Zeitgeist

You can Google it for yourself: ”On a per-person basis, Canadian GDP has now declined for four straight quarters. ”

Shallow knowledge of exorcism

Then you don’t know the history. Attitudes like yours are why Canada has gone downhill. You don’t understand what the forces for good are.

You don’t see how ignorant and pretentious you sound painting everyone with the same brush and referring to a number of posters as “you people”. No one said Palestinians can’t have a country except Palestinians.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-hating_Jew Netanyahu says this is a global conflict and he's right. It's Israel's right-wing that's wagging the world's dog. I’m well aware of Chomsky’s narratives. I would beware of the ways that the word “Zionism” has been used to promote antisemitism. There were Jews for thousands of years in Judea and the areas roughly defined by Israel’s current borders. There is peace between peoples of different religions within Israel but outside of Gaza. While I agree that there’s a harsher right wing faction in the Knesset and some of the settlement in the West Bank has been provocative, none of this has been terrorist and the Israeli state has never promoted terrorism. Israel has problems, but if you don’t recognize the distinction between a country defending itself and retaliating against terrorism versus an organization that commits terrorist acts and refuses to work constructively and recognize Israel’s right to exist, we have a problem.

Your mistake is thinking that the left are mostly against Hamas. The western support for Hamas comes from the left. As for your notions about pluralism in Gaza, get real. Iran and Hizbollah and Hamas are happy to use the left’s sympathies whilst opposing all opposition, hating progressive values (including LGBTQ2S+), and wishing for the death of Israel and America, including the mass murder of innocent civilians. In this context Israel must be fiercely careful and defend its polity and population, which includes Muslims and Palestinians. Hamas are using the same left-wing rhetoric of “settler colonialism” to garner sympathy from BLM and radical Indigenous activists seeking reparations, and communists. Of course Hamas hates these groups as much as they hate the Jews. That’s why you have to be very careful not to buy into the victim narrative Hamas is using. Hamas is actively undermining the wellbeing of Gazans in actual fact through its terrorist activities and mismanagement of Gaza.

Ayn Rand never wrote anything that stigmatizes racial or ethnic groups. Her heroes are trailblazing capitalists who are the great builders and visionaries. She gives these individuals and their visions primacy over the governments and less effective people who try to use and contain them. The heroes actually have a positive transformative impact on society because of the benefits they bring, usually technology or some new process that benefits most or all people. She has been called fascistic because there’s always a risk of ascribing or handing over too much power and authority to any individual in a democracy. It’s a reasonable critique that certainly doesn’t diminish the power of Rand’s stories.

More commentary on the unprecedented crisis in the Church:

Exactly. It’s about quality of life and living standards. GDP per person is falling. Our living standards are falling. What’s more, Canadian values of meritocracy and upward mobility through hard work are being undermined by various forms of central planning, which divides the population into various preferred victim groups (“deserving” recipients of handouts according to equity checklists) versus designated oppressor groups (“privileged” settler colonialists who are basically the early immigrants to Canada and their descendants). The government is dividing the population based on socialist social engineering schemes to redistribute wealth. Ultimately this destroys free markets, opportunity, and our meritocracy. It strips away the American/Canadian Dream of anyone from any background working hard and seeing that hard work pay off, making home ownership and prosperity less accessible. Canada is at risk of killing the goose that lays the golden egg. Our infrastructure, housing supply, and ability to absorb people with cultural values that conflict with the Canadian way of life are stretched beyond what is reasonable. Basically we’re running the risk of downgrading Canada in fundamental ways. On the other hand, the left has brought this situation upon themselves through naivety. They now don’t understand why we can no longer speak freely for fear of cancellation or why people feel that their traditional values are being compromised beyond recognition. Well, we’ve imported conflicts from overseas and we’ve told ourselves and our children exaggerated stories about how colonial and oppressive Canada is, so we’ve basically given away the farm to people whose values don’t even align with the prosperous and free country we once knew. We’re not allowed to be French or English or white or of European ancestry or Jewish or Christian or capitalist or even democratic, because these run counter to the settler colonialist oppressor narrative that our own federal government and Human Rights Tribunal promulgates. It’s why we now see protesters and universities supporting terrorist organizations. It’s why China is influencing policy in Canada in significant ways. Basically our own governments stopped valuing Canadian-ness. Now it’s about reparations and apologies and letting in as many people as possible to fluff up demand and growth while actually making life harder for individuals and families. I won’t even get into the environmental impacts of rampant immigration or how social tensions are undermining unrealistic notions of equity, diversity, and inclusion. Our activist government doesn’t see how these policies undermine their own ideology about fighting climate change and social harmony. People are over-taxed, figuratively and literally. The system is overstretched. It’s why we have inflation and can’t provide the goods and services that Canadians need and want.

