Tag Archives: Pro-Choice

The Tyranny of Sophistry

Abortion, Culture, Marxism, Science, , , , , ,

In his book Abuse of Language, Abuse of Power, Thomist philosopher Josef Pieper comments that the battle against sophistry is a perennial problem.  Satan’s primordial sophistry escaped the gates of Eden and has plagued mankind ever since.  Progress, especially when it is not matched by moral progress, only causes sophistry to grow.  Sophistication, Pieper says, usually entails greater degrees of sophistry.  What the sophist seeks to do is to shut down all pursuit of the truth by playing with words, usually by inventing catch-phrases that slide off a forked tongue and convey some half-truth that is cleverly dressed up as the whole truth.  It is most certainly an abuse of language; for the proper use of language is to convey ideas and tell the truth.  But sophistry uses language in order to manipulate people.

The Sophistry of Today

The problem of sophistry in our own age is particularly acute.  You might say that we are living under the tyranny of sophistry in which any objection to a sophist shibboleth is met by stupefied hostility.  “Pro-choice”: how could you not be in favor of a woman’s right to choose?  “Black lives matter”: so, you think Black lives don’t matter?  The objection is not with the half-truth, but with the half-falsehood that is dressed up by the slogan.  In other words, the objection is with the sophistry that manipulates language to hide what is really going on. 

In general, we should all be pro-choice, but in particular it totally depends on what the object of choice is.  If you are choosing to kill an innocent baby, then no, in fact we should not “Pro-choice”.  Of course, Black lives matter.  But what the honest person objects to is dressing up the Marxist aims of the further destruction of Black lives and society as a whole in this truth.  It is sophistry plain and simple.  And anyone who insists otherwise is a language tyrant.

Following the Science

There is a new slogan that is being peddled by the tyrant—“follow the science”.  Science is a great weapon in the hand of the sophisticated tyrant because it can be made to say anything you want it to say.  It is presented as somehow being about objective truth gathered by running controlled experiments in an unbiased setting.  The  method may be reliable, but the scientist himself is a fallen human being.  He is prone to biases, lapses in attention, ignorance, faulty design and even outright lying.  It does not help that his so-called peers who review his work also suffer from the same inherent problems.  It is also not immune to the “Cancel Culture” with many scientists handcuffed by a cultural confirmation bias.  All of this leads to what scientist Stuart Ritchie in his book Science Fictions: How Fraud, Bias, Negligence, and Hype Undermine the Search for Truth calls a “replication crisis” in modern science.  Experiments are run all the time.  But the true test is when an experiment is replicated.  Almost none of the so-called “science” has been replicated and very often is exposed as flawed when honest scientists attempt to do so.  Like Ritchie we should not be anti-science but instead to use it in a manner that discovers the truth without succumbing to the sophist’s tactic of inventing it.

As I said, science is a powerful tool in the arsenal of the sophisticated tyrant because it can be used to say whatever they want it to say.  Herein lies the half-falsehood found within “following the science”.  Science itself can never lead to certainty.  To assert otherwise is to turn science into a religion that must be governed by faith.  “Follow the science” is a credal statement.

Why is it that science can never lead to certainty?  In short, science, because it deals in material being, always deals with contingencies and therefore only leads to contingent truth.  The truth of what is being asserted always depends on certain conditions also being true.  The point is that when “Science” is presented as certain, without any discussion upon the conditions in which the thing also depends, it is a manipulation. 

Take, for example, the contention that “masks work”.  This is most certainly not an absolute.  What are the conditions under which they work?  To mandate mask wearing without any reference to the conditions under which they work, is not about safety but control.  If you want to keep people safe, then you will school them in the art of wearing the mask.  If you want to control them then any mask will do.  Likewise, the push for vaccination.  What are the conditions under which the vaccines “work”?  What are the conditions under which they don’t, or might even be harmful?  Are we to believe that a vaccine was developed at warp speed that covers every contingency?  To say they are “safe and effective” without observing a multitude of contingencies is not science but scientism.  To even mention those contingencies is sacrosanct and will likely get you censored. 

Science can say whatever I want it to say simply by playing with those contingencies.  I simply design my experiment so that it leads to a positive result.  Then I get peers to agree with the way it was run—never mind that these peers also have a vested interest in toeing the party line.  If it leads to a negative result anyway, I simply put it in the file cabinet.  Whenever you hear some scientific “fact” presented in some absolute manner, always seek the contingencies.  Who or what does this apply to?  When doesn’t it apply?  When someone tells you that it applies across the board, they are presenting something that has some degree of uncertainty as certain.  We may be willing to accept that degree of uncertainty and treat the proposition as true, but it is not anti-science to demand further uncertainty be removed.  But either way, certainty will never be achieved.

