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December 19, 2023
Rod Dreher on the Pope's latest statement

Icons Of Christian Decadence
ROD DREHER
DEC 18

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That’s Catherine Bond (left) and Jane Pearce, a lesbian couple who are both priestesses in the Church of England, and both the recipients of the first formal blessing of their partnership in a C of E service. It happened yesterday. Excerpt from the BBC report:

During the prayers, Canon Andrew Dotchin said the pair were continuing on a "pilgrimage graced by your (God's) blessing, with you as their companion in the dark where they can rejoice and hope in sustaining their love for all the days of their lives".

The Guardian added:

Catherine and Jane, both ordained priests and in a civil partnership, will receive their blessing during the traditional Sunday morning communion service at St John’s. The vast red brick Victorian church will be filled with the sound of organ music and Christmas carols, and a gay pride flag will fly outside, as it does most days.

“Their love helps them to be more faithful Christians, and their love helps other people to understand that God is generous and no one is left outside,” said Dotchin. “Sunday’s blessing will be a celebration of that.”

Meanwhile, a dissenting Church of England vicar faces church discipline for calling a penis-haver a penis-haver:

The Rev Brett Murphy faces an official rebuke from the CofE over “intentionally derogatory and disrespectful” remarks he made about the Rev Canon Dr Rachel Mann shortly after her appointment in June.

LGBT+ campaigners had hailed her appointment as a “beacon of light and hope”.

The Rev Murphy, in a 32-minute-long YouTube video, criticised the CofE for putting “a radical rainbow activist” in a “position of high authority in a diocese”.

The Rev Murphy, who quit the CofE a month after the broadcast, had said in reaction to the appointment: “Now you may wonder ‘is that really newsworthy, Brett?’

“You may roll your eyes, if you are a complementarian, that another feminist is getting a prominent high-ranking position in the CofE, but this is worse than that.

“The Rev Rachel Mann is in fact, biologically, a bloke, who identifies and lives as a woman.”

Father Murphy refuses to live by lies, and faces sanction by his church — the same church that blesses the partnership of lesbian vicaresses. Cambridge professor and practicing Anglican James Orr is right:

I have friends in the Church of England — James Orr is one of them — who are faithful Christians, and who suffer greatly from its apostasy and ongoing self-dissolution. I don’t know how much longer they’re going to be able to hold on. Once I spoke with one of these brave and faithful friends about the prospect of converting to Catholicism as a way out. Nope, he said, he had done that earlier in his life, but found the Catholic Church in England to be dispirited, with a clergy that is heavily gay. I don’t know if this accurately summarizes his view, but I left that conversation with the impression that his years as a Catholic in England stripped him of his belief that the Catholic Church is what it claims to be, and pushed him back to Anglicanism, because at least there, the lines between good and evil were easy to identify — versus in Catholicism, where, as he put it, so many of the clergy hid their de facto apostasy, especially on sexual sins, behind the official doctrines of the Church.

I know, I know: your mileage may vary. It is important that before any of you choose to abandon your declining church for a different communion, that you not have any false hope. This is true of Orthodoxy as well. It is not the case that all churches are the same, so it doesn’t matter which one you belong to. Nor is it the case that because all churches are dealing with corruption of one kind or another, you might as well stay put. I’m simply saying that one should try to be as realistic as possible, and not allow oneself to be swayed by one’s understandable hope that the grass is greener Over There, With Those People.

It might be greener than where you are, but I assure you there will be problems. As a Catholic priest once put it to me, discussing the decadence within all the churches today, “Churches are made of people, including the clergy. Whatever sins the people of a time and place have, they will bring them into the church.” His point was not that we should reconcile ourselves to sin, much less engage in woke mumbo-jumbo to declare sin to be a blessing. His point, rather, was that we should not allow our idealism to get the better of us, such that we become scandalized by the failures within ecclesial bodies.

