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I don't agree or understand; I said I want knowledge, and I said that the strictures of an external organized religion would encumber that search. Apart from stating that they are categorically at odds, you have provided no support, logically or evidentiarily.
Secondary sources are not sources of original knowledge. If you want to taste spring water, you don't want someone to spit it into your mouth, you want to drink directly from the source.
Papal infallibility would like a word.
It's not silly at all: most followers of a particular sect are not theologians, and even most theologians have no bearing on the actual course of the sect. If they go against the grain of accepted orthodoxy, they are either removed, or remove themselves, an internal immigration, if you will, and cease to be members of that sect.
How can I acknowledge something and refuse it at the same time? That would be oxymoronic.
Then that reveals your own ignorance; you don't even know what you don't know. "There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Your attitude is proof positive of how religion self-limits the quest for knowledge and engenders complacency.
I have never once learned anything from a school or teacher; I have always taught myself what I wanted to know.
If you have ever played a game of telephone, you know that information and knowledge become corrupted over time and accumulate errors as they pass from one medium to the next. The more separations there are between the original source material and religion in question, the more likely it is that its understanding of that source is obscured. I'm not saying that there is nothing to be learned from other religions--if you read my explanation of my religious views you would know that--what I am saying is that to join a particular religion is to endorse their particular viewpoint, and without doing all of your due diligence beforehand, how can that be anything other than folly? You do not buy a house without inspecting it.
***NOTE***
Since Slavic lechia has decided to step away from roleplaying and regional cartography, I am interested in taking up the role myself. I have a map of the Earth with about 12,000 provinces, so if anyone wants to talk to me about being added to the map, just let me know.
It will have to remain unofficial however until my map is endorsed by the Administration, if at all.
Horatius Cocles, The Rouge Christmas State, Imperii Ecclesia, United massachusetts, and 1 otherRoborian
A senator, and then a cartographer. I tread the same path, in ages long forgotten...
Who knows- President of Right to Life next?
Horatius Cocles, Slavic lechia, and La france bonapartiste
Do you know what defeats corruption like that? A clear chain of custody, with important information copied over and over again, so that you can detect errors that creep in over time. Meticulous regulation of the copying also helps.
https://coldcasechristianity.com/writings/why-i-know-the-story-of-jesus-wasnt-changed-over-time/
https://coldcasechristianity.com/writings/establishing-the-reliability-of-the-old-testament-a-trustworthy-process-of-transmission/
"They say great science is built on the shoulders of giants. Not here. At Aperture, we do all our science from scratch. No hand holding." - Cave Johnson
https://theportalwiki.com/wiki/Cave_Johnson_voice_lines
Your self-reliance will not be enough to get you to heaven. The one true God looks down from heaven and laughs at our attempts to define truth for ourselves or become righteous in our own eyes. God gave us a Teacher to show us the narrow path to life, but we have to trust Him first.
The Gallant Old Republic, United massachusetts, and The most blessed sacrament
I may be wrong here (wouldn't be the first time) but it seems to me that your views are like that of a philosopher who accepts no guide but himself and in searching for Truth becomes enamored by the search without a defined endpoint, or even accepting that a definite terminus exists. Yes, there are elements of Truth in all religions and certainly we should seek out philosophical understanding and wisdom wherever it is to be found. Even so, it seems that you find accepting/joining one religion to automatically be an unexamined act that blocks out all other sources of truth. I think there are many people who accept a particular religion on the basis reason and philosophical inquiry. Faith and reason are not inimical to each other and simply subscribing to one religion doesn't mean you can't/wont value the beauty, goodness and elements of truth in other religions. For example, Sufi mysticism and Sikh metaphysics are fascinating fields of study in themselves. And certain religions have very robust intellectual traditions and philosophical output. If someone self-limits his study of philosophy and metaphysics because he's joined one particular religion, I would say that's the fault of the individual arbitrarily drawing a line in the sand on his own rather than blaming religion.
