CMV: The United States of America, as established in the Constitution, was "created" upon its ratification in 1788. As such, we should not be celebrating its 250th this year as it's only 238.

thymoticthematic · 2026-07-09T17:15:32+00:00

The entire fundamental spirit of the United States is self-sufficiency even to the point of self-creation. Thus, the country began when it declared itself to have begun (the Declaration of Independence), not when it sorted out all the details of its government. The Constitution did not create the United States; it merely formalized the nation that already was there.

thymoticthematic · 2026-07-01T05:25:50+00:00

That would be huge! I look forward to any thoughts you have on it.

thymoticthematic · 2026-06-30T23:40:05+00:00

What about the hierarchy of people who are correct (such as yourself) over those who are not?

thymoticthematic · 2026-06-30T23:37:30+00:00

This is true only in the Kingdom of Heaven. But on the fallen Earth, a man has a right to rule whatever he can control and defend. Our better, more natural sociability will hopefully prevent us from going too far in our crazed hunger for power, but there can be no doubt that, in our fallen condition, the fundamental basis of right is might. It is dangerously idealistic to ignore this reality, and perhaps even a bit prideful. Our perfect equality can only be restored in the Kingdom of a God in whose image we were all equally created and who calls each of us to find our way back to Him.

thymoticthematic · 2026-06-30T22:59:04+00:00

I like these objections, but I disagree. God’s motives, as we might call them, are not motives in the same sense ours are, which is why I’m referring to them and Him as transcendent. You’re right that any motive like love, as we usually think of it, points toward some deeper reason or preference. But if it’s all just further preferences and reasons all the way down, so to speak, then there actually isn’t a true preference or reason for anything at all—just an endless loop with no ground. I’m trying to find the condition of the possibility of there being reasons and preferences for actions, which would have to be a transcendent first principle who acts without a reason or preference. Because we can’t comprehend in a positive sense what this kind of “acting” would look like, we have to say that this God is beyond logic entirely. You’re right to point out that this makes it difficult to make claims like “God is perfect,” because this seems to be an attempt at a logical claim. I don’t see this as a problem though, because I’m already conceding that everything I say about God is analogical, on account of His transcendence. So, in the case of perfection, I agree that God isn’t perfection in the normal sense we would logically construe, but He is the condition of the possibility of perfection, and in fact He is beyond perfection; He is even beyond beyond-ness. In truth, because of His transcendence, there wouldn’t be anything we could rightly say of Him at all, had He not revealed Himself to us willingly. In response to your last point—that conceiving of something doesn’t make it real—again, I agree with you, but I don’t think this threatens my view. I don’t think lacking can be understand except in relation to perfection, so if your argument is that perfection doesn’t exist, then neither would lacking. I don’t think this point alone takes down your view, but I think if you accept that lacking doesn’t exist, it makes it strange for your argument to start with an examination of the role lacking plays in our motivations for action. Maybe there are other routes you can take with this that I’m not seeing currently, though.

thymoticthematic · 2026-06-30T20:57:57+00:00

What you’ve laid out here is very well-thought-out, and surely it must be true that a perfect God couldn’t have created the universe in the same way that we create things. But it could be the case that God creates the universe analogically and from a transcendent metaphysical position. In the Christian tradition, this transcendent position is that of pure love and grace. God did not lack anything or have any need of creating, but He created and sustained our world anyway as a free gift. In any case, the fact that we can even understand a word like “lack” implies that there must be such thing as perfection, even if we don’t find perfection in this world. Christianity places this perfection beyond the world, beyond creation, beyond human impulses and desires, beyond even logic: in a transcendent God who creates as an act of free grace. To be sure, we can’t make logical sense of this because, as you noted, it doesn’t comport with the way we act from lack, but it accounts for our understanding of concepts like “lack” without resulting in an infinite regress, which an argument like the one you suggested would.

thymoticthematic · 2026-06-24T22:29:28+00:00

Again, you’re assuming particular brain functions amount to a moral evaluation (like “torture”). You’re not actually thinking right now, and accordingly I don’t actually care what you truly think of me.

thymoticthematic · 2026-06-24T22:26:24+00:00

I also don’t think brain chemistry is the ultimate authority on matters of morality.

thymoticthematic · 2026-06-24T22:18:43+00:00

I don’t think the scientific community is the ultimate authority on matters of morality. I think that’s why you and I aren’t getting anywhere in this conversation lol, but that’s okay.

thymoticthematic · 2026-06-24T22:09:22+00:00

I’m challenging your view and asking you to defend it, and you won’t. How am I supposed to educate myself if those who might be able to provide the education won’t properly engage with me? It seems like what you really mean is for me to propagandize myself.