We had that discussion many years ago, when I was still Catholic. I don’t know what that priest thinks now. As my example shows, for better or worse, I believe that there is a point beyond which one cannot be pushed without leaving. The Church of England really does seem to be doing its dead-level best to be pushing conservative Anglicans out. I suppose some will go to breakaway Evangelical-style Protestant bodies in the Anglican tradition, like the Rev. Calvin Robinson has done. Others will go Catholic, and others Orthodox. Leaving aside theological-ecclesiological claims for the sake of argument, I can say that you search in vain if you look for a church that isn’t facing internal division over these issues; in US Orthodoxy, they are far less pronounced than in Catholicism or most Protestant bodies, but believe me, there are well-financed factions pushing for this. Sooner or later, it will have to be confronted. My advice to you is to look for a parish, and a communion, where the fight for Biblical orthodoxy has not been lost, and where you can take a stand without being on the margins.

It is worth thinking about, though, why homosexuality has become the pre-eminent wedge issue across Christian churches. Church progressives have this dishonest strategy of pretending that it’s a minor issue, except for the fact that they won’t give it up and reach a compromise with conservatives. I suppose if I believed what progressives do about homosexuality and transgenderism, I would be bound to think that this is an issue on which compromise is impossible, for the same reason I would find it impossible to compromise with Christians inside my ecclesial body who believed that (say) black people were living in a state of sin by being black.

I do not believe what progressives do on the point, however. I do not believe that homosexuality and/or transgenderism is a characteristic like race. I won’t argue the point here and now, but I simply want to highlight the profundity of the disagreement with Christian progressives here. If you believe that LGBT status is in the same moral category as race, then everything else follows. It becomes incomprehensible, outside of raw bigotry, why conservatives within the church object.

The reason why homosexuality, and human sexuality in general, is the pre-eminent wedge issue is because of Christian anthropology. That is to say, the Bible gives us a clear idea of what it means to be a being made in the image of God. We know from direct Scriptural teaching, as well as from reasoning from revealed first principles, that homosexuality runs contrary to bedrock Christian teaching. That homosexuality is, to use the language of the Roman catechism, “intrinsically disordered” — meaning that by its very nature it cannot be reconciled to the Logos. I am unaware that the Bible has anything to say about transgenderism, but if that’s not intrinsically disordered, nothing is.

In contemporary times, many, perhaps most, people do not see either homosexuality or, increasingly, transgenderism as disordered, in part because they do not recognize an intrinsic order, at least not one that excludes either phenomenon. Rather, they believe that human will decides what counts as rightly ordered — that we create order out of chaos, as distinct from discovering, through revelation and reason based on what has been revealed, order within the chaos.

I touched on this in the following passage from The Benedict Option:

Back in 1993, a cover story in The Nation identified the gay-rights cause as the summit and keystone of the culture war:

All the crosscurrents of present-day liberation struggles are subsumed in the gay struggle. The gay moment is in some ways similar to the moment that other communities have experienced in the nation’s past, but it is also something more, because sexual identity is in crisis throughout the population, and gay people—at once the most conspicuous subjects and objects of the crisis—have been forced to invent a complete cosmology to grasp it. No one says the changes will come easily. But it’s just possible that a small and despised sexual minority will change America forever.

They were right. Tying the gay rights cause to the Civil Rights movement was a strategic master stroke. Though homosexuality and race are two very different phenomena, the media took the equivalence for granted, and rarely if ever gave any opposing voices a chance to be heard.

Though the unrelenting media campaign on behalf of same-sex marriage was critically important to its success, it wasn’t the most important thing. Americans accepted gay marriage so quickly because it resonated so deeply with what they had already come to believe about the meaning of heterosexual sex and marriage.

We have gay marriage because the straight majority came to see sexuality as something primarily for personal pleasure and self-expression, and only secondarily for procreation. We have gay marriage because the straight majority, in turn, came to see marriage in the same way—and two generations of Americans have grown up with these nominalist values on sex and marriage as normative.

