@@liannesadler5771 🙄 Get a life.

@@liannesadler5771 The enlightenment of the Saints, is factual. I’ve look to see any facts by an atheist, never found one, to suggest any. So inclined to reading. The Life Of St Gemma Galgani. Read all 370 + pages. Author FR Germanus (1900). ✌️

@@liannesadler5771 im not sure how that is what's required for God to be our "ally", whatever you mean by that. Heck, what you're describing certainly isn't the Christian God, nor the Jewish or Muslim one. Maybe you're referring to a different religion?

@@liannesadler5771 my comment wasn't contrary to the claim that God is our ally, it was opposed to the criteria you gave to SHOW he's our ally, as well as the way you describe God.

@@liannesadler5771 Lianne Sadler. I am now asking you to read the “Life of Saint Gemma Galgani “ by her Spiritual Director, Father Germanus. You do, you do. You don’t you don’t. Many found the book interesting.

U

@@russellmiles2861 In a world of people addicted to crack, who will be able to stage the intervention?

This is what Ted Kaczynski was saying decades ago

I listened to Bishop Baron & Alex. As time marches on Alex will become wiser, I think in his beliefs. I personally need to believe in facts. Atheists search for facts, and find nothing, but debates. Enlightenments are the lives of the Saint, that point to God.🙏

@@ralphauer150 amén

Pray for Alex. He just needs the touch of the Holy Spirit in his life.

He was actually born and raised Roman Catholic, so more precisely, he could revert. If he does, we would benefit from someone as astute, rational, and articulate as he is. Our ranks have been infested by demagogues, conspiracists, and authoritarians, so people like Alex O'Connor and Bishop Barron would be breaths of fresh air in the dialogue.

@@AthanaSus Just did !

Sounds like wisdom to me!

Certainly true wisdom ​@@pop6997 ✨ Your presence is deeply appreciated ⭐

When looking at the dropping of the atomic bombs historians, especially now are more and more inclined to say they weren't necessary. The leapfrogging had worked the US had won. How long were the Japanese going to keep fighting? Hard to say, but a while back I looked at this topic and found some things that completely changed my mind. One of them was that the admiral in charge and some other people on the staff saw it as unnecessary ( I recall the president being in the minority over actually dropping it). Another big one was that the Japanese had already started plans to surrender. I know I don't give names and stuff but as I said I don't really recall super well, just the horror of being like damn not even the admirals wanted to do it.

@@russellmiles2861 That sounds dangerously close to idolatry. The government, the nation, the US is not God.

That history is questionable, as to whether that was the calculus or not. The USA had already firebombed (another crime against humanity) Japan multiple times, and the emperor was already considering surrender. And remember, these bombs were not on military targets, but on civilians. It's speculated the bombs were dropped so as to show them off to the USSR, and to show that the USA wasn't afraid to use what they had once the war was over.

But did there need to be two? One should have been enough.

​@@SnarkySparkyr132 I'd argue that the US was targeting logistical targets rather than civilians, but the technology simply wasn't available to do so without massive civilian casualties. On the Western front, the US bought the most advanced bomb sights and launched attacks during the more dangerous daytime hours so they could hit precise targets like factories and refineries. The results just weren't meaningfully different from Britain targeting the entire city at night. The US was so intent on increasing the precision of its weapons that it developed kamikaze pigeon bombs. If a squadron of F-35s with modern guided weapons time traveled back to WWII, there's no way the US would have resorted to leveling cities because it would easily accomplish what it wanted with a lot less loss of life.

Also in "Where the Wasteland Ends," an extraordinary book.

The weird thing about Americans and A-bombs is that the ones who used them clearly sought justification through the Law of Double Effect -- they actually left a number of military targets untouched so they had pristine military targets to hit with A-bombs! -- and the ones who defend/attack them almost universally argue about the moral merit (or lack thereof) of consequentialism. One could easily argue that the Americans making the decision were being disingenuous and you can't use the Law of Double Effect to justify a that many civilian casualties, but that's different from saying they were divorced from proper morality.

