Monday, January 9, 2023

Think twice before saying "Those lies don't affect me"

Lack of critical thinking has led 21st century Westernism into one of history’s most barbaric and irrational societies.  How, one wonders, did a sizeable percent of the population come to lose the ability to distinguish something so basic as identifying a boy versus a girl? So far gone are some as to celebrate—much less turn a blind eye to—the mutilation of children, in and out of the womb, against every semblance of reason, science, or mite of common sense. And those in a position to stop it do not.

Revisit 1973. The legally and morally bankrupt Roe v. Wade decision asserted that a “person…does not include the unborn.” This was despite reason, the science of fetal development presented at that time, as well as the lack of legal grounds for Roe. Its reckless force was subsequently negated a half-century later at Dobbs. In mis-defining a person, Roe failed to account for the evidence, appealing instead to the behavior of more ancient generations when natal science was more obscure. Today, the science is even clearer as to the uniqueness and living quality of an individual person from the moment of conception. 

No industry is more dependent on lies than abortion. It is infected by a legion of dishonest euphemisms. Some acquiesced to its central lie that the unborn is not a life. Some did so under the pretense of it “not affecting” them. Many accepted the specious lie that abortion is “between a woman and her doctor” making a “medical” decision only about her. These lies before and since Roe have led to the bloody sacrifice of over 63 million innocent children and counting.

More recently, we saw the 2015 Obergefell decision, which redefined—without cause—marriage itself. The court incorrectly claimed that a “marriage” not only could occur between two people of the same sex but was “equal” to and the “same” as the marriage that occurs between a man and woman. The public was bullied or fooled into accepting the lie that a man could be swapped out for a woman and still have the “same” categorical arrangement. And, as with abortion, how many times did we hear someone justify their desire to go along with such an irrational idea by claiming the matter “did not affect them”? What two other people do is “their own business,” the masses said, oblivious to the Trojan Horse of malleable meaning they let through the door. 

The procession of the Trojan horse by Tieppolo
Detail from The Procession of the Trojan Horse in Troy by Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, ca 1760 (Wikimedia Commons)
 

The devil’s table was set. The truth was up for grabs, insofar as the masses understood it. If the meaning of a person was changeable on a whim, or if the uniqueness of a man and woman was changeable on a whim, what other things could the world’s overlords “change” without cause? The public was already brainwashed into staying out of any such debate unless they perceived an immediate personal impact. They were brainwashed, not only to ignore any immediate immoral harm occurring among others, but to avoid thinking of any other variables or trajectories that changing unchangeable definitions would beget.

And here we are. 

  • Many today don’t know what a boy or girl is. A supreme court justice famously played along by pleading ignorance as to what is a woman during her confirmation hearings. To foster this confusion, the American Psychological Association redefined “Gender identity disorder” to “Gender dysphoria.” The redefinition “shifted the emphasis in treatment from fixing a disorder to resolving distress over a mismatch.” Victims of this often-learned confusion include small children who haven’t the intellectual nor biological foundation to know otherwise. And it is no secret how many children have been coerced with lies to mutilate themselves in the name of denying the reality before them. A landmark lawsuit is currently ongoing in Cole vs. Kaiser Permanente on the damages caused after doctors are said to have denied her parents the option to treat her condition as a mental disorder. Many who now regret “gender transitioning” surgeries have expressed lack of care by the medical industry. Calling a boy a girl, or vice versa, is not only wrong, it is 180 degrees wrong. It is maximum wrongness.  It is a fruit of dishonest redefinitioning.
  • On a related note, the American Psychological Association also recently published a “guideline” that redefined masculinity. Their statement declared that boys raised by fathers to be traditionally masculine were a threat to society. It referenced the disproportionate number of violent crimes committed by males in the context of “socialization practices that teach boys from an early age to be self-reliant, strong, and to minimize and manage their problems on their own.” However, as clinical psychologist Dr. Jordan Peterson observed:

“[I]t’s...a lie, scientifically... To indicate, as the writers have, that it is the socialization of boys and men by men that is producing both a decrement in the personal mental health of males and females and a threat to the social fabric is not only to get the facts wrong, but to get them wrong in a manner that is directly antithetical to the truth. ... [I]t is this simple fact that is absolutely damning to the claims in the APA document. What kind of families produce violent young men? Fatherless families. The pernicious effect of fatherlessness is exceptionally well-documented. … If it is fatherless boys who are violent, how can it be that masculine socialization produces harm both to mental health and society?”

