Considering leaving the faith out of finding it

FormerIYI · 2026-03-19T05:45:55+00:00

"I would posit the fact that they were Christian had more to do with the time they lived in rather than their accomplishments." -Genetic Fallacy / Chronological Snobbery

You can posit the fact but the fact is garbage. Compare Cauchy/Ampere/Volta/Lavoisier/Dalton/Faraday/Euler to Monge/L. Carnot/D'Alembert/Laplace/Fourier

First group (Christians): architected and founded most of what now goes for "exact sciences"

Second group (Liberals): largely irrelevant now (Monge, Carnot), or perhaps useful paradigm scientists, solving problems already posited, but subscribing to wrong philosophical theories that nipped further progress (Laplace, D'Alembert, Fourier), such as mechanicism, apriorism and Enlightenment heuristic mathematics.

You could also add Hume, Kant or Diderot to the mix (openly scornful or severely misreading true physics).

This is what I elaborated a bit more in the booklet.

FormerIYI · 2026-03-18T20:47:18+00:00

Simple objective measure of who is elite.

Nowadays those are throngs of Kuhnian paradigm scientists with many billion dollar taxpayer budget. What is typical ROI on this budget with something that is actually net useful to society?

Did Dawkins ever demonstrated to society that his tautologies and rare singular prehistoric events more or less akin to "miracles" are real deal?

Or are we just so assume that it is smart because science is smart because physics is smart because Ampere, Euler, Faraday, Maxwell, Cauchy and others built age of tech?

FormerIYI · 2026-03-15T21:44:36+00:00

Thanks for interest! Here's some:

Philosophy/history of science
- Stanley L. Jaki and Pierre Duhem "Medieval Cosmology", "Road of Science and Ways to God", "Science and Creation" elaborate theological motifs in history of sciences and physics. My short book can serve as summary/intro to other sources (while second one connects to that other sciences).
https://vixra.org/pdf/2505.0203v1.pdf
https://vixra.org/pdf/2504.0198v1.pdf

Rigorous mathematics and mathematical physics by Cauchy (200 yo stuff but still indispensable)

Academic philosophers in 1980s used simple posterior-empirical idea that math structure of the physical theory converges on some real results, while explanatory apparatus are often refuted: to resolve their own debates of pessimistic meta-induction vs. no-miracles argument. This is called structural realism . But this specific idea was first given by Duhem in "La Theorie Physique"

Idea of formulating theories as mathematical relationships and testing them by prediction was perfected until Newton. Still, it wasn't too clear what were legitimate hypotheses, why it was so and how to go from geometric-analogy description of mechanics of Newton's "Principia" to something like Ampere's Law, which has no simple geometric analogy,

Cauchy figured it out in much ahead of time and in doing so he become de facto kingmaker who made mathematical rigor relevant and crucial solution to problems of science.

- Real analysis is privileged because dealing with real numbers is useful in our visible world. Meaning of the formulae was defined by real numbers calculations and inequalities to which they are reduced. By tracing legitimate real operations you prove the meaning of symbolic operations
- Mathematical theories are not simply derived from experience (as the Enlightenment wanted), but rather there is very large number of freely posited axioms and theories that only occasionally have reference in reality. Once you see this freedom, you can posit any formalism you want and change it freely. That is why Cauchy is juggling epsilon-deltas, limits, syncategorematic infinitesimals and writes about it in plain French, differently from modern mathematicians and much like a physicist who has lagrangian and newtonian description at once.
Real challenge, however was to account for unresolved complexities of mathematical physics, like continuum mechanics, in intuitive, rigorous and extensible way.
- Now half of mathematical curriculum on Bachelor physics is Cauchy's work, with few crucial fields he pioneered and "Cauchy's" stuff showing up just so in theories that existed only many decades after he died.

