We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would still be an evil. All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility. (John Stuart Mill)*
I was raised Catholic and maintained that faith until age 38, that is, 1988. You may think me a fool for holding on that long, but they got me when I was a kid. As the old priest said, give him to me as a child, I will have him for life. My first twelve years of education were Catholic.
We were taught about papal infallibility, that is, when the Pope speaks on matters of faith and morals, he is guided by the Holy Spirit, therefore cannot be wrong. He is said to be speaking ex cathedra.**
I am not a Catholic now, and don’t so much disbelieve in papal infallibility as I simply don’t care about such matters. That is for believers to wrestle over. I don’t believe in the Holy Spirit, and cannot get over the idea that Jesus supposedly died at age 33. There’s that number again.
However, the concept of infallibility troubles me. Not only do I not believe the pope to be infallible, but I also think that infallibility as a concept is impossible to achieve and useless to think about. None of us have it, not even bloggers.
I note that the Mormon Church has a similar concept, that when its councils and leaders are unanimous in opinion, the opinion is infallible and by definition guided by the Holy Spirit. It’s just a different version of the Catholic concept except that they claim in their literature that only one man to ever walk the earth was infallible: Jesus. Hard to argue against that.
Others who claim to be infallible are the real reason I am writing this. They are
- The people behind the AIDS scare/pandemic.
- The people behind the Covid 19 scare/pandemic.
- The people behind the Climate Change movement.
Those of us who refuse to yield to the incessant propaganda behind all of these movements are called “deniers.” What does that mean? It is another way of saying what the Catholic Church said to Galileo, that he was “…vehemently suspect of heresy” for advancing theories of heliocentrism. The Catholic Church in 1633 indeed owned the truth, and Galileo was placed under house arrest until his death in 1642.
In matters of HIV/AIDS, Sars-Cov-2/Covid and climate change, those sponsoring these fraudulent propaganda movements do not have a phrase like “ex cathedra” to use to claim infallibility. S0 they use “consensus’, in a sense, a form of group think. As the old saying goes, if everyone thinks alike, no one is thinking (rough quote attributed to George S. Patton).
Climate alarmists and leaders like John Kerry and Barack Obama refer to the 97% consensus among them. There is no such consensus, as it has been long debunked, but there is something else at work there and with HIV/AIDS and Covid: People who speak up or out are severely punished. It is a form of tyranny. In terms of scientists and academics, opinions of an elite leadership are enforced by removal of people from their positions, loss of grants and other income, and cancellation.
For regular people, the purpose of supposed scientific consensus is to prevent them from thinking.
Noam Chomsky once made the point that in the situation above (he was talking about something else), that people cannot live in a constant state of tension, and so have to remedy it somehow. When forced to believe things that are not true in the face of extortion and exclusion, the mind finds a happy place. It believes. It is so much easier to live with false beliefs than to be opposed by a large group and live as an outsider.
So while there is no climate crisis, and while HIV has never been isolated or proved to cause AIDS, and while SARS-CoV-2 has never been isolated or shown to cause illness of any kind, if you are a scientist or an academic, it is best just to shut up about it. Eventually, the mind will calm the brain down, and you will live like almost everyone else, in a state of cognitive dissonance.
That is the current state of human affairs. Has it always been this way? I suspect so.
______________________
*ht Judith Curry. I clipped this quote from page 20 of her book, Climate Uncertainty: Rethinking Our Response.
** Fortunately, “faith and morals” does not extend to climate change, and on that matter, the pope is just another man with an asshole and opinion.
Piece of Mindful 
The following is a true story. Only the surnames have been changed to protect the guilty.
Well, I used to go to church regularly, even helped out at the kitchen and stuff. Then I read started reading Miles Mathis/Piece of Mindful/Vexman’s thoughts/etc.
One day I had an accident falling off my Vespa, leaving me with a damaged leg, bruised elbow, etc. Anyways I went to church soon after and one of the wardens there asked ‘what’s happened to you?’ or words to that effect, so I told him. Then I saw him later with a layman deep in conversation. Because the church is a charismatic one, the layman would get up during the service and say something like, ‘I can feel there’s somebody here who’s…’ and invite whosoever up to the front. That day he listed all of the ailments I had told the warden, Ben Collins, in the exact same order.
