/liberty/ - Liberty

>>92357

>Then tell me, i'm actually interested how would you prove the reality of your chosen system, irreality of others, why yours wouldn't change into one of them or one that never was before or, if you rely on the bible, why does it serve as ultimate measure of those things. That's pretty interesting, even with the little bits of my attention towards unfalsifiable things, it's more of philosophical and dialectic interest.

The Church, we believe, was established by Christ Himself, and His apostles would then lead it on earth:

>Ephesians 2:20-22: Built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

>Matthew 16:18: And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

The entire book of Acts talks about the early Church at length, too. A lot of it is dispersed throughout the New Testament.

If Christ Himself founded the Church, then obviously, if you believe in Christ, and believe that He was the Son of God, then you also have to believe that this Church was legitimate. What about the coming generations, though? This is where the concept of Apostolic Succession enters: The Bishops (including the Pope) can trace their office back to the original apostles. They were appointed by Bishops who were appointed by other Bishops etc., who were appointed by the apostles that Christ himself appointed. Therefore, the Church of today is legitimate.

This is true of the Catholic and the Orthodox Church. Both are legitimate Churches, even if they're divided. On the other hand, the protestant denominations have nothing to do with Apostolic Succession. Their priests cannot trace their line of succession back to the original Church. Because of that, protestantism is infested by heresies over heresies, some of which are hard to detect (a layperson will not necessarily know what is wrong with High Church Anglicans), others of which stand in direct contradiction with the Bible and the tradition of the Church. The communism of the Anabaptists, for example, is such a heresy, as you simply cannot read it into the Bible without distorting and cherrypicking like a maniac.

>You know, shapeless metaphors do not count as "discovery", right?

I know, but I was not talking about "shapeless metaphors". Copernicus was patronized by the Church. Gregor Mendel, an Augistinian monk, discovered the laws of heritability through painstaking observation of flowers. Georges Lemaître did not empirically observe the big bang, but he did come up with the theory behind it, and was applauded both by the Church and by the scientific establishment for the time. Before this theory, the common opinion among atheists was that the universe had no beginning, because then, it did not have to be created (according to them).

>>92361

>That new buildings are not built in the romantic or baroque style, that is a good thing?

That IS a good thing from economic perspective, just like it is a good thing to not tile your bath with gold. Do you think resourcefullness is a good thing? If you don't you are still free to use your own money to create such art, especially since now it's easier to do with it being properly defined, organized and having people who study and perfect the feel of a style you pursue.

>I don't even want to bash all modern art

It's shitty one that gains more attention. Artists still learn and draw things not worse than they did before, composers create music that will be remebered long after them, even if not it's called 'game music" or something and not "orchestral" or "classical" music. And so on with other art.

>art was invented

I think art was natural to people from the very moment of their being, primitive as it was. it evolved into what we have today throughout the ages.

>muh science

Literally turn back from dogmatic sophistry to analysis and observation. I already said this above in the post after the one you reply.

>So secularism, not capital accumulation, increases wealth?

No, capital accumulation is positively influenced by secularism, just like any other decision making act is.

>You are on the exact same level

Go stick your non-argument up you ass, leftist faggot. Stupid to call people leftists when you are a collectivist cunt inserting your faggy cult into anything you can reach.

>o, do you actually have an example of the Christians destroying some enlightened philosopher?

Are you retarded? If there was info on such a guy he wouldn't be a forgotten one. Plenty of data about known ones is still lost, though.

>I would be surprised if you could name a single big atrocity from the "dark ages"

Being essentially an indoctrination tool in support of the rulers is quite enough. Aforementioned spanish inquisition, for example, wouldn't be possible the way it was without it.

>bluntly defending dogmas

No, not bluntly by any means. Sophists of the older times would have been downed by how far their art has gone, though regular dialectics developed as well, even though it still revolved around dogmas and unbacked acceptance of absolute authorities.

>>92362

>you need free will to be virtuous

Yet you defend people who are virtuous and not people who use their free will in a different manner.

>It was heretics

And how would you deal with them if your whole movement has proven to offer a constant supply of them while offering so little gain?

>fever dreams about a perfect, fictional world

Sounds like heaven to me. They just don't believe in some sky daddy that will lead them in such a place but you've got the same goal.

>That is the third most cucked thing I have read this entire year.

You wouldn't say that if i said something like "yet one of them was honorable enough to fight before his death" or "was honest enough to accept his crimes". Maybe you're projecting, christcuck?

>I literally heard three sermons on that within the last two months

Ok, though what punishment will they be faced if it's proven true? Extortion? Jail? Lifelong retirement paid by church?

>Not every convicted priest will get a wikipedia article.

Even less so a teacher.

>you are in no position to judge how much of a libertarian I am.

But i am. You provided examples of your actions and i commented that these do not really serve as proof of your beliefs, even if you do not have to prove anything.

>you don't think they're significant because they are also included on the reading list that I assembled

I don't think they are significant for the reason i've never heard of them and they're catholic, including them on the list wouldn't change that.

>f you want to demonize everyone who supports it

I will demonize everyone who supports it directly proportionally to the amount of welfare and state intervention then try to implement.

>That is simply not true.

I meant that their lack of support for a current welfare policy does not mean their opposition to welfare in general, which is the thing that matters.

>were genuine resistance movements against (would-be) totalitarian regimes

Inquisition and ideological government-backed institutions do sound like totalitarianism to me, even if the times look too different to recognize it as such at first.

