You don't have to add ones I haven't written. — Ennui Elucidator
...your extension of his neglected argument to summarily writing off Christians without knowing anything about the individual — Ennui Elucidator
My interest here is as to the extent to which Christians (and Muslims) ought be allowed at the table when ethical issues are discussed. Given their avowed admiration for evil, ought we trust their ethical judgement? — Banno
You failed to notice — Banno
But now that you are clarifying, — Ennui Elucidator
Doubtless one can formulate forms of christianity that are in some way immune to Lewis' critique, and in that regard Lewis has done a service to theology. But that such less perverse versions exist does not excuse the likes of Israel Folau. — Banno
he shows the people how to defy the cruel overlord — Isaac
Well no -- the villain here is the Pharisees. — Srap Tasmaner
Or perhaps he doesn't see it as "molestation" at all. Maybe he read a lot about ancient Greek culture where paedophilia is regarded as a good and normal thing. Maybe he doesn't think children are automatically innocent. Maybe he himself was a victim of priestly sexual abuse as a child and is now repeating the pattern. Maybe he lost his faith and is since then in a volatile psychological state, more likely to engage in problematic or even criminal behaviors. — baker
When you look at this in the context of Christian culture as a whole, priestly child abuse is, sadly, not some egregious special case. People can be quite rough on eachother, and Christians are no exception. Physical violence, domestic abuse, alcoholism, drug abuse, ... — baker
Sure, but the point is that there is a whole culture of people refusing to play by the rules. We cannot just ignore them, nor their success. — baker
Then you don't have much of a case for fairness. — baker
The right to freedom of speech doesn't include the right to be heard. — baker
But let's not pretend they are examples of condoned conduct. — Hanover
If you read a single page of a legal document without putting it into the context of other controlling documents and opinions and rules, then you're out of the conversation in terms of what the import of the single document is. — Hanover
It's become an odd thread. We seem to have general agreement that hell is an unjust notion, and hence a disavowal of those who would claim otherwise, including censure of those who would praise such an unjust god. At this point we pretty much have unstated agreement on the merit of the Lewis article.
But it has been combined with a claim from avowed non-christians that those who would claim otherwise do not exist in great numbers nor do they understand the bible; this last based on some notion of there being a correct, non-literal interpretation. — Banno
Maybe, but that's because there's a fact of the matter about how legal documents are interpreted. The reason I'd have no luck is because Judges are obliged to take the legal context into account. No-one is obliged to take the theological context into account, you just decide to, and then insist I must also. — Isaac
Anyway, perhaps we are finished here. — Banno
Religion-bashing has become passé since the new atheists lost their novelty factor, the new vogue is to defend it. — Isaac
The vestry is private, the church isn't so maybe it's "it's OK to molest boys when hidden but we should protect the innocent when in view". — Isaac
When people are looking for these stories, they'll more readily pick one off the shelf than make one up themselves. The myths and narratives that a society offers matter a lot to the kind of society that results because of this. It' my belief that a contradictory mythology such a Christianity offers - with the sort of contradictions Lewis is highlighting - offers a narrative which allows for such horrors as priestly child abuse, much more readily than better mythologies might, precisely because of these underlying themes (that God's actually something of a git himself. That he sees the rites, cassocks and prayers as more important that the behaviour...). — Isaac
It is, no doubt, impossible to prevent his praying for his mother, but we have means of rendering the prayers innocuous. Make sure that they are always very 'spiritual', that is is always concerned with the state of her soul and never with her rhuematism. Two advantages will follow. In the first place, his attention will be kept on what he regards are her sins, by which, with a little guidance from you, he can be induced to mean any of her actions which are inconvenient or irritating to himself. Thus you can keep rubbing the wounds of the day a little sorer even while he is on his knees; the operation is not at all difficult and you will find it very entertaining. In the second place, since his ideas about her soul will be very crude and often erroneous, he will, in some degree, be praying for an imaginary person, and it will be your task to make that imaginary person daily less and less like the real mother--the sharp-tongued old lady at the breakfast table. In time you may get the cleavage so wide that no thought or feeling from his prayers for the imagined mother will ever flow over into his treatment of the real one. I have had patients of my own so well in hand that they could be turned at a moment's notice from impassioned prayer for a wife's or son's soul to beating or insulting the real wife or son without any qualm. — CS Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
There's nothing meaningfully distinct between how legal documents are interpreted as opposed to religious except for the fact that you have respect for the Anglo tradition of legal interpretation, but not for the systems in place for biblical interpretation. — Hanover
It makes no more sense for a Ugandan to interpret the US Constitution and tell me what it really means than it does for you to tell someone who relies upon the OT that it really means that stoning is acceptable. — Hanover
Nonsense. The legal interpretation can land me in jail or set me free. It has just about one of the largest meaningful consequences it's possible to have. Were it not for such consequence I might well not give two figs for how legal instructions had been historically interpreted by the legal community either. — Isaac
Yes, but that's because a Ugandan, like it or not, is not under the jurisdiction of the US constitution and you, like it or not, are. — Isaac
This is not the case with the Bible, which is just a book and people voluntarily follow some, all, or none of it's edicts as they see fit. — Isaac
So now we know it could be, as opposed to whether it is or ever has been. — Hanover
Applied some analytic philosophy to the analytic philosophers that lost their way because you are talking about a book they hate. — Ennui Elucidator
The question of what a document means is interpreted by the method agreed upon by those who use the document as to what it means. — Hanover
If the law says it's illegal to steal, it's illegal to steal, regardless of whether you have an expectation of getting caught and regardless of whether you have an expectation of Presidential pardon. — Hanover
There are methods by those communities who adhere to the tenants of the Bible when interpreting it, and if you want to know whether some stone their girls, you need to use those methods to know. — Hanover
you will be saying nothing more than "hypothetically, the bible could be used to justify stoning based upon my two cents upon reading through it, so it's a bad document." So now we know it could be, as opposed to whether it is or ever has been. — Hanover
The question of what a document means is interpreted by the method agreed upon by those who use the document as to what it means.
— Hanover
Who says?
If the law says it's illegal to steal, it's illegal to steal, regardless of whether you have an expectation of getting caught and regardless of whether you have an expectation of Presidential pardon.
— Hanover
That's not the point. The point is that if the law is ambiguous, ie one person thinks it prohibits stealing another that it doesn't, what matters is the interpretation of the legal community. That's where the consequence will be determined. — Isaac
There are methods by those communities who adhere to the tenants of the Bible when interpreting it, and if you want to know whether some stone their girls, you need to use those methods to know.
— Hanover
No I don't, I can just observe their actions. It'd be a better test than asking. — Isaac
you will be saying nothing more than "hypothetically, the bible could be used to justify stoning based upon my two cents upon reading through it, so it's a bad document." So now we know it could be, as opposed to whether it is or ever has been.
— Hanover
That's exactly what I am saying. — Isaac
They have Mormons in Australia? :grin: — frank
And then they go and stone little girls. — Hanover
A most wonderful people. — Hanover
Excommunication is not stoning, of course, but it can critically worsen the person's socio-economic status, even to the point where they face homelessness or death by suicide for lack of socio-economic options. — baker
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