Second, the judicial system has (had?) great authority, but it doesn't have great power. — BC

So their power just came down to respect for rule of law? What about the National Guard?

If the goal is to pave the way for greater authoritarianism, the judicial branch would have to be rendered powerless. This occurred to me a while back, so I was expecting some ramp up in anti-judiciary rhetoric.

In 1930's Louisiana, there was a governor who became a dictator by taking over the state legislature. He fired some judges and was eventually shot and killed by the son of one of the judges he fired. If history repeats, we should expect assassination attempts after judges are removed. The problem is that even if all the key players were killed, there's no viable opposition to take over right now. That doesn't mean it couldn't develop, but if it did, the US would sink into internal conflict in a way it hasn't experienced since the Civil War. I think most likely the US will be off the world stage for the foreseeable future.

102?

Seek God etc. [in your hearts] all else is talk — ENOAH

"In the depths of our hearts the light of God is shining on a soundless sea with no shore.". --Rumi

You have to take something as granted, yes. That's a long way from what is involved in faith. One can review what one takes as granted, but to review what one takes on faith is to breech that faith. — Banno

Sounds like you made up your own religion.

Or faith is the antithesis of rationality. — Banno

If you like. You were born with some of that irrational faith. You can't live without it.

And, the average American manages a comfortable lifestyle on the average American income which is around $65,000 annually.
https://www.sofi.com/learn/content/average-salary-in-us/ — Metaphysician Undercover

Only 15.7% of Americans make that much. 57% of Americans make that or less. here

Since you think $65,000 is enough to make ends meet without struggle for an average family, I'm guessing you're like a 100 years old?

Even if that is representative of "the average American", how is it anything other than having to work for a living? — Metaphysician Undercover

Nobody was talking about working for a living. Ssu was saying America is rich because of its global influence. I was saying the average American isn't rich.

Wouldn't it be wonderful to hear the sounds the workers made building the classical structures of Egypt? — Banno

That would be awesome

Speaking of sliding, the delta blues beat comes from laboring songs, songs that are meant to coordinate action so everyone does the same thing at the same time. It creates anticipation. I wonder if laboring songs may have been part of the emergence of a sense of time. As ancient monument builders dragged giant stones, was the concept of a precise moment in the future coming into consciousness? When we all pull on the rope together?

Whoever's writing the software for this matrix is going off the rails.

Trump and Vance tell Zelensky to get out of the Oval Office. Get out!

Sounds like an interesting read. Do you know of a free copy of the essay, or did you buy it? I’ll read it then comment. — NOS4A2

I couldn't find it on line. You can buy it from Amazon.com . It comes as a little paperback.

The most obvious place where this plays out is with disorders like Down Syndrome, which are now screened for early in most pregnancies in some countries. People terminate these pregnancies at vastly higher rates, leading to very stark declines in prevalence in some countries (e.g. Iceland). — Count Timothy von Icarus

Downs isn't passed down genetically, though. It's a malfunction that takes place early during gestation. There wouldn't be any eugenics benefit from ending a Downs pregnancy.

I understand the motivation behind eugenics, but I don't think we know enough to engage in it large scale. Knowing how genetic manipulation will effect a handful of people doesn't tell us anything about the wider implications for the whole population. Diseases sometimes come in pairs where having one condition gives immunity to some other. A broad eugenics program might show us the benefit behind some conditions that we now think of as noxious.

Anyhow, the Alt-Right is fairly broad and in some sense the idea of "race realism" is more tangential than I think a lot of coverage suggests. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Nick Land's sentiments are central to the contemporary alt-right and the opening lines of Dark Enlightenment are about race. That's why I brought it up. I wasn't looking for low hanging fruit. That would be disingenuous.

Does "struggles" mean that they have to go to work five days a week? — Metaphysician Undercover

Living paycheck to paycheck is pretty common.

Worrying is self-inflicted anxiety. — Metaphysician Undercover

It often comes from a heroin deficiency.

Now Trump is doing exactly the same, but even higher tariffs when the World is far more integrated than it was in the 1930's — ssu

I think I was the one who told you that a trade war precipitated the Great Depression. Now you're teaching it back to me.

We can go over the reasons why Russian imperialism and military aggression is bad for Europe, but now the question is just why to start appeasing those, who see the US as it's enemy and alienate those, who thought being your allies? — ssu

Basically because the US can destroy Russia without Europe's help. If the US needed European support, it would be a different story.

And do you think that starting a trade war, which likely ends up in a global downturn, will help that? — ssu

It has the potential to. A trade war would help American labor as long as it doesn't coincide with a panic that crashes the system.

You don't want to have a welfare state, you don't want universal health care or free education. You could easily have that, but you do not want it. You want to give tax breaks to the rich and believe that the best thing is not only to man the highest positions in the administration with billionaires, but to give unchecked power to the richest man in the World. That's the United States Americans seem to want and vote for. Because obviously, for some reason you buy the argument that is this rule by the rich or then everything else is Venezuela type socialism.

