Welcome to February Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Saturday, February 1, 2025
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80 comments
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About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a retired Professor of Political Science and former College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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What media really think:
“JPG“
No, I said abortion laws don’t curtail women’s rights to their body, except in the way that anti-suicide bombing laws curtail a woman’s right to blow herself up and take others with her.
@Fortune: I’m sure the women dying because of abortion laws in states like Texas might of had a different opinion. Being forced to bring to term a dead fetus while facing sepsis because she doesn’t have bodily rights is just the same as a suicide bomber…
These are women who wanted to have a healthy baby. Now they are dead and so are their babies…
The notion that “life begins at conception” is a religious belief, and a very recent one at that. Abortion laws are about forcing a religious view on the public at large, and on the bodies of women in general.
@MarkedMan: Conception produces a distinct entity with unique genetic code. It can be made in a lab and put into a woman. It has a metabolism and is capable of cell division. Where’s the problem with “life begins at conception”.
Human life begins before conception.
The sperm in a male human’s body is human and alive. The eggs in a female human’s body are human and alive.
@Mister Bluster: They don’t have distinct human DNA. When you brush your teeth you destroy living cells on your gums but they don’t end the life of a distinct human being. ETA (twice): We can avoid the confusion by saying “a human life begins at conception.”
@Fortune: When you brush your teeth you destroy living cells on your gums but they don’t end the life of a distinct human being.
Okay, I think we’ve officially entered the Stupid Zone. I think we can safely ignore Fortune from this time forward without any loss to the website.
@Fortune: the cells were alive before they were joined. The idea that at the moment of conception those cells are suddenly equivalent to a human baby is absurd. Laughable, in fact.
Religions traffic in all kinds of absurd notions, but this is America and you are free to hold all kinds of religious beliefs. As a society we agree to live and let live. But once you start trying to write absurd religious notions into law you’ve crossed a line.
@Not the IT Dept.: No, we’re defining things carefully.
@MarkedMan: Define what’s not equivalent.
We need to be very clear what Trump’s childish “Biden and Obama killed the people on the plane because DEI!!” executive order really means: If a white person makes a mistake, it’s a mistake. If a person of color, or a woman, or an immigrant, or a gay person, trans, disabled, etc makes a mistake it is proof that they didn’t “earn” the job and shouldn’t have gotten it. Further, if a mistake is made then immediately the witch hunt is on to find a woman or minority to pin it on.
@Fortune: Sperm is equivalent to a human baby. I say that is a scientific fact. Whacking off should be a jail-able offense. I want hot lines and financial incentives for your family and friends to turn you in if you are tugging the rope.
@Fortune:..ETA: “A human life begins at conception” is more accurate, you’re right.
Please do not attribute to me things that I have not stated.
@MarkedMan: Sperm doesn’t have a distinct full set of human DNA.
@Fortune: I say that doesn’t matter. Sperm is a human baby. Quit yer’ yankin!
@Mister Bluster: Fixed. I started this thread because just nutha misrepresented me with quotation marks, and the original discussion was about which side believes in lies, so it wasn’t my intention to distort your meaning.
@Not the IT Dept.:
Could have started some time ago. I would like to read an intellectually honest, knowledgeable, conservative voice. When I came here years ago James, Steven, and Doug provided that. But the realities of the Republican Party have driven James and Steven a deal left. Rational conservative voices are hard to come by.
As with many disagreements, the abortion debate is really about words. There’s no argument about when life begins. The biological processes are well understood. The argument is about what “life” means. Or “human”.
I was reading the LGM website, decidely liberal but mostly fair evaluaters in political matters, and they are matter of fact stating that we are in the middle of coup, at this very moment. I think they’re right. Past time to be worried, it’s happening right now.
You know what’s lacking in religious arguments? Evidence.
To: The administrators of this site
From: The Attorney General of MarkedManistan
You are hereby notified to turn over all identifying information for one “Fortune” (we believe this might be an alias). We have reason to believe he is an Onanist, in violation of the laws of MarkedManistan. Onanism, as you are well aware, is equivalent to baby murder, since spermatozoa is an integral part of the fetus and a fetus is, of course, equivalent to a human baby. Note also that the Legislative Authority of MarkedManistan has given authority to enforce this law outside of our boundaries.
You must immediately turn over all identifying information you have for “Fortune”, as well as any people you know or suspect are friends, coworkers or family. If you do not comply with this legal order, you will be charged with complicity and abetting an Onanist (Baby Murderer). We reserve the right to send Officers of MarkedManistand across the border to conduct investigations and make arrests.
@gVOR10: I’ve been ignoring him for a while, but due to inattention read his post today. While I disagree with it, and in fact think his point makes no sense, he does appear to be arguing in good faith, even if his argument consists of “I have made up a definition. That makes it a fact. Prove me wrong.” Not something I think is worth debating, but YMMV
@Fortune: I agree that definitions are very important, so I want to make sure I understand you correctly: you are looking for a clear demarcation defining “human life” and have chosen the point where a cell has a “full set” of “human DNA” that is “distinct.” This would not include body cells that are shed or otherwise killed, such as the tooth brushing scenario, and do not include sperm (and presumably eggs under the same rationale) because they don’t meet the “full set” part of the definition.
If this isn’t right, please correct me, but if I’ve got it can you please define “full set” and “distinct?” I’d also appreciate it if you would make sure my understanding of the tooth brushing thing is correct: do you mean that since other cells with the same full and distinct set of DNA as the gum cells still go on living in the rest of the tooth brusher’s body that this means a human life has not been killed?
Are there any other criteria required to define “human life” beyond the above? Any other criteria that are not required but are helpful?
I know you are getting tons of engagement on this so I appreciate any time you take to respond to me (this post and any future ones)
I would submit that the dividing line and definition of left and right has shifted, not necessarily the views of any individual.
@Erik: Even if you are successful in getting him to see his definition is arbitrary and erroneous to boot I expect the only result will be him scurrying off to find a new definition that gives the same result. The “life begins at conception” is 100% faith based.
@Fortune:
I brought receipts to that discussion in yesterday’s open forum, and referenced you, yet you chose to ignore the overwhelming data I presented that shows, without a doubt, that Conservatives/Republicans believe lies at a MUCH higher rate than Dems/Liberals.
In case you missed it, it’s here.
Bottom line, like most of MAGA people, you are incapable of being intellectually honest or consistent.
@MarkedMan:
No charge for aggravated assholery in the first degree?
@Kathy: Kathy, you of all people, making light of this! It is a serious crime and we have good reason to believe he regularly massages the one eyed python.
DCA safety record is being unfairly maligned because people aren’t doing their homework.
Since the end of WW II*, the airport has had five fatal commercial incidents. That isn’t alot. JFK airport, also very busy and a heavily populated region, had SIX in the 1960’s alone. Three of DCA’s are from 1949 or earlier.
The danger DCA poses to the nation’s capitol, is a different issue. Then again Baltimore or Dulles aren’t all that far from it either and if a commercial aviation pilot wanted to do a kamikaze run at Capitol Hill, he stands a decent chance of succeeding before any fighters can be scrambled or is there a constant air patrol over DC?
*- DCA opened in 1941
For someone who claims to care about human life, dude makes some strange choices in the voting booth.
This person does not seem to understand what the word lie means, yet wants to make strong claims about something much more difficult to define.
Years ago, I read a review of The Gene: An Intimate Portrait. In the book, Mukherjee uses the atom as the basic unit of matter to explain the gene as basic unit of heredity. The reviewer wrote something like, that’s news physicists who study electrons, protons, and neutrons!
That reviewer had no interest in understanding what the word unit means.
@Fortune:
You do know DNA changes over a human’s lifetime, yes? Does that mean every time that a mutation occurs during cell division that the human is now a distinct person from the person they were before?
No, it does not.
As usual, way out of your depth. Because you start with your belief, read about some science, and butcher what you read so that you can reach what you already believed.
Reducing an organism to its DNA is not even wrong.
@Fortune:
Employing that reasoning, birthright citizenship should apply to the location of conception.
(slightly complicating things for US citizens that are impregnated while on vacation abroad, their child may have dual citizenship)
OH, OH, just violoated my self-imposed rule to not respond to da trollers
@Fortune:
Cancer also fits this definition.