I looked around, I noticed the treasurer had a nose like John Lennon, the warden Collins was looking at me as if to say ‘what are you waiting for?’, and remembered his children were called, Jacob, Miriam, and Sarah. I looked behind me and there was another warden, Dan Davies, whose sons were Isaac and Joshua. Davies’ wife was called Rebecca. All of the people on the Kirk Session had similar if not the same Old Testament names, only one of whom didn’t have a hooked nose, and he was an ex-rugby player with a broken schnoz. I walked out and have never returned there.
LikeLike
Isn’t Christianity basically Judiasm for Gentiles? Although we have learned that many people that claim to be Jewish, yet actually are not the Hebrews of the bible or even God’s chosen. So who and what are these people? Are they Edomites, are they the Synagog of Satan, Talmudic Zionists? When we look behind the scenes we can see they are in every institution, academic, corporate, banking, churches. I belonged to a group for awhile called the Disciples of Christ, most all Jews with the typical last names. Not many Smiths or Obriens etc. They get big funding, are tax exempt and have large investments. It’s a very substantial and interesting level of networking and control. Seems their ancestors may have been in control of the USA from the beginning. The USA is a bankrupt nation and we the citizens are deemed collateral slaves by those we the people types. Getting more clarity on what we are participating in and who is in control, which itself isn’t a problem, we need leaders and or managers so to say, yet they are not doing a good job and things have gotten so bad that these people Behind The Scenes are basicially exposing themselves as incompetent rulers.
LikeLike
Judaism rejects Old Testament, Catholic Bible.
“Bible” of Judaism is Talmud.
Judaism is younger than Christanity – Catholicism, Mosaism of Old Testament.
LikeLike
a piece from my notebooks:
“why does the state allow smoking when it seems to be such a killer?”
“It is our right in a democracy”
“Oh i see, and why must we wear seatbelts and helmets?”
“Because it is so dangerous not to!”
“Humm…now i understand…”
Can you call something “cognitive dissonance”, really, when the ideas were not those persons ideas to begin with?
Perhaps Mark, you give people too much credit. These ideas that people hold have never once…NOT ONCE..been run over in their mind and consdiered and so it seems to me that they are not even “ideas” residing in the persons mind: just literally “knee jerk reaction” a purely physical response. The bell that makes Pavolovs dog drool.
A real idea is a beautiful thing. Sharing them even more lovely…..
LikeLike
Everything is scalable. There is no all or none. True, many people are just blindly going along. I cannot say what percentage, but I would guess most. But there are those like us, having a raised eyebrow now and then, and then maybe a breakthrough. But they have kids to support, and cannot just walk away. And yet, they do not belong. These are the ones Chomsky spoke of, living in cognitive dissonance. For me, I became self employed at age 36, never had to worry about a resume’. It was not too long after I began to formulate my own thoughts. Still working on it.,
LikeLike
Godfly – I would quibble with your example a bit, since smoking has been in a sense cognitively “banned,” whether it’s technically legal or not, in the US..
I agree there’s a dissonance between all the manifestly unhealthy things that are promoted or just unremarked on, while overtly the state makes a great show of “safety uber alles.” But cigarettes, at least, are a glowing example of their very very sincere concern for our health and well-being..!
Which does make one wonder. I have actually by coincidence been reading a bit about cancer and tobacco lately, and the statistics I come across never really break it down clearly. If we accept their data, then yes, among lung cancer deaths, smokers are heavily represented. But what is the overall mortality rate of smokers vs non-? And controlling for socioeconomic factors as well? (Also, are doctors biased to diagnose lung cancer in smokers, because they “know” smoking causes cancer?)
My pet theory is that cigarettes were phased out for broader social engineering purposes – their effect on culture and society – rather than the ostensible health reasons. The ones made from pure natural tobacco may not even be all that harmful to most people, while the ill effects are primarily due to cheap fillers and chemical additives – and even then, only in a small minority, after many years. Purely speculating of course.
