Women and the church
Esengo
You forgot Colossians 3:19, "Husbands, love your wives, and do not be
embittered against them," or even more completely Ephesians 5:25 "Husbands ,
love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for
her" or Ephesians 5:28, "So husbands ought also to love their wives as their
own bodies." And you also forgot to mention Galatians 3:27-28, "For all of you
who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourself with Christ. There is
neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither
male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus." And you also forgot
John 4, in which Jesus, to the marvel of his disciples, talks with the woman at
the well--in *first century* Samaria.
Or maybe you didn't forget such things, but rather discounted them because they
don't fit into your nice little "Christians oppress women" theory.
Oh, of course you don't want to get into a big religious mud puddle--you just
want to slander a bunch of people and then be able to smile knowingly, saying
"tut-tut," when anyone notes that your slanders have no basis in fact.
Can you give one example--*one* example--just *one*--of a "fundamentalist"
church which "condones" (*condones*) the "abuse" (*abuse*) of women.
Hi Jim, Obviously our experiences have not been the same.
But here's the examples you requested:
http://www.spiritualabuse.org/
http://www.americanwasteland.com/landsubmission.html
See ya,
Fayette
Jim Hartley
> Jim Hartley:
> Can you give one example--*one* example--just *one*--of a "fundamentalist"
> church which "condones" (*condones*) the "abuse" (*abuse*) of women.
>
> Hi Jim, Obviously our experiences have not been the same.
> But here's the examples you requested:
> http://www.spiritualabuse.org/
> http://www.americanwasteland.com/landsubmission.html
Nice try. The first web site listed is an attack on UPC, a church which
"fundamentalist" churches would recognize as a cult. Moreover, it deals
with vaguely defined "spiritual abuse" and has little to do with the "abuse
of women."
The second web site is a hysterical attack on the Southern Baptist
convention for merely repeating the words of Scripture. The Southern
Baptist convention in no way "condones the abuse of women" unless one
tortures the definition of "abuse" beyond recognition.
So, we now have evidence that there are cult groups out there in which the
leaders try to attain authoritarian control over members and that the
Southern Baptist Convention cited Scripture. Neither of these even
remotely sustains the charges that "fundamentalists" condone the abuse of
women.
The Mandatory Book Reference: Newton, *Opticks*
--
Jim Hartley
jhar...@mtholyoke.edu
Heather Henderson
> Esengo (ese...@aol.com) wrote:
> > Jim Hartley:
> > Can you give one example--*one* example--just *one*--of a "fundamentalist"
> > church which "condones" (*condones*) the "abuse" (*abuse*) of women.
> >
> > Hi Jim, Obviously our experiences have not been the same.
> > But here's the examples you requested:
> > http://www.spiritualabuse.org/
> > http://www.americanwasteland.com/landsubmission.html
>
> Nice try. The first web site listed is an attack on UPC, a church which
> "fundamentalist" churches would recognize as a cult.
Yep, the tried-and-true response: "Oh, I'm not talking about *those*
people! They're not *real* Christians!"
> Moreover, it deals
> with vaguely defined "spiritual abuse" and has little to do with the "abuse
> of women."
>
> The second web site is a hysterical attack
It's not nearly as hysterical as you are in this thread.
> on the Southern Baptist
> convention for merely repeating the words of Scripture.
No, it's an attack on the Southern Baptists for using the words of
Scripture to excuse the subjugation of women and of blacks in slavery.
Do learn how to read, Jim.
> The Southern
> Baptist convention in no way "condones the abuse of women" unless one
> tortures the definition of "abuse" beyond recognition.
You don't think it's abuse for a church to tell its women members that
they should "submit graciously" to the authority of their husbands?
> So, we now have evidence that there are cult groups out there in which the
> leaders try to attain authoritarian control over members and that the
> Southern Baptist Convention cited Scripture. Neither of these even
> remotely sustains the charges that "fundamentalists" condone the abuse of
> women.