I prefer to base my ill-founded beliefs about abortion based on a mixture of eviction laws and a tortured reading of the prohibition on slavery.
@Kathy:
But I thought assholery carries a mandatory chaste penalty.
I was ordered to remove my pronouns from my e-mail signature yesterday =/
@Fortune:
At conception you have a blueprint for a new human, like a blueprint for a house. The new human still must be built, and every atom of every molecule in every cell comes via the woman’s body.
You say a blueprint is equivalent to a house? Go stand in an open field in a blizzard and let me know how well that blueprint shelters you.
You would require every woman to build from any blueprint forced on her, regardless of her own plans for her own life.
I would call that reproductive slavery.
I don’t remember which one of you sons of bitches did this shit to me last night, but one of you alerted the group to the JD Vance IQ tweet.
I will never forgive thee.
Sure, I could blame myself for not exercising a little self control, but I had to know. So, your fault.
It ruined my night.
I will tell my story in a different post.
(and yes, it will be long.)
Conception defined as when a sperm cell merges with an ovum presents a huge dilema. A great many embryos thus conceived never get to implant in the uterus. Most do, but a sizeable percentage does not. This excludes those that wind up implanting in the fallopian tubes, which is a whole different set of complications.
Now, if one assumes some deity created humans, then one must conclude this same deity meant for a large number of fertilized embryos to be lost. Therefore this deity provided for millions of abortions every year on purpose.
Want to believe life begins at conception and want to stop the most abortions, go after Jehovah.
US government agencies order employees to remove gender pronouns from email signatures.
It looks like I’m going to have to decide on Monday whether to capitulate to an EO denying the existence of the non-LGB portion of my community, or put myself in the direct pathway of potential Consequences.
Wow! The SIXTEEN COMMENTS after charontwo’s— “a tale told by a mad man*, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Sixteen comments, and the time of several people, wasted on blather. Is this the future of our OtB community–DARPA era troll wars?
* Actually, it took more than ONE mad man, to accomplish that sub thread. SMH.
@Kathy: Religious statements are not arguments in the common sense of the term. They are statements of belief, not reason. It is as unfair to criticize them for not being evidence-based as it is for the people presenting them to pretend that they are evidence-based. Two wrongs do not cancel each other out to make truth or virtue.
If this is the path we, collectively, are taking, it’s gonna be a long, stupid four years. Relentlessly so. SMH
Given how thoroughly our MSM cover Mexican affairs, I was unaware that Mexico is now going to elect judges, and there’s some possible jiggery-pokery going on with candidate selection. It’s some years since I read A Different Democracy, but I seem to recall you, Dr. Taylor, noting that outside the U. S. only one Western Hemisphere country did anything as silly as electing judges, and they only for a few minor judgeships.
Thought I’d throw it out in the Open Forum and see if you, or Kathy, care to comment.
@MarkedMan: So what? Is that not his choice? Have you decided to selectively grant agency depending on whether people’s actions are completely consistent with their statements? And who put you in charge of deciding?
We’re becoming what Marked Man, ironically enough, warned us about–a place that shitposts for the lulz (and because the shitposting is about people we don’t share comity with).
And, yes, I recognize the satire. I’m not amused with you satirizing someone you said two or three posts up “argues in good faith.” Is your treatment of him “good faith” arguing?
In the Bible, in the Old Testament, the penalty for murder is death (by stoning, I think). The penalty for hitting a woman with child and causing a miscarriage is a payment of money.
From which we can conclude that the ancients did not think a fetus was a person. I challenge you to find evidence that any human, anywhere, thought an early term fetus was a person. We don’t give tax deductions for fetuses, for pete’s sake. And for good reason. There have traditionally been a host of issues that can disrupt the normal progress toward producing a person.
It is easy enough to find religious traditions wherein the soul is though to enter the child with its first breath. Before that it is not considered a person. So how could the belief that the soul has entered a child at conception not be a religious belief. Of course it is.
@just nutha:
If it were only matter of people practicing their religion, I’d have no problem with that.
When it is a matter of people imposing their beliefs on everyone else, usually to the detriment of everyone else, then we must demand clear evidence for such imposition. Or refuse to accept any imposition no backed by actual evidence.