LikeLike
Correction – I can’t agree about dissonance, because you were saying there isn’t any even possible.. I don’t want to be accused of not reading closely again :’)
LikeLike
i did not mean to imply there was not any cognitive dissonance …that it is completely a black and white issue..
….That both you and Mark read my tone and my words in the same way means i should question if my words and tone are not misrepresenting how i think….
…On the othe hand, is it not obvious that there must be , between no cognitive dissonance and total cognitive dissonance…something besides?
concerning my little dialogue: do you know that it is not about health and saftey? It is actually about the “cognitive dissonance” concerning the role of the State, ones “ideas” about freedom laws and self responsibility… we all know why the state has allowed smoking and drinking to continue…becasue it is economically a goldmine…in short, i believe there is ALOT to consider in my five line dialogue…
LikeLike
I realized you weren’t being absolute, just sort of meditating on or doubting the conventional wisdom about cognitive dissonance. And yes, my comment was a bit of a digression into my own topic.
They really did drastically reduce the market for tobacco though, at least in the US. My guess is that going into it, they made a deal with the industry, or some sort of arrangement – look, we want to do this, we need your cooperation, so we’ll give you a few decades to transition your operations to the global market. And you’ll still sell some here, but nothing like in the good old days.. From what I’ve read so far, it looks like Philip Morris especially had the inside track, and was working from early on to make its brands global names. Just a theory.
LikeLike
a correct theory….american cigerattes in japan…phillip morris brands especially are cheaper and more popular…in other asian countries also…
i know this from first hand experience…and i am still a (light) smoker…..
LikeLike
Seriously, what is the draw?
“Real” tobacco, back in the day, claimed some debatable positive affect, no? As noted above, American cigarettes are laced (purposely) with known toxins… why do people smoke them? The cost, directly and indirectly, just incredible – I obviously am missing something here.
LikeLike
“hey…. you talkin to me?
” Are you wondering in general or about me in particular?
To answer for myself the “draw” is…i think..hummm i think it is called “addiction” or another word “weakness” I said i am a light smoker now…you decide. I smoke a pack every three days
used to smoke “real” tobacco (the roll your own i assume you mean) when i lived in europe mexico and even china but here in japan it is hard to come by even in bigger cities
and last but very much not least, take a guess how low they have kept cigerattes in japan, the place that today is still almost like 1950s usa where many many men smoked…as low as $350 a pack…it was $2 when i arrived here in 2014…interesting trivia no?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, interesting.. I wonder how much of these differences between countries are organic, and how much they’re planned to have different effect.. or, as “lab experiments.”
DSKLAUSER – I personally don’t know whether major brands are intentionally laced with carcinogens. If they are, it would go to the idea of some sort of fair play to any eugenicist plans afoot – “hey, we warned you! It was your foolish choice!”
At least in countries hit hard with anti-smoking propaganda. Who knows, maybe they leave out the intentional carcinogens in Japan and other places?
According to “the science,” even the earliest mass market cigarettes are carcinogenic, simply due to combustion byproducts of tobacco leaf and paper. Lung cancer peaks and declines allegedly track (by a lag of some years) with the overall popularity of smoking.
It’s just a mystery to me, when industrial food is so unhealthy, and medicine, and so much else, why they would actually act on any true health hazard. (And such a profitable one.) Trying to earn some credibility? Just couldn’t brush it under the rug? I’m open to ideas.
LikeLike
Every website will tell you that honey is dangerous for children under two, but my children begin eating it by 6 months….. EVERY EVERY EVERY WEBSITE. And yet, it is a lie that began …can you guess?…only in the 1970s!! Read any study before that and you will see that honey is advised over all artifical sweeterners….knowing this and 100 other examples just like it, how can we not impute the worst motives to those who are controlling the narratives?
Is it then really a mystery? Isnt it just another way to psyche us out:
“see we care for you!”
