Thank God For the Magisterium

The issue may be the meaning of “sufficiency” as you use it as well. Is there a claim that tradition teaches anything necessary to salvation that is not included in scripture?

How can the Church, which Scripture calls "the pillar and foundation of truth," teach anything authoritatively if Catholics are permitted to reject any dogmatic teaching?

When you tell people they are no longer allowed to think for themselves and that the thinking has been done and they are to shut up about it, then you destroy the truth.

Truth can withstand scrutiny. By prohibiting scrutiny, and ending discussion, you legitimize false teachings and you create a tradition of error.

Vatican II showed that the what the Catholics held as inviolate truth is not necessarily going to be truth throughout the ages. Those who agreed with the goals of Vatican II before it was enacted were considered heretics by the traditionalists. Now the traditionalists are considered heretics. The Roman Catholic Church is not the sole repository of the truth. The Truth exists apart and independent of any organization on this earth.

What is RCC Dogma today was not RCC Dogma yesterday and will not necessarily be RCC Dogma tomorrow.

The Truth of scripture endures throughout all ages.

This is where we achieve great weasleness of words! Very great. As a theologian (as IF!) I always notice when somebody uses a phrase like "in a special way". (I always want to say,"WHAT special way.?" ANd I think most Catholic preachers and teachers wouldn't be able to finish a paragraph if they were forbidden to use that phrase.

Similarly we talk about the "fulness" of the church and blah blah.

I don't think that for YOU to believe the happy Mariological doctrines is critical to your salvation. We've slowly learned (though it's in Dante, but you have to look for it) not to tell God whom He may save.So, in other words, I presume to think you are missing something.

For us who have promised to pray, pay, and obey NOT to believe in those doctrines would be a kind of perjury, and so a graver matter.

Jesus is necessary to salvation. While I think we must say more, to say anything more is to get in trouble. it is all Him, "ever only for my Lord," until He hands the whole mess to the Father.

ONe last attempt. I think you can (and should) take the Marian definitions to the bank, and once you did, you would be glad you did. I don't think God is necessarily going to put you on the down elevator if you don't, okay?

Darn, that's a mess. It's the best I can do. Maybe some other RC's can straighten me out.

Further, I don't believe there is a person on earth who is in possession of the whole and entire truth.

I can't let this go.

The late and very great Hoffman Nickerson of Oyster Bay, Long Island (the land of my yout') - once featured in, like a late 50's or early 60's as the archetypical Harvard Alumn with walrus Moustache, prominent belly and white ducks, blazer, and boater hat, was a very learned man.

He was reported to have said to his son,
"Father's knowledge, though vast, yet has its limits."

late 60’s or early 60’s Life magazine - the last or “Miscellany” page. praeternaturally natty he looked too ....

Oh, Precious Brother. You are so delightful and easy to Love, I could kiss you. But then folks would REALLY talk. Or you'd whack me. You are so loveable I was going to respond before eating breakfast but now I confess, I've having a fig newton. Now to the growing tome . . .

Lewis in his work on the psalms has a good riff on the angry psalms. It's more or less: Okay it's bad to wish all kinds of destruction on folks. But one way to profit from these psalms is to realize that some injustice you did may have led someone to be trapped in that kind of anger -- that you may have contributed to the fall (or at least the temporary spiritual discomfiture and rout) of somebody else.

Good point. I don't know that it covers 100% of all contingencies but it's a good point.

Yeah there are some hair-trigger Catholics. But there are more, and I'm one of these, who came here imagining they were among friends and discovered to their horror that for some, at least, no untruth was too grotesquely false to be said about us.

There's plenty of truth in that. So what. Not ideal. Human, certainly. UNlikely to end once and for all. Not on a diverse public forum. Worth getting one's knickers in a twist? Sometimes. Depends. Mostly, no. And I think there's an important spiritual something to the mostly no. May be able to tease it out below.

Oh, I misunderstood. Now you're saying that you DID choose the term "magicsterical" to make fun of us, and to use us an an example of a kind of general religious pathology. So you DID mean it as mockery and you DID mean us as the premier example of an illness that many are subject to -- nd you thought the best way to communicate that (and believe me, I am well aware of the wonderful, twisted and bizarre dance of dependency, counter-dependency, and general evasion of adulthood which many find in religion) was to make a parody of one of our terms and of part of our structure.

I might quibble slightly with some of your wording here and there but essentially, yes, I did. Would I do it again? Maybe. Would depend a lot on the issues and the context. Don't know if I can articulate well the whys.