@MarkedMan: I also read plainly in the Holy Scriptures that God punished Onan for spilling his seed to the ground instead of using it to conceive a child.
Chinos (like Fortune) only recognize the Scriptures that condemn other people. These are the people Jesus says see the speck in someone else’s eye, but miss the beam in their own.
@gVOR10:
The coverage of this matter here has been so complex, I’m not bothering to follow it.
Essentially his majesty Manuel Andres took apart most of the democratic institutions built between the mid 90s and 2018, and restored things to an approximation of what they were when the PRI ruled unopposed. His chose successor, also a PRI practice, is carrying on.
I ain’t been to seminary, but I know a little bit. Enough to know that when someone uses a term like ordo amoris, even though it was unfamiliar to me, I suspected that we were probably not discussing anything that came directly from the Bible. I also know just enough about Latin, that I had an idea what the words themselves mean. As a ‘Christian concept’, not sure.
Certainly, I was open to being wrong. And as I was driving and thinking, I wondered if I should check it myself by searching for the phrase in Vulgate. I wish I had just gone about it that way.
Well, I was correct about what the words meant, and that it doesn’t come directly from the Bible.
No worries, right? I mean, practicing Christianity, or any religion for that matter, requires that practical application (funny, that, considering the argument being made in the other major topic of this thread).
Now, it needs to be said that VP JD Vance, tweeted “google ordo amoris”.
First of all, don’t be a chickenshit, make your argument. Or better yet, don’t use Twitter to try to have a discussion about anything with even a scintilla of complexity.
But to get back to the core of the issue, I did Google it, because I was curious. My hunch was Aquinas. Now, it bears repeating, yes, practical application matters. But…
For one thing, adhering to a particular hermeneutic approach as if it is the only possible method is ridiculous.
But more so, once one recognizes the challenges of pragmatism in a world with, for all intents and purposes, infinite personal and cultural contexts demands some respect of a different interpretation. (see the surrounding threads quoting single verses from one of the Pauline letters to the congregation in Corinth and one of the non-Pauline letters to Timothy with no discussion of the contexts of those letters. Oops, I probably just offended someone by drawing on actual theological scholarship.)*
And from a Biblical perspective, I’m pretty sure there is a story about Jesus flipping money changing tables at the Temple, and a couple famous quotes about Sadducees and Pharisees that implies that Vance is more like those Jesus criticized than Jesus himself. (Take note here, @Fortune). Something about a camel and the eye of a needle springs to mind, as well as carefully observing the technical requirements for washing one’s hands, but ignoring the spirit of commandments regarding interpersonal conduct.
Oh, which reminds me. Jesus broke some laws. But that is news to this “Christian”:
Dude seems pretty unaware of his own deity and sacred book. Again, Sadducees and Pharisees.
Back to the main points.
Luckily for Vance, there are various publications willing to take his side without question.
First thing I found out, I was correct that it was Aquinas. From Compact Magazine:
Ummm, I agree that Aquinas is an important thinker, but since when does a man, sainted or not, have the right to “refine” the word of God? And why would God’s word need refinement in the first place? Again, we have that oscillation between fundamentalist stricture for thee; practical convenience for me.
As an outside observer, Catholic theology seems to have a bit of an idolatry problem. I know, I know, American Protestants have their megachurches, prosperity gospel peddlers, and Trump.
I buried the lede, but this is the tweet that started it all:
I suspect Mr. Stewart is getting vitriol, not because he is insufficiently conservative, but because he is a conservative rather than batshit rightwing. (@JohnSF, feel free to clue me in on this guy, I only know a little.)
I bolded that part, because:
In this piece from First Things, Orr begins by citing Aristotle, Cicero, those well known early Chriti–oh, right, they would fall under the category of pagans. Now, to be fair, Orr goes on to cite Aquinas, as well as Augustine. But leading with thinkers from Ancient Greece is probably not the most honest way of claiming something as a ‘Christian concept’ when the critique that caused all the fuss was that the concept had pagan origins.
It’s pretty sad when thumpers seem to know less about their savior’s philosophy than an irreligious outsider working mostly from memories of childhood.
