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advancedatheist comments on Stupid Questions May 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion

10 Post author: Gondolinian 01 May 2015 05:28PM

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Comment author: advancedatheist 04 May 2015 03:22:05AM *  0 points [-]

The Jews faced different demographic challenges than Catholics, so that might account for the difference.

I wondered about the sexual reject idea after reading that Thomas Aquinas' father decided that his pudgy little boy didn't look fit for breeding, so he sent Thomas to a monastery at the age of five, while the father encouraged Thomas's better-looking brothers to marry and perpetuate the family.

Comment author: drethelin 04 May 2015 04:21:29AM 3 points [-]

I haven't read the history but I would be bet that story is apocryphal. Tons of people at age 5 or even at age 11 look completely different than they do as adults and I'm sure people a thousand years ago knew that just as well as we know about Neville Longbottom

Comment author: hairyfigment 14 May 2015 05:20:28PM 0 points [-]

From a simple Google search:

Thomas had eight siblings, and was the youngest child.

While the rest of the family's sons pursued military careers,[12] the family intended for Thomas to follow his uncle into the abbacy;[13] this would have been a normal career path for a younger son of southern Italian nobility.[14]

And biography.com asserts,

Before St. Thomas Aquinas was born, a holy hermit shared a prediction with his mother, foretelling that her son would enter the Order of Friars Preachers, become a great learner and achieve unequaled sanctity.

You're trying to make this about him as an individual, when in fact it seems like a combination of family needs and inheritance customs/law that even a hermit could predict in advance.

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