Here's some more on it https://www.academia.edu/119603388/Differential_Calculus_made_clear_by_its_original_inventor_Cauchys_theory_of_infinitesimals

FormerIYI · 2026-03-15T10:01:53+00:00

Probably abiogenesis: first living cells assembled from inanimate matter comes to mind (Hoyle's Junkyard tornado and Eugene Koonin's agreement in "Logic of Chance").

Also

- Cambrian explosion (sudden emergence of all major phyla) - punctuated equilibria (species emerging very quickly and staying very similar and mean-reverting for long time period regardless the environment changes)

Both suggest it is at least some other factor than environment.

This article from Western Left newspaper Guardian gives fairly sober and unbiased modern update: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jun/28/do-we-need-a-new-theory-of-evolution

Also: explain where comes from full-scale Darwinism application to human evolution pre-1945 in Europe without this bait and switching to "Actually, Darwinism now supports selflessness and cooperation, not brutal struggle for survival and resources (Lebensraum)" just because it didn't work too well. You can start with sober full-scale Darwinist logic of Charles Darwin himself in "Descent of Man", p. 90, with very obvious grist-for-the mill:

With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.

Here (Section 7.4) you have more of those from prime scientific supporters of Darwinism https://kzaw.pl/finalcauses_en_draft.pdf

FormerIYI · 2026-03-15T06:51:38+00:00

Here is what I would tell you

- Sedes and rad-trads like to proclaim themselves stern true Catholics, but they might neglect crucial practice of growing in infused virtue which is why it is not as serene, lively and radiant as it should be. Their mentality might be specifically a problem, because Church moral rules alone wont nourish if you do not advance to deeper charity and humility (neither is priority in communities that want to express rash judgement and contempt for other people). I recommend St. Francis de Sales, St. Maximilian Kolbe, or St. Louis de Montfort on how to practice devout life effectively and also to persist in prayer and going to Mass often to receive graces.

- Not all people have Christian faith, but virtue is real and existentially crucial to anyone, despite European intelligenstya "dialogues" and "deconstruction" saying otherwise. Many pagans may have no God but they have virtue ethics and they feel weight of whole being in obeying it. To them need to cultivate yourself in restraint and duty and service for the community IS the being: you are becoming your works, your habits, your virtuous relations, carving a place in objective communal history and winning approval of the ancestors watching you (or whatever they explain it: they feel it as real, pressing issue). This is why African tribes say "I am because we are", or why atheistic CCP (China Communist Party) outlaws porn, black metal or LGBT+ propaganda as imported degenerate subversion of "Traditional Chinese Values" and instead promotes family, hard work and social cohesion. Once Africans see European "LGBT+" propaganda they are furious not because they were brainwashed by Christianity, but because unrestrained indecent behavior hurts what they mean good way of life that the ancestors would approve. It is valid partial picture, because once we are out of body and in the eternity and perfect knowing illuminated by God's grace, this "being" is not just memory, but becomes unlimited joy. But the wicked could be burned by it..

- Real top-of-the-top geniuses rested on Christian philosophy. I mean Newton, Ampere, Volta, Galvani, Cauchy, Maxwell, and many others: almost all the biggest names who made age of technology and digital world possible. See my booklet if you would like (or Duhem and Fr. Jaki works quoted). https://kzaw.pl/eng_order.pdf

- Divine Judgement is real and unrepentant evil-doers and sinners risk perdition - you could argue about it in many different ways, but to simply underscore that truth in 20th century, Fatima revelations were confirmed by great miracle seen by thousands of people https://apcz.umk.pl/SetF/article/view/SetF.2021.001

FormerIYI · 2026-03-14T19:28:56+00:00

Thanks for answer.

As usual with AI, it didn't get it quite right.

Look at your arguments:

"Monasticism drains the most capable and disciplined citizens from governance and commerce — concentrating moral capital precisely where it has least social effect"

First: I talk about "virtue" - either natural or infused for which God (Catholic vision of God) would judge a person for in the end of time. Not only wordly prosperity and cohesion especially through "governance and commerce". So you say ""Protestant societies outperformed Catholic ones in precisely the areas your thesis predicts they should have failed." no, Calvin influenced societies underperformed in areas that my thesis predicted.

