zmk5's recent activity

  1. Comment on Abolish the priesthood: To save the Church, Catholics must detach themselves from the clerical hierarchy—and take the faith back into their own hands in ~humanities

    zmk5
    Link Parent
    If you think that everything I have written has only been assertions, then I don't know what to tell you, friend. It wasn't that though. Handwaving the fact that you made a glib retort based on...

    Asserting a thing isn't "refuting" it but ok.

    If you think that everything I have written has only been assertions, then I don't know what to tell you, friend.

    Look, the priesthood has presided over slavery and abuse for well over 500 years. What's unbecoming of this point? It informs his thesis about the corrupting influence of power/authority. Handwaving it away is a lame attempt at pearl clutching to avoid having to confront uncomfortable truths.

    It wasn't that though. Handwaving the fact that you made a glib retort based on something that had nothing to do with what I had written as a gottcha and then backpeddling to say its ok because it informs the thesis is pathetic. The jump from me writing "500 years of literature" about a topic to you writing "More like 500 years of slavery and abuse, amirite?" is pretty shallow.

    So in other words, the source material keeps getting adapted to the cultural mores and biases of the community it's targeted towards, and these interpretations can go both ways, with the community imputing their own ideas onto the source material that may or may not be there. Because of Eurocentrism, the Western imputed biases have been privileged for much of history as the "authoritative" ones, but there is no reason this should be considered objectively true.

    But all those communities cannot stray from what makes it Catholicism. They cannot change the sacraments or the structure! The Eucharist is the Eucharist no matter where you take communion, confession is confession no matter where you confess, etc. Whether the art can be influenced by a local culture is one thing, but the hierarchy and sacraments are biblical. Eurocentrism did influence Catholicism, but the priesthood and it's hierarchy is not from that. St. Ignatius' (Syrian!) work reveals that the idea of the priesthood was around well before the Europe that you believe influenced the religion. This framing also denies that many Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches have nearly the same ideas of the priesthood without European influence.

    Radical reforms are still reforms. If there's a bug in the system, you gotta adapt the system wherever it is.

    At one point, a reform makes it another system. The jump from Monarchy to Republic was not reform, it was a system change. Removing the priesthood would be a system change. It would make Catholicism into Not Catholicism.

    This is just getting hung up on labels in lieu of the things they're referring to. If you abolish the formal "police" it's not as if communities just stop enforcing laws. People will just come up with other ways to enforce the law or care for the sick.

    It really isn't. Those people could just reform the police and save themselves the hassle of needing to self-police communities.

    Maybe he doesn't like them. Most of the Protestant denominations have their own layers of traditions and legacies that they're bogged down by. And many of the most "democratic" ones are charismatic churches which he, presumably, has other theological issues with. I see no indication that he dislikes the institution of the Church, he just doesn't like the position of authority that the clergy within it maintain for themselves.

    But you cannot have the Catholicism without the priesthood.
    https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/05/james-carrolls-cover-story-wrong-about-catholicism/589987/

    Additionally, I don't think you realize that many of those Protestant denomination's theological differences came about when they began stripping theological premises and sacraments from Catholicism. Sola Scriptura came about exactly from that. Something needed to be done to make things theologically sound. There is a reason you find things like biblical literalism from Evangelicalism and not Catholicism.

    This also doesn't get to the point that nothing prevents him from doing the things he wants by creating his own denomination.

    It's not about dismissal, it's about your assertion that Carroll is ignorant on the subject while the guy you're linking me to asserts the opposite. Since he's more of an authority on

    People can have different opinions on a person's knowledge of a subject, friend. It surly isn't nice of me that's all. Whether Fr. Martin believes that is fine. I'm sure there are many priests that think the opposite of Carroll's knowledge of the subject.

    Here is a priest who is more biting in his critique of Carroll and his claims:
    http://www.ncregister.com/blog/fatherbouck/abolish-the-priesthood-a-young-priest-responds

    If The Atlantic did there would be an issue because The Atlantic isn't speaking from an internal perspective when it comments on Islam. If a Turkish magazine published one it would be less so, and most of the detractors would be Islamist fascists rather than people with theological concerns.