Also, I'm not sure why you referenced papal infallibility above? Are you saying that Catholics have a blind acceptance with regard to their faith and/or papal teaching about the faith? If “faith” is the human response to God, then such a response must incorporate the two basic human faculties of intellect (also known as the mind or reason) and free will. It's certainly not fideism. We do not and should not “check our minds” at the door and become irrational creatures. To the contrary, God has given us the great gift of reason, which enables us as human beings to discern and grasp the truth. St. John Paul II wrote, “Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth…”
You're not really doing even that, you're advancing a specific theory of rights that does not match up with the traditional American understanding. The entire concept of natural rights, which the Founders and founding documents clearly largely supported, is that rights are not defined by a government, they exist outside of them, and are only recognized. 'The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed' or 'the right of the people to be secure...against unreasonable searches and seizures', etc. do not speak of granting rights, but preventing government from stepping on those that already exist. Or just take the obvious from the Declaration of Independence: 'endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights'
You're going the complete opposite way, completely at odds with all of that. If a right's existence is determined by whim of the government, then a right literally cannot be infringed upon, with every such infringement self-justifying with "Oh, you never had that right in the first place, actually." That doesn't fly. The Declaration of Independence would not have written of the King's invasions on the rights of the people if they conceded to him the authority to determine what rights were and were not. There cannot be a long train of abuses if said abuses are self-justified by being redefined as permissible simply by happening.
Your definition is not only irrelevant from a practical perspective, it flies in the face of the basic foundational principles of rights that America literally started from.
It's a question whether they even are a 'private entity', again, government land, government building by government funds, designated for public use, it's arguably about as 'private' as the National Guard is a 'state militia.' I suppose that under a certain definition of private entity I can conceded the possibility in an extraordinarily out there case, but to then take that up another level and say that there's more than enough to work with for online censorship really is absurd, again, the case specifically says the Fourteenth Amendment erects no shield against merely private conduct.
I have stated, and will again, that you state that you want knowledge, yet pre-state that you will reject it if it takes certain forms. If you say that you want knowledge, but say that, if discovered, you will not hold to moral structures that you learn about, and will dismiss them out of hand because you 'do not engage in that', then you're only wanting knowledge that fits with your desires.
Yet somehow I imagine that you have drunk tap water at some point in your life. Such a universal dismissal of secondary sources is absurd. Have you really learned everything you know about Napoleon solely from reading his personal notes in the original French and disdaining any historian or history that would 'spit in your mouth'?
Which is why I highlighted Protestantism.
This is essentially arguing that denominations are inalterably static, that no such theologians can ever bring about changes in doctrine. Even if that were true (and it is easy to see that it is not), the 'internal immigration' you speak of concedes the point of curiosity in organized religion-the creation of new denominations due to differences in theology highlights that theological curiosity is very much alive, or we wouldn't have the splits in the first place.
Not at all. You can, say, acknowledge that marijuana is illegal for possession under federal law, and refuse to follow that for yourself anyways.
I'm referring to what you're saying, mate.
You need to apply that argument to yourself.
I am intensely skeptical of the actual usefulness of schooling, but unless you literally never received a formal education, I think we both know that this is a massive exaggeration.
Strawmanning. What you say is entirely true, and that is why I actively promote due diligence, hence 'conclusions to assess' rather than 'conclusions to blindly follow.' Everything ought to be viewed with a skeptical eye, but it still ought to be viewed. I don't dismiss observations of information out of hand because they're a secondary source that 'spits in my mouth', or because I 'don't engage in moral structures or ritual.'
You seem to be taking a position that 'buying a house' requires doing so with your eyes stapled shut and never considering anything again. By all means, inspect the house, do your due diligence, and perhaps repair some parts of it, or add a new wing here, or remove another, that's certainly the way to do it. Your position seems to be to refuse to live in a house at all because you did not mine the stone yourself.
I'll have to check my calendar.
I was speaking of theology rather than scripture, but even between translations there are significant differences.