It's all that you are doing yourself by your own choosing. And loosing that leadership role won't make it anymore easier. Actually it's the American defense companies that will be hurt when Europe starts focusing on it's own military industry.

In fact, you can both have a strong military and a welfare state and people be prosperous. But that means that the rich do have to pay taxes. Sweden during the Cold War is actually a great example of this: a rather small country could have it's own military industrial complex capable of building top of the line fighters, submarines and even building an own nuclear weapon. And also creating that welfare state.

The thing that either it's guns or butter is the wrong idea. — ssu

I'm not sure why you're having this reaction. Are you afraid Russia is going to invade your country and Europe will just stand by and let it happen?

Yeah, I don't think that's a left problem though. I think we're seeing that from all quarters. The left and right are just doing that in different ways. — flannel jesus

Agreed.

zombie? Not sure what exactly is meant by that — flannel jesus

No reflection. Just outrage.

Hayek favored dictatorship as the best way to preserve the freedom of the market. He's an ideological grandfather of Land and his friends.
— frank

On what basis do you say that? — Paine

I read a book about him? He praised the Chilean dictator and commented that a dictator is the best solution to threats to freedom. I'm not going to look it up and provide a quote though. I just don't care enough. Sorry.

You do know that Russia has more nuclear weapons than the US has, btw. — ssu

Ok.

It really comes down to this: when you cannot understand how much of the current prosperity you have is thanks to the Superpower status, it's really the epic failure of your own government to make it's case for this. Other countries have happily given the US the leadership role. But once other countries don't listen to you, you will understand it. — ssu

The average American struggles to make ends meet. They worry about how they're going to afford to retire. The ones just below average show up to the emergency room to get healthcare and when they're told that they need to stop working to get over their pneumonia, they start crying and explaining that they're working two jobs and they have to take care of their kids and they can't take any time off.

That is America. Thanks for the leadership role.

As a lefty, I largely agree with this and I've been saying similar things for years. The left shoots themselves in the foot by becoming extreme caricatures of themselves. — flannel jesus

I also get what he's saying. There's a little bit of zombie-ness in progressivism.

Take Hayek, for instance, who advocated for a completely free market but did not support the deletion of civic governance. — Paine

Hayek favored dictatorship as the best way to preserve the freedom of the market. He's an ideological grandfather of Land and his friends.

What Land describes as 'conservative' — Paine

What did he describe as conservative? He isn't conservative in any meaningful sense. He's post-Leftism.

By that measure, the alt-right does not want to have control of the commons but to force everybody else to live in their ghetto. — Paine

Libertarians truly want freedom and they think democracy has failed in its mission to provide that. They have joined hands with Neo-Nazis in order to make their sentiments known. To what extent do they realize that there's a looming disaster in that? I honestly don't think they care. They're useless dust for history's bin.

Would it be a bad thing is the liberal world order ended Frank? — ChatteringMonkey

If you mean should America's global influence end. Yes. It should.

So, St. Thomas's Five Ways demonstrate a lack of faith and are contrary to Church doctrine? — Count Timothy von Icarus

If he required any of that for belief, yes, it would show a lack of faith.

I'll tell you a secret about mysticism. As soon as you stop trying to be right, you'll feel God's presence. It's pretty cool.

Apparently, you know more about how to instruct Christians on their own faith than St. Anselm. — Count Timothy von Icarus

St Anselm was very well aware that faith is not based on reason.

Au contraire, the argument has two premises inconsistent with doctrine (see the Catechism above — Count Timothy von Icarus

You've got to be kidding me. He's clearly saying that if you require argumentation for belief in God, you lack faith.

The Pauline doctrine and the official Church teaching is that faith is a gift of God. It is not obtained through reason.

Read what he wrote. His view is traditional.

Let's revisit the OP.

But know this... all of you who do require reason-based thought, have a severe lack of faith in God. — DifferentiatingEgg

And you've affirmed that

... faith is above reason,

Faith is above reason. Those who require reason in order to believe are demonstrating a lack of faith. The OP is expressing the Pauline doctrine along with the official teaching of the Church.

Thanks for the explanation. I asked my question because I don't see how the positions you describe are relevant to the issue at hand - to quote the OP, "...using reason-based thought for God is necessarily a showing of a lack of faith in God." — T Clark

If someone refused to believe until they had a good argument, that would demonstrate a lack of faith, pretty much by definition. Just indulging in argumentation doesn't show a lack of faith. So you're right.

