On Credulity and Stories

[Answering:]

A While Back I Wrote a Piece on Credulity and Skepticism…
April 9, 2014 By Mark Shea
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/markshea/2014/04/a-while-back-i-wrote-a-piece-on-credulity-and-skepticism.html

National Catholic Register : Credulity and Skepticism
by Mark Shea Tuesday, Oct 21, 2008 10:59 AM
http://www.ncregister.com/site/article/credulity_and_skepticism/

"The skeptic will sometimes go to ridiculous length to shore up a theory in the teeth of reality."

Like Heliocentrics being skeptical of what they see every day? For instance? And every night too?

"The credulous person accepts tales of the supernatural without bothering to find out if they are a) true or b) from God."

Do you mean that:

1) a tale of the supernatural can be from God even if not true?
or
2) must be from God as well as true in order to be believed?

I think neither is the case. Any tale that is from God (like in Holy Bible) of the supernatural IS true and must be believed. But tales of the supernatural can be NOT from God, as NOT part of Bible and tradition, and STILL be true and therefore recommendable to believe (like Odin being able to make Gylfe believe he was a god and the chief god through the magic he did).

"The Church is open to the reality that God made the world to be orderly and discoverable by reason."

There are not many tales of the supernatural that are ruled out by that criterium. Not of those falling under the witness of historical persons (or purported such).

That the men of Cadmus were born of the dragon seed is to be ruled out. That the children of Lir were really converted into swans is to be ruled out. BUT that the men of Cadmus appeared to him to grow from the dragon seed and appeared to each other and themselves in the battle after which ony few were left and remembered nothing before that battle and so confirmed Cadmus in his error they were born on the ground of Beotian Thebes, that is in the powers of the devil to achieve, especially it was so before Christ died on the Cross. And that the children of Lir appeared to each other, themselves and others as swans, until St Patrick lifted the curse with exorcism, and baptised them, that also is within the powers of the demon over a people not yet Christian, as the Irish before St Patrick came.

"That kind of credulity is also frequently ready to see demons at work in every head cold or hangnail — with the result that the dogmatic skeptic feels vindicated in sneering at the supernatural."

I have never in my life taken a mere cold as a manifestation of the demonic. I have had too many of them. But making typing mistakes these last year well beyond my usual, and persistent ones too, such as I have to correct over and over again, THERE I feel some curse IS at play. Three times yesterday I started out spelling "inertial" as "intertial" and had to correct it. Now, THAT is not my style.

Excommunication could be ONE explanation, hypnosis ONE OTHER (as also for twice waking up with more money in my pocket than I recalled from the day before and of waking up without the glue sticks I was going to use to post stickers with my blog adress). A possible THIRD one would be people cajoled by some priest who hates me into praying for me to:

a) correct myself
or
b) "not spread my nonsense".
[Or
c) both of above.]

There I feel pretty confident the demon is at play somewhere. Even if that priest (or perhaps non-priest) is called Bergoglio. If I have met same bad reception for myself as a layman and a writer in diocese after diocese, there might be some coordination beyond the dioceses. And among Novus-Ordusians that may mean the Vatican.

And if you think that Newtonian Heliocentrism is not ridiculous as a physical explanation of day and night and of years and seasons, especially, see this and think again:

[ISS] Don Petit, Science Off The Sphere - Water Droplets Orbiting Charged Knitting Needle
SpaceVids.tv
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyRv8bNDvq4

If you think mine of angels moving planets IS ridiculous, read Prima Pars, Q110, A3, all of it. And then back to Q70, A3.

Modern Academia has its perks, but deciding what kind of metaphysics an explanation can include without being ridiculous is NOT one of them.

And when the credulity in question is about stories that some cultures ARE credulous about (that including some subcultures as well) one thing more, then the credulity has nothing and zilch and nada to do with any kind of symptom of mental illness and any one claiming it does is thereby REDEFINING madness and sanity and thereby saying previous generations of Catholics were wrong.

A psychiatrist can be doctor or professor, or even leading expert in his field, HE is NOT the man to credulously accept the "word of the expertise" from. (Unless he is pronouncing someone sane, since then he is going against his economic interest of getting patients to treat.)

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Nanterre, UL
Pope St Leo I the Great
11-IV-2014