^ check and mate.
But then where would they store all the "heretical" scriptures they've been suppressing since the fourth century?
The Real Wizard
Thread
Posts in chronological order
GratefulFan
At least paint the ceiling of the Sistene Chapel beige or something.
You know, every blathering word I wrote on on the Atheism thread was written because I assumed that people would just instictively care that bad facts and bad assumptions about faith in general and Catholicism specifically could be unjust. Really, you wouldn't think it would be particularly difficult to find something fair to complain about on this topic, or for such allegedly enlightened minds to find a little balance and thoughtfulness when they do.
I accept that it was from the beginning an utter waste of time. I wish I could have every second back. I'd rather go paper my bedroom in Adam Lambert posters and Skype backwards with Medusa than spend one more naive minute thinking I have anything to offer any of this hurtful, wallowing, brick-stupid prejudice.
You know, every blathering word I wrote on on the Atheism thread was written because I assumed that people would just instictively care that bad facts and bad assumptions about faith in general and Catholicism specifically could be unjust. Really, you wouldn't think it would be particularly difficult to find something fair to complain about on this topic, or for such allegedly enlightened minds to find a little balance and thoughtfulness when they do.
I accept that it was from the beginning an utter waste of time. I wish I could have every second back. I'd rather go paper my bedroom in Adam Lambert posters and Skype backwards with Medusa than spend one more naive minute thinking I have anything to offer any of this hurtful, wallowing, brick-stupid prejudice.
waunakonor
[QUOTE] [b]GratefulFan wrote:[/b]
At least paint the ceiling of the Sistene Chapel beige or something.
You know, every blathering word I wrote on on the Atheism thread was written because I assumed that people would just instictively care that bad facts and bad assumptions about faith in general and Catholicism specifically could be unjust. Really, you wouldn't think it would be particularly difficult to find something fair to complain about on this topic, or for such allegedly enlightened minds to find a little balance and thoughtfulness when they do.
I accept that it was from the beginning an utter waste of time. I wish I could have every second back. I'd rather go paper my bedroom in Adam Lambert posters and Skype backwards with Medusa than spend one more naive minute thinking I have anything to offer any of this hurtful, wallowing, brick-stupid prejudice.[/QUOTE]
I got similarly frustrated with everything going on there haven't even glanced at that thread for a while. I don't understand how people are still finding new things to post there.
I think it would be fun Skyping with MEDUSA. Then I could finally look the little prick in the eyes and tell him "!!!ENOZNEEUQ FO FFO SSA ELTTIL RUOY TEG DNA ECAF GNIKCUF RUOY KCUF"
At least paint the ceiling of the Sistene Chapel beige or something.
You know, every blathering word I wrote on on the Atheism thread was written because I assumed that people would just instictively care that bad facts and bad assumptions about faith in general and Catholicism specifically could be unjust. Really, you wouldn't think it would be particularly difficult to find something fair to complain about on this topic, or for such allegedly enlightened minds to find a little balance and thoughtfulness when they do.
I accept that it was from the beginning an utter waste of time. I wish I could have every second back. I'd rather go paper my bedroom in Adam Lambert posters and Skype backwards with Medusa than spend one more naive minute thinking I have anything to offer any of this hurtful, wallowing, brick-stupid prejudice.[/QUOTE]
I got similarly frustrated with everything going on there haven't even glanced at that thread for a while. I don't understand how people are still finding new things to post there.
I think it would be fun Skyping with MEDUSA. Then I could finally look the little prick in the eyes and tell him "!!!ENOZNEEUQ FO FFO SSA ELTTIL RUOY TEG DNA ECAF GNIKCUF RUOY KCUF"
john bodega
Fuck the Pope.
waunakonor
[QUOTE] [b]Zebonka12 wrote:[/b]
Fuck the Pope.[/QUOTE]
That would cause him to no longer be eligible to be Pope.
Fuck the Pope.[/QUOTE]
That would cause him to no longer be eligible to be Pope.
thomasquinn 32989
[QUOTE] [b]waunakonor wrote:[/b]
[QUOTE] [b]Zebonka12 wrote:[/b]
Fuck the Pope.[/QUOTE]
That would cause him to no longer be eligible to be Pope.[/QUOTE]
Actually, it wouldn't. Catholic clergy have to live celibate, every Catholic adult male is, theoretically, eligible for the papacy.