To be modern, as we have seen, is to believe in one’s individual desires as the locus of authority and self-definition. As philosopher Charles Taylor writes, “The entire ethical stance of moderns supposes and follows on from the death of God (and of course, of the meaningful cosmos).”

Gay marriage and gender ideology signify the final triumph of the Sexual Revolution and the dethroning of Christianity because they deny Christian anthropology at its core, and shatter the authority of the Bible. Rightly ordered sexuality is not at the core of Christianity, but as [Philip] Rieff saw, it’s so near to the center that to lose the Bible’s clear teaching on this matter is to risk losing the fundamental integrity of the faith. This is why Christians who begin by rejecting sexual orthodoxy end either by rejecting Christianity themselves, or laying the groundwork for their children to do so.

“The death of a culture begins when its normative institutions fail to communicate ideals in ways that remain inwardly compelling,” Rieff writes. By that standard, Christianity in America is in mortal danger.

Do you see what I mean? A church that assimilates to the reigning therapeutic order begins by becoming liberal — often passively (that is, by pretending sexual disorder among the congregation either doesn’t exist, or is no big thing) — and ends by affirming LGBT. It begins with the belief that the material world is just dead matter; that the Logos is not written into all matter, and called to redemption. It ends with the belief that the subjective disposition of an individual’s psyche is the only meaningful indicator of morality and spirituality. Jesus was clear that merely observing the Law is no guarantor of moral worth (“whitewashed sepulchres”), but he was equally clear that he did not come to abolish the Law, rather to fulfill it. You can be perfectly chaste, but your hard, icy heart can still drag you down to hell. But that is no excuse for sexual debauchery, just because you are a nice guy who does kind things for his neighbors.

Everyone comes to church with his or her own sins. The point of going to church is, in large part, to acknowledge one’s sinfulness, to learn how to repent, and to seek mercy from the Lord. We know that the Lord values mercy, not sacrifice. But mercy means nothing absent acknowledgement of guilt. Why ask for mercy when you think you’ve done nothing wrong? Once, on a trip within Europe, I had lunch with a nice local fellow I met. He asked about my family, and I told him that I was in the process of getting divorced. We talked about that for a bit, and he encouraged me to “have some fun” after so many years of unhappy marriage. He meant to start having sex.

I told him that was not possible for me, because I am a Christian, and that is sin. He genuinely didn’t understand what I was saying. He was not a Christian himself, and he could not grasp why someone in my position would deny himself sex. Mind you, this man was not a cad; to all appearances, he was a normal middle-class European professional, married and a father. His perspective on sexual behavior codes is totally normal in post-Christian Europe. I explained to him that yes, I have normal desires like everybody else, but that I love Christ more than I love my own desires, and that means I have to sacrifice to live the life He desires for me. If that means living the rest of my life as a celibate, then that’s what it has to be.

I could tell that this man was deeply confused by what I was telling him. And look, I was basically a stranger to him. My sense was that living in a post-Christian culture, and not being a believer himself, he had never met someone who was like him in most every other way, except on the matter of sex. This was in a Latin country (e.g., France, Spain, Portugal, Italy), so it may be the case that even churchgoing Christians rationalize their sex lives. It’s what you do these days. But it’s living by a lie, and I can’t do that.

I don’t say that to boast of my own virtue, Lord knows. I only bring it up to highlight how weird normative Christianity is on the question of sex, within contemporary culture. In fact, it’s a lot like the days of the early church in pagan Rome. One of the main things that set Christians apart was their sexual code.

You may be certain that any church that abandons the Bible’s teachings on sex and sexuality is well on its way to apostasy. It is not the case that sex is the most important thing about the Christian claim, but for reasons I’ve discussed here, what sex symbolizes, and what it means anthropologically within a Christian matrix, means that you cannot be meaningfully Christian if you reject Christian sexual teaching. And to put a fine point on it: it is possible to affirm Christian sexual teaching yet fail in one’s own life to live up to its demands. That’s what confession and absolution are for. That’s why God is merciful to the penitent. What’s not acceptable is finding the teaching difficult to live out, and rejecting it.

