site banner
PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   3213 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for June 21, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

3
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I’d known intellectually the Russian orthodox calendar was different, but golly that’s more different than I thought.

Pascha was maximally different (5 weeks) this year; thus, so was Pentecost. Next year it will coincide with the western calendar, though.

While all Orthodox use the old calculation for Pascha (ok, ok, not the Finns for complicated historical reasons), somewhat confusingly, different Orthodox jurisdictions differ in whether they use the Julian or Revised Julian (identical to Gregorian for most of the next millennium) calendar for all the fixed dates.

The Russian church (and a few others) continues to use the Julian calendar for everything; thus the feast of Sts Peter and Paul, being June 29, is then July 12 in the Gregorian calendar.

It's not all that complicated, it was an expection permitted by Constantinople to allow the Finnish church to survive in the immediate volatile post-independence atmosphere and, as is the case with expections that have been in force for 100 years, has basically ossified to become a part of the local tradition. There was an initiative to "return" the Finnish Orthodox Church to the usual New Calendar Pascha schedule in the last general church assembly but it didn't go anywhere yet, we'll see if this changes if (as is probable) the hegumen of New Valaam monastery, who made the initiative, becomes a bishop at some point.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats