{"id":42564,"date":"2014-06-13T08:43:39","date_gmt":"2014-06-13T14:43:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/06\/13\/the-error-of-refusing-to-accept-your-error.html"},"modified":"2014-11-06T09:58:17","modified_gmt":"2014-11-06T16:58:17","slug":"the-error-of-refusing-to-accept-your-error","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/06\/13\/the-error-of-refusing-to-accept-your-error.html","title":{"rendered":"The Error of Refusing to Accept Your Error"},"content":{"rendered":"
In the classic "Star Trek" episode "The Changeling," the Enterprise is faced with Nomad, a robotic probe that is out to destroy all flawed beings and has the firepower to do it. Kirk eventually wins by showing Nomad that it has made a mistake, too, at which point it blows itself up (http:\/\/youtu.be\/3ml2_FkNR90?t=44m16s<\/a>). \u00a0(He does much the same to the computer Landru in "Return of the Archons," and the M5 in "The Ultimate Computer" — when you have schtick that works, stick to\u00a0it).<\/p>\n

People are afraid of making mistakes. Especially important people. Especially important people who have built a reputation on never making mistakes. \u00a0Healthy ones respond to this fear with humility, acceptance of imperfection, seeking forgiveness, and moving on. "Go and sin no more," as Jesus put it.<\/p>\n

And then you have folks who don't.<\/p>\n

The attached Fred Clark story tees off another fine story here (http:\/\/www.religiondispatches.org\/books\/sexandgender\/7923\/the_story_behind_the_catholic_church_s_stunning_reversal_on_contraception\/<\/a>) on how the Catholic Church in the early 60s was on the verge of formally okaying the use of modern birth control methods. A stacked panel put together by John XXIII (stacked against<\/i> changing church policy) ended up coming out strongly in favor of it. \u00a0Paul VI … discarded their decision, and went with a minority report that led to his 1968 Humanae Vitae,<\/i> which basically said sex is for procreation, and removing that linkage is wrong (and which came out only a couple of years after Kirk demonstrated on multiple occasions the dangers of not being able to admit and deal with your mistakes).<\/p>\n

Clark looks in more detail at that Minority Report, leading to the headline below. I wouldn't call it stupid<\/i> as much as bull-headed.<\/i> \u00a0While the theology can be argued about, the report's writers boiled things down like this:<\/p>\n

1. The Church cannot change its policy because the Church is never wrong.<\/b> That's why it's the Church, after all, instituted by God and therefore obviously always correct (or at least correct in this case).<\/p>\n

2. The Church cannot be wrong because then we'll have condemned folks to Hell in error, and that is unthinkable.<\/b> Since the Church feels has been given the authority to reward or punish (Matthew 16:13-19), if they change their mind on something it has huge, and rather awful, implications. \u00a0That's too painful to admit (I call it their Luke Skywalker moment\u00a0http:\/\/youtu.be\/BwvnRneMHiY?t=1m52s<\/a>)<\/p>\n

3. The Church cannot change its policy, admitting it was wrong, because then people would begin to doubt the Church's moral authority.<\/b> Aha! Even a charitable reading can only be interpreted as "We have to stick with a lie because otherwise they won't believe us when we try to tell them a truth later."<\/p>\n

The Church (or at least the writers of the Minority Report) set things up for a massive failure in this, just like with Nomad. Error is impossible. Even if it were possible, it would be horrible to contemplate. Even if it were contemplated, it would be too dangerous to admit.<\/i><\/p>\n

Institutions, individuals, or robots that take that path, eventually blow up.\ufeff<\/p><\/div>\n

\n

Embedded Link<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Stupidest Thing I Have Ever Read<\/a><\/p>\n

View this post on Google+<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the classic "Star Trek" episode "The Changeling," the Enterprise is faced with Nomad, a robotic probe that is out to destroy all flawed beings and has the firepower to do it. Kirk eventually wins by showing Nomad that it has made a mistake, too, at which point it blows itself up (http:\/\/youtu.be\/3ml2_FkNR90?t=44m16s). \u00a0(He does … Continue reading “The Error of Refusing to Accept Your Error”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106,110,360,372],"tags":[586],"class_list":["post-42564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts","category-religious-zanies","category-media-tv-star-trek","category-star-wars-media-movies","tag-pluspost"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":23590,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/11\/09\/tweets-from-2011-11-09.html","url_meta":{"origin":42564,"position":0},"title":"Tweets from 2011-11-09","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 9-Nov-11 9:45pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Trying to figure out company's charitable giving page. They are very unclear about whether selected amt is per pay pd or DIVIDED per pay pd. # Took sun shining in my eyes on the train to realize I left my hat at the office, dagnabbit. #brimless #defedoraed # Ground through\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~Tweets"","block_context":{"text":"~Tweets","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/tweets"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":35149,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/05\/24\/movie-review-star-trek-2009-2.html","url_meta":{"origin":42564,"position":1},"title":"Movie Review: "Star Trek" (2009)","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 24-May-13 10:51pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Watched it with the daughter and the 'rents for the first time (pre-requisite for the one currently out). \u00a0Generally speaking, everyone was quite pleased. (Original review at\u00a0https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/05\/20\/movie-review-star-trek-2009.html .) Dave Hill\u2019s \u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605 review of Star Trek (2009) on Letterboxd.com Despite plot holes one could drive a Romulan mining ship through, previous\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13426,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/12\/19\/majel_barrett_roddenberry.html","url_meta":{"origin":42564,"position":2},"title":"Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, RIP","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 19-Dec-08 4:53pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I was sorry to hear that Majel Barrett-Roddenberry had passed away. One of the things that struck me when seeing the trailer for J.J. Abrams' new Star Trek movie was...","rel":"","context":"In "Babylon 5"","block_context":{"text":"Babylon 5","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/franchises\/media-tv-babylon-5"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":133303,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/04\/20\/mama-dont-let-your-spacemen-grow-up-to-be-gold-shirts.html","url_meta":{"origin":42564,"position":3},"title":"Mama, Don't Let Your Spacemen Grow Up To Be GOLD Shirts","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 20-Apr-17 12:42pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Being a \"red shirt\" on Star Trek is thought to be the touch of death. But in reality, if you look at actual crew breakdown, it's more dangerous to be a gold shirt on the Enterprise than a red shirt. Though if you're a security red shirt and just happen\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":128614,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/05\/everyones-got-must-have-ideas-for-the-next-star-trek.html","url_meta":{"origin":42564,"position":4},"title":"Everyone's got "must-have" ideas for the next Star Trek","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 5-Nov-15 8:09pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Given that so little info was given from the CBS announcement (aside from the zany \"streaming video only\" aspect of its distribution, it's not surprising that everyone's jumping on what the show should be about and, more importantly, what the characters should be like.A lot of that has been (on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":38774,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/09\/16\/yet-another-annoying-trend-for-consumers.html","url_meta":{"origin":42564,"position":5},"title":"Yet another annoying trend for consumers","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 16-Sep-13 8:32am","format":false,"excerpt":"Splitting up Blu-Ray features between different retailers. Some material for the latest Star Trek film is exclusive to the discs sold at Target; other items can only be found in what you buy from Best Buy. Better yet, some of the retailer material requires going online and and viewing it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42564"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42564\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42568,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42564\/revisions\/42568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}