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Voltaire's birthday 11-21-1694 - A brief essay by Steve Weidenkopf

Today marks the three hundred and thirtieth birthday of the Frenchman François-Marie Arouet, better known by his nom de plume, Voltaire (1694-1778).

Born into a bourgeois family during the reign of Louis XIV, the “Sun King” (r. 1643-1715), Voltaire suffered tragedy at a young age when his mother died. Never close with his father or brother, Voltaire exhibited a rebellious attitude toward authority from his youth. His brilliant mind was fostered in the care of the Society of Jesus, who introduced him to the joys of literature and theater. Despite his later criticisms against the Church, Voltaire, throughout his life, fondly recalled his dedicated Jesuit teachers.

Although he spent time as a civil servant in the French embassy to the Hague, Voltaire’s main love was writing—an endeavor where he excelled in various genres, including poetry, which led to his appointment as the royal court poet for King Louis XV. Widely recognized as one of the greatest French writers, and even hyperbolically referred to by ...

Voltaire's birthday 11-21-1694 - A brief essay by Steve Weidenkopf
January 01, 2025
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Inaugural Mass homily of Pope Leo the XIV with some commentary by yours truly
Signs of Hope

Good day all,

      My thoughts on the Holy Father's homily in bold print.  I see many signs of hopefulness in his homily and I am praying greater clarity and unity from Pope Leo.  The world will reject his clarity since it likes spiritual ambiguity and moral relativism, but I am hoping for a less divisive Pope than Francis.  - Fr. Tom

Dear Brother Cardinals, Brother Bishops and Priests, Distinguished Authorities and Members of the Diplomatic Corps, and those who traveled here for the Jubilee of Confraternities, Brothers and Sisters:

I greet all of you with a heart full of gratitude at the beginning of the ministry that has been entrusted to me. St. Augustine wrote: “Lord, you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you” (Confessions, I: 1,1).

In these days, we have experienced intense emotions. The death of Pope Francis filled our hearts with sadness. In those difficult hours, we felt like the crowds that the Gospel says were “like sheep without a shepherd” (Matthew 9:36). Yet on Easter Sunday, we received his final blessing and, in the light of the Resurrection, we experienced the days that followed in the certainty that the Lord never abandons his people, but gathers them when they are scattered and guards them “as a shepherd guards his flock” (Jeremiah 31:10).

In this spirit of faith, the College of Cardinals met for the conclave. Coming from different backgrounds and experiences, we placed in God’s hands our desire to elect the new Successor of Peter, the Bishop of Rome, a shepherd capable of preserving the rich heritage of the Christian faith and, at the same time, looking to the future, in order to confront the questions, concerns and challenges of today’s world.   I never got the impression that Pope Francis considered it a rich heritage, but often just an interpretation and exposition of the faith for a given time and culture.  I am probably too harsh on the past Pope, but he was not one known for clarity.  I am hoping that the use of the word heritage indicates a more positive few of the past as a treasury of faith to be preserved rather than a liability to be dismissed.

Accompanied by your prayers, we could feel the working of the Holy Spirit, who was able to bring us into harmony, like musical instruments, so that our heartstrings could vibrate in a single melody. I was chosen, without any merit of my own, and now, with fear and trembling, I come to you as a brother, who desires to be the servant of your faith and your joy, walking with you on the path of God’s love, for he wants us all to be united in one family. The Holy Father uses phrase from St. Clement of Rome (Pope #3) and seems to borrow some additional imagery from St. Augustine like he did in his opening remarks.

Love and unity: These are the two dimensions of the mission entrusted to Peter by Jesus. We see this in today’s Gospel, which takes us to the Sea of Galilee, where Jesus began the mission he received from the Father: to be a “fisher” of humanity in order to draw it up from the waters of evil and death. Walking along the shore, he had called Peter and the other first disciples to be, like him, “fishers of men.” 