I don't think they're morally equal, and I don't think that was the bishop's point. The point is that both serve as a kind of counterpoint, as a kind of example of worshipping technology and our own will to power leading to disastrous consequences: the knowing and willful taking of innocent human life on a grand scale. We rightly call this intrinsic evil when we see abortion, in spite of any reason or justification one might give about lives saved. It may well be that choosing not to abort will destroy people's lives, their careers, their relationships, but none of it is justified if we have to intentionally take innocent lives. In Japan, the only way we justify atomic bombings is if we to try get away from it being freely chosen, or get away from full knowledge of what the bomb would do, or get away from the human lives being innocent. I don't think we can honestly make the case that anyone involved was coerced. I don't think we can make the case that anyone involved was unaware that this bomb would be the most destructive weapon in history. And I don't think anyone could make the claim that every single one of the thousands of Japanese vaporized were enemy combatants. We can argue the firebombing was just as bad, and I think we should. By the yardstick of "intentionally and knowingly murdering innocent people not involved in a war," it certainly crosses the line. I don't think it lessens the atomic bomb guilt. If anything, it intensifies it, as our leaders doubled down on the same old justification for the inherent immorality of total war.

@@arfink What if "innocent" simply isn't a meaningful category in the context of war? Joseph Ratzinger's role in WWII provides a fantastic example of an objectively innocent combatant -- a teenager forced to man an anti-aircraft gun by a regime he detested, who refused to even fire the gun. But he was still a legitimate military target who could be licitly shot at by any passing Allied pilot while manning that gun. Equating morally licit killing in wartime with self defense doesn't work either, because the cook at the military base is considered a combatant despite not being a direct threat to anybody (and ambushes are fine in wartime but absolutely forbidden against known threats in civilian life). I honestly think the only analysis of killing in wartime that makes sense is a spiritual one -- just wars are waged against principalities and powers, and /every/ human death that occurs in the process is collateral damage (whether justifiable or excessive) in that higher war. If a rogue state is conceived of as an evil spirit possessing its populace, then the question of "Who or what is a legitimate target?" becomes a function of "Who or what does the spirit require to fight?" If a target is being used by the spirit to facilitate further fighting and the collateral damage isn't disproportionate, the target is legitimate. In that analysis, civilians are generally off-limits because striking them is ineffective and disproportionate given the ultimate goal of disarming their state's evil spirit. Morale bombing is useless on top of being evil. But certain civilians clearly fall into a different category -- a worker assembling Zeros in a Mitsubishi factory might not have any military training and might not carry a weapon, but it's hard to say he's not a legitimate target (at least when present at the factory) because the Zeros he's making are a critical part of Imperial Japan's continued ability to fight. And given that evil spirits love to wreak as much havoc as possible, that Zero factory is almost certainly sitting smack dab in the middle of a high density residential area to guarantee high casualties among true civilians and ensure the strike at least appears disproportionate. (Theoretically, an evil spirit could so thoroughly possess a population that it cannot be forced to stop fighting short of the complete annihilation of said population. Perhaps that might even explain why God put the "Ban" on the Canaanites!) With that said, the question of what the Axis powers needed to keep fighting in WWII certainly played a huge role in the Allies' reliance on Total War. Given the mass production of conscripts and equipment, it's easy to see why the US would have concluded that the most effective way to force surrender would involve targeting industry and logistics. What were the other options? Kill more soldiers than the enemy could afford to replace (read: much of their population, who would have been largely civilian before being forcibly conscripted)? Attempt to seize territory from fully supplied defenders (at the cost of millions of casualties on both sides, including large numbers of civilians in the inevitable urban combat)? Destroy their agricultural capacity and let millions starve (mostly civilians, obviously)? Sit back and let aggressive empires divide up the world (over the bodies of millions of their new colonies' civilians)? The problem, of course, was that WWII weapons were so wildly imprecise that suppressing manufacturing assets like the aforementioned Mitsubishi factory couldn't be done without dropping thousands of bombs and annihilating the city. The A-bomb was a solution only insofar as only /one/ bomb was required to guarantee the same end result and the pigeon kamikaze bombs were, well, pigeon kamikaze bombs. Without precision, targeting industry and logistics is a lousy option. But I'm having trouble seeing any other option that wasn't equally if not more lousy even when focusing on the unintended-but-foreseen impact to civilians. And one good thing about seeking precision even before it was possible is that it ensured that enormous amounts of effort would be poured into making the execution match the theory.