Sadducees and Pharisees, I tell ya. Can’t wait to watch Vance try to squeeze his ample, unearned ego and ass through the eye of a needle. That’s the closest that cynical, hypocritical fake Christian will ever get to heaven.
*In fact, they decontextualize multiple times by ignoring the context of the addressee, the verse situated within the rest of the letter, and how it interacts with other texts in the Canon.
@Stormy Dragon: @Gromitt Gunn: “Pronouns available upon request”
@just nutha: I was following up on a comment you made yesterday where you misstated what I said after I replied in good faith to Beth. I don’t know the etiquette on multi-day conversations, maybe you could misrepresent me earlier in the day?
@Erik: Meanwhile, Fortune has to grapple with why the punishment in the Levitical law for attacking a pregnant woman who survived, but miscarried, was only set at a fine?
This is what Chinos do, they add in qualifiers that aren’t in the Scriptures, to arrive at their self-righteous conclusions.
I have also lived the Evangelical life for 6-7 years. Good folks, but intellectually stunted, which makes them easy to manipulate as any piece of literature much pass through our intellectual gates before we can begin processing meaning.
They are simply unable to admit that there are things the Bible is silent on. Because they’ve been told that the Bible has God’s answers for everything (even the Bible doesn’t say that) they have to draw these long tortured logic trains from obscure passages to every societal ill.
The natural result being the ridiculous double standards we see today from the political Christians
@just nutha:
In fact, I believe it is. In this instance I felt arguing reductio ad absurdum would be more effective than talking about DNA
@MarkedMan: yeah, looks like a fair criticism. I’ve managed to get dialogue going with him once or twice in the past, but you seem to be right, and I should stop trying. Disappointing
@Jim Brown 32: Also fair, although I would leave any religious arguments to those in a better position to make them than I
@Fortune:
First, wow.
Second, this is a lie. The statement that live begins is unfalsifiable. But if we take it as true for the sake of argument. The honest argument is “life begins at conception and it is more important that life be brought into this world, therefore women’s rights to their bodies should be curtailed.” Like, it’s a garbage, sexist, argument, but it’s at least honest.
Also, what do you do about all the times that a woman’s body rejects that life. Ectopic pregnancies and miscarriage is common, routine even. What about the harder cases where it is more likely than not that the fetus won’t survive birth or suffer and die shortly thereafter and in all likelihood kill the woman.
You could either make up a bunch of lies about how ectopic pregnancy should be carried to term, how there is no such thing as miscarriage and that the woman did something, or that pregnancies don’t fail or you can be honest and say that fetus is simply more important than the woman.
That doesn’t answer the question about why you feel the need to lie about your position. Be honest. You won’t, because most people recognize the idiotic horror of your position when stated honestly.
Ken Martin is the new head of the DNC.
@Beth: I’m stating underlying principles. I asked initially for an issue and three or four core Y/N steps in an argument you would consider “conservative.” Your choice, my good faith response.
Yes there is a distinct human being that exists after fertilization not before. I already said yesterday or the day before that judgment on the value of a human life is a moral question. If “lie” just means moral judgment you don’t agree with, sure, everyone but you is lying. Whatever, no good faith discussion after all.
@Fortune: I feel bad if what I read was not what you meant. But I can’t help that others misread you in the same ways (16+ comments worth and still rising). For what it’s worth (not much, I’ll admit), I continue to acknowledge that there is a gulf separating our worldviews that cannot be bridged. I’m finding that to be true many ways, both at OtB and other places where I merely lurk. And again, go it peace and serve whatever goal you have.
@Fortune:
Ok. I think you’re trying to shift/distract. Lemme try this. You’re argument is;
Now, I see the hyperbole in there masking your point. I think a fair restatement of your argument is:
Now I think that’s a fair restatement of your argument. Please let me know if it’s not. I tried to capture the intent of your hyperbole accurately. Now, I thing that can be, simplified, a bit more.
So, I take your point about moral judgment seriously. My retort to that is one can still lie while making a moral judgment.
I think your argument is a lie (abortion laws don’t curtail women’s rights to her body) that rests on a false premise. Until born, a fetus is a part of a woman’s body until born. In your argument a fetus that cannot survive on its own is exactly the same as a person who can.
