gorge
1yr ago
Contrary to popular belief, Catholics don't believe the Pope to be generally infallible, only when speaking Ex Cathedra, which hasn't happened since 1950.
The Pope is only infallible when speaking Ex Cathedra. But in addition to that, a core Catholic doctrine is that the Pope is protected by from the Holy Spirit from teaching heresy, thus a Pope will not teach something that directly contradict holy scripture or established doctrines of faith. Michael Lofton has a good podcast on this issue.
Thus there is a big difference between accusing the Pope of "making imprudent statements that could be easily misinterpreted as heresy" and actually claiming the Pope taught heresy. The latter is a much worse charge for a Bishop to make, as it lays the groundwork for schism.
gorge
1yr ago
It should be noted that he is firing Bishop Strickland for insubordination -- Strickland accused Pope Francis of having a program to undermine the deposit of faith, Strickland signed on to a letter that called Pope Francis a heretic, and then when Strickland was initially subject to a disciplinary investigation he doubled-down rather than apologizing. Catholic bishops are not allowed to criticize the Pope that way, calling the Pope a heretic undermines people's faith. Any boss in the world would fire a subordinate for such a behavior.
It is true though, that the Pope does seem excessively lenient toward the German bishops. Part of this may be that German bishops have been a bit more subtle in not directly picking a fight with the Vatican.
Overall, Francis has not actually betrayed or revoked the deposit of faith or Church dogma. In his own writings, he has upheld Church teaching on the disordered nature of homosexual, the invalidity of "gay marriage", and the impossibility of changing one's sex/gender.
It is true that in more informal settings he has made ambiguous statements that seem to wink at a more progressive, or even heretical view on key issues. Also, I do agree that his choices of which disciplinary battles to fight do reveal a progressive bent. The most charitable explanation is that he is trying to put a spin on things that the progressive media will find palatable, and thus give the Church more cover. The least charitable explanation is that he wants to change the Church teaching, but doesn't want to boil the frog too quickly so he walks right up tot he line of heresy without crossing it. Or for believers, he walks up to the line but cannot cross it because the Holy Spirit is still protecting the office of the Pope.
gorge
1yr ago
If you are in a conversation with an anon here on TheMotte or in a blog comment thread, you should assume good faith, because otherwise, why are you even talking to them? Mutual recriminations of the other person acting in bad faith just make the debate unreadable for everyone else.
On the other hand, if you are trying to figure out why some public intellectual or institution or political figure or political party platform or prominent activist says what they say, you should not assume good faith by default. You should distrust by default, and only believe they are honest if they have proved it over a long time.
gorge
1yr ago
So is my trainer just a schmuck who knows nothing and should be putting me on the basic 5x5 or whatever?
The training regimen that "works" doesn't always make the most money for the trainer. If they put you on a standard 5x5 linear progression program, after the trainer teaches you the lifts, you would quickly wonder why you were paying the trainer $$$ and you would stop paying them. Also, barbell's are harder than machines and most clients don't like doing hard things so the trainer may have learned that the machines have better client retention. Overall, the trainer has a bias toward programs that have more variety and that are more fun and less hard.
gorge
1yr ago
Why do so few people take this to its logical conclusion and use dumbbells instead of barbells for presses?
- Because you can lift more total weight with barbells, which means your entire kinetic chain is doing work. If you can bench press 150 LBS, you may only be able to dumbell press two 60 pound dumbells for a total of 120.
- It's easier to do progressive overload in small increments with barbells. At most gyms, you have to increase the total dumbell weight by 10 pounds each increment. That can be a really big jump. With barbells, it's easier to add 5 pounds or even 2.5 pounds at a time.
- Many people do both, since each has its benefits.
gorge
1yr ago
can anyone provide me with a count of how many of the fake electors' votes were mistakenly recorded in the Senate?
I think the idea is that they were in a conspiracy to commit fraud, one is still guilty even if one fails. But more importantly, the fraud laws I have seen always require deception. In what way were these "fake" electors trying to deceive anyone?
gorge
1yr ago
Trump is charged under OCGA 16-4-7, which says
A person commits the offense of criminal solicitation when, with intent that another person engage in conduct constituting a felony, he solicits, requests, commands, importunes, or otherwise attempts to cause the other person to engage in such conduct.
The felonious conduct he is accused of trying to solicit from Ralston is under OCGA 16-10-1, which says
Any public officer who willfully and intentionally violates the terms of his oath as prescribed by law shall, upon conviction thereof, be punished by imprisonment for not less than one nor more than five years.