I come to FR--especially after the first year or so of it's existence--boy was that raucous!--I come to FR EXPECTING the religion forum to be very rowdy, hostile, insensitive, harsh, pretty UNChristian, actually. Is that right? No. Should I support UNChristian? No.

But I *THINK* I've learned something of Christ in the NT that I wasn't quite able to wrap my mind around before--and even of The Father. Yes, they are HOLY ABOVE HOLY. And infinitely empathetic and compassionate and gentle etc.

But their infinite compassion, empathy and gentleness are not always what is put forward in a given context toward a given individual. SOMETIMES, there's humor and a biting humor at that. Most of the time the satire etc. is against Pharisees--perhaps even virtually exclusively. But maybe not 100% totally.

Even in the case of Peter and the mouthy rooster . . . there's . . . in that . . . horrendously traumatic wrenching intense time . . . whether intended or not . . . there's something very funny about a rooster, of all things, slapping Peter upside the head about his denial of his SAVIOR--THE SAVIOR!!! Only a braying donkey would have been funnier. Yes, I know. There's nothing funny about it. And yet there is.

Brother, I wouldn't want to revisit in my memory sufficiently to relate to you some of the super horrendous wrenching things I've been through--whether at my own triggering, reaping of my own sowing or from others' sowing--not sure the pain has been all that different. But EACH TIME, I've had a growing--initially an impression--now--I think it's a deep conviction, even a certainty--that Heavenside, if we recall such much at all--we'll laugh uproariously at how puffed up and flustered we got over such inconsequentials . . . and that from Heaven's perspective . . . they are all, essentially, inconsequentials . . . they are all mostly, merely grist for the mill of shaping rulers and reigners with Christ for eternity.

YES, there IS a time for HE IS HIGH AND LIFTED UP AND HIS TRAIN FILLS THE TEMPLE . . . and decorum and deference and hushed, abjectly submissive tones etc. But I doubt that a rowdy intellectual religious--much more so spiritual--exchange is one of those times--except in rare cases.

Brother, I used to cry, WHINE AND WAIL privately and too often publicly--over every little thing. Someone's eye twitter could send me into hours of anguished spasms. God must have laughed deliriously when He wasn't crying over my crying. Yeah, the pain was excruciating and certainly initially not all my doing, by far. I probably cried myself to sleep more times than I care to count in Jr High and High School and not a few times in Univ. Self-pity was probably a constant demonic companion.

But Scripture says . . . COUNT IT ALL JOY WHEN YOU FALL INTO DIVERSE TEMPTATIONS. That must ALSO mean the temptation to whine, wail, pout . . . flail . . . Maya Angelou has a good short ditty on this . . . wonder if I can find it . . .

Complaining (Maya Angelou)

When my grandmother was raising me in Stamps, Arkansas, she had a particular routine when people who were known to be whiners entered her store. Whenever she saw a known complainer coming, she would call me from whatever I was doing and say conspiratorially, "Sister, come inside. Come." Of course I would obey.
My grandmother would ask the customer, "How are you doing today, Brother Thomas?" And the person would reply, "Not so good." There would be a distinct whine in the voice. "Not so good today, Sister Henderson. You see, it's this summer. It's this summer heat. I just hate it. Oh, I hate it so much. It just frazzles me up and frazzles me down. I just hate the heat. It's almost killing me." Then my grandmother would stand stoically, her arms folded, and mumble, "uh-huh, uh-huh." And she would cut her eyes at me to make certain that I had heard the lamentation.
At another time, a whiner would mewl, "I hate plowing. That packed-down dirt ain't got no reasoning, and mules ain't got good sense....Sure ain't. It's killing me. I can't ever seem to get done. my feet and my hands stay sore, and I get dirt in my eyes and up my nose. I just can't stand it." And my grandmother, again stoically, with her arms folded, would say, "Uh-huh, uh-huh," and then look at me and nod.
As soon as the complainer was out of the store, my grandmother would call me to stand in front of her. And then she would say the same thing she had said at least a thousand times, it seemed to me. "Sister, did you hear what Brother So-and-So or Sister Much to Do complained about? You heard that? And I would nod. Mamma would continue, "Sister, there are people who went to sleep all over the world last night, poor and rich, and white and black, but they will never wake again. Sister, those who expected to rise did not, their beds became their cooling boards, and their blankets became their winding sheets. And those dead folks would give anything, anything at all for just five minutes of this weather or ten minutes of that plowing that person was grumbling about. So you watch yourself about complaining, Sister. What you're supposed to do when you don't like a thing is change it. If you can't change it, change the way you think about it. Don't complain."
It is said that persons have few teachable moments in their lives. Mamma seemed to have caught me at each one I had between the age of three and thirteen. Whining is not only graceless, but can be dangerous. It can alert a brute that a victim is in the neighborhood.
COPYRIGHT © 2003, SARAH. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

I certainly could not say it any better. But that's only part of the picture.

