Benjamin Robert Goodman

A truer tweet was never tweeted.

[Benjamin Robert Goodman @B_Goodness]

If it’s true that God is humanized by us, is it also true that he’s humanized by me in a way that can only be wrought by me? God cannot be God without me, because God cannot be God until he’s God of all and in all? (And I, humble knave that I am, am counted among the all.)

[Benjamin Robert Goodman @B_Goodness]

This is true, just like paying an athlete more does not guarantee that they will perform better on the field, or that their team will become better as a result.

It’s not just who is teaching that matters, but who the students are and what (and how) they are learning.

[paleoneoliberal @armsq17]

Throwing more money at public schools, even doubling teacher salaries, has virtually no effect on student outcomes.

[Benjamin Robert Goodman @B_Goodness]

I sometimes refer to Chat GPT as “robot mommy” to my students, but boy, does this take the cake.

[Vino @15x0xx]

I went for comfort my mom chose violence 😭

[Benjamin Robert Goodman @B_Goodness]

Hemingway said it best, we really are all bitched from the start.

[All day Astronomy @forallcurious]

🚨: Study reveals that the sperm cells carry biological ECHOES of a father's stress, particularly from childhood trauma

[Benjamin Robert Goodman @B_Goodness]

@agostino_harry @henryjkwallis Why do you think they aren’t genuinely surrendering? I think that’s assumptive almost to the point of question-begging. What qualifies a “crude sense”?

[Benjamin Robert Goodman @B_Goodness]

It is true that celibacy is a (rightfully) exalted state and that, historically, Christianity has dismissed and downplayed full-blooded sexual desire, even among spouses. (It especially has no idea what to do with sluts.)

This is an unfortunate predicament.

[Jorge of the Wired @saturnine_grace]

God trapped us all in the bodies of sexual organisms but will send us to hell if we have these feelings or act upon it! I'm sorry to talk about this all the time but this is really unfortunate and frankly i would rather not exist than be in this situation!

[Benjamin Robert Goodman @B_Goodness]

@agostino_harry @henryjkwallis I think it’s easy to see then how, when thought through, a couple who relishes in their sexual union is going to feel they are not, in fact, so included as they thought they were in that description, if these other things follow.

[Benjamin Robert Goodman @B_Goodness]

@agostino_harry @henryjkwallis Augustine thought that one of the goods of children is that it brings parental feeling, & this is good *because* it holds back and minimizes, in Augustine’s mind, one’s sexual desire for the other. “We are only having sex to be parents” is, for Augustine, the right attitude.

[Benjamin Robert Goodman @B_Goodness]

@agostino_harry @henryjkwallis Yes, because children are a blessing of marriage and a good of it, but neither of those show that procreation is the goal of marriage or of being man and woman.

[Benjamin Robert Goodman @B_Goodness]

@agostino_harry @henryjkwallis What exactly does it mean when it says “to the good of the spouses”? for this seems like it easily could become equivocal.

[Benjamin Robert Goodman @B_Goodness]

@agostino_harry @henryjkwallis Did I post it then, too? I don’t remember.

[Benjamin Robert Goodman @B_Goodness]

@agostino_harry @henryjkwallis Cf. Fr. John Behr’s great article on this topic:

https://t.co/TSGnPjkzil

[Benjamin Robert Goodman @B_Goodness]

@agostino_harry @henryjkwallis Interestingly, neither Christ nor Paul ever mention procreation as the goal of marriage or even as the goal of being male and female.

[Benjamin Robert Goodman @B_Goodness]

@agostino_harry The natural goodness of sex as a source of pleasure is something Augustine rejects, even if circuitously, and (again) saw the very act itself (even in marriage!) as inherently shameful (City of God IV.18, 579-580).

[Benjamin Robert Goodman @B_Goodness]

@agostino_harry But certainly I have not denied that the Church has something to offer, and that among these offerings is Sainthood. But neither does it contradict or disallow anything I’ve said so far!

[Benjamin Robert Goodman @B_Goodness]

@agostino_harry God’s nature is not changed, no; God’s appearance and operation in the world (His very Person) does change.

[Benjamin Robert Goodman @B_Goodness]

If it’s true that God is humanized by us, is it also true that he’s humanized by me in a way that can only be wrought by me? God cannot be God without me, because God cannot be God until he’s God of all and in all? (And I, humble knave that I am, am counted among the all.)

[Benjamin Robert Goodman @B_Goodness]

@agostino_harry If you think that is a winning argument for the conversion of sluts, then I am quite puzzled by it.

[Benjamin Robert Goodman @B_Goodness]

@agostino_harry God made a slut a saint, but it happened in such a way that incurred (1) the rejection of his son and live-in girlfriend (unjust to them), (2) his rejection of sex as beneficial for pleasure alone (only beneficial for production of children) and (3) as being inherently shameful.

[Benjamin Robert Goodman @B_Goodness]

@agostino_harry I think Augustine is a poor example, for several reasons. Among them, I assume you would not endorse his treatment of his mistress, his son, or his prayer of, “Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet,”; or, for that matter, his view of sex in general as shameful.

[Benjamin Robert Goodman @B_Goodness]

@agostino_harry We’ve disagreed on this before, and my position has not substantially changed. But even given all of this, it is of little help to sluts.

[Benjamin Robert Goodman @B_Goodness]

Cf.:

[Benjamin Robert Goodman @B_Goodness]

I think Christianity is a very hard religion for sluts.

(Here I mean ‘sluts’ to refer, in a gender-neutral way, to those who just really like lots of sex with lots of people; it refers to those who enjoy casual sex and don’t have hang-ups around it.)

[Benjamin Robert Goodman @B_Goodness]

Cf.:

[Benjamin Robert Goodman @B_Goodness]

Christianity just does not know what to do with modern notions of sex in general, other than to both label it a fallen activity and sequester it for child-making only (and all but ignoring the female orgasm); it struggles to speak to gays, lesbians, and especially sluts.