It depends on what you mean by "through reason." Reason in contemporary thought is often restricted to nothing more than demonstration and computation, the means by which man moves from premises to conclusions. However, reason is sometimes still used for the intellect, i.e., the rational part of the soul or nous. — Count Timothy von Icarus

One of things in your previous post that gave me pause was this:

Which is not to say "faith is irrational" and "faith does not involve understanding," even from the standpoint of Evangelicals. — Count Timothy von Icarus

If by "Evangelicals", you mean Protestants who support missionary work, that's exactly the population you'd look toward to find a real, full-bodied Christian rationalist. This is where the ridiculous "clock-maker" thought experiment comes from. This view is in direct contradiction to the views of Paul, which was that faith is a divine gift. This is the view of the Catholic Church. They see reason as compatible with faith, but it is by no means the source of it.

It depends on what you mean by "through reason." Reason in contemporary thought is often restricted to nothing more than demonstration and computation, the means by which man moves from premises to conclusions. However, reason is sometimes still used for the intellect, i.e., the rational part of the soul or nous. — Count Timothy von Icarus

The human intellect is supposed to be a reflection of the second emanation of the One. This supports the Pauline view that faith does not arise from any work exerted by the mind. It's just part of the functioning of the mind.

Progress towards theosis is generally seen as involving ever greater degrees of understanding, certainly not its absence. — Count Timothy von Icarus

The understanding involved here would be mystical in character. The One becomes the Two. The Two becomes the Three. The Three becomes the Four, which is the One. In comparison with this, logical arguments only offer half-truths. But we are here a long way from the concerns of Paul, which was my point.

Even St. Augustine, Calvin's main inspiration, dedicated significant efforts to apologetics and philosophy as well. Faith here is not will as uniformed by intellect — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes. Reason is considered to be compatible with faith, but not its source. It appears you're going to hold fast to the wrong impression about the Pauline doctrine and the official teaching of the Church. I'm disappointed in you, but you're certainly welcome to your view.

Yes, that is not the same thing as what OP is saying at all. — Count Timothy von Icarus

So you're admitting that the Pauline doctrine, along with the official Catholic view is that faith is not through reason, but by the grace of God?

My brief look into what Pauline doctrine is doesn’t indicate it is primarily related to reason versus faith. — T Clark

The main issue Paul dealt with in his religious work was the salvation of the Gentiles. He believed Jesus offered the way for Gentiles to become beneficiaries of the Covenant. He basically established Christianity outside the Jewish community. His thoughts about faith and works were related to that.

Btw, this is my favorite Pauline scripture. When I was young, this was all of Christianity to me:

"If I speak with the eloquence of men and of angels, but have no love, I become no more than blaring brass or crashing cymbal.

"If I have the gift of foretelling the future and hold in my mind not only all human knowledge but the very secrets of God, and if I also have that absolute faith which can move mountains, but have no love, I amount to nothing at all.

"If I dispose of all that I possess, yes, even if I give my own body to be burned, but have no love, I achieve precisely nothing." 1 Corinthians 13:2

And how do you know that the US isn't defended through NATO? — Christoffer

Could you explain how it is? The US has a giant nuclear arsenal with the ability to deploy them with ICBMs, medium range missiles, submarines, and Air Force bombers. Why does the US need NATO? I'm asking.

One of the striking features to me of Trumpian politics is that it is mostly vindictive. — Benkei

I agree.

This has been far from the norm in Church history — Count Timothy von Icarus

This is the official Catholic view:

"Again, it is evident that this "light of faith" is a supernatural gift and is not the necessary outcome of assent to the motives of credibility. No amount of study will win it, no intellectual conviction as to the credibility of revealed religion nor even of the claims of the Church to be our infallible guide in matters of faith, will produce this light in a man's mind. It is the free gift of God. Hence the Vatican Council (III, iii;) teaches that "faith is a supernatural virtue by which we with the inspiration and assistance of God's grace, believe those things to be true which He has revealed" Catholic Encyclopedia

"Faith is a gift of grace. God not only speaks to us, he also gives us the grace to respond. To believe in Revelation we need the gift of faith." Archdiocese of Minneapolis

"Faith is a gift of God which enables us to know and love him". (ibid)

The above is also Pauline doctrine.

Faith in God requires belief without reason-based thought.
— DifferentiatingEgg

Rubbish. — Leontiskos

No, this is the Pauline doctrine. You're saved through faith by the grace of God. You Catholics need to read the Bible. :razz:

It is traditionally held that Paul believed that faith is a gift from God. This scripture is interpreted as saying that:

"For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast." -- Ephesians 2:8-9

I could lay out more sources to show this. Do you need that? It's pervasive in the Pauline texts. His own faith was by the grace of God. He believed that was true of everyone.

The only presupposition I’ve made is that you don’t know enough about religious doctrine to make a meaningful statement about it. — T Clark

What he expressed was Pauline doctrine.

I see what you're saying, but the US put trillions into NATO because it was defending itself by containing communism. The US isn't defending itself through NATO now. It's just exercising global influence. I think most Americans would question the wisdom of continuing to take that role. What's in it for us?