I don't know who this Cave Johnson is, but he sounds like a classy lady. (Also, big fan of J.K. Simmons)
It doesn't seem like you read my summarized views, since I talked extensively about reaching a hand out to God and embracing him. Suffice it to say that "God helps those who help themselves," and I don't think it's productive, spiritually or practically, to just sit like a knot on a log, meek like a lamb, and not ask important questions and do what is within your power to advance God's works. Secondly, I am much more interested in the salvation of all mankind than I am in selfishly pursuing my own spiritual elevation. In Buddhism this is the distinction between an arhat and a bodhisattva.
I will merely place something HC said (out of context, admittedly), since it was put so beautifully, I can't really say it any better myself:
My understanding of papal infallibility is that the pope's pronouncements are final and binding. And even if individual Catholics do not look at it that way, that is the official position of the Church.
Roborian, I will attend to your posts tomorrow. I apologize for not having the time today.
No problem, whenever you like.
No. An infallible teaching is only one that concerns faith and morals and is spoken in a very specific context "ex cathedra". This has only been done once since an ecumenical council specifically spelled out the doctrine. Besides that one time, the Pope has only spoken ex cathedra one other time, and mind you they only do this after substantial consultation with the bishops of the Catholic Church and there is a general consensus.
Infallible speech is actually more typically in the context of an ecumenical council rather than "ex cathedra" (from the Pope's mouth) and, actually, most infallible teachings come from ecumenical councils or from the general, consistent consensus of the Church (living and dead). In formal-sounding words, infallible teachings are those definitive items of faith and morals which were, have been, and are "accepted into the consciousness of the Church." Examples are the creed, the concept of original sin, and the teachings on the sacraments. All infallible teachings are based on the Word of God (Bible or Apostolic teaching/tradition passed down orally) and the Assembly of the Church, not by the whims of any particular Pope, theologian, or believer. Securus iudicat orbis terrarum basically sums up what the Catholic Church means when it says something is "infallible".
As the best list available concerning infallible teachings puts it:
"From her very beginning, the Church has professed faith in the Lord, crucified and risen and has gathered the fundamental contents of her belief into certain formulas. The central event of the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, expressed first in simple formulas and subsequently in formulas that were more developed, made it possible to give life to that uninterrupted proclamation of faith in which the church has handed on both what had been received from the lips of Christ and from his works, as well as what had been learned 'at the prompting of the Holy Spirit.'"
Here's the link to Cardinal Ratzinger/Benedict XVI speaking on the matter as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith: https://adoremus.org/1998/10/15/Doctrinal-Commentary-on-the-Concluding-Formula-of-the-Professio-fidei/
Horatius Cocles, The Catholic State of Eire, Clear Bay, Lagrodia, and 1 otherThe most blessed sacrament
Here's the famous record from the Council of Chalcedon which is a good example of universal affirmation assenting to a series of infallible teachings as being 1) true and essential, 2) traditional/universal, and 3) Apostolic or, if you will, from Christ himself:
"After the reading of the foregoing epistle [by Pope Leo, which outlined Rome's Christological teachings], the most reverend bishops cried out: This is the faith of the fathers, this is the faith of the Apostles. So we all believe, thus the orthodox believe. Anathema to him who does not thus believe. Peter has spoken thus through Leo. So taught the Apostles. Piously and truly did Leo teach, so taught Cyril. Everlasting be the memory of Cyril. Leo and Cyril taught the same thing, anathema to him who does not so believe. This is the true faith. Those of us who are orthodox thus believe. This is the faith of the fathers."
What differences?
Christianity is unlike Buddhism, and indeed every other religion in the world, in that you do not obtain salvation or spiritual enlightenment through your own effort. You cannot, in fact. Contrary to popular belief, "God helps those who help themselves" is not in the Bible. It is not even biblical. God helps those who realize that they cannot help themselves and cry out to Him for the salvation that is found in Him alone.
The Gospel gives us no right to boast in ourselves, no chance to take credit for our transformation- which is why it is such a stumbling block to those who want to be the master of their own destiny. Jesus Christ already did all that is necessary for the salvation of all mankind, and there is no spiritual elevation except through Him.
