Tuesday, April 18, 2023

Friend-Enemy Distinction is Left-Wing

What are you doing? Don't try to figure out who's on-side and who isn't using your own individual judgment. Division of labour: let your Pope do it.

Why are you even evaluating statements from randos? Are you compiling a dogma/heresy report for your Pope? Don't be a volunteer auxiliary inquisitor: if you're not getting paid, stop already.

If someone makes a statement of sociological (=religious) relevance to you, this is what you do: hang up on them. Mute. Close the tab. Forget about it and go about your day.
If being reminded of the topic made you curious, ask the Pope his opinion. Don't bother reinventing the Pope wheel. He's already done the work, you don't need to do it again. 

 

Sure, you do indeed need to know who your friends are. It's okay: the Pope already knows. Excommunication is kinda what a Pope is for. 

Meanwhile, if you really are compiling a dogma report for the Pope, whether the person saying it is a friend or an enemy is irrelevant. Ad hominem is a fallacy; if you reject enemy statements because they're from the enemy, you can and will end up declaring the truth is heresy. A fortiori: evaluating statements of friends is not your department. Leave it for the inquisition. If evaluating enemy statements on their merits has no value, you have just argued yourself out of a job. If you leave the Pope to do all the learning work, I expect your religion isn't going to survive very long...

 

In other words, if you don't know who your Pope is, if you don't accept your Pope as explicitly your Pope, you're a left-winger.

No comments: