Context, context, context. When talking about profit/loss and financials, you really do need to put numbers on things, otherwise you've got just an empty assertion. I'm not claiming any sort of uniqueness in the method of calculation (which is something you seem desperately stuck on).

As noted before, most of the revenue for the Catholic church doesn't even come from donations.

It may not matter to you. But when it comes to any sort of analysis where you make a non-empty claim of financial importance, it really does matter.

It would certainly seem so given that you've tried to claim that popularity is a sufficient replacement for profitability. If you really were content to simply talk about financials, then there would be no reason to bring in these other measures of success like "popularity."

Here's what I stated earlier:

There are many ways to look for the success of the church that simply aren't directly tied to finances. A big theological one is "Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven." However you want to interpret that, as long as it falls within the confines of general orthodoxy, it's far from obvious that success of this type is measured either in the numbers of adherents or the financial strength of the organization.

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Sorry for jumping around... I started the post and then I realized that my time was limited, but I typed enough that I didn't just want to abandon it and restart some other time. The above may not be the most organized post.

There is nothing in your statement that hints in any way that context is necessary: ""Having no specific number and no real way to quantify it [makes it an empty assertion]". It reads as entirely general. Now if you want to clarify that you agree that in general this statement is obviously bogus, then great! If you want to say it is only in some very specific contexts that you abandon the idea of qualitative justifications and insist only on quantitative ones, then sure, that is a bit better.

However, your restriction of context is still far too general: bolded is just nonsense. There are all kinds of things where it is impossible to practically measure some specific dollar value that it contributes, but we can nonetheless make qualitative arguments. Just because we are talking about business or financials doesn't magically mean every single thing has to be quantifiable (and thank goodness otherwise we would often say nothing at all!). Especially in things with a large number of design elements put together, it can be almost impossible to make any form of objective quantifiable analysis as to the dollar value of any individual design element. It is just a major mistake to hand wave away all arguments that are not assigning specific numbers (a standard you almost never try for yourself).




So what? If one was going to sit down for several days and try to give a specific dollar figure on something - probably impossible given how opaque the church is, the economist is only able to do back of the napkin calcs based on anecdotal evidence - then you might want to consider all sorts of factors like whether you want to include medicare financing at catholic hospitals as a meaningful component of the success of the church or whatever. If I wanted to do that kind of quantitative analysis we could try that. But I reject the necessity of coming up with specific dollar figures in order to make a qualitative argument that is meaningful.




As I have said over and over now, I am more than happy to repeat my "No! Quantitative arguments are not the only ones allowed!" point in either domain, dollars or people. And I am happy to repeat my "The theology of redemtion from sin through the church is important" point in either the context of the financial size or popularity size. You are trying to split hairs on a distinction that just isn't relevant.


Lol. At any point when I said "success" did you think I meant something like this? My points are invariant under whether we are discussing financials or popularity, but sure for some other very different theological measure perhaps it won't be. But so what? You spent a whole post ignoring every point except for obsessing about this minor hair split which doesn't make an iota of difference for my points....and now that I have told you the distinction is irrelevant you come back with a sort of "ya but what if success meant something completely different than what was clearly intended". So weird.

Wait, are you all actually arguing grace vs. works in the context of Apple?!?

If so, I have two questions: 1) Why? and 2) WFT?!?

If so or if not, do you actually have some religious education? I mean that in a nice way. The grace vs. works thing is a pretty interesting topic in a chicken and egg sort of way.

If not, wtf are you two arguing about?

He isn't. It was meant as an illustrative analogy about how one can make qualitative statements (when Aaron was bizarrely insisting on specific numbers and quantitative statements). However, instead of helping to illustrate the point, Aaron launched on a series of rather ridiculous and obviously false claims about Apple while never seeming to internalize the point of the analogy.