>>92365

>was established by Christ Himself

How is such high trust justified when translations, archaeology and history of such old times can be easily falsified, especially since even minor alteration can have huge effects on the ideology?

>They were appointed by Bishops who were appointed by other Bishops etc.

Good, but what if one of the bishops in the chain has mistaken or was corrupt? It can turn the whole other chain on a completely different path.

>Copernicus was patronized by the Church

The church was the center of literacy at the time, i agree. There were no alternatives to it, partially because of its actions though. If i wanted to sound edgy i'd say something like "true mind cannot be hindered by even strongest dogmas and finds a way towards the truth despite all the obstacles created".

>the common opinion among atheists was that the universe had no beginning

Tbqh, today's opinion is somewhat similar - big band might have been a previous universe that first compressed and not just the appearance of it out of nowhere.

>it did not have to be created

More like "it would extend to the thing that caused its creation as it cannot appear from absolute nothingness", i suppose.

>>92368

>so this hierarchical chain must terminate at some point of pure actuality - the causa sui, God, which can only exist - or else, nothing could exist.

Well, the chain just might never end - we'll discover new "atoms" every time, going deeper and deeper, probably finding entire universes in there. Or, it could end up being the universe code or something and we'll gain ability to change not only its states but whole universal rules instead. Or we can just never discover anything beyond a point - it's all possible and i don't see why a god that created stuff is more possible then some other unfalsifiable theory, like the one where one can become universe hacker/wizard and people would have to compete in writing code on the language of the universe to compete.

>God, which can only exist - or else, nothing could exist

Tbh, if only god can create stuff then what thing created god? Why is only god capable of creating stuff and has always existed or appeared out of nowhere but the universe itself cannot be this way?

>His miracles

It's a shame we cannot cast fireballs or even have telekinesis, not joking.

>The Gospels themselves provide evidence for Christ

Their description of them might still be untrue, even if a similar person existed. Think of today's normalfag perception of Tesla - he did live, he did invent stuff but beyond that things get magical.

>That they were written by reliable witnesses follows from the fact that they decided to die for their beliefs

Or it could have been a person that wrote about people dying for their beliefs about a person who died to save humanity. Or it could have been some organization that tried to gain influence by using some famous madman. We'll never know as evidence can only be lost now and this was the one that made it til here.

>both archeological records and other witnesses and historians back up the Bible

it doesn't have to contradict them, it still can talk about things that cannot be checked and will not serve as scientific proof because of its truthful statements.

>o this solar eclipse was very likely not just made up to lend credibility to the Scripture.

Or there happened a solar eclipse during these years and the author added it to his story, especially since keeping track of time was not easy back in the day.

>>92369

Ok, good luck.

>>92364

Priesthood is a job, most churchgoers care about the the safety of their community, and many churchgoers know each other their entire lives and treat them like extended family. Just admit you're a fedoratipper and stop trying to weave your non-ideology into greater libertarian philosophy.

>>92370

>Yet you defend people who are virtuous and not people who use their free will in a different manner.

This is where scholasticism has an interesting doctrine, one that has actually played into why Catholics are more likely to resist or assassinate their political leaders. The scholastics teach that you must always act according to your conscience (conscience not meaning a gut feeling, but your moral sense after you have exercised your intellect to figure out what is right and wrong). So if your conscience tells you to kill your leader, you must do so, and you incur no sin for doing so. The sin, if anything, lies in your error of judgement, not in acting upon that judgement.

The story of Martin Luther, as he appeared before the Pope, expresses that idea: "I stand here, I cannot do otherwise." In other words, he was bound by his conscience. Whether that story is true or not, it reflects the scholastic spirit.

>And how would you deal with them if your whole movement has proven to offer a constant supply of them while offering so little gain?

Two thousand years, and we only had one Reformation, which the Church itself has survived unscathed. That's not a bad track record at all, especially considering how widely spread the Church was, and that it's harder to maintain doctrinal purity when that becomes the case. All in all, the Reformation does not prove that the Church is inherently unstable. It would be different if it had brought the Church down, and we were rebuilding it.

>Sounds like heaven to me. They just don't believe in some sky daddy that will lead them in such a place but you've got the same goal.

We will not lack free will in Heaven, however. Nor will we lose our humanity by being close to God.

>Inquisition and ideological government-backed institutions do sound like totalitarianism to me, even if the times look too different to recognize it as such at first.

The Inquisitions, especially the Spanish Inquisition, had very little influence, however. They weren't even trying to be totalitarian, in fact. The Spanish Inquisition was constantly called to judge crimes but bluntly told the authorities that those were outside its jurisdiction, so no can do. And had it wanted to be totalitarian, it would've lacked the manpower. It was underfunded and understaffed, books on its index were imported and read all the time, and on the rare occasion it did hand out a death sentence, those were usually "burnings in effigy", meaning that a puppet was burned as a proxy.

>>92371

>How is such high trust justified when translations, archaeology and history of such old times can be easily falsified, especially since even minor alteration can have huge effects on the ideology?

The fact that we have so many documents and archeological sites, that they were discovered throughout history, and that they aren't all clustered in one spot, helps. We have several orders of magnitude more manuscripts of the Bible, for example, than of just about any other work, including those of Aristotle. To this day, we don't know in which order the ''Metaphysics' were written, and if they're even from Aristotle, if they're lectures, and so on, but we know almost for a certainty what content the Bible has. Some falsification happened, sure, but we can discover that. The fact that no reputable historian denies that Jesus lived at all, even though that would be the mother of all findings in all numbers of ways, is significant.