Scripture declares that the JOY OF THE LORD IS OUR STRENGTH. Not "should be," "ought to be," "might be," "may be," "sometimes-when-we-are-at-the-top-of-our-spiritual-form-CAN-be," . . . but IS. And NOT a Klintoon IS, either.

Now I have pondered that Scripture most of my 6 decades. I've fussed about that Scripture, whined and wailed about that Scripture. And it just stood there, True, regardless of my whining and wailing.

I have come to the growing conclusion that the JOY OF THE LORD IS BOTH A GIFT AND A HABIT TO BE CULTIVATED. And that often, God may not give the gift in an abiding way--more often--just for rare encouragements at specific intense traumas--HE EXPECTS US TO CULTIVATE THE HABIT FOR THE ABIDING JOY. And it can take some diligent 'TAKE EACH THOUGHT CAPTIVE UNTO THE LORD' CULTIVATING to make it an ABIDING habit of thought. But an underlying, undercurrent of authentic Holy Spirit Joy CAN BE OURS regardless of who is throwing rocks at us over whatever.

I have even grown to the conclusion, that a lot of life's gritches are merely yet more of God's long suffering OPPORTUNITIES FOR US TO GET THAT LESSON RIGHT. Because it's really . . . in many situations . . . a life and death lesson. We must learn it. Especially for these END TIMES.

And, another important spiritual principle, truth seems to me to be involved in all of this.

SACRED COWS!

I have come to the conclusion that God is most consistently and most intensely interested in . . . dealing very emphatically with virtually all SACRED COWS . . . even Biblical ones . . . by . . .

SLAUGHTERING
THEM!

Humans are so perverse that we are chronically taking even good Biblical truths, principles, issues, themes and making idols of them. We seem to find it easier, handier, and it aids and abets our control freaque stuff instead of ABANDONMENT TO GOD--thoroughly, totally and period.

But ABANDON, we must--IF WE TRULY WANT TO BE CONFORMED TO THE IMAGE OF HIS SON.

And that means abandoning our rights to be offended.
. . . our rights to be affronted . . .
. . . our rights to be puffed up . . .
. . . our rights to pout . . . . . . .
. . . our rights to loudly stomp about and pontificate as more correct, holy, righteous and RIGHT! than that idiot brother/sister over there.
. . . our rights to be smugly self-righteous in our own used filthy rags of righteousness [check the meaning of the Scriptural word out]
. . . our rights to be wounded and bleed all over everyone else until they acknowledge how righteous and unjustifiably wounded we REALLY are.
. . . our rights to suck at the public breast of self-pity unless and until everyone for miles around acknowledges how unfairly and mortally wounded we are and immediately rights the horrid wrongs, FORCING EVERYONE to agree with our construction on reality. Harumph.

I think it is a persistent tenacious task of God to slaughter our sacred cows one way or another until we learn to do it ourselves. And, it may well be even a cow that started out nurturing us through a critical spiritual stage. But now, it's become a sacred cow . . .

BETWEEN
US
AND
GOD
HIMSELF!

There is something incredibly spiritually deadly about allowing ANYTHING between God and us--no matter how "spiritual" or EVEN NO MATTER HOW GOD HIMSELF USED THAT VERY THING TO GOOD FOR US in times past . . . maybe even yesterday.

And, Dear, Dear Brother . . . I confess . . . it HAS BEEN PERSISTENTLY THOSE MOCKING, DERISIVE, RIDICULING . . . EVEN ENEMIES who have FORCED me to rub my face in such SACRED COW REAR ENDS often enough that I finally BEGAN to get the message that something was amiss.

I'm not joking or being glib or rationalizing, Dear Brother. Nor am I trying to cleave to some perverse end justifies the means methodology. I'm simply saying . . . many RELIGIOUS sacred cows MUST be shredded, obliterated--at least AS sacred cows. Mocking them is MILD compared to what NEEDS to be done with them--at least with their STATUS AS sacred cows in this or that life.

Certainly my enemies did it out of hostility and utter derision. But more often than I'd like to recall . . . God would persistently . . . persistently . . . WHEN I would quit whining long enough and purpose anew to ABANDON ALL to Him . . . God would persistently note that THOSE WRETCHED ENEMIES AND THEIR DERISIVE SATIRE . . . HAD A POINT. What an affront to my tender sensibilities those God & woodshed talks were.

