Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2017 January 12

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January 12

global warming, Pope Francis, First Things

Now that the pope has told priests to teach about the danger of global warming, is the magazine First Things changing its stance that global warming is not a big deal?144.35.45.46 (talk) 03:58, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Have you tried asking them? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:12, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

It is an ecumenical publication, not exclusively catholic, so there is no reason why what the pope has preached should dictate their future editorial position. Wymspen (talk) 10:56, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

For reference, I think this [1] is what OP is talking about, regarding Pope Francis' comments on climate change (It's a 'sin'!) SemanticMantis (talk) 14:49, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Catholic believe: did God create EVERYTHING

Do Catholics believe that God caused or created everything? Do they believe that God is totality in the sense of that which only has parts but is itself not a part (the "top-level" container, similar to how the "monad" has not parts and is the smallest part of everything)?

I was reading this--URL: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05649a.htm, title: "CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Evil", quote: "But the evil of sin (culpæ), though permitted by God, is in no sense due to him (I, Q. xlix, a. 2).; its cause is the abuse of free will by angels and men (I-II, Q. lxxiii, a. 6; II-II, Q. x, a. 2; I-II, Q. ix, a. 3)."--and it seemed contradictory.

Also: Special:Search/"create everything" prefix:Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives NoToleranceForIntolerance (talk) 04:03, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

See unmoved mover, ontological argument, and problem of evil. Much has been written about these ideas. If you have more specific questions after reading some of that, feel free to ask. --47.138.163.230 (talk) 04:45, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

To put it succinctly, "Don't blame God for the evil that humans choose to do." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:11, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Why not? As the articles linked to above mention there is actually a fairly good reason to given the understanding of god of several religions. N.B. I'm not suggesting a debate here but rather suggesting such simplistic comments are unhelpful on the reference desk when references have already been provided (and simple common sense) explains why it's not so simple. Although probably Free will in theology is a helpful addition given such simplistic comments. Nil Einne (talk) 14:42, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

"Free will" is exactly the answer. People choose to commit evil deeds (or good deeds) of their own free will. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:13, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

That doesn't fully explain the problem of evil. For one thing, very bad things, such as natural disasters, harm innocent people, and we can't blame free will for those. Also, God allowing people to commit evil acts also makes Him culpable, as does creating people capable of evil. Also, people raised in a bad environment are far more likely to turn out to be evil, and God can control the environment (for example, famines make people more likely to steal food). StuRat (talk) 15:57, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

(I wikilinked three key words in your response, didn't think you'd mind :) SemanticMantis (talk) 14:53, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

I don't mind, but I skipped doing that since it had already been linked above. StuRat (talk) 21:46, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Natural disasters aren't evil, they're just random events. Although the superstitious have long tried to anthropomorphize the forces of nature. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:03, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes, there was reluctance to install lightning rods on homes, initially, because it was seen as an admission that your family is so evil that God would try to strike them down. StuRat (talk) 17:45, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Again are you going to bother to read or at least think before you talk crap? We're talking about cases when people believe there is a god here. Often a omnibenevolent, omniscient and omnipotent one who in some cases is said to have even explicitly designed humans and/or the earth and solar system and would therefore would seem to share some responsiblity for the flaws many not arising from free will and which seem to be solveable without negative effects. So just dismissing something as a random event does not work, unlike it would when you don't believe in such an entity. And incidentally, many religious beliefs suggest that not all natural disasters are truly "natural", in fact several religious texts including the bible explicitly suggest otherwise. And I'm not referring to attempts to say this earthquake was caused by the gays or whatever modern crap, but claims made in these religious texts about historic events. Again this isn't the place for debate on such issues (there are obvious various intepretations of these texts and attempts to explain them) but such dismissive answers without relying on any references illustrate why a lot of your comments on the RD are useless. P.S. The article I linked to explicitly mentions Argument from free will and both of these link to Predestination. Nil Einne (talk) 02:22, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

No it does not with quite a number of religious beliefs. Have you read the articles or are you just going to continue to spread crap out of your arse like always? Nil Einne (talk) 02:01, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Your personal attacks do nothing to enhance your credibility. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:19, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Well I don't particularly care about your opinions of my credibility since you've shown time and again you have zero in a lot of matters. And as expected you have zero answer for "why do you say it does based on the quite a number of religious beliefs and the philosphical implications of such". As for personal attacks, I suggest you read Wikipedia:No personal attacks and find out what constitutes a personal attack. The evidence is already here that you have provided no useful information to discussion and completely ignored the references that were already provided. If necessary, I can easily provide evidence that you do this very often, although a search of the talk page will also so this. So maybe "always" was a bit facetious, but that was not a personal attack, simply a perhaps somewhat uncivil but accurate comment on your behaviour. Nil Einne (talk) 02:28, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Well you put forth the free will link and then got irritated when I agreed with it. So your own credibility is Nil. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:31, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

You didn't agree with it because it's not something that you can agree on. Note that the article does not say, "free will is the answer" but rather "some people say free will is relevant and here's what they mean by free will and how it interplays with their understandin of god and the phisophical implications of god's actions". In other words, the article was intended to illustrate why you cannot simply dismiss it as "free will" without considering the interaction of the various religious beliefs and various philosphical arguments that arise thereupon. As I said above, it explicitly links to the relevant articles which explain further why even the concept of "free will" isn't so simple under a number of religious beliefs. The fact you didn't understand this illustrates that 1) You either didn't read or didn't understand the linked article 2) You shouldn't be contributing to complicated discussions on religious beliefs since it's clear your understanding of the complex issues involved and how they all interplay is close to zero.