You can say this is about worth. That’s a moral judgement.
I think, and please someone else check my math on all of this, that one could make an honest argument that abortion should be prevented and that the life of the fetus is more important than the rights a woman has to control her body. But then you have to deal with four common situations, ectopic pregnancy, miscarriage, fatal fetal abnormalities that won’t kill the mother and fatal fetal abnormalities that will kill the mother.
The extension of your argument seems that it would be, so what? Fetus rules no matter what.
An honest answer would be that in those situations abortion care would be necessary and allowed. In reality though, the conservative position is to lie and say they are never necessary.
And just to remind you, what I’m trying to understand is if lying is inherent to conservativism or if is a choice conservatives make. Like, if you want me to keep listing conservative positions my guess is the reality will be a mountain of lies.
Why am I expecting a good faith argument from “why do you always lie”. There’s something wrong with me.
A fetus isn’t part of a woman’s body.
@Fortune:
Ok. I give up. How do you think a fetus gets made? The stork brings it from the baby factory? If it’s not part of a woman’s body then there is no reason to curtail a woman’s right to her body? Don’t you see that?
Ok, this is pointless. Would anyone else take a crack at my logic and tell me where my flaws are? @just nutha: maybe you can help me.
@Fortune:
So, you gave up on the DNA argument because your attempt at establishing an “underlying principle” failed–a demonstration that you are employing motivated reasoning.
What was that about bad faith?
Likewise, Beth raised important questions based in reality, and you accuse others of bad faith rather than actually engaging with objections. I wonder, are you here just so you can feel like the mean leftists bully you?
It’s pretty well established the Christian Right has a long-standing pattern of claiming oppression, no matter how over-represented they are in government.
Debating isn’t about the world one thinks exists in their head. It is about what happens in the real world.
Oh, and Beth even gave you paths to push back, and you didn’t take them.
The only one with an extreme argument is you–seriously, suicide bomber analogy?
@Jim Brown 32:
There seems to me to be a strong correlation between monotheism and sexual inhibition. I suspect the reason might be that in monotheism God must be a father figure. Nearly all the polytheistic religions have a separate god (little g) for love, sex, procreation and such.
@CSK: It seems this is a rebuke of Shumer, Pelosi, and Jefferies choice.
I don’t know any of the candidates but I’m almost sure that Shumer/Pelosi’s pick is not the answer. If there were ever a doubt that they’ve aged beyond effectiveness, the period since the inauguration is exhibit 1.
I’m not against old age but when a leader becomes inflexible and blind to changing dynamics, they become liabilities. The are using 18th century tactics in 19th century warfare–a receipe for defeat
@Beth: No flaw in your thinking. The impass is that you and Fortune have wildly different worldviews. There is no meeting of the minds available on which to create agreement.
It’s like trying to finish an escrow agreement with someone who believes the legal description of the property on the deed is incorrect.
@Fortune: Let see, it shares the same blood supply, oxygen, waste elimination–for starters. But you seem to want thinking people to believe that someone that shares almost everything with the body, is NOT part of the body.
More tortured logic. There are smarter arguments to make that are less tortured.
Jump higher–IF you can. Christians struggle here because they usually have little frame of reference to draw connections outside of Bible Study.
Thing I did today that made me feel a little bit better: ordered 16 boxes of Girl Scout Cookies from four different non-binary Girl Scouts in various parts of the country
If you’d like to help trans/non-binary Girl Scouts, there’s a list available at:
https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/2025-trans-girl-scouts-to-order-cookies
@Beth:
Lies to these people are like water to fish.
@Jim Brown 32: Having been to a Bible Study or thousand during my day, I think that a more serious part of the problem is that Bible Studies are not studies per se, but rather sessions in which the teacher tells students what the Bible means. Such an approach may well be theologically safer (though I don’t happen to believe that it is), but turn “students” into people who respond to questions about the Bible with “I don’t know, I’ll have to ask my pastor what we believe about that.” (Which I heard from a student at a Christian School I was teaching at in response to a question I’d asked him.)