Is it okay for me to be offended by that? Would it be thin-skinned of me to react negatively to being used as the premier exemplar of an illness?

You'll have to ask God for His perspective on your particular case in a particular instance. But I suspect, . . . it would be human, normal, more or less tolerable . . . but NOT GOD'S HIGHEST.

CHRIST HIMSELF was used as the premier example . . . not just of this or that spiritual illness--but of our wholesale yucky, horrid, utterly poopy and destructive basket of sins that is us. So what of it, if someone else finds us a grand illustration of something uncomfortable.

Compared to GOD ALONE . . . ALL . . . AS IN . . . A L L . . . OTHER ANYTHINGS ARE SACRED COWS.

But to get back to my complaint: You take a term of ours twist it in a mocking way and use it to characterize a human perversion of religion, and then say we have thin skins because we see something to object to in this. O-o-oKAY! (You get why I see this as a little, say, naive?)

I don't know that I have a lot to add on that score. LOTS of sacred cows BEG to be mocked, deserve to be mocked, NEED to be mocked--particularly if that's the only way that wakes someone up to the hideousness of the sacred cow affrontery to God Almighty in the first place.

And you say reacting to the twisting of one of our terms is "out of the flesh" but making fun of us is, what, spiritual?

Oh, there are real hazards there. And not to be treated glibly or lightly. Certainly any side of such can be in the flesh and I'm not trying to justify flesh driven anything.

But truly, twisting of terms to highlight sacred cowness is often enough one of the more effective ways to ring a loud gong and at least attempt an effective or partially effective or building toward an effective SACRED COW ALERT [SCA].

You may as well expect it as a future possibility. And, determine to take it with grace--as we all must learn to do IF we are to become truly Christ-like.

We ALL, likely, still have sacred cows that need slaughtered and thin skinned areas that need thickened. So what. No big deal unless we refuse to learn and grow.

(I didn't realize parody was one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, You must be sure to show me your translation.)

That can be found in II Quix Chapter 7 verse 3. LOL.

You twist our terms and mock us. I would NOT myself characterize that as "disagreeing, forcefully countering".

Oh, I know, the beauty in satire is in the beholder! LOL. And, I'm not trying to diminish the super hazard and a Scriptural hazard at that . . . of mocking satire.

I'm just saying that over my 6 decades, God has taught me a lot through such. A LOT . . . and still is. And, HE HAS TAUGHT ME A LOT about His priorities . . . and a Heavenly perspective on such things . . . AS you say . . . we REALLY OUGHT NOT TAKE OURSELVES TOO SERIOUSLY in a list of ways. And when we find that we are doing so . . . it's virtually a guarantee that a sacred cow is involved.

And satire is a great way to skewer sacred cows . . . as few other things are. Wisdom learns from that. Brittle, insecure, fear based, puffed up . . . stuff doesn't learn from that . . . which is . . . another lesson in itself.

"magicstyerical" is not even an allegation, as such. The closest I can come is "charismaniac". Nobody says that unless they want to mock -- a work with, since you contrast it with "out of the flesh" responses you imply is spiritual. Mockery, a work of the spirit. Hmmm. New concept. I don't' think so.

Actually, I USED to have a similar response, initially, to CHARISMANIAC. I was affronted, outraged, puffed up, hostile etc. to the use of it. But God quickly pointed out that there was a lot more truth in the term than I was prepared to comfortably accept.

Once I realized the truth of it and too often the huge DEGREE of truth to it--it became a humorous, self-effacing point of growth in accepting a more robust type and degree of truth about Charismania. Now, I think of it as a very valid term. Doesn't encompass the whole of the wonderful Charismatic movement, thankfully. But it's plenty true, still, in far too many situations and lives. And, I have to accept that, because that's reality.

Just as it's reality that ALL RELIGIOUS oversight groups have degrees of magicsterical about them and their operation. It's just a fact. I happen to think of it as a super sad AND super funny fact. I suspect God feels similarly.

IF FOLKS CHRONICALLY HAVE THIN SKINS AND HAIR TRIGGER CHIPS ON THEIR SHOULDERS, THEY PROBABLY OUGHT TO LIMIT THEIR POSTING TO CAUCUS THREADS FOR THEIR PARTICULAR PERSUASIONS.

True enough. But you're assuming the conclusion of the subject under discussion. Repetition is not argument. You have pretty much declared yourself as saying that for a Protestant to make mock of another religion is a work of the Spirit, while reacting in kind is having a thin-skin and a hair-trigger shoulder-chip.