Hidden since this part doesn't really relate to the question Nil Einne (talk) 03:15, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Free will is a standard Christian belief, which is what the OP asked about. The OP didn't ask about other religions. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:22, 13 January 2017 (UTC) What's that got to do with anything? For starters, you mentioned god, not Christian understanding of god. More to the point, the linked articles explicitly explain why "free will" is a complicated thing with many religious beliefs, including many Christians believes, including many Catholic beliefs. It also explains why simply dismissing stuff as "free will", even based on the common Christian or Catholic beliefs of free will and the interplay with issues like predestination, doesn't actually work without considering the various implications thereof. Note a key point here as illustrated by our articles. There isn't even one universal Christian understanding of free will, or even a Catholic one assuming we aren't restricting ourselves to the Roman Catholic Church. So you have to actual explain what you mean by free will before you even start to explain how "free will" counteracts all the arguments about why your god with all the powers etc you proscribe to him shares zero resposibility for all the various things including evil. Nil Einne (talk) 03:26, 13 January 2017 (UTC) My credibility however as far as I'm concerned remains intact. I don't pretend to have a full understanding of all the issues involved, but I do know our articles explain why it isn't so simple as you seem to think, and have provided several links and comments which explain so hence why I linked to them. And I'm aware this is a reference desk anyway so my understanding isn't as important as my ability to provide references. You've provided zero references nor any explaination for why you can simply answer it away as free will, when you are relying on an article someone else provided to you, which explicitly says it isn't so simple and there are complicated issues and deep philsophical arguments for why it is so, given a number of common religious beliefs. Unlike you, I do try to provide references, read references and explainations and try to understand what people are saying. Yes sometimes I make mistakes, e.g. recently on the K-bar question I mistakenly thought our article answered an OP more than it did. And yes sometimes I intentionally misunderstand an OP when it's clear they're saying stuff without considering the audience, e.g. again in the K-bar question relating to the term "foreign" (or in one of the previous OPs question). But it's clear you're not doing the later, and as for the former, well you could be forgiven if it was rare, but as I early said the issue is you often make simplisitic dismissive comments ignoring what has already been said and the articles or references provided which explain why your simple comments don't work. So you agree with yourself. That's reassuring. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:22, 13 January 2017 (UTC) Zero idea what you mean by that, but of course I do. Nil Einne (talk) 03:26, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Nil Einne (talk) 03:14, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

• "Catholic" is a much broader term than you might realise. It refers to a set of beliefs, not to one particular authority, and many Protestant churches are still Catholic (but not Roman Catholic). So there is almost no way in which a "catholic" belief can be said to necessarily require creation, other than through Biblical literalism - and that level of literalism isn't widely enforced (in Europe at least) on such topics.

TL;DR: a catholic can believe pretty much what they want about areas overlapping with any sciences. It's up to them personally. Some Catholic churches are more rigid. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:58, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Of course, the problem of who/what created God is unsolvable, too. You can either say that God always existed, which is about as satisfying as saying the universe always existed. Or you could make some type of "meta God(s)" to create God, but that just moves the problem back a generation. In Greek mythology, the Olympic gods were created by the Titans, which were created by the primordial deities, sometimes called the Protogonoi, the first gods and goddesses born from primordial Chaos or from Chronos and Ananke (depending on the source), but we still have the problem of where they came from. StuRat (talk) 16:14, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

You may also want to have a look at the alternative Big Bang Theory and Abiogenesis, neither of which refers to the question of evil. Another option may be simulated reality. It does not seem to mention evil, but it is easily possible that evil is just a nasty bug the unknown programmer has inserted into their model. After all, this is just a harmless virtual game. If we call this programmer God we would be back at your original question. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 17:58, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Big Bang Theory says little or nothing about this subject, because it's an article about a television show; Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM is referring to our Big Bang article. Nyttend (talk) 03:38, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

• Cosmogony also touches on religious aspects. --Jayron32 18:05, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Looking through the articles, Thomas Aquinas believed people are free in their choices, fully cause their own sin, and are solely responsible for it. Eastern Orthodox believe God foresees how a man will freely act and makes dispositions accordingly. There was a comprehensive discussion at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2012 January 27#God's will and free will, possibly motivated by the fact that 27 January is Holocaust Memorial Day. 79.73.130.206 (talk) 11:07, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

• Have you read about theodicy? I think it is a very relevant article. SemanticMantis (talk) 14:51, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

What is PayPal?

What is the best term to label what PayPal and its direct competitors (Skrill, Neteller...) are? Phrases like "online payments service" or "e-commerce business" are too broad, other terms like digital wallet and online wallet mean something different. Neither of the three mentioned brand articles offers an answer. --KnightMove (talk) 17:31, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Using Wikipedia's category structure, Payment service provider seems to be the term d'art. See https://www.2 checkout.com/ecommerce-glossary/payment-service-provider/ (space added to avoid blacklist) and [2] and [3]. --Jayron32 17:45, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Unfortunately, that's again something different. A payment service provider collects online payment methods (like PayPal and others) and offers them, collectively, as a service to merchants. --KnightMove (talk) 07:32, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

I'd said Paypal is a centralized e-payment and money transfer service. --Hofhof (talk) 17:56, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Do you have a reference for the use of those terms? --Jayron32 18:02, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Electronic money for the 'centralized' bit, Paypal itself for the 'money transfer' bit — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hofhof (talk • contribs) 18:33, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

The way PayPal describes itself might be useful (or not).[4] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:31, 12 January 2017 (UTC)