's going on, not details, one is far more deceptive on a practical, who-aligns-with-me-more (and so I should vote for them) level.
It seems to me like a lot of people care more about overall alignment than details. (This is not at all to say that details aren't important.)
Felagund
3mo ago
Several of the members of the Supreme Court try pretty hard to just call balls and strikes.
Felagund
3mo ago
He fired a lot of Twitter people and it mostly still works, but I can't see shit without logging in and that smells like a load shedding strategy to me.
I wonder if it was also to try to get people to get an account, instead of merely lurking? That would raise engagement with the platform. (I know people who have done so, though I've stubbornly stuck to what's left of nitter for now.)
Felagund
3mo ago
Unfortunately, a world where we're comfortable paying for things by printing dollars is not healthy either. Congressmen lose all sense of scale that is created by forcing oneself to compare to revenue taken in and get used to printing more money. We don't want to be Argentina (or take your pick of reckless country).
Regarding 3, will that result in black market or foreign institutions trying to do the same things without the T-bills?
Felagund
3mo ago
Yeah, creating pots of money under government control often has unintended consequences.
Felagund
3mo ago
This is an overly simplistic view of the relationship of the old and new covenants. (Accordingly, maybe be a little slower to say those final two sentences of yours, especially since @Quantumfreakonomics demonstrated knowledge of what you talk about by his reference to the Mosaic covenant.)
The following is probably not optimally ordered, but it should present things in a little more detail and clarity (I'd need to do significantly more reading to clarify my thoughts enough to do it better). But first we'll look at the law as laid down at the time of Moses. This can, generally speaking, be classified into three sorts of laws:
- Moral laws, which are articulations of general moral principles. Any appearance in the Mosaic law is just a repetition and reiteration of something that was already true and incumbent upon all mankind. An example is, "Thou shalt not kill."
- Ceremonial laws, which are laws governing Israel in respect of its existing as a church. Unlike the moral laws, these were not incumbent upon people before they were articulated by God. The entire system of sacrifices and laws concerning those would be one example of something in this category.
- Civil laws, which are laws governing Israel in respect of its existing as a polity. These fill the same role as the various civil laws of the United States do for me. An example of this is the establishment of cities of refuge, or any of the penalties attached to any of the laws.
Christ's fulfilling of the law refers to his perfectly keeping it, in its entirety. (Rather than, as James 2:10, describes, breaking it in one point, and becoming guilty of the whole.) He alone has properly measured up to its standard, and so earned, on our behalf, the promised rewards associated with that.
Note that this does not abolish any of the three classes of laws. Moral laws still remain, as we still ought to do good things, and not to do bad things. It's not obvious to me that ceremonial laws would be affected by this—plausibly, there's no reason to stop celebrating the passover, just because someone's fully followed the law. And civil laws still must obviously exist, it still makes sense to punish criminals.
Rather, what Christ's fulfillment of the law accomplishes is meriting for us salvation and the rewards of the law—in the case of the promises to Adam, eternal life. In its application to us, that means that we are no longer dependent upon our fully upholding and fulfilling the law to reap these benefits, we are generously given those by means of our being united to Christ.
What about the three classes of laws, then? Why are they not all here?
First, moral laws stick around. They continue to apply in three sense to Christians. First, they serve to remind us of our dependence upon and estate before God by our failure to keep them. (Consider especially the bar Jesus sets in his articulation of them in the sermon on the mount—one breaks the commandment against adultery not merely by adultery outright, but also by lustful desires, for example.) Second, it can deter evil. Third, it acts as a guide to life. None of these change. (If you want textual proof, 1 Corinthians 9:9 cites a law as authoritative.)
Second, ceremonial laws are changed, because the system of laws that are proper to a people who are largely ethnically a single nation, and which exist in anticipation of and invoke a future savior are no longer so fitting when now the people of God are ethnically diverse, and rather look to the past (and future) coming of God in the flesh, and a corresponding fuller revelation. Read Hebrews in its description of how the old covenant relates to the new, and Paul, in his insistent commands against requiring gentiles to follow the Jewish laws. We still have ceremonial laws, though, of a sort—the command to celebrate the Lord's Supper is one.
Third, civil laws are changed. This is because the polity of Old Testament Israel has collapsed. These were never incumbent upon those not living as a part of the people of Israel, anyway. Instead, we have the various legal codes enacted by governments around the world (many of which are better for that people, in the context and society in which they live, than if they were to replace that law with the Israelite one), which are, as stated in Romans 13, of divine ordination and to be obeyed.
(This isn't a full discussion of everything that could be said—I haven't addressed things through the lenses of covenants properly.)
Applying this to the question at hand. What are we to make of the "Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his image"? Well, the previous discussion was properly speaking, talking about laws for Israel. This is not one of those, being given rather at the time of Noah. It is also a bit ambiguous (at least in translation, I haven't looked at scholarship on this) whether this is a prophecy or general principle, or a command. Let us assume that it is the latter—that is conceded by your treating it as an old testament law.
Well, first, as this is something that is being given immediately after the flood, to Noah, this seems to have in its scope the entire people upon all the earth. This is different from, say, the commandment of circumcision, which applied only to the sons of Abraham, and to all others who wished to join the church of God as it existed then upon the earth. Rather, this is describing something universal. Accordingly, this could not be a ceremonial law—it is not laying down a churchly rite, that is only contingently the case and for the people of the church. It is explicitly grounded in something universal and enduring to mankind (the image of God), and at a time when it would be delivered to the whole of mankind then existing (Noah and family).
"By man shall his blood be shed" is notably in the passive. This does not seem to give any specific entity (or every individual?) the right to avenge murderers. But it does seem to establish that that person ought to be put to death. A reasonable reading of this passage—though certainly not the only one—is that it is incumbent upon the kingdoms of this world to punish murderers with death (but given the cities of refuge, this is clearly not intended to be limitless or without qualification). This reading seems to be supported by later passages. Genesis 4 had described blood crying out. Deuteronomy 21 requires unresolved murders to have an animal slaughtered in atonement. Romans 13 describes the ruler as an avenger, and refers to bearing the sword (not merely prison or the lash). These all at least plausibly indicate that some crimes, especially murders, demand punishment, and that death is a suitable penalty for that. Because of the universality of the Genesis 9 passage, and because there is no identifiable principle why that should cease due to Christ's coming, at least in my judgment—it is not in respect of the chosen people of God, but is universal, and flows from unchanging principles—we should think that it remains in place.
You may not agree with all of this—I'm not certain of everything I said myself, especially regarding Genesis 9:6—but this does require more serious engagement than a simple dismissal of everything prior to the coming of Christ as irrelevant.
Felagund
3mo ago
Would capital punishment be endorsed by its being laid down as law for the ancient israelites? That would seem to ensure that there are at least some situations where it's proper. (See also the various statements against showing mercy in those contexts.)
I'm a little less confident about war, but Israel entering Canaan seems pretty plausible as by divine command.
The 17th amendment, and the turn to the popular vote for president, were mistakes.
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