(Then again, I was also told by my pastor that I was one of those “dangerous people who believe that they can just read the Bible for themselves” to know what to believe at the tender age of 16.)
@Fortune:
1. No, there isn’t. Have you ever seen an embryo? Can you really not tell the difference between an embryo and a human being?
2. You still haven’t explained why the embryo’s rights supersede the mother’s. She’s also a distinct human being, no?
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Like, say, Martin Luther?
Funny really.
Protestantism starts out based on a desire to purify Christianity by a return to the Gospel’s texts, and ends up instituting its own version of the Catholic/Orthodox doctrine of the “ineffable inerrancy of the magisterium”
Being a pupil at a Church of England primary school, as I was, can be a useful innoculation against “argument from authority”.
If you are an argumentative little sod.
@JohnSF:
Of course they did. I was thinking just last night that it was not all that long ago the same strain of ever-present fanatacism among American Protestants grouped Catholics with every other group they considered undesirable.
Now they love Catholics, as long as they are the right kind of Catholic.
@dazedandconfused:
Perhaps.
otoh, neither Judaism nor Islam have never been notably down on sexuality per se (liberated female sexuality being a different matter), whereas some strains of Buddhism etc were.
The early Christian swing to denial of sexuality and celebration of voluntary celibacy is perhaps related to both an adoption of Stoic and Manichean premises in a contest of “more holy than thou.”
Also, there are the outcomes of various courses in the Middle Ages: the early medieval Church was arguably more relaxed about sex than the early Church, or the late medieval Western Church, which instituted clerical celibacy for rather worldly reasons, and needed an excuse.
See the Orthodox argument that the lower clergy not only could, but should be married.
@Fortune:
As I said before
Either she processes nutrients, or the fetus will be leach them from her body (think calcium).
And yet
So is your view that the fetus is an independent entity that the woman has no choice but to nourish?
And we’re back to reproductive slavery.
@Kurtz:
And vicey versy.
About a hot second after “Biblical Rule” was instituted, they’d be at each other’s throats.
Because if salvation or damnation depends on your obviously inerrant doctrine, how could you permit the heretics to remain free to go their wicked way?
@Kurtz:
They certainly love the current Supreme Court brand of Catholics – Justices Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh, Coney-Barrett, and Gorsuch (an Anglican Catholic, I believe.)
____________
Full Disclosure: I’m a ‘Cradle Catholic,’ I went through Baptism, First Communion, and Confirmation. For many years I’ve been a ‘Lapsed Catholic.’
Meanwhile, in the Congo, Rwanda looks like making a attempt to, in effect, annex Kivu province.
And the reaction from the US ….?
tbh, this is another of the Biden administrations foreign policy fails.
It avoided looking at the Rwanda/M23/Congo situation seriously, in hopes that “reasonable negotiation” would resolve the issue.
The Blinken/Sullivan default, which fails when the other party is not “reasonable”, or, at least, does not reason on the basis you think they must.
Same as both Obama administration, and Trump I, frankly.
Wishes ain’t fishes.
Power is power.
@JohnSF: Protestants are no more immune from becoming a law unto themselves than any other cohort. We always say “this time will be different,” but it never is.
@Kurtz:
but a sane one.
Yeah, basically Rory is a Tory
Was among those expelled in Boris Johnson’s purge of his enemies in 2019.
Which Johnson and his acolytes thought was a really “smart” play, but has ended up wrecking the Conservative Party.
Because they now have such stellar intellects as Kemi Badenoch, Robert Jenrick, Priti Patel, Grant Schapps, etc as leaders into their delusional “promised land”. lol
I wonder if Johnson ever expected his epitaph to be “Here lies the man who destroyed the Conservative Party. Due to his rather silly inferiority complex.”
@Kurtz:
Also, Rory Stewart was a soldier in the Black Watch.
(albeit rather briefly)
And quite likely an MI6 op.
Were I Mr. Vance, I’d be a tad cautious about the insults.
You never know who you might run into, at some point, at some time.
@Fortune:
And thus it can be evicted. It has not signed a lease, kick it out, let it pull itself up by its own bootstraps.
If it won’t leave willingly, then we just have to use force.
@Stormy Dragon: Thanks for sharing that list. I’m passing it on!