@@arfink Hopefully, the good bishop did not mean to draw such a moral equivalence. But it's a bit unclear the way he expresses it. Coercion cannot justify an act in ANY situation. It may mitigate the guilt, and nothing more. That said, those making the decisions certainly were under a form of coercion: the knowledge of the expected casualties if Japan itself had to be invaded (CCC1860). The only true justification for the raids would be if those cities constituted legitimate targets. It is not necessary that 'every single one' of those present be enemy combatants. If that were the case, one could easily tie the hands of the opposing belligerent (in a moral sense) by making sure that at least one non-combatant was present in every factory or military base. In other words: it's an open invitation to use human shields. If a potential target is a mixed bag (as was certainly the case here, for the aforementioned reasons), it would seem that "double effect" now comes into play. It is only through that analysis, I would suggest, that any sort of conclusion may be drawn.

I am a cradle Catholic and I have spectacular experiences (ecstacy) with God, the Holy Spirit. Christ guides me in every major decisions in my life. My Catholic faith is sacred and it is my Home.

We can never be complacent in our faith - believing that we are saved just because we are believers. We are called to constant conversion in the realisation that we are all sinners and that our sins can get in the way of a closer relationship with God. We are all works in progress! I think that is the point Bishop Barron is making. It's a realisation that we need to keep working on our own holiness - no matter what Christian denomination we belong to. We are brothers and sisters in Christ and in the last ten years Pope Francis has been encouraging greater cooperation and understanding between us. As GK Chesterton wrote "We are all in the same boat and we are all seasick"!

The Church can't 'take charge' lol. No, she can only warn the faithful, and raise awareness - point out the benefit and pitfalls of our increasing consumption and dependence.

It is a scientific drone unchecked, to monitor your every movement. It is not employed to make beneful changes in an empirical sense, but cherry-picked as a tool for sometimes political reasons.Example, if recying, disposing if everything purchased, plastic packaging, hazmat, etc was sincerely on the radar of all state and local government, why do we atill have a problem.

Wondering what is this request.

@@marypinakat8594 Yes certainly , let me please explain how science really works. I an old person who went to a Catholic school and learned "Primum non nocere " . I was astonished and left dumbfounded by The Good Popes moral guidance thru this pandemic. It was a tragedy beyond the material and logical universe. The so called "new variants" of the COVID virus have always existed. During the past three years of the COVID pandemic and thru the ongoing AIDS pandemic they have made us sick because of vaccines and our weakened immune systems. This is how Mother Nature and Reason work. You have done "verboten" and only God can reward you.

To be fair, everyone was deceived. Who would have expected our own compatriots would stoop to a point of infecting the world to maintain their own vanity and power. Now we know.

While I’m not a shill for the vaccine (I myself didn’t take it), you seem to be suggesting the vaccine killed those people. Personally, I know so many people in my personal life who took the vaccine, and they’re fine.

Even co-creating with God, that doesn’t add anything to God. It adds to us by grace, so that in due time we parteke in God’s intratrinitarian life. God doesn’t need to create or the things created; otherwise creation would be non-contingent. That’s a philosophical issue, not an emotional one. I guess you de-contextualized Bishop Barron’s philosophical and theological argument and made an emotional one instead. Besides, the channel growth rates has never been this high and I’m unacquainted with anyone leaving the Church because they feel God must need him to be complete. With love from Brazil.

Francis has done nothing of the sort. There is a deliberate, concerted campaign to misquote and malign him by the enemies of Christ and His Church, both from within and without.

@@AJ_ace22 no one "understands" Jesus. And the biggest issue are those who assume they do. And they make enemies of the ones they assume don't.

You should feel bad for that tbh, its poorly researched rhetoric that so many 'Catholics' are selling books about and getting quite rich. Look again, this time with clear eyes and do 'basic' research to see the truth is not what you've been so obviously buying.