[QUOTE] [b]Zebonka12 wrote:[/b]
Fuck the Pope.[/QUOTE]
That would cause him to no longer be eligible to be Pope.[/QUOTE]
Actually, it wouldn't. Catholic clergy have to live celibate, every Catholic adult male is, theoretically, eligible for the papacy.
Heavenite
Missed out again!! Dammit!
*goodco*
[QUOTE] [b]Day dop wrote:[/b]
Anti abortion, anti gay marriage, poking his nose into where it doesn't belong... New boss looks much like the old boss.
Yup.....I thought of 'Won't Get Fooled Again', but you beat me to the punch.
"Give him time" I heard.
Well, two years ago he led a march against the approved gay marriage act in his home country. He's stuck in the Middle Ages as to women.
Time....is not on his side. Same ol' song and dance, my friends.
Anti abortion, anti gay marriage, poking his nose into where it doesn't belong... New boss looks much like the old boss.
Yup.....I thought of 'Won't Get Fooled Again', but you beat me to the punch.
"Give him time" I heard.
Well, two years ago he led a march against the approved gay marriage act in his home country. He's stuck in the Middle Ages as to women.
Time....is not on his side. Same ol' song and dance, my friends.
GratefulFan
[QUOTE] [b]*goodco* wrote:[/b]
Yup.....I thought of 'Won't Get Fooled Again', but you beat me to the punch.
"Give him time" I heard.
Well, two years ago he led a march against the approved gay marriage act in his home country. He's stuck in the Middle Ages as to women.
Time....is not on his side. Same ol' song and dance, my friends.
[/QUOTE]
Expressing disappointment, antipathy or throwing your hands up in the air at some imagined told-you-so lost opportunity because the new Pope is, er, Catholic, is a bit silly. Of course he's anti-abortion. Of course women will not become priests tomorrow, or perhaps ever. Of course he's anti gay-marriage. He's the Pope! On homosexuality the Church is on the wrong side of justice. And due to the nature of Catholic doctrine it may possibly be on the wrong side of it for a long time. So you know, plan for that. But do not confuse Catholic doctrine with the synthesis of Catholic thought. I saw a poll the other day that indicated that American Catholics support gay marriage at a rate 7% greater than Americans as a whole. The evangelicals in the US will have dragged down the national average, but the point is that the more controversial points of Catholic doctrine are not reflected through Catholic beliefs unchanged, no matter how prominent that doctrine is in the mind of non-Catholics. Secular values co-exist and most importantly other aspects of the faith encourage rational, compassionate and justice centred thought. Generally I've seen numbers anywhere from 54% through 75% of Catholics in support of gay marriage over the years. Canada has had legal gay marriage for several years now with the highest support for it in Quebec at 75%. Half the Catholics in Canada live in Quebec. Heavily Catholic Ireland also supports gay marriage at an impressive 75%. So while people understandably roll their eyes and feel anger at the anti-homosexual presentation of Catholic dogmatism, it's useful to consider the larger context of both the dogmatism and the actuality of the attitudes on the streets in cities and towns where laws and rights and equality really live. The temptation will be to think that Catholics have generally embraced these attitudes in spite of their church and not at least in part because of it, but anecdotal and theological evidence suggests otherwise.
I haven't seen much to guage Pope Francis' specific beliefs on the role of women in the Church, so I can't comment on the Middle Ages assertion. If you're referring to a quote about women in politics that was widely circulated, that quote was a fabrication. However the fact remains that women cannot be ordained priests and for Doctrinal reasons may never be ordained as priests. Like ever. So again, don't look for that change any time soon. If one is in the small minority of Catholics who drags one's ass to church on Sunday you will see female readers, Sunday School teachers, alter servers and servers of communion. It's true you'll only see a man doing the heavy work at the front of the church, and it's true you know the hierarachy is fully male, but it is a tradition that many people are generally comfortable with, including me. Partly because traditions are anchors, but also very much because as a measure of equality and influcence, the appearance of a hopeless gap is again misleading where it counts.