So about Orthodoxy... I've been reading and officially Poland is an independent Aucophalous Church. So now I can officially say I am joining the Polish Orthodox Catholic Autocephalous Church under Archbishop of Warsaw and Metropolitan of All Poland, Sawa Hrycuniak.
Just so you know... Metropolitan is not a lesser Patriarch, nor is Pope a greater Patriarch. The titles are more varied even within the same position in the hierarchy... So that is an answer to 
Horatius Cocles asking me about "which church" I am joining. My official answer: "Polski Autokefaliczny Kościół Prawosławny (The Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church)"
Following up on Kiev... Ukraine actually has their own autonomous church which is completely canonical. Though there is a pretender of a self-proclaimed patriarch who broke his own (non mandatory mind you) vows of celibacy. The quarrel between Moscow and Constantinopole is about authority, as the Archbishop of Constantinopole is known for consecrating bishops and archbishops outside of their authority, like in Jerusalem and in Estonia for example.
If you say "I have a right to smoke dope" and a police officer comes up and tells you that you do not, is that "taking your rights away"? Are they "altering" your rights? No. It's your interpretation of rights that makes no sense. The executive, administrative, judicial, and legislative branches all make "changes" to rights without actually taking or depriving you of your actual rights in a legal sense.
Welcome to America.
I'm sorry, but that's just not true. The coffee shop was a private business, there's no two ways about that. They were leasing space in a government business, but that does not make them a government-owned coffee shop. The critical takeaway point from Wilmington Parking Authority isn't that it was in a government building, it's that a private business/entity can be held liable for the infringement of constitutionally protected rights depending on their behavior as an actor and their relationship with the government. And remember how far we've come from your original assertion, where you said no private business could ever have the 14th amendment applied to them, and that it was "ridiculous". There are plenty more cases in the jurisprudence on applying the Equal Protection Clause to private entities, but I just want you to understand that even just this one case shows that the idea that private conduct is completely immune from constitutional scrutiny is not true.
I fixed my flag... Added Slavic Cross on it... Believe it or not, this Cross is actually called The Slavic Cross here ;)
Except I didn't, you completely misconstrued what I said.
It's not a universal dismissal, another misconstrual. It's an accurate representation of the inherent inferiority of second hand sources compared to primary sources. Napoleon lived much, much more recently than anyone mentioned in the Bible. The Bible is a second-hand source at best; theology would be interpretations of a second hand source in some cases, making it a tertiary source of religious knowledge. And I am being expected to just ignore the things I see with my own eyes based on reports and interpretations that have circulated for thousands of years, filtered through just as many different agendas and motivations. No thanks.
I never brought up Protestantism, or even Christianity, when I said that organized religions are of no use to me. I just said religion in general, and I have brought up an example where uncritical orthodoxy is pretty much a foundational rule; the primary difference between Catholicism and the Eastern churches are the role of the Bishop of Rome on theological doctrine and church hierarchy. Ergo, the position of the pope, and his supremacy of doctrine, is kind of a big deal in that religion.
It's not common.
Lol, no it doesn't. Individual curiosity in the individual, sure. But organizations not so much. And religions are not people, they are organizations.
Completely inaccurate analogy. It's more like saying that you find smoking pot immoral, but you smoke it anyway, which yes, would be paradoxical.
Except you're not, you're referring to an inaccurate interpretation of what I said, which I have repeatedly told you is not correct, yet you cling to it like a tick to a dog.
School is a glorified daycare, I don't know what exactly I'm supposed to learn there that I don't already know. I've learned more from reading books than has ever come out of the mouth of a teacher (and as I said above, there's nothing wrong with books, but religion is another matter entirely, as I explained).
How is it strawmanning? I'm justifying what I said and not even ascribing any argument to you.
I'm not suggesting you have to buy the house with your eyes closed, I'm just saying that's what most people seem to do. Most people are raised a particular way and then just stay that way. Most are not like Slavic lechia and do extensive research before joining; people like him are the exception rather than the rule.
If a Jewish person says "I have a right to freedom of religion", and a Neo-Nazi cop throws him in prison, is that 'taking his rights away?'
You literally have established a standard in which it is literally impossible for rights to be taken away or infringed on, it's absurd, it completely goes against the fundamental notion of what rights are.
The America I'm in was founded in revolution against 'invasions on the rights of the people' which were 'endowed by their Creator', both of which are entirely at odds with your claims about rights that cannot be abused by governments. I have no idea what kind of bizarro America you're referring to.
Again, I'm willing to concede that, under extremely specific circumstances, that an entity that could be characterized as private (but, as noted in the case, is legally determined not to be) has had the 14th applied to them, but you're then trying to press on that incredible narrow circumstance far beyond its limits, limits that the Court specifically focused on 'Specifically defining the limits of our inquiry". The case specifically noted that the government-owned land and building were specifically designated for 'public uses', not private. The entire point of the case was that the institution in question could not be considered private because of the level of state involvement.
The State has so far insinuated itself into a position of interdependence with Eagle that it must be recognized as a joint participant in the challenged activity, which, on that account, cannot be considered to have been so "purely private" as to fall without the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The case repeatedly reiterates that private conduct falls outside of the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment, thus the ultimate decision resting on the fact that the conduct in question was not private, contrary to your framing it as being only 'their behavior' in the business, the ruling says that the behavior in question has the government as a 'joint participant.'
I don't even agree with the Court's ruling, but the limits it set for itself are plain enough. If action is determined to not be private, then the Fourteenth can be applied, but even then only narrowly and in limited cases-'the conclusions drawn from the facts and circumstances of this record are by no means declared as universal truths. If the action is private, on the other hand, they're not vague in saying how it goes down.
It is clear, as it always has been since the Civil Rights Cases, supra, that "Individual invasion of individual rights is not the subject matter of the amendment,"
I honestly didn't know this; I assumed that whenever the pope made some statement on religion, it was something like an automatic amendment. I found this and I think this explained things pretty well and alleviated my confusion:
There are apparently hundreds of thousands of variations between texts (including within one language), most of which are not necessarily substantial from what I can tell. But at least with translations into Latin, there are two main differences:
1. "Thou shalt not kill" (Latin) vs. "thou shalt not murder" (Hebrew, others)
2. Differences between translations of, and understandings of, Hell and Purgatory between Eastern Orthodox Churches and the Roman Catholic Church.
This is nonsense. Most Christians belong to denominations that beleive in the importance of good works, and not just grace alone. I was under the impression you were a Catholic, not a Calvinist.
I wasn't aware people thought that; but you are correct, it is from Aesop. That does not, however, mean it isn't true.
I do not believe God wants us to lay on the ground like helpless worms crying out desperately in our frailty for help. He gives us more credit than you seem to.
"I don't engage in that" seemed relatively clear, but I'm open to an explanation.
Disparaging secondary sources for 'agendas and motivations' is not a criticism that primary sources dodge in the slightest, to the point where a good chunk of what a secondary source does is to try to sort out the biases of the primary sources that they are drawing from to get a better picture. Circulating for thousands of years does lead to filtering through plenty of agendas and motivations, which, contrary to what you seem to be trying to get it, can do a better job of giving you enough perspectives to cut through the bias or agenda more effectively than with a primary source alone. Reading Napoleon will give you one angle. Reading from dozens of scholars, from those with a massive predisposition to favor him to those who want to tear him down, and everything in between, can let you see what parts are durable enough to push through.
You can prefer primary sources or personal observation to secondary ones, I have no issue with that, but you come down pretty darn hard on the kinds of sources that make up most of transmitted human knowledge. Flawed? Of course. As worthless as gargled spit? Probably not.
Putting aside the Bible in particular as a secondhand source does not work either-it obviously varies within and between books, but a substantial portion of the Gospel is the direct accounts of persons writing on what they witnessed firsthand.
Sure, but that example doesn't help you when your dismissal of organized religions is universal. Catholic papal doctrine does not apply itself to every organized religion, it would just be a reason for you not be Catholic.
