FRiend,
I highlighted the above passage from your last post because I believe that it leads us to the crux of the matter. In your version of Christianity, I must accept A, B and C in order to be worthy of being considered D (Christian). But there is evidently no room for me at the inn, since while I wholeheartedly accept A and B, I have a somewhat different perspective on C.
It's interesting that you use the word "institutionalize". Such a mellow word to describe the damage that the state does when prosecuting vice. I have some perspective on this as I was once a participant in the "drug war".
As a young man, some forty or so years ago, I was arrested for possession of marijuana. I was found guilty (I was guilty) and at the tender age of nineteen I had a criminal record. That record has damaged my career. I have been passed over for at least one job because of it. I have also been denied a promotion because of it. I made a stupid mistake, no question, but the conviction by the state hurt me worse than any drugs ever did.
But, you might be thinking, the arrest surely taught me my lesson, right? It surely kept me from moving to harder drugs. Hardly. It pushed me further into the life. It hardened my "us versus them" mentality. Fortunately, my dear wife arrived on the scene shortly after this incident and straightened me out. Without using coercion too, I might add.
Sometimes, the drug war fallout is even more serious than my experience. Take, for example, a recent occurrence in my home town. A young man was selling marijuana from his home. He was reported to the police. Late one night the SWAT team came to his house. According to reports (and believed by the jury) he heard them pounding on his door and thought he was being robbed. He fired a pistol at the door. A young policeman was hit, and killed. The policeman left behind a young family. The young man who fired the gun is now spending his life in jail. Two lives are gone, and two families have been irreparably damaged. And all over a small amount of an intoxicating weed that people ingest voluntarily.
Now I would not deny that misusing drugs does damage, and that undoubtedly other lives have been helped by the "institutionalized" rejection of this vice. And I would not condemn someone with the perspective that the drug war is an overall positive state program. I certainly would not condemn such a view as non Christian, just mistaken.
But this is where you and I differ. Whereas I would suggest that two Christians could have different perspectives on this matter of the drug war - whether it should be continued or dropped - you, on the other hand, condemn me for my perspective, going so far as to question my belief in the teachings of Jesus Christ. In your mind it is evidently not possible that I am simply mistaken. I am simply not a Christian.
I will leave you with one final thought, my FRiend. I direct your attention to my tag line. This wonderful quote from one of our founding fathers can be interpreted in (at least) two ways. The first, and most obvious interpretation is that we humans, born ignorant, become more the wise the more we displace our ignorance with facts.
The second interpretation, and what I believe Benjamin Franklin to have been thinking when he penned this, is that it is the very realization of our own natural state of ignorance that leads us to wisdom. For it is this realization that causes us to continually question our "facts". I use this quote as my tag line as a constant reminder to myself that no matter how sure I am of my position, I do need to approach every problem with what the Zen masters call "beginner's mind". The possibility that my facts may simply be wrong.
God only knows whether you are correct, that A, B and C are required in order to be considered D. God only knows. You don't. Consider that you just might be wrong. That's what a Christian would do.
“In your version of Christianity, I must accept A, B and C in order to be worthy of being considered D (Christian). But there is evidently no room for me at the inn, since while I wholeheartedly accept A and B, I have a somewhat different perspective on C.”
It is very frustrating to me that I cannot successfully explain what is so obvious. People arguing your side of this issue always distort. What does that indicate?
Here, you speak of “being worthy” and “room at the inn.” When you purport to rebut propositions I have not advanced, you seek to attribute those propositions to me. This strategy is adopted because the false propositions are so much easier to mock or rebut than the arguments I actually made.
Your arguments, whether advanced by you or anyone else, would be much more persuasive if they could be made without having to distort the arguments of the opposition.
I really hope I do not need to explain the difference between your misrepresentation of my position and the arguments I actually advanced. By the way, do you really think it is valid to have a slightly different perspective from God?
“I was once a participant in the “drug war.”
The war on drugs was announced by President Nixon in 1969. You most likely violated a state or local law.
“That record has damaged my career. I have been passed over for at least one job because of it. I have also been denied a promotion because of it. I made a stupid mistake, no question, but the conviction by the state hurt me worse than any drugs ever did.”
That arrest and everything that flowed from it was a direct result of your decision to violate the law in search of intoxication.
“you might be thinking, the arrest surely taught me my lesson, right? It surely kept me from moving to harder drugs.”
You think conservatives are really stupid, don’t you?
“A young policeman was hit, and killed…And all over a small amount of an intoxicating weed that people ingest voluntarily.”
You can’t really think that’s all there was to it, can you? The young man who fired the gun made a number of bad decisions, decisions that the Bible would have told him not to make. In the end, he chose to fire a gun blindly through the door. He and he alone is responsible for that policeman’s murder.
“Now I would not deny that misusing drugs does damage, and that undoubtedly other lives have been helped by the “institutionalized” rejection of this vice. And I would not condemn someone with the perspective that the drug war is an overall positive state program. I certainly would not condemn such a view as non Christian, just mistaken.”
You seem to be arguing that, since you don’t call another position non Christian, others should not say that your position is contrary to the tenets of Christianity. That is not a valid argument. A position either is or is not congruent with Christianity, regardless of who says what about it.
“But this is where you and I differ. Whereas I would suggest that two Christians could have different perspectives on this matter of the drug war - whether it should be continued or dropped - you, on the other hand, condemn me…”
Condemn you? There’s that distortion again. It’s really not honest, you know.
“…for my perspective, going so far as to question my belief in the teachings of Jesus Christ. In your mind it is evidently not possible that I am simply mistaken. I am simply not a Christian.”
Everything you assert about my position in that paragraph is the result of stretching for the worst possible interpretation of what I have said, and bridging the gaps with bare assumption where stretching does not suffice.
It is actually malicious to assume that I don’t admit the possibility that you could be simply mistaken. It is an accusation, an imputation of bigotry.
“I direct your attention to my tag line. This wonderful quote from one of our founding fathers can be interpreted in (at least) two ways.”
Well, no, it can’t. It can be interpreted, correctly, in the way that you reject, or misinterpreted to superimpose upon it the meaning you impute to it.
“For it is this realization that causes us to continually question our “facts”…approach every problem with what the Zen masters call “beginner’s mind”. The possibility that my facts may simply be wrong.”
You cannot approach every issue in this way every time, nor is it sensible to try. We learn. When we have spent great effort on consideration of an issue, we need not trot out the “beginner’s mind” unless we are presented new facts or new arguments. There is no requirement to treat the same-old same-old as fresh and new every time we see it.
“God only knows whether you are correct, that A, B and C are required in order to be considered D. God only knows. You don’t.”
There you go again, trying to write off what I have said as merely one man’s opinion. Allow me to quote G. K. Chesterton, speaking of the Catholic Church:
“There is no other case of one continuous intelligent institution that has been thinking about thinking for two thousand years. Its experience naturally covers nearly all experiences; and especially nearly all errors. The result is a map in which all the blind alleys and bad roads are clearly marked, all the ways that have been shown to be worthless by the best of all evidence: the evidence of those who have gone down them.”
If you have arguments in rebuttal of what I say, present them by all means. But kindly drop this ridiculous nonsense of calling 2,000 years of the intellectual work product of the greatest minds in history as “just your opinion.”
“Consider that you just might be wrong. That’s what a Christian would do.”
Doubting the Word of God is no part of Christianity. That you would even say that makes me wonder if you are merely posing as a Christian.