One way to measure Catholic influence on society is to follow the money. I'll use American figures as that represents about 60% of annual global Catholic spending, and due to the concentration of wealth there, it subsidizes the entire operation around the world. These numbers are not from the Church, they are independent estimates from The Economist for 2010. Of $171,600,000,000 (171.6 billion) in expenditures in 2010, almost 100 billion went to hospitals and health care networks around the world. The Catholic Church is the largest non-governmental health care provider globally and operates over a quarter of the world's medical facilities from teaching hospitals to the smallest clinics in the third world. Almost 50 billion went to colleges and universities. About 11 billion is spent on day to day local costs at the Diocesan level which includes churches and schools. As the largest single charitable organization in America they spent an additional 4.7 billion on various local projects and causes. About 8.5 billion is dedicated to "Other" which could be investments, legal costs, the settlement of abuse cases, scientific research through the [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontifical_Academy_of_Sciences]Pontifical Academy of Sciences[/url] or the [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vatican_Observatory]Vatican Observatory[/url] and any number of other things. I'm guessing on "Other" as it wasn't indicated. But clearly the vast majority of the money goes to projects that serve people and these are the places that individuals will be brought into contact with Catholic services and missions and ideas: charities, churches, schools, colleges & universities, and hospitals & clinics. In elementary schools if you see a man there that is not a parent, good chances are he's a janitor or he's lost. Teachers, principals, curriculum developers and senior administration at the board level all the way up to topmost Director of Education positions are overwhelmingly female. Truly, truly overwhelmingly. At secondary schools it's roughly equal. I don't know what the stats are at colleges and universities but I do know that in sharp contrast to 30 years ago females are now teaching theology at universities in significant numbers. In many disciplines in higher education women graduates now outnumber men. Women now consistently make up almost half and sometimes fully half of graduating medical doctors. They make up almost 70% of hospital managers and administrators. They of course also dominate the nursing profession. Nuns who are heavily involved in local charity and missionary work are 100% female. You get the point. Over a lifetime people who access vital services in Catholic funded and staffed education, health care and charity will have been amply and sometimes overwhelmingly exposed to women in power, women in key decision making roles and women as direct services providers. Women will have shaped policy and etched their influence in huge numbers and in countless ways.
The other major Catholic issues affecting women around the world are of course reproductive rights. Dogmatism also plagues this area, as it does homosexuality above, though I would exlude the direct sancity of life issues (abortion, stem cell research etc.) from that observation because I think they are a separate set of issues in which the Church holds a valid position in that it is a reasonable argument that needs to be beaten with a superior argument, and not eyerolling and outrage. I think a good test of the reasonableness of religious doctrine is whether it could arise independent of religious thought. I think the idea that life is precious and has extraordinary value and that human beings all all stages should be protected from violent death is not a set of beliefs that needs religious thought, though neither is it lessened by that framing. I am personally firmly pro choice, and think these two things together: 1) All women everywhere should have unrestricted access to abortion services and 2) pro-life movements should never go away or be any quieter or gentler than they are right now. The latter contextualizes the former and tells an uncomfortable truth that deserves light, like it or not.
This post is incomplete in that the issues are many and often complex. But it's already too long, and honestly I haven't really sensed a true interest in what I would call discussion, so I'll leave it here. I can go further if there seems any point.
Yup.....I thought of 'Won't Get Fooled Again', but you beat me to the punch.
"Give him time" I heard.
Well, two years ago he led a march against the approved gay marriage act in his home country. He's stuck in the Middle Ages as to women.
Time....is not on his side. Same ol' song and dance, my friends.
[/QUOTE]
Expressing disappointment, antipathy or throwing your hands up in the air at some imagined told-you-so lost opportunity because the new Pope is, er, Catholic, is a bit silly. Of course he's anti-abortion. Of course women will not become priests tomorrow, or perhaps ever. Of course he's anti gay-marriage. He's the Pope! On homosexuality the Church is on the wrong side of justice. And due to the nature of Catholic doctrine it may possibly be on the wrong side of it for a long time. So you know, plan for that. But do not confuse Catholic doctrine with the synthesis of Catholic thought. I saw a poll the other day that indicated that American Catholics support gay marriage at a rate 7% greater than Americans as a whole. The evangelicals in the US will have dragged down the national average, but the point is that the more controversial points of Catholic doctrine are not reflected through Catholic beliefs unchanged, no matter how prominent that doctrine is in the mind of non-Catholics. Secular values co-exist and most importantly other aspects of the faith encourage rational, compassionate and justice centred thought. Generally I've seen numbers anywhere from 54% through 75% of Catholics in support of gay marriage over the years. Canada has had legal gay marriage for several years now with the highest support for it in Quebec at 75%. Half the Catholics in Canada live in Quebec. Heavily Catholic Ireland also supports gay marriage at an impressive 75%. So while people understandably roll their eyes and feel anger at the anti-homosexual presentation of Catholic dogmatism, it's useful to consider the larger context of both the dogmatism and the actuality of the attitudes on the streets in cities and towns where laws and rights and equality really live. The temptation will be to think that Catholics have generally embraced these attitudes in spite of their church and not at least in part because of it, but anecdotal and theological evidence suggests otherwise.