>Good, but what if one of the bishops in the chain has mistaken or was corrupt? It can turn the whole other chain on a completely different path.

Yes, but we do believe - based on what Christ said - that He is the head of the Church. So even if the Papacy was outright sold, we can know that "the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Matthew 16:18). The new Pope might be of bad character, but he still is the Pope. In fact, we had terrible Popes throughout history, yet never - not once - did one declare a heresy to be an infallible doctrine, so I would say history is on our side on this.

>Tbqh, today's opinion is somewhat similar - big band might have been a previous universe that first compressed and not just the appearance of it out of nowhere.

Yeah, we got a lot of conceptions about this, but I am not at all sure there is much to them. From what I know, we simply cannot know what happened before the Big Bang, or even if there could be a "before". But I am no astrophysicist and would not vouch for that.

>>92372

>Well, the chain just might never end - we'll discover new "atoms" every time, going deeper and deeper, probably finding entire universes in there.

But then we run into the problem that we have an endless number of potentialities, but still nothing to actualize even one of them. Think about this: If you line up an endless number of christmas lights, will even a single one light up if there is no source of electricity at all?

>Or, it could end up being the universe code or something and we'll gain ability to change not only its states but whole universal rules instead.

In that case, you would have discovered the pure act that actualizes everything else. In other words, you'd have discovered God, except by your idea, He is no person, just some mindless code. There are other proofs for why the Causa Sui must have the attributes of God, but I don't want to dwell on that for now.

What I want to touch on, however, is this:

> and we'll gain ability to change not only its states but whole universal rules instead

Then the code, on the other hand, would have contingent, and not necessary, existence, in other words: It would have potential and not actual being. And then we would not have found God, but we'd still require a prime mover.

>Tbh, if only god can create stuff then what thing created god? Why is only god capable of creating stuff and has always existed or appeared out of nowhere

Because only God is pure act. Therefore, He didn't have to be actualized. Only things that have the possibility of not existing need a reason for their existence (as opposed to their non-existence).

>but the universe itself cannot be this way?

Because the universe, by definition, is just the entirety of everything, and we clearly see that parts of it are not pure act, but rather have potential.

>It's a shame we cannot cast fireballs or even have telekinesis, not joking.

Not joking, that would be fun.

>Their description of them might still be untrue, even if a similar person existed. Think of today's normalfag perception of Tesla - he did live, he did invent stuff but beyond that things get magical.

Yes, but those aren't primary witnesses of him. While I do not doubt that there were crazy theories floating around about him while he lived, and maybe even some from people who witnessed his antics and inventions first hand, not a single one of them - let alone several - have shown that they were absolutely convinced of the story, to the point where they would rather die than recant their testimony.

>Or it could have been a person that wrote about people dying for their beliefs about a person who died to save humanity. Or it could have been some organization that tried to gain influence by using some famous madman. We'll never know as evidence can only be lost now and this was the one that made it til here.

A lot of heretical documents, or those hostile to the Christian fatih, survived, yet apparently, it was never handed down that one of the Apostles recanted his faith. Even Josephus, for example, affirms the martyrdom of James, as do gnostic sources, apparently. The sources that do describe the martyrdoms, moreover, are all consistent with each other. It is very unlikely for several liars to all tell the same story, as even the truth often gets distorted after decades, moreso a lie that you just agreed to spread some years back.

Speaking of which, the Gospels are all in agreement, but they don't always recount events from the same perspective. That is also a point in favor of their veracity. You probably know these tricks like letting a liar retell his story from a different perspective, or chronologically backward, to make them stumble. Now, imagine two people telling you the same story, from different perspectives, but each emphasizing slightly different details. That's what you have with teh Bible.

>Or there happened a solar eclipse during these years and the author added it to his story, especially since keeping track of time was not easy back in the day.

Of course, one specific piece of evidence can always be forged, but with historical reconstruction, you have to look at it all as a whole. All of these coincidences, deliberate lies and conspiracies may be plausible in isolation, but not when they all come together and form a coherent whole.

ancap lit is the worst

>>92379

>your moral sense after you have exercised your intellect to figure out what is right and wrong

Sounds like "it's free will only if you act the way we like you to" tbh. How do you distinguish what is an act of free will and what is "acting under evil influence" or why is one's acting "an error of judgement" while other one's is not, even if they both think and act.

>he was bound by his conscience

Is inability to recognize opportunities a virtue?

>It would be different if it had brought the Church down, and we were rebuilding it.

Tbh, church is slowly losing its positions today and has reforms to accommodate public opinion on themes like niggers, gays and other liberal stuff, yet it's unlikely that this will do more than slow it's demise at the cost of it's own ideas.

>We will not lack free will in Heaven, however. Nor will we lose our humanity by being close to God.

How can this be heaven then, if people were still capable of acting evil? It's either perfect world with perfect people or it's imperfect and will fall to people acting upon their free will.

>The Inquisitions, especially the Spanish Inquisition, had very little influence, however.

Totalitarianism doesn't have to be as effective as one of the industrial or post-industrial age to be counted as such.

>Some falsification happened, sure, but we can discover that

But we cannot, for the most part, even if there are things that are possibly provable.