There are literally somewhere between several hundred and tens of thousands of denominations in Protestantism alone, literally too many to get an accurate count.
Saying this not to be disparaging, but to highlight something you may not have had a great deal of experience with: plenty of churches do a heck of a lot towards exploring and perfecting doctrine. It varies by church, of course, but it is not at all uncommon (in Protestantism, at least) to frequently have church leadership having theological discussions about amending and refining mission statements, and that behavior goes all the way up to things like the Southern Baptist Convention having annual meetings in which changes to doctrine and the statement of faith are often discussed and sometimes lead to formal revisions.
That's not acknowledgement, that's opinion/belief. This is probably better merged into the question below, but you came out both saying you were seeking knowledge, but at the same time saying that you would not be engaging in moral structures or ritual, apparently pre-knowing them to not be true.
You literally said "I already know what my relationship is", I said "If you already know what it is, then there's not much more knowledge to search for", you then apparently took that as a reference to myself and said that 'you don't even know what you don't know' and that it was proof that religion self-limits you, and then I pointed out that you were the one who said it.
This would mark the first time that you said that interpretation was not correct, and I welcome your correction in that case. You said you already knew what your relationship was, then accused religion of making people think they knew things that they didn't. So, do you know it, or not?
That's a much more reasonable statement, and I'd say the same. As I said, schools don't do much for teaching, but saying that you 'never once' learned anything from a teacher is plainly exaggeration.
On the topic of books, then, and secondary sources, I don't see where you've made the case that religion is a separate matter entirely. In practice, religion is one part philosophy to one part history to another part 'politics', the relative amounts of each depending on the power structure and the beliefs. I don't see any reason to cast greater doubt on the knowledge relayed down through the years on religion than on any other topic, it is not as if every other area of study is free of biases and agendas among their scholars.
It certainly seemed like you were claiming a lack of due diligence and 'buying the house without inspecting it' on the part of those joining formal denominations/faiths. I'm generally fine with it as something of a generalization as you note below, though that tends to get into speculation.
I generally don't have a problem with this take as noted above-I don't want to go too far in speculating about the motives of others, but it does seem to be the case that most seem to follow in the religious traditions of their parents/guardians at least semi-uncritically. I would still push back against attempts to universalize that, however, there are an abundance of faithful people who, informally or even formally, went through a great deal of study and assessment in establishing their beliefs.
Horatius Cocles, Phydios, and Slavic lechia
Well, you didn't say what they incarcerated him for, but filling in the blanks with assumptions, your analogy is once again completely off-base. We were talking about differing interpretations of the Constitution, not (seemingly) deliberate violations thereof. I know of no interpretation that invalidates freedom of worship or habeus corpus under the shoestring facts you've presented.
I have to laugh, because you're acting like I just made this up on the spot, when I'm telling you this is literally how the government works, every single hour of every single day. It happens all the time, and if you don't like that, as I said a few days ago, take it up with the government. I don't make the rules, I just know what they are.
No offense, but it sounds like you've been drinking too much kool-aid. People's rights are violated constantly on their face in America and the courts don't see any problem with that.
Then it sounds like you need to read it again.
You once again have to understand the appreciation between a word in laymen's terms, and a word in a legal sense. The court does not look at a private business and say "oh, this is a government-owned company"; they are looking at that actor and saying that under the specific facts of this case, they are operating as an extension of the government: "The State has so far insinuated itself into a position of interdependence with Eagle that it must be recognized as a joint participant in the challenged activity, which, on that account, cannot be considered to have been so "purely private" as to fall without the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment." Wilmington, 726 (emphasis added). That is far, far from an endorsement that the coffee shop is a public entity.
It is not as limited as you think; even from your own subsequent commentary you make it extraordinarily plain how easily a private company can fall under this umbrella, as long as their conduct is not private. And as I said, there are plenty of other cases from over the past 50 years that have built on the jurisprudence of this seminal case.
Edit: Accidentally quoted Phydios somehow
Phydios sits at RtL's cool kids' table with the rest of the Protestant gang.
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