Now, after the Resurrection, it is up to them to carry on this mission, to cast their nets again and again, to bring the hope of the Gospel into the “waters” of the world, to sail the seas of life so that all may experience God’s embrace. Pope Benedict used the image of sailing the seas of life at the dawn of the digital age after his election as Pope.  I suspect Pope Francis might have as well, but when you stop paying too much attention you miss little details.  I prayed for Pope Francis his entire pontificate, but I didn’t give him much active attention.

How can Peter carry out this task? The Gospel tells us that it is possible only because his own life was touched by the infinite and unconditional love of God, even in the hour of his failure and denial. For this reason, when Jesus addresses Peter, the Gospel uses the Greek verb agapáo, which refers to the love that God has for us, to the offering of himself without reserve and without calculation. Whereas the verb used in Peter’s response describes the love of friendship that we have for one another.

Consequently, when Jesus asks Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” (John 21:16), he is referring to the love of the Father. It is as if Jesus said to him, “Only if you have known and experienced this love of God, which never fails, will you be able to feed my lambs. Only in the love of God the Father will you be able to love your brothers and sisters with that same ‘more,’ that is, by offering your life for your brothers and sisters.”

Peter is thus entrusted with the task of “loving more” and giving his life for the flock. The ministry of Peter is distinguished precisely by this self-sacrificing love, because the Church of Rome presides in charity, and its true authority is the charity of Christ. It is never a question of capturing others by force, by religious propaganda, or by means of power. Instead, it is always and only a question of loving as Jesus did.  The 21st chapter of John is so rich. It is one of my favorite passages to reflect upon.  It is how God heals us of our sins.  It is both a healing moment and a recommissioning of sorts.  Jesus can’t have Peter moping through life as a the denier, Jesus is calling him to shepherd the flock.

The Apostle Peter himself tells us that Jesus “is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, and has become the cornerstone” (Acts 4:11). Moreover, if the rock is Christ, Peter must shepherd the flock without ever yielding to the temptation to be an autocrat, lording it over those entrusted to him (cf. 1 Peter 5:3). On the contrary, he is called to serve the faith of his brothers and sisters and to walk alongside them, for all of us are “living stones” (1 Peter 2:5), called through our baptism to build God’s house in fraternal communion, in the harmony of the Spirit, in the coexistence of diversity. In the words of St. Augustine: “The Church consists of all those who are in harmony with their
brothers and sisters and who love their neighbour” (Sermons 359, 9).

Brothers and sisters, I would like that our first great desire be for a united Church, a sign of unity and communion, which becomes a leaven for a reconciled world. In our time, we still see too much discord, too many wounds caused by hatred, violence, prejudice, the fear of difference, and an economic paradigm that exploits the Earth’s resources and marginalizes the poorest. 

For our part, we want to be a small leaven of unity, communion and fraternity within the world. We want to say to the world, with humility and joy: Look to Christ! Come closer to him! Welcome his word that enlightens and consoles! Listen to his offer of love and become his one family: In the one Christ, we are one. This is the path to follow together, among ourselves, but also with our sister Christian churches, with those who follow other religious paths, with those who are searching for God, with all women and men of goodwill, in order to build a new world where peace reigns! Look to Christ! Pope Leo goes right into the invitation to listen and reflect upon the word of God. The invitation is unity through conversion.

This is the missionary spirit that must animate us; not closing ourselves off in our small groups, nor feeling superior to the world. We are called to offer God’s love to everyone, in order to achieve that unity that does not cancel out differences but values the personal history of each person and the social and religious culture of every people. The church is always missionary. Conversion to Christ does not annihilate all differences, but rather is a process of refinement, keeping what can be of service to the Gospel and losing what is opposed to it or hinders it. Getting rid of sin is just the beginning, putting on the mind and heart of Christ is the challenge.  I pray for our new Holy Father that he may be faithful, courageous and genuinely kind.