>The fact that no reputable historian denies that Jesus lived at all

There's quite a bit of bias in this historic field. It's really hard to prove whether the man existed, even if he did, that his name was jesus, if it was, then whether he had similar personality to description, if he had, that there was only one jesus, etc.

>never - not once - did one declare a heresy to be an infallible doctrine

Does any christian think so? What prevents me, say, declare some policy i don't like a heresy, especially on a point that has little data and very moot or even contradicting info on it? What makes a "heresy" anything more than a sign of disagreement?

>we simply cannot know what happened before the Big Bang, or even if there could be a "before"

Yes, for now. Just like we cannot know what's beyond X light years because no waves or signals can go that far so we've only got a visible sphere around us. Same with particles and stuff, we've got theories about higgs bozon and other, smaller stuff which molecules are made of but we've really got andronic collider as the first thing that got us here, afaik.

>>92379 (cont)

>nothing to actualize even one of them

Well, if that's the case there's nothing to actualize the god itself. If god is eternal i don't see why a mass of energy and matter flowing from one state to another for eternity is less believable, now that we concluded that ever existing objects can exist.

>If you line up an endless number of christmas lights, will even a single one light up if there is no source of electricity at all?

You can have electromagnetic interference that powers them all up at the same time even without a set power source that exists into every point where the lights do, for example. or the laws can be completely different and lights can stay lit due to their construction and laws like "material of lights glows by itself in the universe".

>you would have discovered the pure act

I'd view that not as an "act" but more like ultimate "state" that's not different from today's matter, it just offers more opportunities of world interaction, that same ever-existing world that it was, it's just not limited to fixed laws of physics in the end.

>He is no person, just some mindless code

But code does not have to "start" things, it can just define the shape of things with no info on starting them. Try seeing the "code" in the way you view the text of the html page you use to browse this site - you view and interact with it via browser, you can create another one or you can even modify its contents - for everyone if you have access to the servers or for yourself with user scripts or a different browser.

>attributes of God

Like what? Ever existence? Why cannot world itself have such attributes, at which point it's more about semantics whether to call it "god" or something.

>He didn't have to be actualized

But why he doesn't, while other things do?

>Because the universe, by definition, is just the entirety of everything, and we clearly see that parts of it are not pure act, but rather have potential.

That's some serious hand waving. Things need to have a start, be actuated first to exist by some kind of act, yet god is the same thing but ignores all the rules altogether.

>not a single one of them - let alone several - have shown that they were absolutely convinced of the story, to the point where they would rather die than recant their testimony

Times have changed, people have changed, things have changed. Newspapers appeared. Subject of news about Tesla was quite a bit different one. It was quite recent as well, yet still so much shit's come around for such a short time.

>one of the Apostles recanted his faith

Why would there, if one of the theories i stated was true? If it's about conspiracy they have little reason to - it'd risk their lives and reputation, make them or their mates lose influence, attract unwanted 3rd parties or backfire any other way. If they decided to do that the idea of going snitching is also unlikely, because then they wouldn't start it.

>It is very unlikely for several liars to all tell the same story

Only if the liars act independently or not base their lies on the same events. It can also be that only a liar started it and it got spread by honest guys.

>ow, imagine two people telling you the same story, from different perspectives, but each emphasizing slightly different details

They could observe same events and still add something on their own, especially if they were both being influenced similarly. Stuff could also be altered afterwards to remove inconsistencies, contradictions and add something new while leaving general storyline intact.

>one specific piece of evidence can always be forged, but with historical reconstruction, you have to look at it all as a whole

There's a strong incentive to falsify things when all your ideology about complete knowledge about life, people and their actions as a whole is reliant only on history as material proof of it.

>>92392

>Sounds like "it's free will only if you act the way we like you to" tbh. How do you distinguish what is an act of free will and what is "acting under evil influence" or why is one's acting "an error of judgement" while other one's is not, even if they both think and act.

I think you misunderstand something. If you act against your conscience, then of course, that is also an expression of your free will. Of course, though, that is not respected. My point is not that every action that you undertake from your own free will is sanctified, that would be a pretty crazy doctrine (one that no libertarian would subscribe to, either). It's that Catholicism does not prescribe any schematic outward behavior, as it acknowledges the importance of freedom of will. Without free will, you can neither sin, nor fulfill your calling, a calling which is very individual. There are many paths that lead to God. Sure there are some prohibitions, but those exist in every religion or ideology. Christianity, Catholicism and Orthodoxy in particular, give a lot of leeway even with them, at least in principle. You can get away with an act that would otherwise be murder, as I described, but even if no earthly lawyer would find a ground for your exculpation, then we hold that maybe God will, all-knowing and just as He is. Hence, there is no canon of people that are definitely in hell, only private opinion on these matters.

>You can have electromagnetic interference that powers them all up at the same time even without a set power source that exists into every point where the lights do, for example.

It does not matter whether the source of the light in the bulbs actually lies outside them, and gets into no direct, tangible contact with them. My point is, you cannot substitute an endless chain for having something actualizing your potential. Your example here demonstrates this, in fact. You need something actual (the electromagnetic field) to actualize the potential of the lightbulbs to glow.

>or the laws can be completely different and lights can stay lit due to their construction and laws like "material of lights glows by itself in the universe".

The laws of the universe are not externally prescribed, however, that is just an allegory to statutory laws. They are imminent to their objects. The reason that plutonium is radioactive is not because there is some stone pillar on which it is written "plutonium is radioactive", but because it is by nature unstable and thus particles break off from it.

