BroJoeK: Your debate is not with me, but with St. Thomas Aquinas, to whom you should address your concerns about “false dichotomies”.
I have merely pointed out that Aquinas was first to spell out the different forms of thinking relating to theology and “natural philosophy” — aka “science”.
Spirited: A sophist (magical thinker) is one who will emphatically deny that a tree that falls in a forest makes no sound when no one is around to hear it on the basis of his imperial say so. If the sophist says it makes sound then it does. If he says the reverse, then it makes no sound.
With respect to Aquinas it is on your say-so that he exactly agrees with what you want everyone to believe. Aquinas is a puppet who dances to your tune and says just what you want him to say.
What an odd remark from somebody whose very raison d'etre is the making of false accusations -- indeed whose very definition of "heaven" is a place where one can spend eternity making false accusations against enemies (real & imaginary) and not be held to account...
So, now you accuse your humble correspondent, BJK, of making the great Doctor of the Church, St. Thomas Aquinas, my personal "puppet", of making him do whatever it is I want him to??
Astonishing. And yet, dear spirited irish the power is in your very hands, right now!
You, yourself can free the great saint from my "evil clutches" simply and easily.
All you need to do is abandon your own wicked ways of false accusations and lies, and tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth -- about Aquinas.
You, irish: study him, learn him, quote him.
Prove me wrong. Demonstrate where I mischaracterized his ideas.
Then come here and tell the truth.
Leave your stinking false accusations behind.
Focus, focus your mind on what is true -- beginning with Aquinas.
You will free him, free yourself, and who knows... maybe even correct my own misunderstandings?