No. I'm not saying that, AT ALL. NOT saying that. I actually love a vigorous give and take as long as it's healthy and enlightening. It can include a fusillade of satire and I can enjoy it as long as the satire comes mostly out of a good place. But even when it doesn't, I try to learn from it.

I'm mostly trying to emphasize that sacred cows are deadly and warrant extraordinary means to highlight them and deal with them.

AND that fear based; insecurity based; reactive attachment disorder based whining, railing, flailing and throwing dust in the air NEEDS, A DIFFERENT RESPONSE than applause.

That's understandable. I can only take responsibility for me and try and encourage others to watch their tones, too. But Catholics have thin-skins?

I don't think you've found me being assaultive on those issues though I probably agree a lot with folks who have been.

No I haven't, and this is not a personal complaint, really. You made the contention that RC's have thin-skins. I am contending that, to repeat my analogy, we've been flayed in all the ways I said.

And, Dear Brother, SO HAVE THE PROTIES BEEN JUST AS FLAYED, IF NOT WORSE AND MORE OFTEN, BY CERTAIN RC'S. So what. It's only skin and screaming nerve endings. What a cheap price to pay for the death of a deadly sacred cow.

Look at the new thread on Mary. Before anyone shows any signs of looking for anything of value in the article, someone contends against the perpetual virginity, and then you say that the doctrine grew out of political reasons. You offer no argument, nothing to show WHY you think that, it's just a slam out of the blue. It doesn't even address the truth of the doctrines, just their origins. You and the other poster just attack. That's not disagreement or forcefully countering, unless you think throwing rocks is forceful. There's no examination, no discussion, there's just "Is not!" By this reckoning, five year olds are the model for dialogue.

Wellllll, I only felt duty bound to note that in a couple of lines. I didn't feel duty bound to haggle over the details for the umpteenth time. It was an assertion--merely an assertion. Perhaps it will trigger some lurkers doing more diligent research on their own. Perhaps it will trigger some more thought on the part of some RC's. That's enough for me. I didn't need to rant, rail and pontificate. I just needed to make a brief simple assertion.

Now, if folks are going to get all tied up in their undies over my brief assertion . . . methinks we've located another sacred cow that desperately needs slaughtered. And that is INDEPENDENT OF whether there's ANY validity or 100% invalidity to the original contentions, or not. It's based totally on how folks are treating the issue concerned--i.e. as a cherished sacred cow.

You know RCs who -- to you, who do not read minds of course -- seem not to put God first. But you say that in response to my saying that "nanny nanny boo boo" is not an argument. So it's okay to say "nanny nanny boo boo" and otherwise abuse people with whom we disagree? You think the cure for an absence of humor is to laugh at people and mock their opinions?

Welllllllllllll, I've been on the painful receiving end of: the cure for an absence of humor is to laugh at people and mock their opinions . . . tons and tons and tons. And often it temporarily but for longish periods left me feeling worse.

I was in the cataloguing department of the Univ Library passing through from my being in acting charge of the Univ Special Collections Dept . . . and I was whining to a wonderful Southern lady about something I thought crucial--a sacred cow, probably--and she looked at me full force and in the sweetest most mocking Southern drawl said:

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Bessss him lil ol heart!!!!!

I was caught in the midst of fury and laughter all at the same time. She was deliciously and very, very painfully sharply right on. I BOTH resented her sharp retort and laughed at how appropriate it was and how ridiculous I was. Thankfully, I relatively quickly got on top of that one; learned and went on. But I've never forgotten that in the 40 years or so since.

I'm sorry, but I think it is entirely bogus to laugh at people, twist their terms, lie about their beliefs (not you), and then say that their getting upset is their problem. The sadistic older brother explains when caught by Mom,"We were just having fun," but the fact is HE was having fun, while his victim was crying.

The lying about other's beliefs is a problem. But I'd treat it as other people's hypotheses--which it is, really. They may be CERTAIN IN THEIR OWN MINDS AND HEARTS that it's objective reality . . . but unless someone has a super anointed supernatural insight into another person's mind, spirit, soul . . . on the matter . . . it's really just a hypothesis. So what. Hypotheses are often wrong. Often enough, though, they are more right than others are brave enough to look in the mirror and admit--on all sides.

And, certainly I'm not into applauding a sadistic older brother syndrome.

But I'm not really sadistic, Brother. I think you know that. I don't think you are either. But we each have thin skinned areas that need thickening. This is boot camp. LIfe is growth, or death. I choose growth.

YES! GETTING UPSET

IS

THE UPSETTEE'S

PROBLEM!