Now, if the christmas lights actually do glow on their own, then that only obscures the problem. We could now question why these lights exist in the first place, and the answer cannot be another infinite regress, for the same reason why we cannot explain why the lightbulbs glow if there is also a possibility for them not to glow with an infinite regress.

>I'd view that not as an "act" but more like ultimate "state" that's not different from today's matter, it just offers more opportunities of world interaction, that same ever-existing world that it was, it's just not limited to fixed laws of physics in the end.

>But code does not have to "start" things, it can just define the shape of things with no info on starting them. Try seeing the "code" in the way you view the text of the html page you use to browse this site - you view and interact with it via browser, you can create another one or you can even modify its contents - for everyone if you have access to the servers or for yourself with user scripts or a different browser.

This, I think, also shrouds the problem, but does not resolve it. What you have in mind, if I understood you correctly, is that we could stumble upon a layer of existence that is deeper than ours, which we could not understand adequately from our own layer. So our relation to this layer would be similar to the relation between a website and its html code, and between the html code and the physical processes underlying it. You can, in principle, understand the upper layer from the deeper layer, but not necessarily vice versa. However, it is not fully unintelligible to us. The deeper layer is the cause for the upper layer, and it cannot be otherwise. Even here, an infinite regress is not possible. That there is a deeper layer to our existence does not change the law of causation, as this deeper layer is in turn only understandable as the cause of the layer we perceive.

In fact, such layers of reality do exist, as we have the realm of corporeal objects, and the molecules and atoms underlying them, and then the particles below them. If we had complete control on the atomar level, we could "hack" the corporeal stage, which is what nanotechnology is about. If we could control processes on the subatomar level, we could, in turn, "hack" the other layers above. But what we can never do is get rid of causality completely. We cannot even conceive of doing so.

>>92392

>Is inability to recognize opportunities a virtue?

What do you mean? To answer bluntly, no.

>Tbh, church is slowly losing its positions today and has reforms to accommodate public opinion on themes like niggers, gays and other liberal stuff, yet it's unlikely that this will do more than slow it's demise at the cost of it's own ideas.

Meh. Don't overrate this development. Some people in the Church are for migration, others against it. There is no doctrine concerning it, though, and it is safe to say that Pope Francis is just sharing his own opinions when he calls for us to respect immigrants. We had worse Popes, seriously. We had boy Popes, one who exhumed and descrated the corpse of his predecessor, and one who was stabbed to death by the guy he cuckolded. They abused their power, but they could not hurt the Church itself. It is the same with Francis, except that his shortcomings are tame in comparison (the Popes I mentioned, mind you, were exceptionally bad, we seldom end up with criminals like that).

As for gays, the position of the Church towards them has not at all changed, and Francis' comments on them are hardly that interesting. The worst ones all come from unsanctioned interviews that were written down from memory, by laypeople. The one time he told a gay man that "God made you that way" was such an interview. In fact, it wasn't even an interview, but a private conversation, and the gay dude (a victim of sexual abuse in Church) then said that Francis told him this. We have no idea what Francis really said; it could've been something like "God made you who you are", unrelated to his homosexuality.

What we do know for a certainty is that Francis has told homosexuals to remain celibate. Instead of "I'm cool with you IF YOU'RE CELIBATE", he said "I'M COOL WITH YOU if you're celibate", which you can agree or disagree with, but it offers flimsy grounds for calling the end of the world.

The modern press is doing us a huge disservice. It used to be the case that statements of the Pope came in the form of encyclicals and other official documents, but now, private statements are issued forth by the press as "stuff the Pope said". We didn't have this problem in the past.

>How can this be heaven then, if people were still capable of acting evil? It's either perfect world with perfect people or it's imperfect and will fall to people acting upon their free will.

My personal belief is that in Heaven, your will is aligned to God. Keep in mind that I am a determinist of sorts (compatibilitist really). Someone who is a hero is one precisely because he always exercises his free will in a specific way, but that does not make his will any less free. In fact, if he were to spontaneously deviate from his heroic course, then we would question that he is a hero. So in Heaven, we are aligned to God, but not because we are enslaved, but because every sufficiently virtuous person (and only those enter Heaven) will act in a good way in the presence of God, inspired by His love, mercy and justice.

>Totalitarianism doesn't have to be as effective as one of the industrial or post-industrial age to be counted as such.

But the Inquisition did not try to be totalitarian, either. It was originally called in to combat cryptojudaism, and then the Reformation. It always had specific targets and did not care about the state of society at large. It was McCarthyism, but not the Cheka.

>>92392

>But we cannot, for the most part, even if there are things that are possibly provable.

With enough sources, we can. And we have a lot of those, Church documents, heathen ones, heretical ones. We even find new evidence nowadays, when falsification is far less plausible. See here, for example:

https://www.allaboutarchaeology.org/pontius-pilate-faq.htm

For years, we had no official record to prove that Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea (which begs the question, why not forge that?). We did have the word of Tacitus - a heathen philosopher - and the word of Origen - whose works were actually suppressed by the Church - that such records do exist. Neither sounds like useful propaganda to me. Now that we discovered this stone fragment, we can know for sure that Origen and Tacitus did not make things up, and that their testimonies were fabricated or lies was unlikely to begin with.

>There's quite a bit of bias in this historic field. It's really hard to prove whether the man existed, even if he did, that his name was jesus, if it was, then whether he had similar personality to description, if he had, that there was only one jesus, etc.