    How is the Atlantic's speaking from an internal perspective on Catholicism? Just because Carroll was a former priest? You don't think there is a former Imam or sheikh that could write something similar?

    But it wouldn't even make as much sense, because Islam doesn't even have a clergy in the same sense. Iranians are probably the only ones who do, and even that's not as consolidated or well regarded as the Church is. This is willfully extrapolating from a clickbait headline to avoid dealing with the thrust of the article.

    Not in the same sense of course, but sheikhs where I come from have considerable influence on the mosque they lead every Friday. Does Islam really have no problems at which a critique is necessary? Because where I am from, it does have its systemic issues. This is where the double standard Fr. Martin discuss pops up.

    Lots of leftists will argue that we should.

    And no one, even leftists themselves, believe they are reformers.

    Fundamentally reforming the deeply rooted problems with American policing would involve changing it so fundamentally that what comes out the other side isn't going to look anything like what was there before. Whether you want to call that "abolition" or "reform" is largely semantics or niggling over how long it should take.

    But there would still be police! That is what Fr. Martin is saying! Reforming clericalism is one thing, but abolishing the priesthood is another!

  2. Comment on Abolish the priesthood: To save the Church, Catholics must detach themselves from the clerical hierarchy—and take the faith back into their own hands in ~humanities

    zmk5
    Link Parent
    I have answered everything you have put forth and refuted the assumption that Catholicism without priesthood can still exist. Additionally, I have refuted the idea that Carroll's desire for the...

    This isn't really constructive. I'm mostly covering the article in question and you haven't actually answering anything he's said specifically beyond just glibly asserting that the writer is ignorant.

    I have answered everything you have put forth and refuted the assumption that Catholicism without priesthood can still exist. Additionally, I have refuted the idea that Carroll's desire for the removal of the priesthood can be seen as reform. Believe what you wish.

    So the Catholic clergy doesn't have a long history of abuse of power behind it then? What exactly is unbecoming here?

    No, the fact that you brought up something like "500 years of slavery and abuse" as an absurd gotcha rebuttal to something that had nothing to do with the point about the amount of literature refuting Carroll's points was pathetic and unbecoming.

    "A lot" is doing a great deal of work to obscure what you mean here. What of the structure in particular? How much power of worldly affairs were they supposed to have? How much of these interpretations are based on imputing biases about how powers and titles work from medieval scholars back in time to the apostolic era?

    I apologize if I cannot go into the vast repository of literature of the Church Fathers and Theology for a condensed refutation to appease you. Even if I did, I don't think it would be enough for you.

    These are people who did paintings of Pontius Pilate in full plate mail and somehow made Jesus blonde after all.

    And? In Eastern Asia, church murals of Christ have him looking Eastern Asian. In India, Kerala in particular, he looks more Indian.

    Most of the justifications for the level of power the Priesthood have are based on extremely specific readings of the quotations in question. Now maybe the Ancient Greek does support such liberal (as in, broadly supportive) readings, but I have my doubts.

    You shouldn't because reading the Church Fathers and the evidence they have for it should put you at ease.

    This is like pointing to a republican (lower case) and asserting that because they want to abolish formal titles that go with monarchy that must mean they want to abolish the concept of authority altogether.

    No, its more like removing the Police because they help each other cover their crimes, or abolishing Physicians because of their part in the Opioid epidemic. Do you reform the profession or do you abolish it?

    You're functionally saying that it can't count as "reform" if it substantively changes anything. If you can't do structural change, you haven't really reformed anything.

    You really don't understand the gravity of the stuff Carroll is saying. Calling the removal of the priesthood as "reform" is naive. It is much more radical. It's like saying the removal of the judicial branch of the US is "reform."

    He probably doesn't know what a post-clerical Church would look like. How could he if it doesn't exist yet? His whole point is that this is something that will have to be built through trial and error.

    There are many denominations that do just that. He need not look far.