And one can think of other reasons they are pretending to care, but most important is to do what is, in a way, against our nature: assume the most evil motive.
with this in mind, what is a mystery to me is how anyone ANYONE can not want to take a stance against, not this or that government policy or person , but against the whole concept of government.Let that sink in for a moment please. A stand against the very concept of government!
Now i know the answer will be that anarchy, a stateless society is an impossibility and so why consider a social situation that is impossible…but the fact is that the only impossibility is a stateless society …….because without the state there would be no society.. as we use the term;
society would return to village life…until once again after a few generations, the state would arise again…but better it bounced back and forth, and there was abit of real danger again in the world then what we have now, this numbing dumbed down repulsive homogenization…..
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s true, it’s good PR and makes them look like white knights.. or disinterested technocrats going about regulating and keeping things “safe.” And as I said before, if somehow it didn’t fit their plans for the US, as a social influence, then they might as well get some street cred with Joe Q Public out of it..
LikeLike
This comment was in the spam basket. When I delete a comment, it goes to trash, not spam. Not sure what happened.
LikeLike
As an italian who never cared about religion I cringe thinking how important religion is or seems to be to Americans, never figured out why though.
Well, I know why actually as I know US history, I know about all european people from religious sects who fled their own countries to conquer the “far west” and I know about the “founding fathers”, but why is religion still so important for US people to this day I really don’t know.
Italian people are supposed to be among the most religious people around having the Vatican State within the territory, but it couldn’t be farther from the truth. I think Mark knows that, he loves my country and often spends his vacations here so he observes people’s behaviour.
Of course millions of italians claim they practice the catholic religion but it’s not true of course. What italians practice today (and by today I mean like since the beginning) is an edulcorated form of religion, the most convenient one that is, something that doesn’t prevent them from having extra marital affairs, sex with gender confused individuals (very requested here), and other fun stuff.
I was lucky, my parents were raised catholic but never forced me into religion as I was growing up, never took me to church, it was my decision as a child to join the church choir for a good few years and I was very affectionate to the priest who baptized me, Don Ennio, who was a wonderful human being and always had good words for me..but also had a couple of (adult) girlfriends haha. Well at least he wasn’t a pedo, which is good.
You have the so called “Bible belt” in the US, states where I honestly wouldn’t set foot for a minute and it never fails to amaze me how people who claim to be living in “the land of the free” are happy to be slaves to whatever faith and have their lives controlled by that 24/7.
Fun fact: our Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni claims to be a devout catholic but she’s not married to the father of her child and lives with him in sin…religion is a joke here 😄😄
LikeLiked by 1 person
There is indeed a lot of religious fanaticism in our land, well studied by William James, who gave a series of lectures at Edinburgh in 1901 that were published as a book, The Varieties of Religious Experience. His conclusion, to these people who undergo transformation, the experience is quite real and satisfying, and their lives become more fulfilling and meaningful.
There’s another type of experience that I have witnessed, just one man as an example, who was (and is) wild-eyed and dishonest but who loves to preach to others about his virtue. I witnessed him steal maybe over $100,000 from his clients, people who depended on his expertise and were not skeptical enough. After that theft I thought “Hmmm, now I bet he is going to go and pray about it.” His religious conversion, insisted upon by his wife, blinded him to himself, blackened his mirror. Not uncommon for religious furor to be just another expression of debauchery.
Regarding religious cults coming to America to escape religious persecution, I suggest that might be but a cover story. In England, for example, primogeniture meant that the oldest male inherited a family fortune intact, preventing it from dissipating among scores of decedents. The second male in line often became a military officer, and the third, a minister.
What about the rest? Many were dispatched to the new colonies to take title to land set up governments. Think Mayflower and Jamestown. In that manner, vast tracts of land (all of Pennsylvania for example) came under ownership and control of the king and those in the Peerage. Puritans were said to have been persecuted and to have fled, but were as hearty. and robust in lifestyle as any, and their ranks were full of people who later became governors and even presidents. These “fleeing” souls came here to extend the empire and the power of the king. Religion had nothing to do with it. The Anglican faith is as distant from religious zealotry as any, more like Scientology.