That is true, but also not insurmountable. There weren't that many people called "Jesus" at this time, after all, and it is unlikely even two would pass for "sorcerers". Here is an article talking about the sources we have:

https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/people-cultures-in-the-bible/jesus-historical-jesus/did-jesus-exist/

It is also significant that all kinds of slander about Christ are passed down, up to the name of the soldier His mother, Mary, allegedly slept with. Yet we don't have a single antique source, to my knowledge, denying that Christ lived at all, and surprisingly many even concede His miracles, even if they call them by other names.

>Does any christian think so? What prevents me, say, declare some policy i don't like a heresy, especially on a point that has little data and very moot or even contradicting info on it? What makes a "heresy" anything more than a sign of disagreement?

The question is not so much what makes a heresy, but what makes an infallible statement. And the definition of that is quite narrow: It must either be issued by an Ecumenical Council, or by the Pope, "when, in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church." There are quite few such statements, and none of them are in denial of a core doctrine of the Church. Such core doctrines are those which follow directly from the Scripture, or have been taught by the Church for most of its existence, like the communion of saints, or the punishment of the wicked. There is no simple test for determining what passes for a heresy, but that does not mean the concept is empty. We do not call it such in libertarianism, but we also have our "heresies", points where disagreement is unacceptable, as opposed to such points where we can agree to disagree. We may disagree, for example, on whether it is permissible to bribe state officials, while disagreement on whether we need a federal bank is grounds for taking the Ancap® License from someone.

>>92392

>Yes, for now. Just like we cannot know what's beyond X light years because no waves or signals can go that far so we've only got a visible sphere around us. Same with particles and stuff, we've got theories about higgs bozon and other, smaller stuff which molecules are made of but we've really got andronic collider as the first thing that got us here, afaik.

The Big Bang is really not a main battlefield for religion, though. It was nice to have it proven for the Catholic Church, as it seems to illustrate the cosmological argument. But even if the universe did exist forever, we would not be in huge trouble. That would be an "aesthetic" issue more than anything.

>>92393

>Well, if that's the case there's nothing to actualize the god itself. If god is eternal i don't see why a mass of energy and matter flowing from one state to another for eternity is less believable, now that we concluded that ever existing objects can exist.

The problem lies in the distinction between contingent and necessary existence. God exists necessarily, hence He was not in need of a cause for His existence (besides Himself, if you want to look at it that way). If God did exist contingently, then He would be in need of a cause, but then He would also not be God. The mass of energy and matter that you describe is problematic precisely because it exists only contingently.

>Like what? Ever existence? Why cannot world itself have such attributes, at which point it's more about semantics whether to call it "god" or something.

If it does have the attributes of being all-loving, just, perfect, timeless and so on, then yes, it is God, but that is more of a point of semantics. In that case, it is only proper to worship it. It cannot be the case, however, that the "whole world" is God, because we already know that parts of the world exist only contingently, so how can the world "as a whole" exist necessarily? If anything, then a part of the world would exist necessarily, but then we'd be back to having our first cause.

>But why he doesn't, while other things do?

Because we perceive them to be contingent. If we did not perceive that at all, then it would never occur to us that they might not exist by necessity. Because they exist contingently, we need something - God - that existed necessarily, to confer existence to them.

>That's some serious hand waving. Things need to have a start, be actuated first to exist by some kind of act, yet god is the same thing but ignores all the rules altogether.

But God is precisely not the same thing. If we think Him away, everything drops out of existence. He is unactualized actuality - pure act - by definition, and He exists because without Him, nothing could exist.

>>92393

>Times have changed, people have changed, things have changed. Newspapers appeared. Subject of news about Tesla was quite a bit different one. It was quite recent as well, yet still so much shit's come around for such a short time.

Sure, but the truth is not distorted. It can be easily discovered by doing the right research. Even if we had no primary knowledge of Tesla, the fact that the only source for the claims about him was "Oatmeal" would make them highly suspicious.

>Why would there, if one of the theories i stated was true? If it's about conspiracy they have little reason to - it'd risk their lives and reputation, make them or their mates lose influence, attract unwanted 3rd parties or backfire any other way. If they decided to do that the idea of going snitching is also unlikely, because then they wouldn't start it.

When you are just about to be burned to death, then you don't risk certain death for the sake of maintaining your influence. If they had so much loyalty to each other that they'd keep the facade up even to the death, then we must ask what made them so loyal, if not the utter conviction in their professed cause.

>Only if the liars act independently or not base their lies on the same events.

Liars don't generally act that way. The Bible already does take flak because of its supposed inconsistencies, like that Judas was simultaneously hanged and fell from a cliff (for which there is the simple explanation that he hanged himself, his body became bloated, then he fell down and burst open). If you tell a lie, you want to make sure it's widely believed, so you address the gullible people, not the small percentage of intellectuals and scholars who can harmonize accounts that conflict on a first glance. You just recount the same story, with the same key details, and not the same story from multiple angles.

>It can also be that only a liar started it and it got spread by honest guys.

Then they would all try to tell the exact same story, not "mostly" the same story. I think there is also proof that the apostles themselves wrote some of the Gospels, like that in Matthew, speech is recounted word for word more often than in the others, and that he, of all the apostles, would be skilled in stenography.

>They could observe same events and still add something on their own, especially if they were both being influenced similarly.