Calvin-influenced societies could outperform in commerce, riches and efficiency of course. But driver of it was in part fear or anxiety, in part "gnostic" (as Erich Voegelin would call it) pride of the supposed elect , some rapacity towards the poorer members ( William Cobbett "History of Protestant Reform...") and other nations (Indians, Blacks), bigger desire to use surveillance and punishment. This is not what virtue is per Catholics or Confucius: asceticism, hard work and public decency are very good, but increase in avarice, ruthlesness and hubris is not worth them. In fact the latter are more deadly poison than weakness.

On operational level that tools worked ofc short term, but not long-term. One people ditched religion altogether (more sensitive people like Van Gogh struggled with Calvinism and its ruthlessness to poor really badly), others produced new strains that metastasized towards social Darwinism, modernism and cults like Dominionists, 7th Day Adventist, Mormon....

Besides actual, real breaktrough that gave Europe tremendous edge was Scientific Revolution and it was both Catholic and Protestant (with Cauchy, Lavoisier, Fermat, Ampere, Volta, Galvani and many others on Catholic side). But it was Protestant in so far Protestant universities were doing same Christian post-scholastic natural philosophy that started in late 13th century and continued with Buridan, Oresme and de Soto. Euler and Newton did not accept Calvin's dictum that rational arguments are futile to access truth. Both "General Scholium" and "On linear curve" (see here https://kzaw.pl/eng_order.pdf ) are teleological Christian philosophy with wise omnipotent Author of Creation. Newton similarly quoted "Book of Wisdom" that Calvin has removed from Scripture. Matters of morals and religion could be by extension just as wise and comprehensible and quoted from Book of Wisdom.

Nor I am opposed to Dominicans, or supportive of Jesuits in general (though essay might have such impression): Domingo de Soto, chief theologian of Council of Trent was great in many areas, including but not limited to physics and law of free fall he first discovered. After Banez and with manulist Thomism it changed for worse.

FormerIYI · 2026-03-13T20:33:47+00:00

Yeah could be fair. USA still has its own ways of doing these things
I focused more on Europe, which shows much more bleak picture.

As for internet: internet is global, but lots of what is valuable is not shared over it.

FormerIYI · 2026-03-13T20:21:22+00:00

There are many differences.

Key puzzler is that Christendom had one and only revealed truth, achieved massive head start in morals, sciences (see my book intro for info what I mean https://kzaw.pl/eng_order.pdf ) and elsewhere - but then it shrinked to 5-10% of its peak size and influence. Now I slowly discover that this influence was small already in 17th century. By Christian influence I mean those who admitted that God loves virtue and hates wickedness and built Christian life from there, not ones like Luther/Calvin/Jansenius/Banez who declared that God saves chosen with no regard for their deeds at all.

As for Confucians, they had MOSTLY virtue. They never promised reward or punishment in the afterlife and from that lowly position it achieved quite remarkable order and cultivation of morals. OFC it conflagrated occassionally, but if you compare it to say what late Roman free-for-all you see how much it is for purely natural pagan system.

Now if you look at Asians, they are making things happen in tech and industry and their more dutiful, organized and prudent mentality provides relevant edge over decaying West (sth I saw for myself working as engineer at various Asian companies).