Quakers … I kind of admire them.
LikeLike
Anna – I agree with Mr Mathis about religion and the church – whatever my personal inclinations, I certainly appreciate that they’re somewhat of a counterbalance to the State vs the atomized individual.
Of course they’ve probably been infiltrated and subverted via the seminaries and other means, and are co-opted or greatly weakened, but still.. they represent some tradition and opposition to the bizarre ideas of futurists and technocrats.
I can speak from experience, as someone who works (such as it is) in the event industry, and had almost nothing during covid, one of the first events I did when things started up again, was at a Baptist IIRC church here in the Bible Belt… Masks “optional,” and mostly not seen on anyone.
LikeLike
Yeah but the mask thing doesn’t make those people better than others, at least for me TIMR.
In Italy too most non vaccinated people are also “strict” catholics who never wanted to wear a mask, consider the current Pope an imposter and the Antichrist, and they also want monarchy back and religion based laws against abortion and even divorce.
In a word: they’re total idiots.
Looks like being against this vaccine isn’t proof of being smart also.
@ Mark
The story you told about the guy stealing money reminds me of mafia people. I think you know that they’re the most religious folks and between murders they go to Mass, pray a lot and always donate large sums of money to their local church for various activities. In Sicily they’re very devoted to the Virgin Mary. So funny 😄
About the religious cover up, yeah never really thought about it but sounds totally feasable.
LikeLike
Anna – Interesting topic, not sure where to begin and how to be brief (typing on a phone)..
I guess I could say.. whether you or I, raised in modern liberal societies, and both probably inclined to be intellectually curious, would enjoy living in a traditionalist society, or not.. there is at least proof of concept. For most regular people, most of the time, it provides a lot that people need, and can reproduce itself.. ie, support children and family. Not to gloss over horrendous downsides, but it is functional.
Whereas, the modern West is in tatters, largely because of liberalizing advances as you cite, and the push to overturn all retrograde institutions.. where does one draw the line? Why stop at some arbitrary point? Maybe you side with the globalist technocrats and just don’t realize it..!
I don’t have any easy answer to it but I think the “Volk” instincts are far from idiotic, and an important check on the designs of the “utopian” schemers, whether malevolent or true believers.. The “Volk” I object to are the ones who get sucked along by the propaganda, dreaming that we can build a rational utopia if we just listen to the experts, science hard enough, and force the deplorables to, idk, sell gay cakes and stuff..
LikeLike
“I guess I could say.. whether you or I, raised in modern liberal societies, and both probably inclined to be intellectually curious, would enjoy living in a traditionalist society, or not…”
I totally wouldn’t.
I know it can be a limit of mine, but I’m happy to have it. I don’t even believe in love between two too different cultures, mind you. I have some friends’ examples that confirm my point of view.
Re. the mafia thing, yeah what you see in american movies is what it probably looks like in the US, but not here. Italian mafia is much more discreet and blended with the rest of society. When you meet someone for the first time in my country you’re not able to tell whether they work for mafia or not, not by their clothes or the way they act. Only if you know them well you know the rest, especially in small towns or villages.
Also, mafia here is a sort of Freemasonry, they have secret rituals and lodges where they meet and make political decisions. And they work for secret services also.
There’s books talking about that.
LikeLike
It sort of sounds like Italian mafia is just freemasonry/ secret society, which maybe has elements involved in underworld and crime, but also respectable areas.. and then they played the gangster part up as a psyop when Italians came to the US – or possibly “elite families” under cover of being Italians, that wing of the global elites.. they decided to turn it into a colorful, fanciful Hollywood mythology.. or something like that, haha
LikeLike
And about the mafia.. yeah, funny about them being very religious. Sounds about right, somehow. I only know that world from gangster shows and movies though, so obviously I know nothing.. if I had to guess, I would say that virtually ALL the high profile names and murders are theater.. a big acting troupe, via the “news,” which is then driven home by Scorcese and Coppola and the rest.. and that maybe it does really go on to some degree at a low level, but mostly it’s probably threats and intimidation, or just “business” really, but a bit rougher because of the trade and players involved. But I really have no idea how that world works.