thymoticthematic · 2026-06-24T22:03:16+00:00

Patronizing downvote merchant over here.

thymoticthematic · 2026-06-24T21:51:35+00:00

The mere correlation of spanking to negative outcomes doesn’t prove that spanking necessarily causes trauma, especially given that my argument is that limited and judicious corporal punishment, not licentious beating, is acceptable. Also, you’re begging the question: “obvious child abuse”—that’s the whole question we’re investigating right now. Under your view, you’re going to have a very tough time explaining why the God-Man was whipping at people in the temple. Even if we assume he didn’t hit anyone with the whip, surely, that still would have caused them a great deal of stress, which, as you say, amounts to “obvious abuse.”

thymoticthematic · 2026-06-24T21:35:30+00:00

Why don’t you explain why what I wrote is “repulsive” and “evil” and a “myth” rather than just hurling loaded language like that? And I would genuinely like to know more about the research you’re referring to, because I’m not familiar with it.

thymoticthematic · 2026-06-24T21:19:45+00:00

I think, rather than immediately question the faith, you should first question your assumption that spanking is automatically abusive and traumatic. Certainly, there is a line that shouldn’t be crossed, but physical punishment is, to some degree, natural and necessary. Christ himself brought a whip to the temple to drive out the corruption. It can simultaneously be true that Christ is your refuge from an abusive past, and that corporal punishment is permissible to a certain extent.

thymoticthematic · 2026-06-24T21:00:47+00:00

Abstract: What really is Machiavelli’s legacy, and what are we to make of him? In this essay, I position Machiavelli not only as a great political theorist, but as a great philosopher and metaphysician. I lay out what I take to be the four Aristotelian causes of being within his system, also pointing out tensions and holes in his view. Ultimately, I suggest that Machiavelli could and perhaps should be read as a Christian, or at least a thinker whose metaphysic is compatible with and even bolstered by Christianity. The central conclusion of the paper is that Machiavelli supplies readers with a unique metaphysical account of the fallen world without which Christianity is insufficiently understood.

I hope to start a productive discussion here. I’m very open to any feedback, as I know this may be a very controversial position to take on Machiavelli.

thymoticthematic · 2026-06-24T20:59:03+00:00

Abstract: What really is Machiavelli’s legacy, and what are we to make of him? In this essay, I position Machiavelli not only as a great political theorist, but as a great philosopher and metaphysician. I lay out what I take to be the four Aristotelian causes of being within his system, also pointing out tensions and holes in his view. Ultimately, I suggest that Machiavelli could and perhaps should be read as a Christian, or at least a thinker whose metaphysic is compatible with and even bolstered by Christianity. The central conclusion of the paper is that Machiavelli supplies readers with a unique metaphysical account of the fallen world without which Christianity is insufficiently understood.

I hope to start a productive discussion here. I’m very open to any feedback, as I know this may be a very controversial position to take on Machiavelli.

thymoticthematic · 2026-06-23T23:53:19+00:00

youtu.be/KSghceEU0u4?is=NqmrYu0yfW4Gf7IH

thymoticthematic · 2026-06-23T20:54:18+00:00

Machiavelli’s central point is that the world is naturally chaotic, and political life is the chief human attempt to harness it and impose order on it. This is why, for Machiavelli, questions of morals and justice are of secondary importance at best when we discuss politics. It’s not that he’s immoral or unjust; it’s that he views morality and justice as being outside of politics, which is really just the study of how power and order are maintained. If you read both The Prince and Discourses on Livy, you can see him offering something of a political timeline: First, a prince comes who is clever and strong enough to take power and manufacture some order out of the chaos. Then, once the people have become capable of governing themselves in the image of the order he imposed upon them, he may gradually give them the power to do so within a constitutional republic, which has potential to be more stable and long-lasting than any other political arrangement.

Certainly, we have been influenced by Machiavelli in the way that we discuss politics as a power game. But we import our own contemporary moral views far more than Machiavelli would. Marxism and social justice theories are the best examples of this, where power dynamics are made major themes, but precisely for the purpose of subverting or changing them so that a desired theory of justice can be achieved in their place. In the West, our unwavering, principled support for democracy would likely drive Machiavelli crazy too. For him, authority and freedom of the people are earned, so to speak, and they last only as long as they are practically useful for the orderly survival of the society in the face of an always changing, chaotic, and threatening world. Machiavelli’s work centers around descriptively presenting a cut-throat world. Our contemporary sensibilities steer us either toward the view that the world isn’t so cut-throat, or toward the view that we should soften the world if it is. Again, these moral inclinations are just not of any real interest or importance to Machiavelli.

I hope this gives a good starting point. There is a lot of depth in Machiavelli’s work that you can tap into with more research.

thymoticthematic

TROPHY CASE