User contributions for Root

5 March 2023

• 21:3421:34, 5 March 2023 diff hist +5‎ Main Page ‎No edit summary Tags: Manual revert Reverted
• 21:2921:29, 5 March 2023 diff hist +4,245‎ N Female priesthood ‎ Created page with "Female priesthood, as currently conceived in mainline monotheistic religions, is a cultural and historical aberration. There is a fascinating article in Wikipedia on [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordination_of_women ordination of women] which, if the reader is patient and thorough in reading and "drilling down" to source articles, clearly demonstrates the following points of interest to this issue: : Not every instance of ordained priesthood covered in the article is ac..." current
• 21:2821:28, 5 March 2023 diff hist +3,660‎ N Gender Equality ‎ Created page with "The idea behind gender equality in the post-modern era is that all genders are equal in all respects. What does "equal" mean, you ask? Given the evident differences among genders (in pre-post-modern times, one would have said "between genders") the term "equal" is clearly problematic. Are apples and oranges equal? Yet gender equality is a prerequisite concept for equal justice under the law in the eyes of progressives. In practice, this leads to many distortions...." current
• 21:2621:26, 5 March 2023 diff hist +2,465‎ N Gender ‎ Created page with "More than any other term in the English language, the term "gender" is notoriously difficult to define. Once upon a time, the term "gender" was a kind of generic term applied to the classification of male vs. female. In many languages, however, gender came to be applied to inanimate objects with no discernible connection with sexual function or orientation. As if this were not confusing enough, a consensus built within polite society to agree to label a man "female," o..." current
• 21:2321:23, 5 March 2023 diff hist +1,338‎ N Freedom ‎ Created page with "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, the term "freedom" referred to a capacity to pursue the good without interference from tyrants. Nowadays, paleos refer to this as "freedom for" to distinguish it from "freedom from." What's confusing about all of this is the use of the term "good." Like the term realist, the term good has a classical, a modern and a post-modern definition. The impact of this is to give the term "freedom" three definitions. We h..." current
• 21:1921:19, 5 March 2023 diff hist +1,000‎ N Free Thinker ‎ Created page with "The term free thinker is an artifact of modern thought, and is prototypically defined (at least in precursor form) by the thought of Rene Descartes, who believed that everything should be questioned, even belief in God, and should only be accepted on the basis of logic and reason. Descartes, rather conveniently, was able to invent all sorts of reasons to justify his Christianity. Others, of a more skeptical bent, who followed him, such as Voltaire and Nietzsche, found su..." current
• 21:0521:05, 5 March 2023 diff hist +4,245‎ N Female Priesthood ‎ Created page with "Female priesthood, as currently conceived in mainline monotheistic religions, is a cultural and historical aberration. There is a fascinating article in Wikipedia on [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordination_of_women ordination of women] which, if the reader is patient and thorough in reading and "drilling down" to source articles, clearly demonstrates the following points of interest to this issue: : Not every instance of ordained priesthood covered in the article is ac..." current
• 21:0321:03, 5 March 2023 diff hist +493‎ N Father ‎ Created page with "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, the term "father" meant something. Or so the story goes. Few people, today, are sure what that meaning may have been. There is a rumor that an endangered species of humans, called Christians, have a concept of "father" that is connected in some mysterious way with another concept they call "God." When the curator of the World Museum of Natural History was queried as to what this might be, however, its response was "I dunno. Yo..." current
• 21:0221:02, 5 March 2023 diff hist +2,622‎ N Family ‎ Created page with "The post-modern world has determined that the classical definition of what constitutes a "family" (comprising a father, mother and one or more offspring - with an "extended family" covering more than two generations) is hopelessly out of date and utterly unworkable. It isn't simply that, in an age of a declining institution of marriage, less than half of "families" satisfy that definition, the whole idea that a father and mother have any kind of special rela..." current
• 21:0121:01, 5 March 2023 diff hist +1,100‎ N Entitlement ‎ Created page with "Entitlement can refer to a legal code (or clause), a social contract or a legally or socially sanctioned expectation. It can also refer to a narcissistic frame of mind aided and abetted by a culture, that indeed largely defines a culture. It can refer to something as trivial as a gratuity "earned" by a faithful patron of the corner pizza parlor, as large as a retirement pension or as comprehensive and ephemeral as "happiness" or even "eternal salvation." The late note..." current