  • In a more strictly political example, the current U.S. Administration declared redefined the criteria of a “recession.” A recession was previously known as two consecutive quarters of negative gross domestic product. Despite this having occurred after the second quarter of 2022, an Administration official denied that a recession had begun, manipulating voters into believing their finances were in better shape than they were.
  • In 2022, two South Carolina judges attempted to redefine terms for the medical industry by denying the existence of a “heartbeat” in the unborn at six weeks gestation. They are obviously wrong, as multiple peer-reviewed studies reveal a baby’s heartbeat scientifically observable at an average of 110 beats per minute at six weeks. The judges attempted to redefine this observable pulsating phenomenon as something different than a heartbeat. The goal was to sanitize the idea of an abortion. 
  • In December, a Virginia restaurant attempted to redefine, among other things, the concept of “safety.” The Family Foundation had booked a private room at the restaurant. Less than two hours before their reservation, the restaurant called to say the Family Foundation was not welcome to dine there. The restaurant apparently had discovered that the Foundation was pro-life and pro-marriage. In a statement to the media, the restaurant said they refused service to the Foundation because allowing them to eat there would make the restaurant workers “unsafe.” Of course, this assertion may be best described as a hallucination. Whatever imaginary threat the restaurant owners perceived did not actually exist. The bigotry in their reaction was amplified when they stated they prided themselves “on being an inclusive environment for people to dine in” while simultaneously refusing to serve food to pro-life, pro-marriage patrons. Injustice against pro-life, pro-marriage individuals was justified by “redefining” danger. Indifference to these sorts of lies places innocent persons at greater risk in society.

These are but a miniscule sample of the redefinitions inverting reality, imposed on the masses daily. 

In the fourth century, St. Gregory of Nyssa pondered whether to remain silent in the face of lies. At first, he thought silence best. But, after discussion, he understood the injury that “succeeding” lies would cause:

I thought it right, indeed, in view of the continuous and varied effort of our enemies against us, to keep silence, and to receive their attack quietly, rather than to speak against men armed with falsehood, that most mischievous weapon, which sometimes drives its point even through truth. But you did well in urging me not to betray the truth, but to refute the slanderers, lest, by a success of falsehood against truth, many might be injured. (Gregory of Nyssa, On the Holy Trinity, ca 375 A.D.)

There is a devilish pressure to ignore societal lies on the grounds that they are someone else’s business. Yet lies unchecked are a virus. Lies beget lies. St. Paul warned about persistence in sin and how it leads to “greater and greater iniquity.” (Rom. 6:19) Endorsing lies is primarily an immorality and damages our very souls. For this reason alone, we should not accept them for ourselves nor others. As well, endorsing lies is also a blueprint for spreading more and more social sickness to every corner of the culture, from the elderly to the young to the unborn. We should not pretend lies as these are someone else’s business and do not affect us. Investment in lies as these have already produced untold poisonous returns to the masses.

Friday, August 19, 2022

Why the Vatican's survey on synodality is suspect

In anticipation of the vague "Synod on Synodality," various dioceses and Church outlets surveyed all walks of people, including lapse Catholics and non-Catholics. These survey results are to be sent to the bishops prior to the 2023 finale.

However, the content of the surveys brings the intent of the Synod into suspicion. For example, in multiple choice questions, the options offered lure the participant toward certain answers and issues. It gives the impression that certain issues are at the forefront of the participants' minds, when, if the questions had been left blank, the results would have likely been very different. One could say there is opinion-engineering taking place. 