LikeLike
I watched Scorcese’s The Irishman recently.. similar to his others, but a bit more low key as it focuses on aging and dying, in keeping with Scorcese and his actors all being older now. Not only does it sell a bunch of fiction about “real” mobsters (based on a true story and all), but it touches on a number of big historical fictions of the recent past. Kennedy assassination, Bay of Pigs, etc.
These big directors and actors are committed artists, it seems, but they don’t have a problem hanging their themes on historical fictions.. I guess it can work, novels are admitted fiction after all. You can still say something “real” or true within fiction. And to people who take the backdrop as history, it must lend more weight and gravitas to the artistic themes.. The deal with the devil they make, is that in order to make their art, they have to include all the propaganda and drive home the false history as real. Unless they completely share in the importance of the propaganda, as members of that class, and support it entirely, then I guess they experience no conflict or compromise.
LikeLike
“It is another way of saying what the Catholic Church said to Galileo, that he was “…vehemently suspect of heresy” for advancing theories of heliocentrism.”
If it is true then why catholic canon Mikolaj Kopernik (Nikolaus Kopernikus ) wasn’t declared a heretic by a Pope for his heliocentrism “De revolutionibus orbium coelestium libri VI” / “Six Books Concerning the Revolutions of the Heavenly Orbs”? It doesn’t add up.
LikeLike
Yeah.. my “historical knowledge” is a bit foggy and muddled, but wasn’t Copernicus a century or so earlier than Galileo? And yet G is the one that got busted, and used in all the stories, promoting the idea that the Church was oppressive and closed-minded, while Science was open and enquiring.. And yet we do hear about the Copernican revolution. I really need to review the whole timeline and story of all that.
LikeLike
There has been no shortage of discussion on these topics on this blog over the years, but still I like to fall back on Galileo as a demonstration of a simple idea, that power owns truth. Maybe more complicated in his case, and with Copernicus.
LikeLike
Protestantism and Calvinism, John Calvin as well as Martin Luther had condemned Copernicus’s Theory of Heliocentrism.
LikeLike
We are indebted to the Church for the Copernican revolution in science.
Copernicus delivered lectures in Rome by command of Pope Leo X, held a professional chair and published his treatise on heliocentrism by command of (and by the aid of) Pope Paul III. His work went forward to the world, bearing the sanction of the Holy See.
The works of Galileo were allowed to be published with the references to Scripture expunged.
(The information above was condensed by me from The Doctrine of Papal Infallibility Stated and Vindicated by Bishop John Walsh [1875]).
abp John Walsh (24 May 1830 – 30 July 1898) was the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Toronto, Canada
Interestingly, when the great scientist Johannes Kepler (a Protestant) wrote a book in 1596 to defend the Copernican theory and presented it to the Academical Senate of Tubingen, it was pronounced a “damnable heresy,” and he was forced to take out the references to Scripture.
https://introiboadaltaredei2.blogspot.com/2016/10/galileo-papacy-and-modern-science.html
According to theologian fr. prof. Gerard Van Noort STD:
It is beyond question that the whole case of Galileo no ex cathedra decision was ever handed down.
The pope was aware of the decree of the congregation, and approved it AS A DECREE OF THE CONGREGATION, even though (as was customary at the time) no explicit mention of papal approbation is found in the decree itself. But the pope himself in his capacity as pope did not hand down any decision. In the Galileo case, therefore, we have a decision which is by its very nature revocable and nothing more. As a matter of fact, both the more sensible theologians of the time and a fair number of scientists of the day understood the matter in exactly that light. (See Dogmatic Theology [1956], 2:309; Emphasis in original).
Conclusion: The Galileo decision of 1633 was not an infallible decision requiring Catholics to condemn heliocentrism as heresy or accept geocentrism as truth.
Msgr. Gerard Van Noort
https://introiboadaltaredei2.blogspot.com/2021/05/heliocentric-heresy.html
LikeLike