    He also seems to have a great deal more respect for the background knowledge and reputation of James Carroll than you do, so I'm not sure why you'd be citing him. Most of your criticism of Carroll has been of him being ignorant of what Catholicism is or ignorant of the church while this consistently refers to him as an astute critic and asserts that he "knows his theology" (again, being a former ordained Catholic priest himself).

    So? I need to completely respect the works of authors I disagree with? Fr. Martin is a much better man than I, but I have no qualms with dismissing Carroll's latest piece. Then again, I know that wasn't your point by writing the comment ;-)

    And I gotta say after the first paragraph he was not off to a strong start with a sentence like It does not take too much creativity to imagine what the reaction might have been had The New Yorker’s literary critic written, “Does anyone, really, like imams?” Yeah, lots of Muslims in Muslim countries will frequently say things like that. This isn't a Catholic thing, educated lay-people tend not to like clergy very much.

    Yeah and lots of smart muslims and catholics I grew up with that like their imams and clergy, respectively. You really believe if the Atlantic put out an article saying "To Save Islam, Abolish Imams" and not have an issue?

    But the gist of his disagreement with Carroll comes down to one main thing. Martin thinks there needs to be a stronger distinction drawn between priesthood and clericalism while Carroll thinks the very fact of having a priesthood makes many of the worst aspects of clericalism inevitable. He also ignores most of the thrust of Carroll's argument, focusing on the incidences of abuse rather than what Carroll was talking about which was the circling of wagons around the abusers to ensure justice could never find them.

    If cops prevent their friends from getting in trouble, does that require throwing out police, or do you reform it so police can function better? That is the distinction Fr. Martin is making. One that you and Carroll fail to make.

    1 vote

  3. Comment on Abolish the priesthood: To save the Church, Catholics must detach themselves from the clerical hierarchy—and take the faith back into their own hands in ~humanities

    zmk5
    Link Parent
    Yours are no better buddy, and neither do I see any point in recovering any banal idea you have on the subject. Don't play this game. It's unbecoming and pathetic of you. That is because a lot of...

    All I have to comment on is what you give me man. If you give me inchoate 25 word retorts, that's what the conversation is going to be about. I can't dive into your mind to retrieve whatever pearls of wisdom are in there. If you don't want to fish those out I don't see much point in participating in a discussion.

    Yours are no better buddy, and neither do I see any point in recovering any banal idea you have on the subject.

    500s years worth of slavery and abuse too so. . .

    Don't play this game. It's unbecoming and pathetic of you.

    How so? The whole structure of the hierarchy is built on ideas about how authority works and flows that are rooted in the late Roman Empire. They also went on to inform much of the political theory of European feudalism. The church was built by people based on their understandings of the best ways to exercise power and delegate authority in the context of times when legal structures and modes of social interaction are different from what they are now. And it hasn't quite kept up with the times.

    That is because a lot of the structure and such is derived from the New Testament though.

    With some pretty clear and hard to argue points about how one leads to the other.

    But his prescription is to just remove the priesthood. Clericalism can be reformed without removing the priesthood. Carroll's continual conflation of the two has no support.

    You're telling me the founders of the present system were strong proponents of the system they founded?

    Of the necessity of the priesthood being central to the holy apostolic church? Yeah. Clericalism as it is such today? Probably not.

    This isn't surprising and also doesn't really address any of his criticisms.

    He provides no theologically supported conclusion about the removal of the priesthood.

    There you go conflating Protestantism with reform in general again. How can you say stuff like this and then be surprised if all this reads as is reflexive defense of the status quo?

    Removing the priesthood, as the article suggests, is not reform to something where the priesthood is central to it. How do you not get that? I never suggested that you cannot reform the church, only that reform that negates the structure of the religion and what it espouses isn't reform. Having an understanding of the history of the institution is necessary for any reform. What the author suggests is completely revolutionary and antithetical to the faith. The protestant reformation was more revolutionary than reformative and that is why these articles are likened to it.

    If you cut off my arm I'm still me. Even if you give me a sweet new cyborg arm, I'll still be me. This is because who I am doesn't derive from how my body is constituted.