Do you consider yourself a fundamentalist?
--
Heather Henderson
hea...@scc.net
http://scc.net/~heather
Jim Hartley
> Yep, the tried-and-true response: "Oh, I'm not talking about *those*
> people! They're not *real* Christians!"
Yeah, it's kinda like that old saw, "She's not a *real* radical feminist."
But, your real question is, of course:
> You don't think it's abuse for a church to tell its women members that
> they should "submit graciously" to the authority of their husbands?
Of course not, but perhaps that is because I understand the meaning of the
word "abuse." Perhaps the dictionary will help here--it is often quite
useful in helping us understand what words mean. The relevant
definitions are: "language that condemns or vilifies usu. unjustly
intemperately, and angrily" or "physical maltreatment." Also we have
"syn: Abuse, vituperation, invective, obloquy, scurrility, billingsgate
mean vehemently expressed condemnation or disapproval. ABUSE, the most
general term, usu. implies the anger of the speaker and stresses the
harshness of the language."
Now when one says, as presumably even Heather will in a year or two,
"Children obey your parents" or indicates that the kids should "submit
graciously" to the authority of their parents, is that child abuse?
> Do you consider yourself a fundamentalist?
Well, I generally use either the sociological term "evangelical" or the
theological term "Calvinist" to describe myself. But, to those who don't
grasp the finer points of Christian theology and use "fundamentalist" as
an invective, I most likely would fit their stereotype.
What about you, Heather? Do you consider yourself a fundamentalist?
The Mandatory Book Reference: Packer, "'Fundamentalism' and the Word of
God"
--
Jim Hartley
jhar...@mtholyoke.edu
Phyllis Chamberlain
Jim Hartley wrote in message <393f...@nap.mtholyoke.edu>...
>Heather Henderson (hea...@scc.net) wrote:
>> Do you consider yourself a fundamentalist?
>
>Well, I generally use either the sociological term "evangelical" or the
>theological term "Calvinist" to describe myself. But, to those who don't
>grasp the finer points of Christian theology and use "fundamentalist" as
>an invective, I most likely would fit their stereotype.
It makes one speechless (almost) to read a paragraph like that. You must
understand the meaning of "evidence," since you had to write a thesis to get
a doctorate--Do you have a doctorate, Hartley? Did you never take a class
in epistemology? Perhaps you're also a flat-earth believer?
Who was it?--some great man, who sifted the ashes of Auschwitz through his
fingers and whispered, "This is the fruit of faith."
Phyllis Chamberlain
Esengo
>Well, I generally use either the sociological term "evangelical" or the
>theological term "Calvinist" to describe myself. But, to those who don't
>grasp the finer points of Christian theology and use "fundamentalist" as
>an invective, I most likely would fit their stereotype.
>
Well, since we're looking up words in the dictionary, you might look up
"fundamentalism".
My dictionary says: "A movement in 20th Century Protestantism emphasizing
the literally interpreted Bible as fundamental to Christian life and teaching."
When I used the word I meant it as a descriptive and I think I used it
quite accurately.
BTW, I have never been involved in either of those churches I pointed you
toward. The churches I've been involved in would more accurately be called
"Evangelical", also.
Spent a good portion of last night talking on the phone with a woman (who
has no idea I'm involved in *this* conversation) who filed a police report of
domestic abuse and had her husband escorted from her home by the police so she
could return. She is deeply involved in an Evangelical church and their advice
to her (the pastors) is that they cannot condone divorce because it is sin
(fundamentally physical abuse is not a valid excuse for divorce in the Bible).
In my mind that is condoning abuse of women. It is sin to divorce a man who
abuses you but you are not sinning by staying?
BTW, if we are defining terms what is your definition of "church." Are
we talking about the universal body of believers which make up the body of
Christ, denominations and broadly governed bodies of religion, or just that
stick and mortar place where people go to worship? I think it's
important....because I think of the church as those people that make it up.
