I thought this article was interesting. In my twenties and thirties, I studied the social "sciences" and economics very heavily. Here, we see the research of Richard Easterlin discussed. It has to do with the concept of "cohorts": small "cohorts" result in a worker-starved job market, so wages rise rapidly, people get married younger, have more children, and so forth. This then creates a large cohort, which causes a tighter labor market, and the cycle repeats back the other way.

In the 1980s, America was due for another baby boom due to a small cohort-- so, this would have made Gen X'ers like me, and older Millennials, the parents of that boom. US immigration policy however turned the small cohort into a large one, and we are still feeling the ripple effects of that now-- or perhaps especially right now. I have a friend who took a year to land a job at McDonald's; another has applied to two hundred and forty warehouse jobs, and not landed anything yet.

Some of my very dearest friends are from other countries-- shout out to all of you, by the way, I hope things are going amazing! But all of you, my friends, did things the right way: you respected the fundamental dignity of the people, God's beautiful sons and daughters, who already lived in the destination country by submitting paperwork and going through the proper channels. If I were moving to your country, out of love for you I would do the same in reverse.

For people who are legitimate refugees, Jesus's heart pours out for you. Never hesitate to reach out to me and others for prayer requests, or whatever help you need.

But also please follow international law: God put us on Earth to create order, and international law is very clear that refugees must carefully make their way to the very nearest safe country. In this way we can happily and joyfully welcome you into host nations in an even, sustainable way; this in contrast to large caravans passing through myriad safe nations to overflow a single host nation-- or even worse, dangerous dinghy rides, in direct violation of said law, when a safe country was nearer.

If you are in the United States illegally, please do cooperate with customs officials, though it may create hardship. Americans have big hearts, but taking illegal actions is going to harden the hearts of the general public, and create tension plus division. To customs officials, although you have an often thankless and dangerous job, never forget that the people you are apprehending are beloved children of God. Be firm but also compassionate; do your job with the right intentions in your hearts.

To politicians who are deliberately facilitating floods of false refugees simply to dilute the native populations' voting bloc and so consolidate your own power and wealth out of ego and greed, you must cease these activities at once. This is my constructive appeal to unity-- that we all work together as one big global team, subjected to God's will, to bring about the Father's kingdom here.


Formulation

Many of you know I was away from the Faith for over twenty years. During that time I called myself an atheist, and an anarcho-capitalist. Primarily, what brought me back to the Lord was a series of things people said to me in passing, but which planted seeds. Over time, God grew those seeds within me until they reached a critical mass, which I could no longer ignore.

God worked through me in the only way He knew would work for me. Here are some of those formulations. I can dive into these in greater detail in future posts, but for now perhaps they can be a prompting for further research from anyone who may read this:

• We can't know God exists; how? Die and come back? Even Saint Faustina who would literally see Baby Jesus on the altar during the Eucharist had doubts, her entire life. Faith isn't knowing God exists: rather, it's an Occam's Razor game. If you tell yourself you don't "believe" because knowing is your bar for belief, then you will never "believe".


• "Religion is just a coping mechanism for society." Maybe for some. But even if that were true, it's a non-sequitur which does nothing to explore the truth of Christian claims.


• The stakes are too high to simply coast by and not give serious thought to the question of God. What if the Christians are right? For people in this phase, my advice: every day for thirty seconds, get down on your knees and ask God to reveal Himself to you in some way that you will believe. You might feel silly, but I don't care that you don't think He exists: just do it anyway. What will it harm? It costs thirty seconds and four calories.


• You already believe in Dark Matter and subatomic particles. You already make a zillion assumptions about things you can't prove. Again, Occam's Razor.


• Evolution conflates two different things: yes giraffes with longer necks reproduce more, but the math doesn't work for a fish to have become a cat by random mutation. It would be like wind blowing rocks into a perfectly-drawn and shaded Mickey Mouse face on the beach. It could have happened by chance, but it's much more likely that something designed our reality and everything in it. Everything in our universe looks like it was painstakingly engineered-- because it probably was.


• Where did a tree come from? A seed. Where did the seed come from? A tree. Where did that tree come from? A seed. Where did that seed come from? A tree. Where did the first tree come from? It's an infinite recursion problem. Where did the Big Bang come from? Another Big Bang? Where did that one come from? You run out of origins. Almost certainly something was a "first mover" with no point of origin.


• Why the Christian God? Jesus was a real historical figure. Historicity validates the events and places in Scripture. Jesus performed a gazillion miracles. How? Via what means? Again, Occam's Razor: could have been magic? Or fairy farts? But given the preponderance of evidence from so many facets all at once, it's reasonable to assume that Jesus's powers came in the way He said they did. Like, he literally told us.


• So why the Catholic church? Apostolic succession. You can't delegate a right you don't have-- but you can delegate a right you do have. Jesus delegated His authority to Peter, then on down the line to Pope Leo. Tongues of fire came on the Apostles, they laid hands on others, passing the Holy Spirit torch all the way to our present-day Bishops.

Hopefully these things can stimulate thought for those of you struggling with your Faith, so you don't need to take the same circuitous multi-decade route I did!