    What you, and the article, are suggesting is removing the heart of person and saying they can work just fine without it. The priesthood is not some externality that can be amputated with wanton disregard for the tenants of Catholicism or Christianity for that matter.

    Fr. Martin's take on it is good: https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2019/05/17/case-against-abolishing-priesthood

    1 vote

  4. Comment on Abolish the priesthood: To save the Church, Catholics must detach themselves from the clerical hierarchy—and take the faith back into their own hands in ~humanities

    zmk5
    Link Parent
    Inchoate? Do you really believe that 25 word retort is the epitome of formed criticism on the topic? My comment is not at all constitutive of the comprehensive literature written by well-read...

    Inchoate? Do you really believe that 25 word retort is the epitome of formed criticism on the topic? My comment is not at all constitutive of the comprehensive literature written by well-read Catholics on this topic. There's 500 years worth of it.

    The Church as it is now basically forces a form of Feudalism + Roman Imperial institutions into a religion that provides truth...And if the institution is leveraging its power and influence to molest kids,...

    This is an extremely bad faith take on what the Catholic Church actually is.

    Most good things aren’t new. They just have to grind away at the badness if the present over and over again. Bringing change is the long, slow, and persistent boring of hard boards. This doesn’t actually comment on what he’s saying.

    It actually does, because he believes clericalism to be the sole reason for the sex abuse crisis.

    If you define “the faith” as whatever the status quo is that’s not really a satisfactory definition for anything. It doesn’t get into the core of the thing for one.

    That is not how I define the faith, nor is it how I have used it in our discussion. That is how you define it. Christ was Prophet, Priest, and King. Munus triplex. The priesthood has thus been a foundation of the faith since the beginning and no amount of revisionist history by James Carrol can deny that. St. Paul, St. Ignatius of Antioch, and many of the early church fathers make this point very clear.

    I have to make it clear that I'm not even Catholic, but these kinds of articles are insulting and incredible ignorant of the institution that they criticize. It is another piece in a long line of genre articles about the Catholic church needing to become more Protestant or to "liberalize" if it is to find "the True" form of Christianity, painfully written by people that don't understand the history of the church or the faith itself.

    "We do not want, as the newspapers say, a Church that will move with the world. We want a Church that will move the world." - G.K. Chesterton (1943)

    1 vote

  5. Comment on Movie Monday Free Talk in ~movies

    zmk5
    Link
    Watched Suspiria the other day. It was absolutely fantastic. I really don't understand all the hate it got though, but I guess it was a pretty divisive film

    Watched Suspiria the other day. It was absolutely fantastic. I really don't understand all the hate it got though, but I guess it was a pretty divisive film

    1 vote

  6. Comment on Abolish the priesthood: To save the Church, Catholics must detach themselves from the clerical hierarchy—and take the faith back into their own hands in ~humanities

    zmk5
    Link Parent
    They certainly may not be, but that's not whom I refer to as Episcopalian or Presbyterian. It's an average rant against clericalism under the backdrop of the abuse scandal. It's nothing unique or...

    I'm not sure the victims of the clergy's culture of secrecy are inherently Episcopalian or Presbyterian so much as abused women and children.

    They certainly may not be, but that's not whom I refer to as Episcopalian or Presbyterian. It's an average rant against clericalism under the backdrop of the abuse scandal. It's nothing unique or anything that hasn't been put forward before. His prescriptions for anticlerical Catholics is ignorant of the faith and screams of Moral Therapeutic Deism. Asking of the church to adopt the "ethos of liberal democracy" is an act of forcing liberalism into a religion that provides truth. You can't be surprised if people push back against this notion.

  7. Comment on Opera Reborn 3: No modern browser is perfect, but this may be as close as it gets in ~tech

    zmk5
    Link Parent
    I thought it was owned by a Norwegian company?

    I thought it was owned by a Norwegian company?

    2 votes

  9. Comment on Abolish the priesthood: To save the Church, Catholics must detach themselves from the clerical hierarchy—and take the faith back into their own hands in ~humanities

    zmk5
    Link Parent
    You can make reformist changes without breaking these things too. The reformists that made these big changes resulted in new denominations. Let those people that want these kind of huge changes go...