Brothers and sisters, this is the hour for love! The heart of the Gospel is the love of God that makes us brothers and sisters. With my predecessor Leo XIII, we can ask ourselves today: If this criterion “were to prevail in the world, would not every conflict cease and peace return?” (Rerum Novarum, 21).

With the light and the strength of the Holy Spirit, let us build a Church founded on God’s love, a sign of unity, a missionary Church that opens its arms to the world, proclaims the word, allows itself to be made “restless” by history, and becomes a leaven of harmony for humanity. Together, as one people, as brothers and sisters, let us walk towards God and love one another. Surprisingly short homily, bishops can often go on forever.

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Practice Gratitude - A reprint and expanded post
Gratitude changes everything

Good Morning Digital Neighbors! Happy Wednesday Friends & Refugees, Early Birds and Later Dayers, Conversants and Lurkers, Phamily & Misfits, ADD Irregulars, WSN Curators, and Curmudgeons!  Today's reflection is one of my favorite ones from the past.  David Whyte's wonderful book Consolations - The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words.  It is a treasure trove of reflection on the gift of language and the power of words.  His reflection on gratitude is outstanding.

GRATITUDE is not a passive response to something we have been given; gratitude arises from paying attention, from being awake in the presence of everything that lives within and without us. Gratitude is not necessarily something that is shown after the event; it is the deep, a priori state of attention that shows we understand and are equal to the gifted nature of life.

Gratitude is the understanding that many millions of things come together and live together and mesh together and breathe together in order for us to take even one more breath of air, that the underlying gift of life and incarnation as a living, participating human being is a privilege, that we are miraculously part of something, rather than nothing. Even if that something is temporarily pain or despair, we inhabit a living world, with real faces, real voices, laughter, the colour blue, the green of the fields, the freshness of a cold wind, or the tawny hue of a winter landscape.

To see the full, miraculous essentiality of the colour blue is to be grateful with no necessity for a word of thanks. To see fully the beauty of a daughter’s face is to be fully grateful without having to seek a God to thank. To sit among friends and strangers, hearing many voices, strange opinions; to intuit inner lives beneath surface lives, to inhabit many worlds at once in this world, to be a someone amongst all other someones, and therefore to make a conversation without saying a word, is to deepen our sense of presence and therefore our natural sense of thankfulness that everything happens both with us and without us, that we are participant and witness all at once.

Thankfulness finds its full measure in generosity of presence, both through participation and witness. We sit at the table as part of every other person’s world while making our own world without will or effort; this is what is extraordinary and gifted, this is the essence of gratefulness, seeing to the heart of privilege. Thanksgiving happens when our sense of presence meets all other presences. Being unappreciative might mean we are simply not paying attention.

Paying attention- LOVE IT. One of my most frequent reminders in my preaching. We get more out of life by paying attention and not simply existing. a priori state of attention that shows we understand and are equal to the gifted nature of life. The gifted nature of life- hold on to that thought, the gifted nature of life makes all the difference in what we think about our story.

that the underlying gift of life and incarnation as a living, participating human being is a privilege - EVERY SINGLE PERSON IS PRIVILEGED - some more than others, but every single one of us. A personal philosophy built on the dialectic of privilege & victimology will lead to legions of unhappy and resentful souls, and not because they lack privilege, but because they lack the appreciation of the gift of living. To focus on what you lack will never help you discover what you possess and what is unique about you. To be a someone amongst all other someones - welcome to LIFE, Digital Neighbor. 😁 The people I love the most and care for the least are still someone amongst someones. It is not always easy to remember that when thinking ill of those you care for the least.

We sit at the table as part of every other person’s world while making our own world without will or effort; this is what is extraordinary and gifted, this is the essence of gratefulness, seeing to the heart of privilege. Thanksgiving happens when our sense of presence meets all other presences. Amen.