Primarily. Scripture says be anxious for nothing. Don't let the sun go down on our wrath, etc. Being upset is our responsibility REGARDLESS of the stimulus--and even regardless of the validity of the stimulus.

Yeah, in some respects and ways and contexts, it's wise, spiritual, Loving to avoid unnecessarily offend a weak brother.

However, in most respects, folks who come out blazing with knives, arrows and spears . . . are not exactly weak brothers regarding their sacred cows. They may be emotionally, psychologically, relationally, logically weak etc. But their fierce death grip and horridly intense defense of THEIR SACRED COW STATUS OVER THEIR SACRED COWS is not pretty and not weak. Usually, it would take a long time and a LOT of water canons to wear down that granite and inferno.

But I think you know as well as I do that RC's are going to continue to feel duty, honor and spiritually bound to restate that Proties are not part of the REAL church; are 1.5 of their feet on banana peels toward hell; are demonized individual papists because they interpret the Bible on their own . . . etc. etc. etc. AS THEIR SPIRITUAL DUTY TO ALL THE NEW LURKERS constantly wandering by . . .

First of all it's "Not fully part of the real church" NOT "not part of the real church". And second, no, I don't know that. What I see is that Protestants keep saying, as you just did, something that we do NOT teach about the Church, and then argue with us when we say that's not what we teach. And now you cap it off by saying that we're the one's who are always bringing it up.

Oh, Bro, I think more than one or two RC's have put it that we are NOT PART OF THE REAL Church. And that they've done so repeatedly. So what.

It's a distortion, at best. It doesn't represent spiritual reality from God's perspective. So, it's lacking--however it's put by whatever percentages of RC's. So, I, as a Proty can get my knickers in a twist over it or understand that it's a hypothesis; maybe a sacred cow . . . of XX% of RC's and deal with it growthfully.

As far as I'm concerned you just gave a fine example of what I'm talking about. You brought it up; you misstated our belief, and you preemptively characterized my response (which was not a defense but an attempt to state what we DO believe) as MY bringing it up! Perfect!

I'm glad you wouldn't put it that way. SOME RC'S DO. That's also a fact in the picture. So, in that regard, it's NOT a mistatement of my belief. It's a memory of my experience history with SOME RC's.

Okay. your next post. I'd suggest there is a rhetorical "spray and pray" approach here. SOME RCs, no doubt, are rhetorically outrageous - papal pit-bulls. So retaliate against them, if you really think God has set you up as judge and champion.

As are some Proties. If and when it feels fitting, I do contend with such that lurkers might find some food for thought. That's basically all. I don't feel like strangling anyone. I don't feel like excommunicating any one. I don't feel like thrashing even a shrill RC Pontificator. I do often wish some of them would enlarge their understanding and thought processes somewhat! LOL.

But, tell me how would you suggest I respond when somebody says, referring to Knox, that I worship a "Wafer-God". Should I put my fist on my hips, stick out my tongue and say,"Do NOT!" and then stamp my feet when he forcefully responds,"Do TOO!" Is that what you call "robust"?

At worst, consider the source and go on or respond as redemptively as you feel led to--even if that includes satire and then go on. I suppose you could manage a robust fists on hips stance but I'd have to see it to know. LOL.

Bear in mind that when RC doctrine was characterized as professing that the body of Christ was genetically bonded with our DNA and I responded by trying to explain the concept of "Substance", I was told I was parsing -- while last night it was suggested that I should have made the effort to explain the doctrine in the face of another negligent or malicious untruth about our teaching.

Yeah, well, respondents hereon are going to assert and claim all kinds of things. It's to be expected. So what. Respond as redemptively as possible--with or without satire--and go on.

IF THERE IS REAL malicious intent, motive, heart on the other side . . . perhaps a Biblical warning or some such would be good to include. Perhaps satire that shreds their maliciousness would be good . . . I can imagine God suggesting from a wide range of potential responses.

It is a just wrong to say that the issue is the disagreement. There is a host of things about which reasonable and pious Christians of good will can disagree. MY issue is the MANNER of disagreement. I think many a happy hour could be spent on in what ways Christ is and is not present in the sacrament and elsewhere. Just what it means to do something "in remembrance" or "for a remembrance" -- why that's fascinating! In the psalms, after all, we ask God to forget stuff! What do THAT mean? Do we really want God to "Remember not my offenses?" So when He asks us to remember, what is He asking? There's no need to fight - at least not before we've gotten clear what it is we're fighting about.

I think I wholesale agree with that. But I've learned that God has a wide, very wide range of . . . human behavior . . . that He has to just laugh at; shake His head at . . . and go on and deal with redemptively without getting all wound up about it. Just goes with the territory of being human.