In principle, that is true, but even the supernatural elements in the Gospel are (unintentionally) consistent, like the number of angels near Christs grave. Especially with those, we'd expect a lot of inconsistency, if they were completely made up or just hallucinated. We definitely would not expect vivid descriptions from multiple angles which are all consistent with each other. On the contrary, we would expect the normal events to be reliable, but the supernatural elements, later tacked on, to be wildly inconsistent.

>Stuff could also be altered afterwards to remove inconsistencies, contradictions and add something new while leaving general storyline intact.

We have no manuscripts that show such inconsistencies, however, and as widely spread as the Bible was, we'd expect those. We are talking of hundreds of manuscripts spread from Syria to west-north Africa, and as they do have some inconsistencies, we know that they weren't perfect copies of one mastercopy. Forgeries and fabrications did happen, but apparently not to even out contradictions.

>There's a strong incentive to falsify things when all your ideology about complete knowledge about life, people and their actions as a whole is reliant only on history as material proof of it.

I cannot say more about this than I did above, I am afraid. At least not for now. But I hope I could answer some of your objections.

>>92397

>not that every action that you undertake from your own free will is sanctified

>it acknowledges the importance of freedom of will

It really is contradictory though, you either support independence or some specified behavior so you've got to balance between them. Kind of like some centrists do say something like "we think freedom is important but we also should support the needy through taxation". Do not take as offense, it's inconsistency of the ideology.

>Sure there are some prohibitions, but those exist in every religion or ideology

Libertarianism does not specify some required special behavior - it just states what is already true - that you can defend yourself and takes it further as a way of organization. Not every system needs morals to function, not one that relies on them can withstand time.

>You need something actual (the electromagnetic field) to actualize the potential of the lightbulbs to glow.

Well, you still need to actualize the em waves and they can be considered ever-existing in the example, just like the bulbs themselves could. We only cannot have perpetual motion machines or >100% efficiency irl but we still can imagine those things possible.

>it is by nature unstable and thus particles break off from it.

It may be defined in some "code of the universe", though, so that all that happens is merely an image created by the thing.(not in "appeared" sense but in "exists as a continuation of the thing" sense)

>We could now question why these lights exist in the first place

"they just are" is a pretty reasonable explanation. The existence of anything does not necessary dictate that thins "anything" had to appear out of somewhere or be somehow created, if only for the reason that we'll have to question the next thing the same way, ending either with perpetual chain of "creators" or with the conclusion of the possibility of that thing being everlasting, be it universal mass, energy, laws or just code.

>we could stumble upon a layer of existence that is deeper than ours

A higher level of matrix, maybe.

>That there is a deeper layer to our existence does not change the law of causation

Well, if we discover such admin layer of our reality but absolutely nothing that shows us that we can go deeper and further then it makes sense to assume that we reached the zero level, became gods, technological peak or the edge of reality, whatever it's called but we stop and have nowhere else to go and can only operate within, unable to imagine things we've never seen a minor detail of, even if they are there somewhere.

>layers of reality do exist

Well, it's a bit different thing but yeah, we can describe expansion of our knowledge of reality in both micro and macro direction. The thing i was talking about was on a whole new level, though, offering us anything we are able to comprehend, limited only by our own imagination. It's still build out fragments of images, memories of our senses and so if there's something that does not interfere with anything that we could observe in any way it'd be still unreachable for us, despite being literally all-powerful.

>What do you mean?

He says 'i cannot do that" when he clearly can, even if he does not do at the moment. It's either dishonesty or willful ignorance of his own capabilities.

>We had worse Pope

Now's the informational age, though, so one's actions can cause a lot greater impact. Long ago, a complete prohibition of something could not go beyond some circle of influence of the enactor, you had to rely on helpers, the communication was lacking and you had a lot less control over your subjects so the prohibition that would not be profitable(in any way, including emotional) would turn down, be slow and ineffective.

>they could not hurt the Church itself

Well, you described their personal actions. What would happen if they declared some kind of heresy as the main rule or choose some heretic as the next pope? Does seem like a serious vulnerability to me, even without philosophical and historical issues.

>>92397

>The worst ones all come from unsanctioned interviews that were written down from memory, by laypeople

Is youtube down or something? I'm sure if there's something like that it's there.

>it offers flimsy grounds for calling the end of the world

My point as well, he does not state some solid positions as often as they'd push people away but even this calm and quiet time still adds to church losing its former influence, if only for the reason that man is free by nature of being a single man and not some cell of an organism, even if he has mechanisms that make him subvert himself to different authorities.

>We didn't have this problem in the past.

Informational age, in its best and worst.

>that does not make his will any less free

if one can only act a certain way he's not really free. If the hero is a hero because he act the way and not that he acts the way because he's a hero and so can change his behavior then he's free but then he can always stop being a hero.

>It always had specific targets and did not care about the state of society at large

yes, the church did

>not the Cheka

Cheka was targeting some specific target though, it was the government and the party that cared about society at large.

>With enough sources, we can.

maybe, though i do have issues with the falsifiability of history in general. Still, these data is not numerous and heretics can still push for similar things, just like every religion has at least one common enemy - unbelievers, as well as the current world having things like scientific creationism which do make me trust the data even less, with the contradictions with known laws of reality being the close second.

>There weren't that many people called "Jesus" at this time

There could have been multiple people doing things though, and it's just that these acts were remembered and associated with one person.