Thank you all for allowing me to sit and share at your table.  I have been so blessed by the people God or fate has placed on my life path and I have been delighted that these digital paths have opened up my horizon so wonderfully.  I greatly appreciate the personal sharing, the cultural commentary, the political ranting and wrangling, and above all the shared laughter and memes.

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Gratitude for freedom
Gratitude changes everything

Easter Monday – Gratitude for Freedom

Good morning, Digital Neighbors!  Happy Monday and Blessed Easter Friends to all you good souls on Locals and Substack.   Yesterday ended up being a catch-up day after Mass and brunch with my sister’s family. It was a great day to celebrate the joy of the Risen Lord.   I caught up on some sleep and some of the issues I missed while away from the time drain that was my typical internet habit.  I am sure I will return to some active consumption, hopefully with a more intentional attitude than I had before my Lenten media abstinence.

I caught up on some of the Douglas Murray – Dave Smith JRE and much of the debate that followed on it.  I have read a couple of Douglas Murray books, and I watched many hours of his interviews and appreciate his common sense and insightful commentary.   The internet, as divisive and drama driven as it I always is, seems to have fallen into the Dave Smith is dunce and Douglas is right or Murray is an elitist and credentialist who doesn’t believe in free speech.

I will still have to take some time before I have a more comprehensive understanding of this, but I tend to tilt towards free speech absolutism in the arena of public discourse and debate.  I am a fan of self-determined groups deciding among themselves the degree of free speech that they want to share within their group.  After all it is a voluntary group, and one is free to leave the group if you disagree.  If you don’t have freedom of association then you have even bigger problems than lack of freedom of speech. *cough* *cough* All the proponents of groupthink and herd feel demand conformity of thought or silence of opinion.

I have added this clip from the Darkhorse Podcast which has always remained one of my favorites for honest and critical thought.

I think Brett and Heather are very fair minded in this clip.  Can one admit they are ever wrong, mistaken or ignorant on a topic?   Brett and Heather fall into the circle of based conversationalists like Gad Saad, Scott Adams, and our gracious hosts at RR and Phetasy. Each has their own style but are all directionally pointed towards freedom rather than compulsion.  There are many others, but Scott is an adamant critic of calling out the arrogance of the experts. Some experts are reliable because they keep asking questions and offering critical thought. They are not only knowledgeable about their subject, but they are also capable of self-criticism and humble admission of error. It makes one more credible, not damaged goods. If someone has repeated and consistent errors most of us will stop listening to them. Some experts are not reliable because their commitment is to their preconceived and pre-committed ideas.  Such idealogues can be charismatic and convincing, but in the end, they champion a cause and not the honest discussion of the topic. It happens in every field. It used to just be religious institutions that compelled thought and behavior for centuries, now it can be any group with real or perceived authority and power. Just ask the Enemedia and Academia.

Arriving at approximate truths in public discourse takes time, is messy and requires some humility to admit when you went down the wrong path and committed too much energy to being in error.  I don’t know that most of humanity can embrace such raw honesty and humility. Imagine spending years on a particular cause to find out you are wrong? It is too easy to think that one has wasted their time and effort, but if you are honestly seeking is it ever a waste of time?  I don’t think so.   5 years down the road and I am happy that I asked questions during Covid. It opened the door to more questions and patience.  

·       I appreciate experts, but I don’t take their opinions as Gospel.

·       I appreciate questions asked in a critical manner.

·       No one and no idea are above question or criticism.

·       Yes, even dumbasses can ask critical questions of experts and should not be dismissed because they are a dumbass.  One can acknowledge their history of error, incompetency or ignorance, but if they have an honest question, its dismissal reveals the dishonesty of the expert.

·       Experts can be blind to their bias just like any of us. Experts can lie just like any of us.  Experts can be joyfully mistaken.

·       Arriving at the shores of understanding and approximate truth/testable reality takes time.  I am suspicious of anyone demanding immediate compulsion of thought and subsequent behavior.

Sorry, more than I wanted to write on a Monday morning.  Thank you if you took the time to real. Comment always welcome.  

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