My wailing and whatnot to the extent that it's directed against you is against the charge of thin-skinnitude. And I think you DO have to own at least giving us RCs the precedence among your targets since it's our magisterium that you chose as one of your battle cries.

Sorry, but that's my experience hereon. I am certainly biased in being able to see only out my eyes. But my EXPERIENCE hereon is that RC's HAVE BEEN--AS A GROUP--FAR MORE REACTIVE WITH THIN SKINNED RESPONSES THAN ANYONE ELSE OVER THE WHOLE OF FR'S EXISTENCE. By far. To me, that's just a fact. I didn't keep statistics but my sense is not that off the wall on such matters.

At least there are certainly still many who chronically seem to respond overwhelmingly out of a thin skinned place. And, dear brother, as I said above, we both have our own thin skinned areas we are still working on.

God is to be our defense. Getting puffed up about something indicates at least a sacred cow and probably an inadequate area of too little maturation.

(Oh, and I don't get a kick out of laughing at people or their views, so I won't take advantage of your offer to guffaw backatcha. It's not one of my things.)

Awwwwww, welll, there's laughing AT in a derisive put down, placing one's self above sort of way.

And there's laughing at another fellow awash in the same human condition I am--that of being flawed and human. I can especially laugh when I recall being of a similar bent with similar boogers running down my nose.

I think you're going off the rails here. I don't' know about THE attitude, but MY attitude is that if some Prot tells me what I believe and then makes mock of me AND he's mistaken about what I believe, there's something wrong with that. I am not asking for agreement. I am not outraged by the excretion of disagreement. I am asking for communication.

I don't mind quickly and forcefully setting RC's right about how mistaken they are in their assumptions about my beliefs and practices. I don't mind them doing the same.

But SOME of our assumptions and pronouncements on both sides . . . are askew from God's perspective and reality. I have learned from RC's characterizations about my Christianity regardless of whether their perspectives on my religiosity have been 99% off or 15% off. And, sometimes, I had to return to a ponder . . . and admit that there was more than a grain of truth in the allegations lobbed at me. Learning and growing is the priority. Not getting knickers in a twist.

OMG, look at this:
I think most thinking, objective, fair-minded folks could.

This logically implies, "Those who disagree are probably not thinking, objective or fair-minded." So what gets pulled into contention is not the proposition but the character of the people making it. Do you think that's going to help clarify the issue? You just upped the ante, increased the tension, made it less likely that cooler heads will prevail, made reasoned discussion more difficult!

You are probably more right on that score than I'd like to think.

Nevertheless, it's also merely an assertion of my experience--that the most fair-minded, logical etc. folks I've known who've said anything in the ball park, have come down on the side of XYZ.

I think in the "many magisteria" example it didn't start out as mockery. The line Old Reggie complained about was not (I think) in the same post as the "a truth an hour" line, which I agree was not likely to soothe the injured soul.

Oh, I'm not so convinced of that. But it's not a humongous deal anyway.

It is a problem however, first, as I understand it, raised by Erasmus that if the Bible is so all-fired all sufficient and all, how do we account for all the disagreements? I'm not saying it's a slam dunk, but to address it is to address the general question of divine revelation, the relationship between reason and faith, and all like that. There's no need to raise the issue offensively and no need to duck it. BTW How many high-fives did Jaded get for the truth an hour post?

Good points.

But the whining generated by fears and insecurities should not be defended, applauded, rationalized or excused. It is deadly to the individual doing it and to healthy, robust discourse.

For the record, I am against whining in general and especially against whining with pathological background. However I am not against reasoned objections to needlessly offensive distortions, mockery, and like that. I AM against blurring the distinction between reasoned objections and whining. AND I am against blurring the distinction between robust discourse and gratuitous cruelty.

It's probably good to avoid blurring distinctions between reasoned objections and whining. But we are human. WE are chronically mixtures of many things. That makes it troublesome to keep distinctions clear. And increases the likelihood of such efforts being flawed, inadequate, incomplete, unpolished.

LUBBBB
[Love You Big Bunches Beautiful Brother]
THANKS FOR THE EXCHANGES. You can sometimes be more fun than drunken monkeys riding a donkey.

It's obviously going to take me quite some time to read much less consider your 6,000+ word post, dear Quix - but I couldn't resist, having seen the first paragraph, to post at least this much to both of you:

*smooch* and {{{hugs}}}

...Protestantism, in addition to denying real biblical truths such as the Real Presence or infant baptism, also have a tendency to invent “biblical truths” that do not exist and impose them by means of a sort of cultural pressure via charismatic preachers with pet theories who, in their own sphere, are granted an infallibility the Pope could never dream of.

