democracy is a huge circlejerk

[Sevenless]

Also, sainthood ain't what it's cracked up to be

Abusus non tollit usum. You do not invalidate sainthood by finding people perhaps erroneously considered saints.

Doesn't that argument fall under the "No True Scotsman" fallacy?

[MadNomad]

everything depends on circumstances tbh something that is successful could fail somewhere else because of some reason
but yeah it seems like there's nothing to do about the bad things!

[Granger]

The "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" problem is not solvable. All ultimate power is in a sense unaccountable, by definition of what ultimate power is.

It is solvable, with something called technology.

For one we could weed out the psychopaths and sociopaths from all leadin roles, instead of continuing to run a system that is basically designed to select for exactly these personality defects.

For the other we could select the leaders by chance from the whole population instead of having an elite present us a preselected group (of their peers) to select from, so we get a representative sample of the population instead of more of the elite.

Finally we could apply what our rulers are current busy instilling on us: total surveilance with full transparency of all actions onto the leaders.

[jorb]

The "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" problem is not solvable. All ultimate power is in a sense unaccountable, by definition of what ultimate power is.

It is solvable, with something called technology.

The problem is one of self-reference, and no amount of techne will resolve that. For any methodology you may suggest we can again ask "Who watches the watcher?", and be left with the fundamental problem. This, incidentally, is one reason why good works are ultimately not salvific, why the Gnostic temptation is false, and why we find our redemption through Jesus Christ.

[jorb]

Why not, tho? We can agree that giving peace prize to the likes of Kissinger undermines Nobel Committee as a moral authority, why is Catholic Church any different? And it isn't just who they grant sainthood, either, it also has a lot of blood on it's hands.

I have not argued for the infallibility of the Chair of Peter, and nor would I. I have argued for the objective existance, as an ontological category, of sainthood. Men can certainly err in considering people saints.

And it's not like majority of saints were given sainthood for doing objectively good things - most of them have become saints for converting people to Christianity.

The vast majority of saints are martyrs, i.e., people who have suffered and been persecuted for their Christianity. Persecution of Christianity is the historical norm, whether in pagan Rome, the Mohammedan world, or Bolshevik Russia, (John 15:18-25).

The original Christian conversion of the Empire did not happen through the use of force, but was acheived rather in spite the severe use of force against it.

How is replacing native culture with foreign one, often at swordpoint, objectively good?

How can we at all speak of objective morality without Christ?

[Granger]

The "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" problem is not solvable. All ultimate power is in a sense unaccountable, by definition of what ultimate power is.

It is solvable, with something called technology.

The problem is one of self-reference, and no amount of techne will resolve that. For any methodology you may suggest we can again ask "Who watches the watcher?", and be left with the fundamental problem.

Just take a look at todays youth (busy streaming their lives out to everyone), the NSA (busy collecting all that data) and our politicians (busy with the salami cutting process of making the former mandatory). We would just need to open the NSA archives and apply what the politicians want onto everyone (which will happen to the majority anyway, sooner or later, so we could well apply it onto all).

Basically: no more secrets.

It may take some days to get used to the new norm (and drugstores would get rich for a short while from all the lube) while all are busy wanking to the hot neighbour (whatever gender) in the shower, but after that we would have the perfect panopticum - with the twist that there isn't a distinction beween watcher and watched as everyone would always be both, which would be the nearest possible place for mankind to reach god by the definition of 'all seeing'.

we find our redemption through Jesus Christ.

I see no point in wasting time or my intelligence on delusions about a made-up character designed as a plot device in a scheme to make people obedient without the need to have them constantly at gun- (sword-/spear-/...) point.

[xdragonlord18]

Consider these

• The "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" problem is not solvable. All ultimate power is in a sense unaccountable, by definition of what ultimate power is.
• Democracy maintains the illusion that distinctions between subjects and rulers has disappeared under it. The distinction has in fact only grown stronger.

I'm not sure why these would be points against Democracy but not also larger points against Monarchy. It literally makes both of those qualities of absolute power worse. Not to mention the fact that one of the PRIMARY goals of democracy is to make it so no one person has ultimate power.

• The "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" problem is not solvable and is made worse by having a Monarchy government. All ultimate power is in a sense unaccountable, by definition of what ultimate power is. Making it easier to wield ultimate power makes the system less accountable to its citizens.
• Monarchy enforces the illusion that there is a distinction between subject and ruler.

[2d0x]

The vast majority of saints are martyrs, i.e., people who have suffered and been persecuted for their Christianity. Persecution of Christianity is the historical norm, whether in pagan Rome, the Mohammedan world, or Bolshevik Russia, (John 15:18-25).

But the Bolsheviks (and later the communists during WW2) also suffered and were persecuted for their faith, persistence, and conviction. So they are saints too?

[Potjeh]

The vast majority of saints are martyrs, i.e., people who have suffered and been persecuted for their Christianity. Persecution of Christianity is the historical norm, whether in pagan Rome, the Mohammedan world, or Bolshevik Russia, (John 15:18-25).

The original Christian conversion of the Empire did not happen through the use of force, but was acheived rather in spite the severe use of force against it.

That's the exception rather than the norm. What about Northern Crusades, or Cathar Crusade? And a Christian in the "Mohammedan" world was a lot better off than a Muslim in the Christian world. And even the Empire wasn't Christianized voluntarily for the most part, Constantine imposed it because he recognized it as a much better tool for control than the old religions.

How can we at all speak of objective morality without Christ?

Sense of justice is an innate instinct, you don't need any religion for it. Heck, there's experiments showing that capuchin monkeys have a notion of justice. Are they Christian?

[2d0x]

How can we at all speak of objective morality without Christ?

Sense of justice is an innate instinct, you don't need any religion for it. Heck, there's experiments showing that capuchin monkeys have a notion of justice. Are they Christian?

Yeah, the absence of lies on the list of the mortal sins of Christianity calls into question the whole concept. And the eternal question: if there is no god, then whose slaves are we? :\