And if those people that make it up are allowed to teach falsely by others who
know better then they condone their actions.
That second article, written by a Southern baptist gentleman about his own
"church" seemed quite responsible, to me.
See ya,
Fayette
Heather Henderson
> Heather Henderson (hea...@scc.net) wrote:
> > Yep, the tried-and-true response: "Oh, I'm not talking about *those*
> > people! They're not *real* Christians!"
>
> Yeah, it's kinda like that old saw, "She's not a *real* radical feminist."
Except that the Pentecostal folks appear to be quite serious about their
shtick, and not merely trolling for attention.
> But, your real question is, of course:
> > You don't think it's abuse for a church to tell its women members that
> > they should "submit graciously" to the authority of their husbands?
>
> Of course not, but perhaps that is because I understand the meaning of the
> word "abuse." Perhaps the dictionary will help here--it is often quite
> useful in helping us understand what words mean. The relevant
> definitions are: "language that condemns or vilifies usu. unjustly
> intemperately, and angrily" or "physical maltreatment." Also we have
> "syn: Abuse, vituperation, invective, obloquy, scurrility, billingsgate
> mean vehemently expressed condemnation or disapproval. ABUSE, the most
> general term, usu. implies the anger of the speaker and stresses the
> harshness of the language."
But there's never been any anger or harshness directed toward Eve as a
"transgressor", right? You remember her - responsible for the fall of
mankind? Weak-willed and deceitful? Condemned to give birth in pain?
Let me know if any of this rings a bell.
> Now when one says, as presumably even Heather will in a year or two,
> "Children obey your parents" or indicates that the kids should "submit
> graciously" to the authority of their parents, is that child abuse?
Hardly. But women aren't children, and their husbands aren't their
parents. For a church to insist that women submit to their husbands'
authority is abuse of an entire gender. If I may borrow a line from
Chief Justice Earl Warren, it "generates a feeling of inferiority as to
their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a
way unlikely ever to be undone". He was talking about segregated
education of black children, but it works just as well for the "separate
but equal" nonsense that many Christians apply to gender roles - "Oh, we
believe that men and women are all equal in the eyes of God, but you see,
they're DIFFERENT, and have different duties and responsibilities", blah
blah blah.
> > Do you consider yourself a fundamentalist?
>
> Well, I generally use either the sociological term "evangelical" or the
> theological term "Calvinist" to describe myself. But, to those who don't
> grasp the finer points of Christian theology and use "fundamentalist" as
> an invective, I most likely would fit their stereotype.
>
> What about you, Heather? Do you consider yourself a fundamentalist?
Not a Christian fundamentalist, no.
Phyllis Chamberlain
smw wrote in message <393FAD56...@umich.edu>...
>
>
>Phyllis Chamberlain wrote:
>>
>> Jim Hartley wrote in message <393f...@nap.mtholyoke.edu>...
>> >Heather Henderson (hea...@scc.net) wrote:
>> >
>> >Well, I generally use either the sociological term "evangelical" or the
>> >theological term "Calvinist" to describe myself. But, to those who
don't
>> >grasp the finer points of Christian theology and use "fundamentalist" as
>> >an invective, I most likely would fit their stereotype.
>>
>> understand the meaning of "evidence," since you had to write a thesis to
get
>> a doctorate--Do you have a doctorate, Hartley? Did you never take a
class
>> in epistemology? Perhaps you're also a flat-earth believer?
>
Spare me this stupidity, Silke. I even have relatives who believe their
success has predestined them for Good Things. Jim Hartley has made the
straightforward claim that he is a Believer. One may consider this
courageous, much as Susan Young has proclaimed her faith (Sort of the "I'm a
fool for Jesus, Who's fool are you?" claim, written on a sandwich board,
which entranced me in San Francisco c. 1956.). However, Susan Young abides
as a doctor's wife in Oklahoma, while Hartley teaches a supposedly
hard-headed subject to privileged young women who need above all else to
learn how to think straight. Or perhaps you believe in the school as in
loco parentis, with a primary job of teaching values, in particular those
that result in indoctrination to the status quo?