I haven't seen much to guage Pope Francis' specific beliefs on the role of women in the Church, so I can't comment on the Middle Ages assertion. If you're referring to a quote about women in politics that was widely circulated, that quote was a fabrication. However the fact remains that women cannot be ordained priests and for Doctrinal reasons may never be ordained as priests. Like ever. So again, don't look for that change any time soon. If one is in the small minority of Catholics who drags one's ass to church on Sunday you will see female readers, Sunday School teachers, alter servers and servers of communion. It's true you'll only see a man doing the heavy work at the front of the church, and it's true you know the hierarachy is fully male, but it is a tradition that many people are generally comfortable with, including me. Partly because traditions are anchors, but also very much because as a measure of equality and influcence, the appearance of a hopeless gap is again misleading where it counts.
One way to measure Catholic influence on society is to follow the money. I'll use American figures as that represents about 60% of annual global Catholic spending, and due to the concentration of wealth there, it subsidizes the entire operation around the world. These numbers are not from the Church, they are independent estimates from The Economist for 2010. Of $171,600,000,000 (171.6 billion) in expenditures in 2010, almost 100 billion went to hospitals and health care networks around the world. The Catholic Church is the largest non-governmental health care provider globally and operates over a quarter of the world's medical facilities from teaching hospitals to the smallest clinics in the third world. Almost 50 billion went to colleges and universities. About 11 billion is spent on day to day local costs at the Diocesan level which includes churches and schools. As the largest single charitable organization in America they spent an additional 4.7 billion on various local projects and causes. About 8.5 billion is dedicated to "Other" which could be investments, legal costs, the settlement of abuse cases, scientific research through the [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontifical_Academy_of_Sciences]Pontifical Academy of Sciences[/url] or the [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vatican_Observatory]Vatican Observatory[/url] and any number of other things. I'm guessing on "Other" as it wasn't indicated. But clearly the vast majority of the money goes to projects that serve people and these are the places that individuals will be brought into contact with Catholic services and missions and ideas: charities, churches, schools, colleges & universities, and hospitals & clinics. In elementary schools if you see a man there that is not a parent, good chances are he's a janitor or he's lost. Teachers, principals, curriculum developers and senior administration at the board level all the way up to topmost Director of Education positions are overwhelmingly female. Truly, truly overwhelmingly. At secondary schools it's roughly equal. I don't know what the stats are at colleges and universities but I do know that in sharp contrast to 30 years ago females are now teaching theology at universities in significant numbers. In many disciplines in higher education women graduates now outnumber men. Women now consistently make up almost half and sometimes fully half of graduating medical doctors. They make up almost 70% of hospital managers and administrators. They of course also dominate the nursing profession. Nuns who are heavily involved in local charity and missionary work are 100% female. You get the point. Over a lifetime people who access vital services in Catholic funded and staffed education, health care and charity will have been amply and sometimes overwhelmingly exposed to women in power, women in key decision making roles and women as direct services providers. Women will have shaped policy and etched their influence in huge numbers and in countless ways.
The other major Catholic issues affecting women around the world are of course reproductive rights. Dogmatism also plagues this area, as it does homosexuality above, though I would exlude the direct sancity of life issues (abortion, stem cell research etc.) from that observation because I think they are a separate set of issues in which the Church holds a valid position in that it is a reasonable argument that needs to be beaten with a superior argument, and not eyerolling and outrage. I think a good test of the reasonableness of religious doctrine is whether it could arise independent of religious thought. I think the idea that life is precious and has extraordinary value and that human beings all all stages should be protected from violent death is not a set of beliefs that needs religious thought, though neither is it lessened by that framing. I am personally firmly pro choice, and think these two things together: 1) All women everywhere should have unrestricted access to abortion services and 2) pro-life movements should never go away or be any quieter or gentler than they are right now. The latter contextualizes the former and tells an uncomfortable truth that deserves light, like it or not.
