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Politics : Evolution -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Solon who wrote (13700)	2/15/2011 11:15:31 PM
From: Jacques Chitte	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 69300

As I learned from your Zilla post (I would use the full name, but if you subtract the obvious ...) you require Christians to follow logic into perdition. I am not so strict, since ultimately religion is not about the mind. Similarly, we have different attitudes toward satire. While I am usually the last to affect or countenance excessive sensitivity andor a victim mentality, imo the Landover treatment crosses the line into simple bad taste. We will disagree about this; even so I don't want to dissect that. Satire is a form of ridicule. I live my life by two simple maxims : 1) Be right. (This refers to factual items. If I don't qualify something as uncertain or subjective opinion, I have an obligation to be correct.) 2) Be nice. Satire plays fast&loose with number 2, and as a result it often makes me wince. Imo there are better, gentler, ultimately more grown-up ways to make a point. Belittling the opponent gains nothing except a boost for the belittler's ego ... in other words, still nothing. I am educated, perhaps to a fault. Even so I don't often enjoy satire, regardless of whose ox is getting inconveniently truthed. So, your closing declaration notwithstanding - Sancho! My armor!! (grin)

To: Solon who wrote (13700)	2/15/2011 11:34:15 PM
From: Jacques Chitte	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 69300

I am still chewing on this - you've said quite a bit. I'll provide a partial response here. You moved me to look up inerrancy v. infallibility. I had thought they were the same, but I see that religion theorists make a distinction. Inerrancy means that everything Biblical is defined as true, including the bits that fly in the face of living practice. Infallibility is defined as accepting the Bible as true "in faith and practice", allowing one to treat the less fact-friendly bits as metaphoric. You've shown me that Gaskell fits into this category. I hadn't realized that he was so hardcore, and while I do not enthusiastically support the non-hirers' decision or method, I have a bit more perspective now. I think where you and I have a different approach is in the application of reason. I agree that reason allows one to put paid to inerrancy. As for infallibility, it becomes a matter of degree, and what we'll call being a Christian. Christians liberal enough to have a place in their minds for science andor logic are automatically disqualified in your analysis, as you indicate by calling infallibility a "cheap new-age trick" if I am quoting correctly. Personally I see humor in my perception here: that you as a most outspoken opponent of the church is also one of its stricter doctrinal wardens! While I cannot fault your analysis if I accept your premise that a christian is beholden to "the word, the whole word, nothing but the word", I see that attitude as fatal to religion. It denies it the privilege of evolving beyond a dusty and troubled book. I would leave that privilege intact with the benign detachment of one who doesn't have a dog in this race.