The oath taken by Ralston includes swearing to support and uphold the Constitution of the United States.
By this logic, every time a President does something unconstitutional (eg, Biden's student loan forgiveness plan), then everyone in Georgia who promoted that policy or petitioned for that policy committed a felony. The prosecutor's use of this law is absolute madness, it criminalizes the losing side of any political battle involving Constitutional issues.
gorge
1yr ago
Even, say, someone who converted to Christianity in the 1st century is in a better position than a modern westerner. He already believed the world was in the hands of the gods, which were real beings of power, and had believed this since he was born. He just had to be told, “hey, this new god, he’s even stronger than Zeus or Ba’al!”
Hmm, not so sure about that, Aristophanes The Clouds was written in 423 BC and portrays a society where old-style paganism was already going out of fashion. Of course, Greece is not Rome or Judea. But there is an argument that Christianity was persuasive to people who were already cynical about the old gods. There is another argument that Christianity was a result of a fusion between old-school pagan-style personal Gods and Platonic/philosophical concepts about the nature of the prime mover of the universe, hence a God that is the Logos made flesh.
gorge
1yr ago
I'm sort of in the same boat. I live downtown in a big American city, and I know I should probably get out before it is too late ...
gorge
1yr ago
FWIW, I originally had this thought after an evening looking through family photos and it seemed to me that the people in the photos were better dressed in the 70s and than in the 90s or 00s. Yeah, the clothes could be a bit cheesy, but the clothes were more colorful, worn with better fit, and everyone was generally less slovenly.
gorge
1yr ago
I'll bite the bullet by saying not only do current fashions look bad, but the fashions from when I was kid in the 90s are embarrassing to look at now and Americans were much worse dressed in the 90s than were Americans in the 60s and 70s.
An attractive ~20 year old woman can make anything look good. She would likely look better with long hair. Demi Moore was cute in Ghost, but she was still better looking with longer hair.
gorge
1yr ago
I'd like to see you try to pass an Intellectual Turing Test for arguing why the Civil Rights movement was bad.
I don’t think it’s accurate to call Hispanic immigration a product of Boomer anti racism, either. More a corporate/laissez faire policy.
Por que no los dos? Almost all policies have a Bootleggers and Baptists aspect to them -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootleggers_and_Baptists
gorge
1yr ago
Who is the post author? Why is he worth talking about? How do you know this isn't just some fake/ChatGPT spam? Maybe it is real, but it reads like a stream of conscious mashup of various memes.
gorge
1yr ago
Is it accurate to summarize your post and your views by saying that your "desired solution to the mentally ill homeless problem is to kill them all"? If this is not an accurate summary, how is it it inaccurate, and what is your actual "desired solution"?
gorge
1yr ago
I think it's illuminating to see how many people on TheMotte both loathe mentally ill homeless people so much and are so authoritarian that their desired solution to the mentally ill homeless problem is to kill them all.
How many people on the TheMotte believe this? Cite me the actual comment where someone said "that their desired solution to the mentally ill homeless problem is to kill them all" and let us look at how many upvotes it got.
gorge
1yr ago
I don't have a primary source, but it was reported in the NY Daily News:
And he was busted in August 2015 for attempted kidnapping after he was seen dragging a 7-year-old girl down an Inwood street. He pled guilty to endangering the welfare of a child and was sentenced to four months in jail.
I have not seen that reported in any other article about Jordan Neely, so it is possible the NY Daily News is mistaken.
gorge
1yr ago
For any given level of income/wealth, fame seems like a significant, net negative. That is, I would rather make $20 million from secretly winning the lottery than to get $20 million from having a runaway number one hit music album that made me famous. You have the downsides of stalkers, harassers, gold-diggers, cheats, etc. For every person with newfound respect for you, there are others trying to take you down a peg. And there isn't really any benefit. A person can reach peak happiness from being high status within his own family and social group. If you get so famous that you are awkward with your original social groups, and are in new higher status groups, then you haven't made yourself any better off.
Now, fame can be translated into money. So is it better to broke and waiting tables in Hollywood, or to get a huge break and become a famous actor? That is harder to say, but generally it seems to me that most modern social circles of the famous are very toxic and should be avoided.
While above I defended the Pope in disciplining Strickland for insubordination, it seems a bit cowardly to pretend that the real issue they care about is the investigation of his governance of his diocese. (Unless his governance really is substandard compared to other dioceses, but that claim seems suspect).
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