This post is incomplete in that the issues are many and often complex. But it's already too long, and honestly I haven't really sensed a true interest in what I would call discussion, so I'll leave it here. I can go further if there seems any point.
Heavenite
Hi Grateful Fan
You highlight a lot of the good the Catholic Church does on a regular basis with some of those figures. It's just a damn shame it can't get out of its past and get rid of the discrimination and marginalisation that it has inheritied from less enlightened times.
As a result it is judged negatively by so many and I find it no surprise that it needed to go to the Developing World to get the latest pope. Nothing wrong with that at all, but I think it's just another sign that the Church has largely lost it's relevance in the debate about how people within society should live their lives.
Doing that leaves it with so much of the hard work that you describe in alleviating sickness and poverty, but creates dissonance within the ranks for any of its followers that still take its views on things including homosexuality and the role of women seriously.
You highlight a lot of the good the Catholic Church does on a regular basis with some of those figures. It's just a damn shame it can't get out of its past and get rid of the discrimination and marginalisation that it has inheritied from less enlightened times.
As a result it is judged negatively by so many and I find it no surprise that it needed to go to the Developing World to get the latest pope. Nothing wrong with that at all, but I think it's just another sign that the Church has largely lost it's relevance in the debate about how people within society should live their lives.
Doing that leaves it with so much of the hard work that you describe in alleviating sickness and poverty, but creates dissonance within the ranks for any of its followers that still take its views on things including homosexuality and the role of women seriously.
thomasquinn 32989
Sure, the Catholic church does good things. But when African bishops send official letters to the believers telling them that using condoms will give them AIDS, that is evil, and such evil taints all the good they might do.
Heavenite
Totally Thomas! Mind you that's where the Church also does a lot of good and has the potential to do a lot more. It's just got to get it's head out of people's pants and treat people equally regardless of what tools they've got and what holes they want to poke.
magicalfreddiemercury
The catholic church is a religious organization. Period. It should not have the power to hold sway over any of the world’s governments. Its world view is for its followers to observe - not for people of other faiths or no faith.
Can 'good' come from the church? Yes, because when so many people unite under one umbrella, it makes sense that good things will, at times, result. That does not take away from the fact that the Vatican actively opposes international calls for equality and protections for women. It does not take away from the fact that it preaches love then righteously discriminates against certain expressions of love – for everyone, not just its followers. It does not absolve the church of the evil mentioned in a previous post, which is the blatant telling of lies it knows will cost what it declares most precious – human life.
If catholics still choose to follow the church’s teachings despite what many recognize as its historical and contemporary abuse and overreach of power… well... whatever. The rest of us simply want that organization to stop nosing around in our personal and governmental affairs.
Can 'good' come from the church? Yes, because when so many people unite under one umbrella, it makes sense that good things will, at times, result. That does not take away from the fact that the Vatican actively opposes international calls for equality and protections for women. It does not take away from the fact that it preaches love then righteously discriminates against certain expressions of love – for everyone, not just its followers. It does not absolve the church of the evil mentioned in a previous post, which is the blatant telling of lies it knows will cost what it declares most precious – human life.
If catholics still choose to follow the church’s teachings despite what many recognize as its historical and contemporary abuse and overreach of power… well... whatever. The rest of us simply want that organization to stop nosing around in our personal and governmental affairs.
john bodega
"Sure, the Catholic church does good things"
I hate it when they say that. They could do all of those good things without being such fucking detestable characters. Fancy dress time is over - let's fucking get over ourselves; put the robes in the trash and move on with your lives, clergy.
I hate it when they say that. They could do all of those good things without being such fucking detestable characters. Fancy dress time is over - let's fucking get over ourselves; put the robes in the trash and move on with your lives, clergy.
GratefulFan
[QUOTE] [b]Heavenite wrote:[/b]
Hi Grateful Fan
You highlight a lot of the good the Catholic Church does on a regular basis with some of those figures. It's just a damn shame it can't get out of its past and get rid of the discrimination and marginalisation that it has inheritied from less enlightened times.