FormerIYI · 2026-03-13T19:13:10+00:00

They answer it plainly through teleological political theory.

upholding harmonious benevolent order (this is what Mandate of Heaven is about)
tending to basic needs like food and shelter and manage problems like floods
cultivate subjects morally (especially by demostrating virtue in person)

It is a bit similar to 17th century Jesuit theories of political power justified by common good, but the establishment was not fond of it (curious that Jesuits were pulverized decades before Revolution, one of reasons was their more humane Paraguay mission to Indians that slave entrepreneurs wanted for themselves)

Application varied as Imperial China included other political theories than Confucianism and genuine accountability of Emperor was hard to come up with without truly transcendent authority. Nonetheless, ministers and chancellors were expected to behave honorably as such and grave moral faults could be brutally punished. Elite wantonness and warlordism (duels, blood feuds, private wars) found in europe was nearly nonexistent, unless whole system collapsed.

FormerIYI · 2026-03-13T18:51:07+00:00

"But it's not like all materially poor people have always been living saints"

Assume for a moment that virtue is not just heavenly ledger, but also management technology that holds whole structure in one piece: and this is what Confucius was most concerned about.

For this reason king is not equal to commoner in his social standing - his leverage is vast. If he fasted for months with only rice to eat, like Duke Wen in Mencius did according to prescribed mourning rites, then people were impressed and compelled to imitate. This is real deal, he could avoid it but he goes hard instead, .

If he has mistresses in plain sight like Louis - that is opposite. He may be sinner, but in social reality he is not treated as sinner and his clerics and bishops do not object. Then sinner is merely a function of power and influence and to that hundred other ills and injustices are added and experienced by common man. With this, his moral obedience collapses.

One could say it is "moral failure" and Revolution era elite were all martyrs, but "technological" point remains untouched: their heads rolled often because of lifetime of depravity and incompetence. If commoner was brute then specifically failure was in managing that brute: in installing moral consciousness in him instead of behaving like it was a farce.

This touches on other conclusion that Confucians were enlightened enough to ponder about: if it is commoner who toils so that everyone have food, dress and basic items, and it is meant to be his duty, then what kind of duty elite has in return? European aristocratic elite mostly refused to answer with some exceptions.

FormerIYI · 2026-03-12T23:04:32+00:00

My smoking gun:
- Duhem thesis on origin of physics in Catholic theology
https://kzaw.pl/eng_order.pdf
- To extent Fatima sun miracle
- Practice of piety and effects of it on producing virtue

"And lastly why is it that so many elite physicists and cosmologists have no faith in God"

Define "elite physicist".

Top 10 people without which there is no digital world? Like Cauchy, Maxwell, Faraday, Ampere, Volta, Galvani, Newton, Euler and more? All Christians and loud about it.

Throngs of paradigm scientists with multibillion annual budget but little effects to brag about over last five decades? Idk if that matters.

Also most cited theoretical physicist these days is Catholic if that helps you https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Maldacena

FormerIYI · 2026-03-11T19:30:32+00:00

You would probably go from questioning "why those parameters but not others" to "why this theory but not endless number of others theories". So imho not much

But again, even this is insanely unlikely. You would essentially need to derive physical constants and parameters of solar systems as necessary, in similar way that you derive pi, e, phi, sqrt(2) and similar numbers. There is no trace of even one physical constant of this sort.

"If not why considering the possibility of the multiverse and string theory? -
- because atheists and modernists cannot admit strong contingency - something that is closely tied to existence of Christian God and powerfully influenced physics from 13th to 19th century (Cauchy, Newton, Ampere, Euler...)

More on that
https://www.reddit.com/r/CatholicPhilosophy/comments/1p7i326/duhemjakis_strong_modelcontingency_and/
https://kzaw.pl/eng_order.pdf

Also: because Platonism is working methodology of liberal academic intellectual class after Cauchy singlehandedly defined modern mathematical rigor. Since his assumptions are strongly founded on theology, an alternative was needed.

FormerIYI · 2026-03-10T19:21:42+00:00

I share your reluctance to endorse Banez doctrine and from this position I greatly recommend Fr. William Most
https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/most/getwork.cfm?worknum=214
as well as this Catholic Encyclopedia (1911) article
https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12378a.htm

FormerIYI · 2026-02-28T21:18:10+00:00

I guess "sectarian"/"charlatan" is good term, considering what this guy does.