>surprisingly many even concede His miracles, even if they call them by other names

We've got plenty of charlatans relying on hypnosis, indoctrination, ignorance or other human weaknesses to create something they cannot understand, i don't why an inventor of one of the few at the tome users of such advanced techniques couldn't be successful.

>There are quite few such statements, and none of them are in denial of a core doctrine of the Church

They are contradictory though, so you've got to choose how important they are to each other at the very least.

>We may disagree, for example, on whether it is permissible to bribe state officials

I don't really see that as a matter of libertarianism, rather it's a personal opinion. What is a matter of libertarianism is that state officials can be bribed and federal bank is an authoritarian institution. You seem to assign too many things to libertarianism. I could let it flow if you conflated morals with some libertarian movement but the libertarian theory is and always be immoral, as it needs to observe things and describe opportunities and conditions and not change them.

>if the universe did exist forever

Big band doesn't disprove that, though.

>That would be an "aesthetic" issue more than anything

>>92408

Fuck, it cut the reply

>>92409

Damn you, jesus, for fucking my shit up!

>>92402

Ok, i'll try to recreate the shit .in a more packed shape.

>That would be an "aesthetic" issue more than anything.

Church does deal with unfalsifiable substances at its core. unluckily for it, science does reduce the space for them and limiting some people in their unprovable speculations.

>If it does have the attributes of being all-loving, just, perfect, timeless and so on

Doesn't convey through his actions though.

>it is only proper to worship it

Moral relativity, ethical nihilism and personal independence beg to differ.

> we already know that parts of the world exist only contingently

But they are just fragments of the whole thing that changes its visible shape throughout the time while the whole amount of mass and energy - the potential remains the same. Air was once water that evaporated only to fall in rain and flow back into the ocean - all without leaving the planet. Sure, we've got heat rays but "in perfect vacuum" momentum of the bodies does not change, for example so the efficiency of their movement is 100%. yeah, relativity and stuff is there but you get my point.

>If we think Him away, everything drops out of existence

>He exists because without Him, nothing could exist.

But why is god different, other than just saying that he can have things while other things cannot? If something has to start the chain of things and actions then this something does need the starter as well, if the starter can appear out of nowhere then other things like the universe can just as well, if the starter existed forever then universe could as well and so on. It fits our imagination and is not something hard to comprehend.

>>92403

>It can be easily discovered by doing the right research

Now remove 99% of all knowledge about him to the present day while retaining proportions of ideas and premises and try the same thing.

>When you are just about to be burned to death

He could just have faced something a lot worse if you snitched, if you need a believable theory.

>Liars don't generally act that way.

It's a bad liar that acts like a liar. A perfect liar is undetectable by anything other then the fact that his statement is a lie and he still can disguise his motives as ignorance or something.

>Then they would all try to tell the exact same story, not "mostly" the same story.

If it was exactly the same it would be just one book by all of them. if you change perspective, wording, implications etc you get something different.

>even the supernatural elements

I've got better things to do that go searching but i'll go with doubt and add things about common myths, legends and culture, point to ability to simulate supernatural by hypnosis and psychology(such as used even today, fate telling, contactless fighting, pyrokinesis, etc, i don't see why someone who discovered something so advanced would be unsuccessful) as well as the fact that they had a common teacher that could have some tricks.

>We have no manuscripts that show such inconsistencies

If i'd do any alterations i'd sure as hell not tell anyone about that.

>we know that they weren't perfect copies of one mastercopy

Were there any centralized structures that had any connection to the spreading of the manuscripts in a significant way?

>>92213

bump

>~50 replies of autism

Care to give me a TL;DR of your conversation with the fedora-tipper, ancap-flag anon?

I need a book that explains SocDem doctrine and it's concepts such as "nudging" without praising/propagandizing it.

>>93363

bump

>>93363

Does SocDem even have a definitive doctrine? It's just the "use gibs and empty promises to buy votes" flavour du jour; it congregates around UBI and free healthcare not because of any ideological underpinnings, but because that's what leftist voters are talking about these days.

>>94214

>Does SocDem even have a definitive doctrine?

Yeah, sure.

>but because that's what leftist voters are talking about these days.

Scratch this. SocDem isn't quite left.

>it congregates around UBI and free healthcare not because of any ideological underpinnings

That is its ideological underpinning.

The other two tenets are capitalism and class strength in class collaboration.

>>94217

>That is its ideological underpinning.

>a political goal is an ideological underpinning

U wot.

Does anyone have some good books on Popper's philosophy?

>>94333

His own?

>>94334

I was hoping for something abridged so I can get my feet wet.

>Harry Browne

>It's NOT "How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World"

Why? Does the Browneout libertarian movement not exist? Is personal stoicism and improving yourself suddenly not a viable option anymore?

>>94333

"The Open Society and Its Enemies" is a good start for Karl Popper's brand of liberalism, and "The Poverty of Historicism" is the definitive takedown of the marxist and fascist theories of historical determinism.

>>101112

Was not Soros a student of Popper and implementor of his open society idea?

>>92213

Read this short (15 pages) text:

https://ia801408.us.archive.org/27/items/ThePoliticallyIncorrectCaseForLegalizationOfAllDrugs/The%20Politically%20Incorrect%20Case%20for%20Legalization%20of.pdf

>>101242

meh

im already in favour of legalisation of all drugs

>>101242

This is the most retarded, edgy and try-hard thing I've ever read in my entire life. The cringe. Holy fuck, the cringe.

>>102356

How cringe is it? What are examples of some cringy material?