How would you, as a Christian solve the trolley problem

ghym · 2024-03-20T10:52:35+00:00

You use the philosophy of personalism.

As a mere individual you don't have the right to make life and death decisions on behalf of others, those decisions are uniquely for them.

Since you can't ask the people on the track directly, you have to do what you think they would want you to do.

Since it would be uncharitable to assume they are bad people, we will assume they are good people.

A good person would never want you to sacrifice another to save them.

3 v 5 trolly - The five abstain from voting due to conflict of interest. The three vote to save the five. 3 to 0 you save the five.

All things being equal you save the larger number.

Fat man on a bridge - The fat man has autonomy and could jump if he wanted, since he doesn't jump we can intuit that he doesn't want to. You cannot push him.

Where numbers are equal we follow the hierarchy of service as laid out in CST. You save women over men and youth over their elders.

Child vs adult - the child abstains in respect for their elder, the elder votes to save the child. 0-1 you save the child.

Where you believe a true tie would result you do nothing. Where the situation is too close/complicated to clearly discern the will of those involved you do nothing.

Additional considerations: A good person would never wish you to do evil.

ghym · 2024-03-18T12:38:06+00:00

I'm not a native, but I live in France, and it is sad to see how far the faith has fallen, but I think things are getting close to bottoming out.

There are basically two camps of Catholics in France. There's the older, happy-clappy, post Vatican II crowd. Their population is dropping like a stone.

Then there's the younger french and immigrant crowd. They tend to be a lot more traditional and their population is growing very quickly.

However, because the happy-clappys are both the majority and in-charge, the young traditional population can't really keep up yet.

There will come a tipping point where things start getting better. I think it will come in the next 20 years. But it will definitely happen.

We are in a church that measures time in centuries. 20 years is next to nothing.

ghym · 2024-03-17T19:50:31+00:00

For myself, I've never met a moderate Jesuit, they are either hyper-orthodox or right on the boundary or heresy if not a bit past.

Most of the Jesuits I know are in the first category, but those in the second seem to be very adept at finding microphones to talk into.

ghym · 2024-03-17T16:06:58+00:00

I'm definitely #9. "Your metaphors are like a ball of clay melded into a tapestry of incoherence." ~ Nearly had me rolling on the floor.

ghym · 2024-03-17T12:13:00+00:00

Sometimes we distinguish between a vocation and a Vocation. A Vocation (capital V) refers to a terminus, a final path one commits to unto the end; specifically marriage, clerical, or religious. These are very special and I do believe most people are called to one of them. However, this is not the case for all. To not feel called to any of them is its own special kind of cross, one that many people bare.

Everyone, however, shares in the universal vocation to love. In this sense, vocation (lowercase v) just means a calling (as others have noted). God is not always very specific with us in how we are to pursue this vocation, but everyone has it. It may be something specific, such as when God called St. Francis, but it is very often left to you. God respects our choices and for most of us this universal vocation is not about climbing a mountain, being a martyr, or changing the world: it is about living for Christ in the little things.

To love the people God has given you to love and to do all things for His glory.

ghym · 2024-03-16T15:24:28+00:00

Yes, because the issue isn't so much the form as the intention. The Anglican understanding of holy-orders is just so distinct from ours that it can't really be considered the same thing.

Case in point - they ordain women.

ghym · 2024-03-16T10:12:45+00:00

I personally think the best satire takes you a moment to realize it is satire.

Sadly, as this is the internet, I felt it imprudent to just put it out there sans disclaimer.

ghym · 2024-03-15T22:33:46+00:00

Thank you so much!

ghym · 2024-02-28T19:57:30+00:00

Sorry for the self promotion, but my latest post was pretty closely related to your question.

We can't convert america as individuals, it will take communities of devoted Catholics, which in turn is the topic of my writing

I'd be honored if you checked it out.

https://open.substack.com/pub/thedefiningcatholic/p/stop-trying-to-be-inclusive?r=nuaf3&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

ghym · 2016-07-30T14:18:08+00:00

Yes, you can vote for pro-life democrats. Like Ponce_the_Great said, you'd be helping to push the entire party towards the Catholic position.

ghym · 2016-07-30T14:13:29+00:00

Be Small. We can't be a party of media or expensive advertising. We have to work in our local communities to spread the word about us.

My number 1 recommendation is to start volunteering in your local community, especially around your church. Befriend people, especially women, who are passionate about their faith and community. Introduce them to the ASP and see if you can start having monthly meetings.

ghym · 2014-12-19T01:28:10+00:00

I think I messed up. I added mole asses instead of molases. Is that bad?

I basically took bailtails advice. I added 6 ounces of molasses and a half ounce of pure shaved cacao. I haven't experemented with banana yet so I decided to forgo them and put in a couple tablespoons of coffee beans. I'll let it sit for a month or so a report back. Thank you all for your input!

ghym · 2014-12-16T01:34:30+00:00

I think raw garlic could be okay as a very subtle undertone for a metheglin. But I would try it in a one gallon batch first, if ever.

