I've been doing more and more research or this paper/book for a professor friend of mine..... got upgraded from 'Research Assistant' to 'Co-Author' fairly quick once I broke her out of her deadlock..... in the past I just went completely uncredited..... so whatever.

The issue is, I'm now writting for her agenda. I was tossed three research topics, and went with the very first one, thinking I, Mr. Philosophy can handle with a little investigation any topic or issue. Yes, I am a very, very rare breed of Philosopher, a Cynic Philosopher, but the little formal training I got from philosophy groups was a nearly unbiased Pan-Philosophy approach. In San Francisco, you come across a handful of deeply spiteful Anti-Semetic and Anti-Catholic Philosophers..... guys who can quickly change any debate on any subject to classical Anti-Popism. For me, tolerance was grinding my teeth in silence, seeing where the rants would go..... yes, it's hate, but will it stumble by accident upon a useful point or position? Usually not.... can't recall it ever be that case, but I would put up with it till the hate became a successful democracies, causing people to react positively to it and its obvious falsehoods. Only then would I crack the whip.... San Franciso claims to be highly tolerant, but it's about as intolerant as any place I ever visited. They pick and choose their heroes and martyrs, causes and tragedies, like any other. I suppose the trick in life is to find your roots in life, and learn over time to be honest about your prejudices and doubts. We all share a very similar brain biologically, chances are, if some are of quality X thinking style, we all possess it..... just some emphasize it, others hide it. This isn't a pure praexology, I reserve room for the unconscious/conscious, nature/nurture, and personality divides, but we all got something going on nasty if your a healthy individual.... hate isn't a epidemic triggered by hate speech, it's innate and simmers. Pops up in all sorts of unusual ways..... you can't blame it on hate speech alone, if anything, it can get around it.

Case in point, this paper. It touches both on Theological Issues..... which was certainly my point, and Cognitive Issues, involving theory of mind issues..... It's highly complex, but very simple.... but I don't want to navigate either here, just the aspect of hate and xenophobia inherent in its investigations. I'm a Catholic..... and a Philosopher...... therefor the title of 'Catholic Philosopher' immediately gets slapped on me, which I am very, very cautious about. I don't like it. Make it feel like I need to rush and debate Richard Dawkings on behalf of the Vatican and explain Catechism and Dogmas in-depth....... he'll, I Dunno about half the stuff..... I'm a Cynic with interest in Law and Ethics and History. I can't make sense of some of the logic of the Ecumenical Councils for example..... they appear to be debating physics and God's psychological makeup..... stuff God since the old testament said not to do. Then they started excommunication of various, legitimate chapters of the church that claim very legitimate Apostolic Descent because their understanding of physics didn't match up with the other factions.

Jesus didn't excommunicate anyone, not even Judas. He didn't set up a observatory on the Hollywood he preached, only time I can recall him getting kissed was when he wrecked the merchants in the temple. He took note of the legitimacy of the Pharisees to rule on Kosher matters, while denying they were Kosher themselves, and there for not to be held as examples of righteous conduct. He was close to the Samaritans, but denied the legitimacy of their religious methods..... despite being more orthodox in their adherence to Kosher beliefs, they lacked the understanding of what they were doing. That's all I know of him in his biases and outbursts. He seemed rather outgoing and friendly, willing to cross the divide like a Martin Luther King.

That would be a lovely snapshot of Christianity, if it weren't for history. Christianity undid itself at some point. Churches excommunicated one another on the silliest of circumstances. Take the papal primacy issue for example.... if there is a recognition that at one time there was indeed a state of existence of one church father being first among equals in one era, and everyone is gripping about it now, there is a very obvious solution..... rotate the geographical locations of the pope and other patriarchs..... have the Pope spend a year in Moscow, the Greek Patriarch in the Vatican, etc..... keep the mix random. Fine.... Rome can be first among equals no problem there. They can't even think it though, because of pride, nationality, and xenophobia. They have their squabbles, most of them quite silly, and its impossible to give in. Our church fathers have become the modern day Pharisees..... they have the apostolic prerogative to preach the word, but don't you dare emulate them in your communities..... holding on to ridiculous lifelong prideful squabbles and hatred and mistrust of the other due to your sense of self and History. It's not a Christian Belief, it's the putrid taint of Roman Paganism and its administrative functions that married into Christianity during and ever since Constantine.

Major grips of the last month, I was asked to 'Convert' by a Greek Orthodox nun to 'Orthodoxy'. Just how is it possible for a Christian to Convert from Christianity to Christianity? If I was to become a monk, I can grasp this need to convert to new rules and orders.... but the Pope isn't any more broke in terms of Apostolic Descent than the Greek Patriarch.... if anything, he is a tad bit more secure given he doesn't need approval from the Turkish Parliment to become Pope like the Greek Patriarch does. However, this doesn't stop either positions from holding to legitimate positions on ethics, or the nature of Christianity. Jesus choose the apostolic system, so divergency in views and emphasis are to be expected given the subjective view of every individual. Just keep the needless contradictions to the minimum, and remember brotherly love. Simple does it best, if you get confused about the physics of God, or the wording of creed, or lost a feel for the holy ghost, stick to Ethics, and keep to a sense of simplicity and humility in the face of conflict. We don't need it, we don't have to be glorious and top of the world in all things, we made it just fine all that time in the catacombs.

The other grip.... I agreed to in this paper to tackle the philosophy at heart of her theological issue..... I instantly saw the solution in St. Anslem and St. Thomas. My Greek Orthodox spiritual mother is getting deeply offensive now, like the universe is ending, crying about the east-west divide. I'm not worrying on theology persay, but their cognitive ideas at root.... and am resurrecting their concepts. They didn't invent it, the terminology dates back centuries prior to any schism. I'm taking very technical, scientific approach mapping the Professors Theory of Mind questions to the Cytoarchitecture of the mind, then going along with her investigations, noting oddities and where ideas branch into unknown. It's quite sterile, yet approachable and can be proven and disproved by a third party on the anatomical data I provide. But for y spiritual mother, every time I mention it, she makes a mountain out of a molehill.... it's east and west conflicts..... always a Catholic only and 'we don't teach that', even though ironically the Greek church produced plenty of fathers who have. Why am I getting nailed? Because I am Catholic, merely touching theology (with a nine foot pole) and Catholic Theologians are dangerous. I must be inherently be trying some sort of trickery, and therefor emotional crying and tantrums are necessary, though at root nothing is there. If anything, I have been exceptionally pan-Christian...... much of the work we are doing doesn't even focus on Christianity..... it goes to Assyria, India, China..... geese.....

I blame the stupid Romans for this headache. I can care less about the grips resulting from the administrative makeup of the churches. I'm not a part of that, nor from what I read in the New Testament, neither was Jesus..... he overlooked the issues that caused dissension and weakness of familiarity between each Apostle, to one another as well as to himself, and stuck with the bigger picture. We can really use guys like that today. Instead, I get asked to Convert and am treated like I'm playing with WMD for investigating well thought out works from Christian Fathers, finding ways to apply them today. I only push it with the authority of myself and the conviction that it can work, as a Philosopher, not a theologian. Nothing really new in it..... just rarely discussed anymore.

This is enough gripping. Later...