But it always baffles me, to learn of an educated person who prefers faith
and authority to testing and scepticism.
>> Who was it?--some great man, who sifted the ashes of Auschwitz through
his
>> fingers and whispered, "This is the fruit of faith."
>
>And where would you have been during Auschwitz, Phyllis? Telling people
>how very engaging you've found the Germans, most probably.
It's hard for me to understand why my remarks about the Turks put a hair up
your ass, Silke. Now you're hopping around about the Germans.
But the issue of what one might have done to stop the dispossession and
killing does prey on the minds of all non-Germans. "What would I have
done?" I've frequently pondered it, through the years. It's easy enough to
say, oh, the Jews should have resisted; but where was their Gandhi? And
that response throws it away from the so-called innocent bystander. I too
believe there is no such thing as an "innocent" bystander. Thus one goes on
asking, "What would I have done, what should I have done," to stop the
dispossession of property, status, citizenship, life, from all the classes
of people that Hitler's Brown Shirts and Third Reich didn't like. And what
about the rest of Europe, in the 1920s and 30s? Loathsome behavior. And
the Communists were hating the rich. A disgusting time. What should
skeptical people who want to eat, drink, and be merry (and read books) do,
when the world is boiling with unleashed ideologies??
Phyllis Chamberlain
Joan Marie Shields
>> Do you consider yourself a fundamentalist?
Jim Hartley <jhar...@mtholyoke.edu> wrote:
>Well, I generally use either the sociological term "evangelical" or the
>theological term "Calvinist" to describe myself. But, to those who don't
>grasp the finer points of Christian theology and use "fundamentalist" as
>an invective, I most likely would fit their stereotype.
From what I can recall from my Reformation class (and from a brief glance
at an interesting web site: http://www.reformed.org/calvinism/calvinism.html)
one of the more interesting thing about it is the belief that those who
will be 'saved' (go to heaven) is already set - that one cannot necessesarily
change one's fate.
My own experience with Fundamentalism was kind of interesting, though, I
have to admit, more in retrospect. I was raised Catholic but my step-
mother's family are Fundamentalists (from western PA). From time to time
I found myself enrolled in their Sunday school (not my idea). I do know
that I was a source of confusion - there's nothing like 11 years of CCD
to teach you a thing or two about the Bible. I can also recall being
very upset that the Pastor, in one of his sermons, basically said that
I couldn't go into the sciences and that I couldn't wear pants. I was
intelligent and was expected to get good grades but then I was being told
that I couldn't exercise my learning.
On the other hand, my step-mother's mother is a truely devout and a truely
compassionate woman. While she wasn't exactly thrilled that I wasn't
going to become a Fundamentalist, she nevertheless always showed me love
and gentleness. Another odd thing is that my step-mother has, because
of events, grown closer to her parent's religion - I have, over the
years, found my own spiritual path (not Fundamentalist and not Catholic) -
however, there is less argument and more understanding of each other, and
more respect.
I think there are two ways of practicing one's religion - what everyone
tells you, putting the most emphasis on the details - and living the
basics (love, tolerance and compassion - viewing all as children of God).
>What about you, Heather? Do you consider yourself a fundamentalist?
All things considered, this is kind of a dumb question. Don't you think?
ObBook: "Five Points of Calvinism" - David H. Steele and Curtis C. Thomas
yiwf,
jaon
--
Joan Shields jshi...@uci.edu http://www.ags.uci.edu/~jshields
University of California - Irvine School of Social Ecology
Department of Environmental Analysis and Design
I do not purchase services or products from unsolicited e-mail advertisements.
Joan Marie Shields
>Spare me this stupidity, Silke. I even have relatives who believe their
>success has predestined them for Good Things. Jim Hartley has made the
>straightforward claim that he is a Believer. One may consider this
>courageous, much as Susan Young has proclaimed her faith (Sort of the "I'm a
>fool for Jesus, Who's fool are you?" claim, written on a sandwich board,
>which entranced me in San Francisco c. 1956.). However, Susan Young abides
>as a doctor's wife in Oklahoma, while Hartley teaches a supposedly
>hard-headed subject to privileged young women who need above all else to
>learn how to think straight. Or perhaps you believe in the school as in
>loco parentis, with a primary job of teaching values, in particular those
>that result in indoctrination to the status quo?
Personally, I don't see much difference between Jim Hartley and Susan
Young - I respect their beliefs though I may not share them all. I don't
think that Hartley, as someone who is say an atheist, forces his beliefs
on his students. I'm sure that if they asked, as I have been asked about
my own beliefs by students (informally), that he would tell them but I
don't think he would make it a part of his class. His belief, as Susan's,
is his own - he doesn't have to defend it anymore than an atheist. You
may not share their beliefs but please, don't patronize them.
>But it always baffles me, to learn of an educated person who prefers faith
>and authority to testing and scepticism.
I'm well educated and I have a spiritual belief and a faith. Science and
faith are two very different things. Strict logic doesn't always work in
life - it won't follow the rules.
yiwf,
joan
Ted Samsel
: But it always baffles me, to learn of an educated person who prefers
faith : and authority to testing and scepticism.
I take it that you've not heard of the Jesuits?
--
Ted Samsel....tejas@infi.net (or tbsa...@richmond.infi.net)
"do the boogie woogie in the South American way"
Rhumba Boogie- Hank Snow (1914-1999)
Phyllis Chamberlain
smw wrote in message <393FC7B4...@umich.edu>...
>
>
>I wrote (in part):
>>[...] while Hartley teaches a supposedly
>> hard-headed subject to privileged young women who need above all else to
>> learn how to think straight. Or perhaps you believe in the school as in
>> loco parentis, with a primary job of teaching values, in particular those
>> that result in indoctrination to the status quo?
>
>teaches his students badly? Or that he attempts classroom conversions of
>any sort?
As a matter of fact, I imagine Jim is an extremely committed teacher of
economics, and his students are lucky to have him. My implications were
rhetorical and directed toward your comments, Silke.
>> But it always baffles me, to learn of an educated person who prefers
faith
>> and authority to testing and scepticism.
>
>Oh, yeah, sure, you're slander of Jim is entirely based on the evidence.
>No prejudice of any kind involved.
What I said stands. It BAFFLES me when someone I assumed to be hard-headed
turns out otherwise. "Baffles" means, I don't understand it. I'm flummoxed
by it.
Phyllis Chamberlain
Phyllis Chamberlain
>> hard-headed subject to privileged young women who need above all else to
>> learn how to think straight. Or perhaps you believe in the school as in
>> loco parentis, with a primary job of teaching values, in particular those
>> that result in indoctrination to the status quo?
>
>What an absolutely idiotic paragraph. Do you have any evidence that Jim
>teaches his students badly? Or that he attempts classroom conversions of
>any sort?
As a matter of fact, I believe Jim to be an extremely committed teacher, and
his students are lucky to have him. I know he believes in the integrity of
economics. My rhetorical comments about teaching values were directed to
you, Silke.
>> But it always baffles me, to learn of an educated person who prefers
faith
>> and authority to testing and scepticism.
>
>Oh, yeah, sure, you're slander of Jim is entirely based on the evidence.
>No prejudice of any kind involved.
My statement stands. It BAFFLES me. That means I don't understand it. I'm
flummoxed. Sometimes I expect people to be one way, and they turn out
another. What a surprise.
Phyllis Chamberlain
Joan Marie Shields
>What I said stands. It BAFFLES me when someone I assumed to be hard-headed
>by it.
Personally, I can't see that Hartley isn't as hard-headed as always.
What does a belief in God (or whatever) make a person - in your opinion?