Yes Canada has to stop immigration if need be. The goal now is preserving what we have in Canada, the quality of life and living standards.

I’m not sure such things can and should be legislated unless a couple is seeking to get married. However, it is ethical to disclose trans identity for potential sexual relationships and in certain circumstances. It should be legislated for sports.

The bottom line is that trans women are not women and trans men are not men, at least not factually or scientifically, which is what counts. That’s why in order to respect trans rights as well as women’s rights and men’s rights we’re going to need to add new categories, including trans women and trans men. That how doctors will know what they are dealing with biologically and how coaches know who is trying out to be on the team, etc. That’s the deal. Many activists and soft-headed Gen Z’s won’t like this because it goes against the gender ideology they’ve been fed by school social workers and Tic Toc. Sad face emoji. It will, however, help them cope with something called reality.

Hiding trans identity from a date is unethical.

One of the main reasons people mate is to have kids and perpetuate the human race and pass on their genetics. It might be important to people to know whether that’s in their futures, as kids play important roles in marriage, divorce, and life. Most people would also want to know if their partner had genitalia replaced and what their biological gender is, or is the right to trans gender role play more important?

Go repent and pray, or if you insist on remaining a wayward atheist, start your own thread. Not interested in entertaining bad influences.

Gee, I don’t know, maybe something to do with sex. It’s something humans sometimes have. Heard of it?

I assume if you presume to know enough about these issues to post on them, that you can read. Pope Francis is basically introducing policies that contradict “the Deposit of Faith”, which is established Church doctrine that has been reaffirmed until the last few years under Francis. Strickland said this. He also continued to support parishioners who like the Latin mass. Strickland was given no reason for his removal. He isn’t the only one who has been cancelled for being Catholic in recent years. Multiple bishops have issued dubia (questions) to Francis about a variety of new decrees that appear to contradict the “Deposit”. The responses have been largely curt and glib. That’s a short summary of broad strokes.

What about Cultural Marxist equivocators?

Thoughtful commentary on what’s unfolding:

One word: pregnancy. Trans identity has enormous implications for procreation. To hide trans identity in a date is unethical.

But your point of entry into the discussion is shallow. First dig into the details to see why the Pope is being questioned. The details are compelling in and of themselves. I can’t debate someone who doesn’t have a basic frame of reference. I agree that all of this is somewhat inside-baseball for non-Catholics, but the thread is fair game in a Religion forum. Fr. Altman is not Bishop Strickland.

They’re clinging to narratives of the white saviour and noble savage. The reality is that the people running our government are naive fools who think that everyone who has come here from cultures with very different values can fit in easily and support what people have valued for generations about Canada.

Our institutions are falling apart because we stopped worrying about what’s important, such as a military having good morale and being well equipped or schools having rigorous education or any government service actually delivering that service effectively. Instead we are worried about identifying and giving special treatment to designated victim groups: trans people, lesbian/gay, BIPOC, etc. Jobs have become sinecures to be handed out based on the central committee’s discernment of one’s victimhood. It’s destroying our meritocracy, breeding contempt among the population, and making us uncompetitive. It’s painfully obvious that this trans woman’s (man’s) inclusion in a female weightlifting competition undermines the very notion of women’s sports. It strips women of their status and is patently unfair. This kind of scenario is playing out across organizations all the time now. The trans example is just one facet of our society’s destructive obsession with identity politics.

In order to have a discussion you must bring arguments supported by evidence, or at least damn convincing arguments. Also, religion is fundamentally a matter of faith. If you don’t believe, that ends the conversation. Your arguments are always nihilistic and Marxist. I disagree with your assumptions about the world, so why would I engage with you on the Catholic Catechism? You should bring your arguments to Sartre Weekly or The New Marxist to argue the finer points of the revolution.

This might help provide context.