• 20:5720:57, 5 March 2023 diff hist +4,728‎ N Elites ‎ Created page with "Every society is stratified in some manner. The simplest definition of elites is the people who occupy the highest stratum, and who have the greatest and deepest influence on the shape of society and of events. Of course, that's a fairly bookish definition, and it is probably of no help in identifying who the world's elites, in fact, are. If we think in terms of movie scenes, if we assume the dominance of Western nations and if we assume that "money talks", we can per..." current
• 20:5620:56, 5 March 2023 diff hist +447‎ N Economic Stimulus Package ‎ Created page with "In the words of the early 21st century American President, Barack Obama, an economic stimulus package is a spending package. It follows from this (and the law of verbal association) that any spending package qualifies as an economic stimulus package. Clearly, any spending package induces some economic stimulus. Since it would be undemocratic to consider the ratio of stimulus to spending to be a matter of any importance, we will not do so here." current
• 20:5420:54, 5 March 2023 diff hist +926‎ N Doublespeak ‎ Created page with "(For a detailed historical analysis of the term, see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublespeak ''Wikipedia's'' article on Doublespeak].) Doublespeak is a term used to label any politically-motivated abuse of language. Unfortunately, "abuse of language" is often not recognized when it exists and often imagined when it doesn't. This wiki is dedicated, in large measure, to exposing and lampooning such semantic chicanery. While early use of doublespeak could reasonably b..." current
• 20:5120:51, 5 March 2023 diff hist +1,533‎ N Dog Whistle ‎ Created page with "According to ''Wikipedia'', [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog-whistle_politics Dog-whistle politics] is "political messaging employing coded language that appears to mean one thing to the population of the general public at large while also simultaneously having an additional, different, or more specific resonance for a targeted subgroup." This is, of course, a perfectly legitimate definition, at least on its face. The analogy, of course, is to the original dog whistl..." current
• 20:5020:50, 5 March 2023 diff hist +1,537‎ N Deplorables ‎ Created page with "The official list of categories of individuals subject to censure and/or "cancellation" (last updated on December 7, 2019, the 78th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, a more direct historical attempt at cancellation). (See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call-out_culture Call-out culture], Wikipedia's historical review of the current terminology for censure and "cancellation".) Viz... : Racist : Bigot : Homophobe : Misogynist : Transphobe [https://en.wikipedia..." current
• 20:4920:49, 5 March 2023 diff hist +1,425‎ N Demisexual ‎ Created page with "I haven't been able to find a definition of "demisexual" that makes logical sense. The Merriam-Webster dictionary gives a noun definition and an adjective definition. Neither definition is implicit in the component terms "demi" and "sexual" combined. It's as if the people who introduced the term could not find an appropriate component to clarify a distinct type of sexuality. Let's take a look at the details. Here's the noun definition: "a person who feels sexual att..." current
• 20:4520:45, 5 March 2023 diff hist +1,329‎ N Deconstruction ‎ Created page with "Deconstruction referred initially to a modern effort of philosopher Jacques Derrida to dig beneath the paradoxes that often arise in analyzing reality according to such traditional polar opposite concepts as (1) nominalism vs. realism or (2) discrete vs. continuous reality (for an interesting discussion of the current debate among theoretical physicists concerning the nature of ultimate reality, see [http://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/journal/v307/n6/full/scientifi..." current
• 20:4420:44, 5 March 2023 diff hist +1,513‎ N Crunchy Cons ‎ Created page with "Short for "crunchy" conservative (not how some cannibals regard convicts), the term refers to a new wave of conservatism that is not doctrinaire, can carry on a coherent conversation with just about anyone (of whatever political stripe) who can also carry on a coherent conversation, can tolerate the lives of people whose moral compass differs from their own but who recognize the grave dangers of totalitarianism of any political stripe and the moral and political blindnes..." current
• 20:4220:42, 5 March 2023 diff hist +575‎ N Corruption ‎ Created page with "I have tried to argue here (i.e., on this Wiki) that the corruption of language is a growing problem in our post-modern society. Obviously, there are other forms of corruption. Indeed, one can make the case that the body politic is riddled with disease, and the growing incidence of that disease bespeaks of an Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome in the face of diseases in the political, social, governmental and economic realms. Even science, academia, the [https://en.w..." current
• 20:4020:40, 5 March 2023 diff hist +50‎ N Corporatocracy ‎ Created page with "Government by corporations or corporate interests." current