For instance, in the survey promoted by Catholic apologist Jimmy Akin, there is a question asking which activities are "urgent for the Church to address..." The available choices are finite and include such politicized issues as "women's equality," "accompaniment to LGTBI people," and "ecology and environmental sustainability."

This would be like asking, "Is John's tie red or blue?" when his tie may be an entirely different color or he isn't wearing a tie at all. In this way, the synod surveys exhibit logical fallacies. They contain a form of the False Dilemma Fallacy (where options offered do not include the correct answer) or the Suppressed Evidence Fallacy (where relevant options are absent from the question).

Professor Cody Cooper commented on the survey: "[W]hy aren’t Traditional Latin Mass-goers or married Catholics with big families listed among the marginalized groups?" The absence of TLM from the survey is consistent with Pope Francis' continual antagonism toward TLM attendees. The absence of big families from the survey is consistent with Vatican figures trying to justify contraception. You see how the survey's questions and answers are loaded and steer participants to think and not think of certain matters. In a way, the gameplan is out in the open.

Many of the surveys closed on August 15. It was not hard to predict from there how the data would be manipulated. On August 16, the National Catholic Reporter (which promotes anti-Catholic heretical views) brandished the headline: "In synod reports, US Catholics call for women's leadership, LGBTQ welcoming." 

Thus, right on cue, heterodox Catholics frame the survey results as "US Catholics" having endorsed modern identity politics, and not other theological issues that were absent from the survey. Anyone following those two contemporary "issues" knows that women's "leadership" is language often used to launder the quest for women's "ordination" while "LGBTQ welcoming" is a concept used to launder the quest to declassify homosexual behavior as intrinsicallly disordered or to endorse same-sex unions altogether.

As Wendell Hull wrote for Crisis Magazine: "The synod brings the laity, and—by invitation—the whole world, into the process with full knowledge. The 'synodal fathers' will claim that the changes were demanded by the people." (emphasis mine) If efforts are made at this synod to undermine longstanding teachings of the Magisterium, those actions may be disguised as some "loving" move to serve the needs of "modern" people or other such euphemisms.

Even if the survey were short answer or blank essay questions where participants had to generate answers of their own accord, what is the current Pontificate's intention in surveying people unfamiliar even with basic theology in making theological decisions? Unless they want to see how catechized the world is? How many respondents for women's "leadership" can exposit the theology of the priest as sacramental bridegroom in Christ's stead? Or how many respondents fond of gay "marriage" can provide an anthropological defense that substituting a man for a woman in a marriage arrangement leaves it the "same" as a male-female marriage? We have yet to hear those answers from supposedly learned theologians, much less the average lapsed Catholic. Hull analogized: "Would a baseball team gather geishas for ideas on how to hit and catch?"

I recently finished reading Dr. Peter Kwasniewski's book True Obedience in the Church. In it, he reviews the theological and historical basis for defying unjust orders issued by clergy, including the Pope, if necessary. It is an issue I've recently researched myself, including the concept of a child who is otherwise bound to obey his parents, to defy an immoral parental order (cf. CCC#2217). It may be especially wise in the coming months to delve into the lasting theology of Catholic Tradition, that one might authentically identify when a clergyman, even a bishop or Pope, is resisting the sacerdotal grace available to him through his office. 

St. John Chrysostom taught that we will not be able to excuse ourselves from following corrupt teaching, even if those orders come from thousands of priests:

But even if it were the reverse, and you had corrupt teachers plundering and grasping at every thing, not even so were their wickedness an apology for you. For the Lover of mankind and All-wise, the Only-Begotten Son of God, seeing all things, and knowing the chance that in so great length of time and in so vast a world there would be many corrupt priests … but if you disobey the things spoken, even though you should show ten thousand corrupt priests, this will not plead for you at all. Since Judas also was an apostle, but nevertheless this shall never be any apology for the sacrilegious and covetous. (St. John Chrysostom, Homily 21 on 1st Corinthians, ca. 395 AD)