“…I should have mentioned the entire concept of theology …”

Since you seem to be discussing theology as a whole, I as asking about a specific ‘flavor’.

So, you know a great deal about Catholic theology? The process, the great thinkers, the underlying concepts? It doesn’t seem to be the case. After all, you don’t seem to grasp the strict limits on papal infallibility so I doubt you understand the objective, empirical, logical basis of theology.

I must disagree on the other two. In terms of the hat I thought it was obvious that I was making a sarcastic exaggeration. The hat itself isn’t considered causal but the mechanism of papal infallibility in announcing dogma is a license to print facts (whether or not it has been used in this way is another question).

As for encyclicals I don’t think you’re claiming that the discussions are free of reference to facts — this would be hard to defent. It is the weakest of the 3 examples — I guess I should have mentioned the entire concept of theology instead (the encyclical being an example).

Next, Papal encyclicals deal with doctrine, not dogma. There is a difference, and it is important. Also, dogma, *by definition* does not change. And no encyclical has stated anything like ‘the moon is made of cheese’ but deal mainly with topics such as ‘cheating a worker of his just wage is immoral’ or ‘Bishops may not charge a fee to open a new parish’ so there is no discussion of brute fact involved. On top of that, the majority of encyclicals are about theological debates and are freely disagreed with all the time!

And, also,. Papal Infallibility does *not* claim that “whatever the Pope says whilst wearing his special hat [is a] fact”, it states that if the Pope makes a formal announcement of moral or religious teaching and states that it is a dogma, Catholics must believe it. (Once again, the article you linked to had a hyperlink to a piece that describes this very clearly). And to keep going, while the papal tiara was sometimes worn when making an Ex Cathedra statement, it has literally *nothing* to do with making the statement infallible or not.

That’s 3 statements, 3 strikes. Pretty tough, especially when your own links showed your errors.

Or was this an ironic attempt to ‘create’ facts of your own?

As far as I understand, according to Orthodox Judaism, Kings and Chronicles talks about temple 1, Middot about temple 2 and Ezekiel about temple 3.

Also Middot definitely reads like a reconstruction of historical past as opposed to idealisation (compare to other tractates such as Shabbat where it never says “in such and such a case the person WOULD be liable”).

But I think the ultimate point is that the Rabbis of the Talmud mix idealisation and historical reconstruction — very deliberately (they weren’t fools and these aren’t coincidences) to the point where it’s not feasible to see what’s what exactly.

Also I think the Mishna specifically assumes the Pharisees were in control at some point? I think in Yoma it mentions that they would ask the Kohen Gadol a question about the ceremony to make sure there was a public declaration he was not a Sadducee and then weep.

The temple they were talking about was always an idealized temple where the rabbis controlled the priests. As we now the actual history of second temple times the High Priest and the temple priests were far more powerful than the pharisees.

Idealized models if they are to be plausible always have admixtures of reality. Models in science also contain large measures of idealized conditions.