As a result it is judged negatively by so many and I find it no surprise that it needed to go to the Developing World to get the latest pope. Nothing wrong with that at all, but I think it's just another sign that the Church has largely lost it's relevance in the debate about how people within society should live their lives.
Doing that leaves it with so much of the hard work that you describe in alleviating sickness and poverty, but creates dissonance within the ranks for any of its followers that still take its views on things including homosexuality and the role of women seriously. [/QUOTE]
Thanks Heavenite, genuinely, for mucking through all that and offering your thoughts. In referencing 'less enlightened times' you've hit on something that's long been intriguing to me. It's useful to appreciate that the Catholic Church (CC from here on in for simplicity) makes no claim to be particularly malleable or progressive. Not one. It offers just the opposite, in fact, by design. It's belief is that morality is fixed, objective and externally determined by a creator, in this case an entity called 'God' and revealed through some scribble called 'scripture'. So for the CC, moral truth is independent of any given society's view of it's own enlightenment and it believes to it's core that it offers a steady light and a spiritual port in sometimes choppy modern seas .
The idea of morality as objective is not inherently backwards or intellectually indefensible. Similar and related ideas co-exist in philosophy under concepts of moral realism which are entirely independent of religious thought. Staying outside of any religious construct I'd note that moral relativism and specifically ethical subjectivism are much more instinctive and comfortable positions for most of us, and certainly the prevailing forces in our mostly secular world, which is why I think I find the theoretical idea of challenges to modern assumptions from a position of objective morality an incredibly interesting concept that cannot be dismissed out of hand as a potential source of unique and powerful insight in some situations. Also, how intriguing if one allows the possibility of a creator or designer to note that our physical world follows rules, and to wonder how that might reflect through our metaphyshical systems as well.
While technology and the liberal and progressive thinking most of us share has been a boone to society in so many ways, it hasn't been uniformly or consistently so. So continuing to leave the CC and any of it's specific beliefs entirely aside for a moment, what do you think in theory about the usefulness of a voice or limited counter-force that does by definition position itself as a fixed alternative against some aspects of modern thought and momentum?
Hi Grateful Fan
You highlight a lot of the good the Catholic Church does on a regular basis with some of those figures. It's just a damn shame it can't get out of its past and get rid of the discrimination and marginalisation that it has inheritied from less enlightened times.
As a result it is judged negatively by so many and I find it no surprise that it needed to go to the Developing World to get the latest pope. Nothing wrong with that at all, but I think it's just another sign that the Church has largely lost it's relevance in the debate about how people within society should live their lives.
Doing that leaves it with so much of the hard work that you describe in alleviating sickness and poverty, but creates dissonance within the ranks for any of its followers that still take its views on things including homosexuality and the role of women seriously. [/QUOTE]
Thanks Heavenite, genuinely, for mucking through all that and offering your thoughts. In referencing 'less enlightened times' you've hit on something that's long been intriguing to me. It's useful to appreciate that the Catholic Church (CC from here on in for simplicity) makes no claim to be particularly malleable or progressive. Not one. It offers just the opposite, in fact, by design. It's belief is that morality is fixed, objective and externally determined by a creator, in this case an entity called 'God' and revealed through some scribble called 'scripture'. So for the CC, moral truth is independent of any given society's view of it's own enlightenment and it believes to it's core that it offers a steady light and a spiritual port in sometimes choppy modern seas .
The idea of morality as objective is not inherently backwards or intellectually indefensible. Similar and related ideas co-exist in philosophy under concepts of moral realism which are entirely independent of religious thought. Staying outside of any religious construct I'd note that moral relativism and specifically ethical subjectivism are much more instinctive and comfortable positions for most of us, and certainly the prevailing forces in our mostly secular world, which is why I think I find the theoretical idea of challenges to modern assumptions from a position of objective morality an incredibly interesting concept that cannot be dismissed out of hand as a potential source of unique and powerful insight in some situations. Also, how intriguing if one allows the possibility of a creator or designer to note that our physical world follows rules, and to wonder how that might reflect through our metaphyshical systems as well.
While technology and the liberal and progressive thinking most of us share has been a boone to society in so many ways, it hasn't been uniformly or consistently so. So continuing to leave the CC and any of it's specific beliefs entirely aside for a moment, what do you think in theory about the usefulness of a voice or limited counter-force that does by definition position itself as a fixed alternative against some aspects of modern thought and momentum?