    You can make reformist changes without breaking these things too. The reformists that made these big changes resulted in new denominations. Let those people that want these kind of huge changes go to those denominations. The Catholic Church shouldn’t have to change so fundamentally like that just to appease people that are better off as Episcopalian, Presbyterian, etc.

  10. Comment on Abolish the priesthood: To save the Church, Catholics must detach themselves from the clerical hierarchy—and take the faith back into their own hands in ~humanities

    zmk5
    Link Parent
    A former priest that doesn’t seem to understand that priestly and monastic vocations, church tradition, adherence to the sacraments, and papal authority are inseparable to the essence of...

    A former priest that doesn’t seem to understand that priestly and monastic vocations, church tradition, adherence to the sacraments, and papal authority are inseparable to the essence of Catholicism. Catholicism/Orthodoxy cannot exist without these elements together because they feed into one another.

  11. Comment on Abolish the priesthood: To save the Church, Catholics must detach themselves from the clerical hierarchy—and take the faith back into their own hands in ~humanities

    zmk5
    Link Parent
    This is much easier said than done, and Anglicanism is still considered a protestant denomination. High Lutheranism tried the same thing, but eventually devolves without an authoritative body to...

    No, you could also establish a separate or parallel set of church traditions and culture the way the Anglican Church did. Henry VIII was still big on the Church's doctrine and traditions and literally just wanted to break from the authority of its clergy.

    Many Catholics view Biblical literalism and fixation on the Bible alone as a form of idolatry, believing it prioritizes the book and its contents over actual spiritual connection. That wouldn't go away just because the priesthood did.

    This is much easier said than done, and Anglicanism is still considered a protestant denomination. High Lutheranism tried the same thing, but eventually devolves without an authoritative body to necessitate the upholding of sacraments.

    Speaking as a Hindu, the traditions and culture are numerous and extremely diverse, but are all still part of a single religious identity. There is just a framework for continuous reinvention built into the religion. Tradition and orthopraxy--according to the particular rites of your family, caste, village, and patron deity--are actually held in higher regard within some branches of Hinduism than direct scriptural references are. And the guru/family-centric structure of the religion is set up to permit continual renewal of the traditions and culture around the kernels of fundamental truth.

    Catholicism allows this too to a certain degree. The differentiation is that priests cannot stray from the teachings that are fundamental to Catholic teaching and goes against sacraments of the religion. That's why no matter what Catholic church you go to the service can be expected to uphold the sacraments but music, art, mores, etc. can be different.

    1 vote

  12. Comment on Abolish the priesthood: To save the Church, Catholics must detach themselves from the clerical hierarchy—and take the faith back into their own hands in ~humanities

    zmk5
    Link Parent
    It is by the rejection of the Catholic Church, its organizing structure, value of the church fathers, etc. that many of the difference between the two became manifest. You kind of hint at that...

    I'm not a theologian, or even a Christian really, but as I understand it Protestants also have a lot of basic theological differences with Catholics beyond just the existence of a clergy, and while many of them are progressive and humanistic many others were pretty retrograde.

    It is by the rejection of the Catholic Church, its organizing structure, value of the church fathers, etc. that many of the difference between the two became manifest. You kind of hint at that point in the later part of the your paragraph here:

    Protestants are pretty fundamentalist about the inerrancy of the Bible and insist it is the only source of knowledge of God. Catholics revere the Bible, but also consider Church traditions and culture as part of their spiritual understanding, including the presence of saints.

    If you reject much of the church traditions and culture, you really only have the Bible to stand on (Sola Scriptura).