In classical Greece, the sophists threatened to take over society until the likes of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle stepped in.  They were unafraid to call sophistry what it was.  But that was not enough for them.  They also rescued the victims of sophistry by teaching them how to reason.  Perhaps in our own sophisticated age, we could do the same.

The Religion of the Antichrist

Abortion, Church, Church and State, Culture of Life, Defending the Faith, Devils, End Times, Marxism, Spiritual Warfare, , , , , , , , ,

When the wall separating east from west in Berlin fell, millions of people were freed from the shackles of Communism in Eastern Europe and Russia.  The man who was instrumental in this happening, St. John Paul II, saw it as part of his divine mandate to facilitate this monumental event.  But as a Catholic who had a great devotion to Our Lady of Fatima, he knew that was not the end of the story.  Russia had spread her errors practically unabated for 75 years; reaching even into our own country.  These errors were not Communism itself, but instead the ideology that underlies it—Marxism.  Marxism is alive and well and is poised to become a global religion through the likes of not just China’s hegemonic aspirations, but the World Economic Forum’s Great Reset, WHO’s universal healthcare plan (led by Marxist Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus), Black Lives Matter and a whole host of other organizations.

A Global Religion?

To call Marxism a global religion, may, at first glance, seem to be an exaggeration.  Of course, properly speaking, it is not a religion at all.  Religion is always ordered to God which means that there can be only one true global religion.  It is the one founded by God Himself in the Catholic Church.  But the Devil is always on the prowl to ape Christ including by forming his own global religion.  Marxism is the “religion” of choice and should properly be seen as the religion of the Antichrist.

That Marx himself was under demonic influence can hardly be disputed.  Several of his biographers, many of whom are sympathetic to his cause, have mentioned this.  Paul Kengor, in his new book The Devil and Karl Marx, does a thorough job of compiling the case for Marx’s diabolical connections.  Viewed in this way, it also helps to understand the beguiling effect that Marxism has on a lot of people because of its inherent power of mass Demonic Oppression.  The Fathers of the Second Vatican Council were aware of this as they included several schemas on “The Care of Souls with Regard to Christians Infected with Communism” in their preparatory documents.  Unfortunately, these schemas never saw the light of day and would have been a great aid in fighting an “invention so full of errors and delusions.”

The Great Imitation

Besides the global aspirations of Marxism, there are other, more insidious ways in which it will imitate the true religion.  In taking on human flesh in the Incarnation, Christ sought to both repair and elevate human nature making it capable of sharing in the Divine Nature.  In simplest terms, Marxism is an attempt to fundamentally transform human nature through the instruments of politics and culture.  It may have failed to control economics, but that was not the end of it.  Using the Sexual Revolution, Cultural Marxists have been wildly successful in “transforming” human nature in the sexual realm.  No longer does human nature thrive through monogamous marriage, the family, and private property.  Parents are not uniquely suited to mold their children according to their nature, but instead human nature is malleable and should be molded into the image deemed useful by the State.  Free will, the mark of the Divine image in man (c.f. CCC 1704-1705), is an illusion and replaced through conditioning according to their social structure (or through the correction of “Unconscious Bias” as the remains from obsolete social structures and implemented through “Corporate Training”). 

Christianity worships Christ Who made Himself a victim for our sins (c.f. 2 Cor 5:21) while Marxism worships the Victim Class.  Man’s nature is not social and marked by complementarity but instead is competitive.  It is to be informed by the narrative of oppressor versus oppressed.  There is a never-ending search of the new victim class in order to keep the worship going.  Virtuous men and women, those who are most like God are scorned and those who have been intersected by the most “axes of oppression” are exalted. 

Finally, just as Catholics offer the blood of the Innocent Lamb of God to the Father, Marxists offer the blood of innocent children through abortion to the Devil.  Marxism and abortion are always a package deal because Marxism, like all religions, needs to offer sacrifice.  The Devil throughout history has always demanded the blood of the innocent in sacrifice.  Marxism in all its instantiations always includes abortion.  It was Russia that became the first country to legalize abortion in 1920 and thanks to the Marxist feminists of the 1960s, the United States followed suit.  You can often identify a Marxist by how insistent they are that abortion is a “right”.

The Spirit of Christ animates the Christian religion and so the spirit of the antichrist animates the religion of Marxism.  The globalists who seek a One World Order are Marxists at heart.  Once a critical mass is met, then the world will be ready for the antichrist.  This is not an inevitability however and so Catholics must fight against Marxism in all its manifestations.  The Church was once instrumental in fighting Communism, but now it too has been infected with Marxists.  We need to pray that Christ will once again cleanse the Temple by setting his sights not on the money changers but the Marxists.  We have Our Lady of Fatima on our side and we can fight its spread through the First Saturday Devotion.  We can also zealously combat the errors where we see them and educate ourselves on this most pernicious enemy because there is one other thing the religion of the antichrist does—seeks to wipe out the believers of the True Faith.