ObBook: Zen Mind, Beginners Mind
Ron Hardin
> My statement stands. It BAFFLES me. That means I don't understand it. I'm
> flummoxed. Sometimes I expect people to be one way, and they turn out
> another. What a surprise.
On religion and intelligent people..
``When there was as yet no shrub of the field upon earth, and as
yet no grasses of the field had sprouted, because Yahweh had
not sent rain upon the earth, and there was no man to till the
soil, but a flow welled up from the ground and watered the
whole surface of the earth, then Yahweh molded Adam from
the earth's dust (adamah), and blew into the nostrils the breath
of life, and Adam became a living being.''
Harold Bloom comments: ``To shape by molding, to make a fiction, is to
fashion Adam out of the adamah, out of the red clay. Adam is not faked;
he is fictitious and not factitious. Yet J's uncanny trope of this fashioning
has become another facticity for us. True reading would recover the trope,
and yet can any of us avoid literalizing it?'' _Ruin the Sacred Truths_ p.10
You can understand it's a figure of speech for the origin of figures of speech;
language for the origin of language; but Bloom is right, you can't read it without
literalizing it anyway. It is good poetry.
Take religion as figures of speech for relations between people, ethics.
Levinas _Difficult Freedom_ p.17
``The moral relation therefore reunites both self-consciousness and
consciousness of God. Ethics is not the corollary of the vision of
God, it is that very vision. Ethics is an optic, such that everything I
know of God and everything I can hear of His word and reasonably say
to Him must find an ethical expression. In the Holy Ark from which
the voice of God is heard by Moses, there are only the tablets
of the Law. The knowledge of God which we can have and which is
expressed, according to Maimonides, in the form of negative
attributes, receives a positive meaning from the moral ``God is
merciful,'' which means ``Be merciful like Him.'' The attributes of
God are given not in the indicative, but in the imperative. The
knowledge of God comes to us like a commandment, like a Mitzvah.
To know God is to know what must be done. Here [?sic] prophets preoccupied
themselves not with the immorality [?sic] of soul but with the poor, the widow,
the orphan and the stranger. The relationship with man in which contact
with the Divine is established is not a kind of spiritual friendship but the
sort that is manifested, tested and accomplished in a just economy and for
which each man is fully responsible. ``Why does your God, who is the
God of the poor, not feed the poor?'' a Roman asks Rabbi Akiba. ``So we can
escape damnation,'' replies Rabbi Akiba. One could not find a stronger
statement of the impossible situation in which God finds
himself, that of accepting the duties and responsibilities of man.''
Notice that the Rabbi is speaking with the figure of speech in mind,
within the figure of speech. See Wittgenstein below for why a figure of speech.
Levinas p.89 on another baffling figure of speech:
``We have just seen that the Messiah is the just man who suffers,
who has taken on the suffering of others. Who finally takes on the
suffering of others, if not the being who says ``Me [Moi]''?
``The fact of not evading the burden imposed by the suffering of others
defines ipseity itself. All persons are the Messiah.''
This further explained in Levinas _Outside the Subject_ p.125
``One's duty regarding the other who makes appeal to one's responsibility
is an investing of one's own freedom. In responsibility, which is, as
such, irrecusable and non-transferrable, I am instituted as non-interchangeable:
I am chosen as unique and incomparable.''
That is, it is the call from the other that makes me unique. So you can
see figuratively how my soul has something to do with God, if God has to
do with ethics, and my soul originates in the call to me from another.
Do not forget the trope, but also translate it. You will find that religions
do very well at keeping tropes that translate into ethics.
In a way, you will find you believe in the religion, anyway enough so
it's pointless to say you don't. The religion is figuratively tracing out
the phenomology of relations to others.