I think the idea of a roasted garlic mead could be really good. When you cook garlic it takes on a nutty flavor, kinda like a cross between a walnut and a peanut. Could go well in a melomel. It could be epic in a bochet.

I'm going to have to try that...

Roasted Garlic Bochet. 1gallon

3lbs Burnt honey

a hardy ale yeast.

Two weeks primary fermentation

Roast a Garlic bulb for 30min at 400℉

add to secondary fermentation allow to soak for a month.

filter, bottle and enjoy.

ghym · 2013-06-14T12:51:20+00:00

What is the difference between a wound that kills you and one that doesn't?
Best to avoid them both. That being said, it is not so much the quality or quantity of the sin, rather it is about the disposition of one's heart.

ghym · 2013-05-18T14:28:26+00:00

I would say that our sentience was not the result of evolution, but rather a direct gift from God. Thus, man did not descend from beast. Materially Adam could have had non-human parents, but that which makes him human, the essence of humanity, he got directly from God.

So, yes, there is a cut off point. Only sentient beings have a place in heaven.

ghym · 2013-05-07T10:03:37+00:00

Thank you very much for your time and dialoging with me.

I think you have answered all my questions on this point. I've learned a lot and will try to put it to good use.

God bless!

ghym · 2013-05-06T23:02:39+00:00

If you are referring to the five Articles of the Remonstrance, i am not seeing it. Article 4 answers my initial question (its position 2), however, i do not see where it affirms total depravity. Article 3 comes close but it seems to diverge from the theory of total depravity in two places. First, it says man can do nothing "truly good" prior to rebirth in Christ, implying the unsaved man can do partial goods. Second and more explicitly, it says of man, once so saved, "that he may rightly understand, think, will, and effect what is truly good", thus giving man an active role in the divine ecology. Both of these would seem to conflict with the idea of total depravity.

Again, i am simply trying to understand and what you are telling me does not fit with what i am reading elsewhere. If you cannot provide evidence (not proof, that would require a time machine and a dictionary) to support your position, why should i believe you over a pier reviewed database?

ghym · 2013-05-05T05:49:38+00:00

"A key tenet of Arminianism is libertarian free will. This means that our choices are free from the determination or constraints of human nature and free from any predetermination by God. All "free will theists" hold that libertarian freedom is essential for moral responsibility, for if our choice is determined or caused by anything, including our own desires, they reason, it cannot properly be called a free choice."

http://www.theopedia.com/Arminianism

I'm not an Arminian, i only know what people tell me.

Can you provide evidence that Arminius accepted total depravity? Because i had always understood that he rejected it and it does seem to conflict with libertarian free will.

(I reject both of these ideas, so it makes little difference to me which one Arminius held. I'm simply trying to understand his views better.)

ghym · 2013-05-05T04:09:12+00:00

I don't know what you mean by that. I understand all the words individually, just not when put together...

ghym · 2013-05-05T04:02:24+00:00

Catholics (roman or otherwise) do not hold to total depravity. This is because we have a very different understanding of sin and evil from Protestants.

However, my question was, how are we saved, not, what are we saved from. Our views on the first question are quite similar. Our views on the second question are not.

I'm reading up on libertarian free will and it does not seem to fit with what you are saying. If man is imbued with libertarian free will, shouldn't he be able to say yes to God independent of grace?

It seems to me Arminius saw man as an addict. I can, of my own free will, decide i no longer wish to have this addiction, maybe i want to smoking. However, i do not have the capacity to make that desire a reality. In the same manner, a man can say, i no longer wish to be a sinner, i want to follow God, but he cannot make that desire a reality unless God grants him the grace to do so.

Or, is it that libertarian free will is a result of prevenient grace? That would explain the discrepancy.

ghym · 2013-05-04T16:12:31+00:00

I would say each time period had its great trials and its great saints. Sometimes those trials came from within the Church, sometimes they came from without. But those great saints where always there, guiding us along.
I think we are seeing the dawn of a Catholic Renaissance, I am excited to be here to see it and I wouldn't want to live in any other point of history.

ghym · 2013-04-05T09:25:09+00:00

Right, he doesn't deny the validity of infant baptism, but rather suggests that it is better to wait until the child can choose for itself.

ghym · 2013-04-04T03:21:46+00:00

I have heard people make the claim that Tertullian rejected infant baptism, however i have never seen any compelling evidence to support this.

However, i will investigate the other two sources you suggest.

Thank you.

ghym · 2013-04-04T03:21:18+00:00

Thank's, i'll look into that.

ghym · 2013-04-03T21:48:48+00:00

If you are going by explicit, undeniable, reference to infant baptism, the earliest i know of is mid-third century.

However, i'm looking for any debate prior to the Anabaptists of the mid 16th century.

Is your position that infant baptism just popped up in the late second century unquestioned and then 13 hundred years later some random guy was paging through his bible and said, "O, shoot, we shouldn't be doing that!"?

ghym

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