In less than a year, I have been on Catholic Answers debating Catholic socialism, Pints w/Aquinas and Crisis debating the 2020 US election, Fr. Leo Patalinghug’s podcast discussing his use of Twitter and antiracism, and dozens of hours on other podcasts on related topics. 1/2
I have no one blocked or muted (though I’m not against it in principle, with periodic jubilees) and have agreed to debate other right wing Catholics like Tim Gordon and AltPatrick who forfeited and blocked me. Now, who is the snowflake incapable of rational dialogue here? 2/2
PS: This excludes my published writing and public and private correspondence with my critics. I don’t need that extra part to show how absolutely bankrupt the conservative whining about cancel culture and a need for genuine debate is. I’m right here, and there are many of us.
Barron's latest essay on Word on Fire's rejection of liberal "beige Catholicism" and trad "self-devouring Catholicism" is an overview of his primary critics and lays out what he considers his evangelical approach to be which he asserts as representative of the universal Church.
It is essentially a both sides stance, centering Word on Fire and, by implication, the Roman Catholic presentation of the Gospel as perfectly consistent across Barron's life and thought. The libs will be evangelized and the trads will be invited, not condemned.
The tone is self congratulatory and, interestingly, cites major sources of credibility but names no allies; it credits no one but Barron's books and essays except to say that his work speaks in the voice of Vatican II, the recent popes, and the Catechism of 92.
When I first decided to try and start to begin reforming my life over eight years ago, I quit drinking for a year and adopted a "ministry of presence" practice of being at home and not working and gigging out of the home all the time. If I went fishing, I took the boys and so on.
Those changes were huge for me, but they made little practical difference to most around me. If anything, it made my presence a nuisance or even appear more detached, but I started there nonetheless.
As time has passed, the focus has been to move from mere objective presence to subjective presence and quality time, as opposed to quantitative time, at home and together. This has been a slow series of starts and stops, but seems to finally have habituated itself into a life.
For the very first time ever, our family had a professional photography session with @lindseying. It was truly an amazing experience and I haven’t even seen a single photo yet—I cannot imagine how much better it can still get!
Getting a simple family photo together is usually a headache and only functions through a series of threats and bribes and lots of luck. This one was totally different.
Everyone did great and the kids all enjoyed it, especially Sofia who befriended Lindsay and talked about her constantly afterwards. I cannot wait to share some of the results later but want to thanks Lindsay for her wonderful work today.
The rhetorical use of the informal fallacies of logic online is mostly abuse of what they mean and how they ought to be employed. Of these abuses, none get more badly thrown about than the “ad hominem” fallacies (yes, there are two, not one).
First some provisos: I’m not a logician and am not going to try and offer any *formal* insight into logic. There is reasonable variety of opinion and expression and I welcome all corrections and rebuttals—I will be harsh, though, if they are psychological and not logical replies.
Before we can understand the abuses of the ad hominem fallacies, we need to know what an informal logical fallacy is and, then, what the ad hominem logical fallacies are. Only then can we see how they might be misused or misappropiated.
The President of the United States is in sole possession of the largest and loudest media platform in the world, but it is not @Twitter.
His office can call a press conference or release a memorandum and every journalistic outlet in the world must cover it.
Despite the fact that Trump has the biggest platform in world politics, he is obviously scared and reluctant to use it because it comes with moral responsibility and rational scrutiny which he is incapable of bearing.
I just received this beautiful DM which I am sharing in pictured and threaded form with permission:
"Thanks for waking me up from this maga/far-right cult. i feel sick inside and overwhelmed with contradictory thoughts but i can tell when my worldview is flawed.
the constant exposure to the worst of the left on the internet created a distorted reality and i didn't look at the bigger picture. why am I defending trump while thinking the Pope is my mortal enemy.