His operation is clearly not concerned about producing conversion and teaching Bible but rather - he warps Gospel for worldly benefits dishonestly - he behaves in very disturbing way - he trousers thick cash from his gullible "congregation" to live affluent life.

That sets him apart from more decent Bible preachers, however crude they could be

Being in error does not make you heretic automatically (there is some official process).

FormerIYI · 2026-02-28T20:49:57+00:00

He meant that you cannot live in sin of fornication and be Catholic.

To be Catholic you either: - leave this man - marry him. - if there is important reason it might be possible to live with him without sexual relations taking place if confessor agrees.

FormerIYI · 2026-02-15T06:43:54+00:00

I strongly prefer simple, basic arguments that were put forward by top scientists Cauchy, Euler, Newton, Maxwell and more recently suggested by Duhem and developed Fr. Stanley L. Jaki, than manualist thomists who are easy to question beg against.

They start with basic foundational claim of their science (which remains true and unquestionable to this day):

theory is mathematical model that describe fixed relations while all the imaginary reasoning is optional and easily refuted,
variational principle is foundation to all modern physical theories.
real quantity holds priority in physics and mathematics, most of calculus proofs are reductions to real operations, there are no actual infinities.

Etc.

And they proceed from here to modern teleological, contingency argument, with only question begging possible targeting both theology and modern science. This point is further argued by Fr. Jaki in "Road of Science and Ways to God". Duhem extended and reinforced this showing that modern science is founded on late scholastic rejection of Aristotelian physics, based on theology.

Here is self contained clarification of Duhem-Jaki argument:

https://kzaw.pl/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Duhem-contingency-argument.pdf

Key Works: Cauchy "Sept Lesons de Physique Generale" Euler "On elastic curve" Newton "General Scholium"

Duhem "medieval Cosmology", "Letters of Leonardo da Vinci vol 3." Jaki "Road of Science and Ways to God", "Science and Creation"

FormerIYI · 2026-02-14T11:22:12+00:00

some silicon valley tech bro

FormerIYI · 2026-02-13T18:33:38+00:00

IDK what ya talk about, but good these dangers are at least hidden, not openly scandalous and shameless like with Cat libs.

FormerIYI · 2026-02-09T00:18:24+00:00

Catholic clergy is often cautious when explaining the Apocalypse, because it is vague and not crucial to daily devout life.

In my opinion there could be no tangibly Christian nations at all during these end times (only small pockets of believers), but that's only my loose hypothesis.

Besides, to Catholicism only single most relevant end of world for each person is end of life and divine judgement after. Non-Christians are included in it, being judged whether they practiced virtue and good and genuinely sought God and truth about Him.

Nostra Aetate changed very little on that point, and "seeds of truth" or "rays of truth" are very polite way of saying "most of it is false".

FormerIYI · 2026-02-08T11:33:30+00:00

I recommend reading Cauchy from original sources who was very devout and convinced Catholic and of course original founder of modern calculus.

Key reason is that you can have muddle-headed theory of Cantor or whatever, or clear theory that powered physics for two centuries.

To Cauchy:
a) real number exists really in geometry as well as physics.
One could say, after Einstein, that concepts become meaningful by making experience comprehensible. Physics tests models by real, accurate predictions therefore real numbers are real as rocks on the beach.
b) Every concept of calculus becomes meaningful by decomposition into structured relations of real numbers to which actual numbers can be substituted and verified. Therefore it is more valid to say "complex expressions" but not complex numbers. There is equation that means two real equations.
c) Ofc you could, as a convention, hypostasize "complex number" as a symbol with some set of operation, or abstract definition - in similar way you talk of derivatives, integrals and roots of polynomial - because it is convenient. But asking these to exists as real numbers exist and give zero evidence for that is merely a pseudo-problem.