Here's Cavell _The Claim of Reason_ p.411 on the (inclination to say) soul:
``It may be that the sense of falsification comes from the way I understand
the phrase ``have a body.'' It is really a mythological way of saying
that I am flesh. But I am not satisfied with this myth, for it implies that
I also have something other than a body, call it a soul. Now I have three things
to put together: a body, a soul, and me. (So there are four things to
be placed: I plus those three.) But I no more have a soul than I have
a body. That is what I say here and now. People who say they have a soul
sometimes militantly take its possession as a point of pride, for
instance William Ernest Henley and G.B.Shaw. Take the phrase ``have
a soul'' as a mythological way of saying that I am spirit. If the body
individuates flesh and spirit, singles me out, what does the soul do?
It binds me to others.''
So Cavell uncovered the ethical trope.
Finally here's Wittgenstein _Culture and Value_ p31e on why a trope:
``Kierkegaard writes: `If Christianity were so easy and cozy, why should God in
his Scriptures have set Heaven and Earth in motion and threatened eternal
punishments?' - Question: But in that case why is this Scripture so unclear? If
we want to warn someone of a terrible danger, do we go about it by telling
him a riddle whose solution will be the warning? - But who is to say that the
Scripture really is unclear? Isn't it possible that it was essential in this
case to ``tell a riddle?'' And that, on the other hand, giving a more direct
warning would necessarily have had the wrong effect? God has four people
recount the life of his incarnate Son, in each case differently and with
inconsistencies - but might we not say: It is important that this narrative
should not be more than quite averagely historically plausible just so that
this should not be taken as the essential, decisive thing? So that the letter
should not be believed more strongly than is proper and the spirit may
receive its due. I.e. what you are supposed to see cannot
be communicated even by the best and most accurate historian; and therefore
a mediocre account suffices, is even to be preferred. For that too can
tell you what you are supposed to be told. (Roughly in the way a mediocre
stage set can be better than a sophisiticated one, painted trees better than
real ones, - because these might distract from what matters).''
People who love their religion are in love with the trope, its reach and
resources. It is well enough done so you can't avoid (also) literalizing
it.
There is also garbage religion, just as there is moralism, and the difference
is that of good poetry to bad.
One effect of the trope, its ``imprecision,'' is that my responsibility to the
other is not limited. The slogan would be that it is infinite, but the
trope is interested in a true phenomology.
--
Ron Hardin
rhha...@mindspring.com
On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk.
Susan Young
> Spare me this stupidity, Silke. I even have relatives who believe their
> success has predestined them for Good Things. Jim Hartley has made the
> straightforward claim that he is a Believer. One may consider this
> courageous, much as Susan Young has proclaimed her faith (Sort of the "I'm a
> fool for Jesus, Who's fool are you?" claim, written on a sandwich board,
> which entranced me in San Francisco c. 1956.).
Gosh, thanks so much, Phyllis. And whose are you?
>However, Susan Young abides
> as a doctor's wife in Oklahoma, while Hartley teaches a supposedly
> hard-headed subject to privileged young women who need above all else to
> learn how to think straight.
I'm a full-time student, Phyllis, I seriously object to being defined by
my husband's profession. Watch out, you yourself may have need of my
hard-headed professional services [1] some day, you'd better hope that
life as a doctor's wife and Christian hasn't rendered me _too_ soft-headed.
My abnormal psychology textbook will be a pleasant relief after this,
Susan
[1] Mike Morris would have it that there's no such thing in my intended
profession, but he knows as little about that as you know about the
generational allegiance of the authors you happen not to like.
msmo...@netdirect.net
Thursday, the 8th of June, 2000
Phyllis says:
What I said stands. It BAFFLES me when
someone I assumed to be hard-headed
turns out otherwise. "Baffles" means,
I don't understand it. I'm flummoxed
by it.
This does not baffle me, Phyllis, but
mostly because it fits my assessment
of you that you go around *thinking*
yourself hard-headed, rational, skeptical,
scientific when you simply are not.
You just asked us what a skeptical
person who wants to eat, sleep, be merry
and read books should do in the
face of boiling ideologies. You
aren't being hard-headed if you
think that science or skepticism
or reason alone can answer such a "what
should I do" question. And since those boiling
ideologies are perpetrating Auschwitz
before your very eyes, you are about to
be judged wanting if you just turn away
eyes wide shut to go and read your books.