Oh, there's some truth to that . . . just as there is a good measure of truth to the following:

...Romanism, in addition to denying real biblical truths such as . . . oh, say . . . JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH ALONE, also have had a tendency over the centuries to invent “biblical truths” that did not exist and do not exist [for political, vain glory or whatever other reasons] and impose them by means of a sort of cultural pressure via all manner of traditions, rituals, IN-GROUP VS OUT-GROUP pressures; with pet theories, pet rituals, pet Saints who, in their own sphere, are granted an infallibility the average healthy Proty pastor would never dream of.

Jack-Chick-style anti-papism
= = =

Oh, that’s right, it was Mad Dog who was commenting on

LIES

about others beliefs and practices.

Sigh.

Good points, imho.

and believe God loves every one of us and makes allowances for our differences. Further, I don’t believe there is a person on earth who is in possession of the whole and entire truth.

=- = =

Thanks much. Agreed.

I think *MOST* Unitarians are . . . believe-whatever—as long as it works for you . . . which I have little patience for.

But I appreciate your perspectives on a lot of things and am glad you are Bible based.

I have found Holy Spirit and Scripture to be plenty protective against such horrors.

I’ve had enough of THAT dangerous nonsense, I have. String ‘im up!
= =

BBBBTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!

Good points.

Thx

Truth can withstand scrutiny. By prohibiting scrutiny, and ending discussion, you legitimize false teachings and you create a tradition of error.

Vatican II showed that the what the Catholics held as inviolate truth is not necessarily going to be truth throughout the ages.
= = =

INDEED, INDEED, INDEED!

I am one of those strange creatures, a Bible Based Unitarian and believe God loves every one of us and makes allowances for our differences. Further, I don't believe there is a person on earth who is in possession of the whole and entire truth.

I agree but isn't it fulfilling and exciting to try to get there?

I didn’t mean to put you on the spot. I’ll respond more fully to your prior post I think, but it will take me a while. And I agree . . . we aren’t the judge! Praise God for that.

Are you referring to the Albigensian Crusade?

Catharism forbade or strongly discouraged marriage. Its widespread adoption would have meant the end of society itself, so it was within the State's competence to suppress this movement. The means of suppression may have been excessive at times, but the suppression was justifiable in principle. The Dominicans' advice to the government in this regard was sound.

I expected such a defense of "justifiable killing" from you.

You are consistent if nothing else.

The following is a partial response from you Post #10981 12/7/01 The "Neverending" Thread. (Remember that?)

Aquinas: SMT SS Q[11] A[3] Body Para. 1/2
I answer that, With regard to heretics two points must be observed: one, on their own side; the other, on the side of the Church. On their own side there is the sin, whereby they deserve not only to be separated from the Church by excommunication, but also to be severed from the world by death. For it is a much graver matter to corrupt the faith which quickens the soul, than to forge money, which supports temporal life. Wherefore if forgers of money and other evil-doers are forthwith condemned to death by the secular authority, much more reason is there for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated but even put to death.

You may be confusing the excommunication of heretics with religious intolerance and wholesale religious persecution. A heretic is someone within the Church who obstinately promotes false doctrine as Church doctrine.

Aquinas' argument makes sense if you examine it in its historical context, at a time when Christendom was united politically as well as ecclesiastically, spiritually and doctrinally. How much violence has resulted from the Protestant revolution (heresies) and the break-up of Christendom? Ideas have consequences, as the 20th century has clearly demonstrated.

Secondly, you have to examine his teaching in terms of the history of penology. Criminals at the time were rarely imprisoned because prisons, as we currently know them, did not exist. Imprisonment for most crimes was an expensive and practical impossibility. The death penalty was widely used. And Aquinas merely argues that if a civil authority executes a thief, then certainly a person who jeopardizes the salvation of the populace should be punished and "even put to death." (implying punishment up to and including execution).

A heretic is to a Catholic nation as a traitor is to a secular nation, except worse. A heretic not only threatens the nation's existence but also the the salvation of the populace, an infinitely greater danger.

Nothing has changed with you.

How did this dogmatic teaching restrict your thinking?

It didn't, I left. Simple as that.

How can the Church, which Scripture calls "the pillar and foundation of truth," teach anything authoritatively if Catholics are permitted to reject any dogmatic teaching?

Do you mean the Church which makes this unscriptural claim?

"Father's knowledge, though vast, yet has its limits."

:-)