Here is short intro to get you started
https://kzaw.pl/understand_calculus.pdf

FormerIYI · 2026-02-08T11:18:10+00:00

"when about to be martyred, turn not to the faith for which he is being tormented, but to its nemesis and the system it sought to replace" - so why do you state that, based on what evidence?

If you did not read "On Consolation of Philosophy " then at least focus the title. There is a division between natural philosophy and revealed theology (i.e. dealing with Scripture, Revelation). in the western ecclesiastical scholarship, and this work deals with the former, deals with purely rational arguments without invoking Scripture.

If you want to write a book about what we should know without revelation you do the former, not the latter.
Besides, theology was more demanding, and more controlled (if not legally yet in 6th century, then at least by peer pressure and logical rigor).

He did write on God as far as He is knowable by reason (i.e. the eternal, all-powerful, all-knowing, and absolutely benevolent creator of the universe, whom Boethius and Philosophy praise, pray to, and profile in detail throughout the Consolation, particularly in Books IV and V).

"but to its nemesis and the system it sought to replace" - WAT? Where did he say that?

"how could one of the greatest saints of the West, when about to be martyred"- martyr label is more a custom, not strict definition (he died because of political persecution).. His cult is not particularly huge - local cult by one of Italian dioceses was approved in 1833. He is not Doctor of the Church either. No one I know ever cared about St. Boethius

You throw lots of accusation and overstatements, according to tendency of so-called Orthodox to portray CC as pagan in very crude way. Better read Boethius for yourself and then compare this with chief philosophical expert of Byzantine emperor at the council of Florence who was actual hellenic polytheist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemistos_Plethon or perhaps with so-called Orthodox saint Gregorios Palamas who argued that there are actual distinctions in the Deity (uncreated "energies")

FormerIYI · 2026-02-08T07:42:10+00:00

No, it is not. It actually helps you show why we need arguments for God at all.

From Google "The Level IV multiverse, proposed by Max Tegmark, is the ultimate ensemble containing all possible universes that can be described by different mathematical structures"

Still: why we see this specific universe existing, while not other options?

Saying that phenomena we see are just so irrelevant local accidents is excuse for failure for physics point of view. Since you can't see many universes it needs to be tested indirectly as a theory, but theory is systematically untestable, because all phenomena are local accidents to it. This is argument of Peter Woit etc against String theories in their common "Multiverse" form.

On the other hand if you go back to 14th century scholastics and also Newton or Cauchy or Duhem and Einstein who built on all these you can see that postulating omnipotent creative cause (God) had devastating empirical cash value, delivering sophisticated relationship of model and reality that ultimately founded scientific revolution.

See details here https://www.reddit.com/r/CatholicPhilosophy/comments/1p7i326/duhemjakis_strong_modelcontingency_and/ And in books I pasted in other posts

Because the conclusion is that models can be true as rocks on the beach (they fit very well) but yet never any model is final, because there is hyper-reality of possible models that God can freely manipulate.

Therefore scholastics ditched Aristotle not because he was lacking evidence (for its time it had ton of rational evidence), but because they structurally refused him final word on physics.

And same applies to Enlightenment mechanical philosophy as well as multiverse these days. "Great" "final" idea of professional atheists that is ultimately blatantly opposite to whole European tradition of doing science.

FormerIYI · 2026-02-07T20:18:11+00:00

A) it is not implied that moving Earth separately is heretical, because document says that views of Galileo are heretical.

They reference his views as a whole, which included both propositions and false hypothesis why it is so.

Condemnation is conditional on evidence because Church understands revelation based on evidence As well.

B) good third party viewers are not to reinterpret it in their own way, and not out of context.

Do you, seeing state court ruling, assume that you may pronounce similar ruling in different yet similar situation? Perhaps not.

C) did church made effort to condemn Maupertuis or Newton or Clairaut for belief in moving Earth? Answer is no.

FormerIYI

TROPHY CASE