    2 votes

  13. Comment on Abolish the priesthood: To save the Church, Catholics must detach themselves from the clerical hierarchy—and take the faith back into their own hands in ~humanities

    zmk5
    Link Parent
    Exactly. Not much of a new hot take unless you say 500 years ago was recent lol

    Exactly. Not much of a new hot take unless you say 500 years ago was recent lol

  14. Comment on <deleted topic> in ~tildes

    zmk5
    Link Parent
    Yeah, I completely get what you mean. Nuanced, good faith discussions can be difficult. I keep forgetting that when I comment and see a lot of replies haha

    Yeah, I completely get what you mean. Nuanced, good faith discussions can be difficult. I keep forgetting that when I comment and see a lot of replies haha

    2 votes

  15. Comment on <deleted topic> in ~tildes

    zmk5
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    I don't think this is an issue with tildes per say, but it's probably the "we simply don't have a large enough population of posters yet" point. I hope people don't take what I said about Tildes...

    I don't think this is an issue with tildes per say, but it's probably the "we simply don't have a large enough population of posters yet" point. I hope people don't take what I said about Tildes as a negative about the site. I quite like it here.

    I was being a bit hyperbolic about the actual numbers of people, but my point was more about the general prevalence of a certain world view over others.

    EDIT: Grammar

    3 votes

  16. Comment on <deleted topic> in ~tildes

    zmk5
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    I think this should be modified a bit. What this site is missing is ideologues, and this has been my main issue with the site when it comes to political discussion. When everyone comes from a...

    The only "side" that isn't politically represented on this forum are the extremists.

    I think this should be modified a bit. What this site is missing is ideologues, and this has been my main issue with the site when it comes to political discussion. When everyone comes from a similar idealogical background (mainstream democrat in my opinion) many of the conversations end up being stale, unoriginal, and predictable. There is no back and forth. There is no discussion that ends up making you think or challenge assumptions. Everyone just generally agrees. There is no leftist on here, no paleocon, no anarcho-capitalist, no marxist, no rationalist, etc. It's all just the same.

    What everyone else seems to be arguing is whether good faith arguments or dialogue can exist with ideologues. However, I have to say that people would still find it toxic if everyone ends up conversing in bath faith on even the most practical and logical of points. If you find good people or have good moderation that removes bad faith arguments, then I think you might get a more interesting discourse than what is current going on here.

    EDIT: I do have to admit that I was being a bit hyperbolic about the actual numbers of people of various political backgrounds. However, my point was more about the general prevalence of a certain world view over others.

    3 votes

  17. Comment on For Better Computing, Liberate CPUs from Garbage Collection in ~comp

  18. Comment on For Better Computing, Liberate CPUs from Garbage Collection in ~comp

    zmk5
    Link Parent
    The only gripe I have seen people have with the work is that it tests on "in-order CPUs" even though most new CPUs are "out-of-order CPUs." He may have a lot more work to do, but it is definitely...

    The only gripe I have seen people have with the work is that it tests on "in-order CPUs" even though most new CPUs are "out-of-order CPUs." He may have a lot more work to do, but it is definitely a good step forward.

    8 votes

  20. Comment on AIs should have the same ethical protections as animals in ~tech

    zmk5
    Link
    The issue with pieces like these is that they provide no distinction of technology as it is now and technology as it will be in the future. As a researcher in the field, many of these AI pieces...

    The issue with pieces like these is that they provide no distinction of technology as it is now and technology as it will be in the future. As a researcher in the field, many of these AI pieces are planning on things that are yet to come, but they feel that since the current technology is also under the name umbrella, it needs to be regulated as the future version.

    If you look at something like a Convolutional Neural Networks, it's really difficult for me to think of ethics in regard to the technology itself instead of how it is used. The ethical status of the technology in regards to bias is not something inherent to the technology but based on how it used. If you only feed your CNN a certain type of data, the math function will, predictably, only be able to classify those types of data. For example, if you only feed in the numbers 1-10 into your ML algorithm, you can't be surprised that the answers you get will only be from 1-10.

    In regards to Reinforcement Learning (RL), we still have a really long ways to go until we reach something on parity to a generalized form of RL. The algorithms to date still struggle in comparison to non-linear control optimization techniques that have been around since the early 1900s. RL is heralded as the coming of self-learning robots, but most of the companies doing stuff in the field (Boston Dynamics included) only rely on classical control schemes.

    1 vote