The fact of the matter is that you've got
to have faith in something, you've got to
begin somewhere where there is no
experiment or rational method which can
establish this beginning. This is simply the
sublunar human condition. In this context,
Jim's faith seems perfectly hard-headed and
rational to me, and your prejudice about
it mushy and irrational in the extreme.
I say this even though I do not or cannot
share (no, careful, I *choose* not to share)
Jim's faith. And even though I imagine I
might be deeply opposed to some of its
ramifications, I honour and respect what
I have seen of it in Jim.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Michael Rooney
Joan Marie Shields <jshi...@rigel.oac.uci.edu> wrote in article
<8hofug$g66$1...@news.service.uci.edu>...
>
> His [Jim Hartley's] belief, as Susan's, is his own -
> he doesn't have to defend it anymore than an atheist.
But presumably he would prefer that his belief is
true, no? In which case, he does have to defend
it -- or else regard himself as an intellectual child.
Cordially,
M.
Joan Marie Shields
>> His [Jim Hartley's] belief, as Susan's, is his own -
>> he doesn't have to defend it anymore than an atheist.
Michael Rooney <roo...@oxy.edu> wrote:
>But presumably he would prefer that his belief is
>true, no? In which case, he does have to defend
>it -- or else regard himself as an intellectual child.
Do you feel the need to defend your belief? I don't.
Phyllis Chamberlain
Ron Hardin wrote in message <394049...@mindspring.com>...
>Phyllis Chamberlain wrote:
>> My statement stands. It BAFFLES me. That means I don't understand it.
I'm
>> flummoxed. Sometimes I expect people to be one way, and they turn out
>> another. What a surprise.
>
>On religion and intelligent people..
>
>``When there was as yet no shrub of the field upon earth, and as
>yet no grasses of the field had sprouted, because Yahweh had
>not sent rain upon the earth, and there was no man to till the
>soil, but a flow welled up from the ground and watered the
>whole surface of the earth, then Yahweh molded Adam from
>the earth's dust (adamah), and blew into the nostrils the breath
>of life, and Adam became a living being.''
>
>Harold Bloom comments: ``To shape by molding, to make a fiction, is to
>fashion Adam out of the adamah, out of the red clay. Adam is not faked;
>he is fictitious and not factitious. Yet J's uncanny trope of this
fashioning
>has become another facticity for us. True reading would recover the trope,
>and yet can any of us avoid literalizing it?'' _Ruin the Sacred Truths_
p.10
>Take religion as figures of speech for relations between people, ethics.
[....]
Ron, your entire dissertation and compilation as presented was very much to
the point as well as vivifying. I will even say "thank you" for the
privilege of the reading. I especially liked the first quotation from
Harold Bloom.
While I would tend to see ethical imperatives as grounded in human
evolution, and in the emotions bred within village society and through the
interdependence of family members, these powerful feelings of obligation
certainly do feel as if they were sent as injunctions from "outside."
People struggle to explain that. (Awareness/consciousness is such a mixed
blessing; it causes as many errors as it cures.) Reifying the fictitious,
once one has a word, as an intellectual function, one does all too easily.
But it's not necessary to co-mingle ethics and religion.
To believe in a "God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth," etc.
seems to me to believe in something manifestly untrue. But it only occurs
to me to think about it when I run into someone who's busy telling me about
the importance of the particular bureaucracy of his/her religious
denomination. Then it pulls me up short, and I think, of some people in
particular, "How very strange that is," that so-and-so has religious faith.
There's obviously no resolution to these issues. It's futile to discuss it.
However, discussing the reality of ethical imperatives can prove very
useful, in daily life. From the sublime (Levinas) to the ridiculous, it
happens I read a clever little book a month or so ago, a novel, _Pay It
Forward_ by Catherine Ryan Hyde, about ethics in action, arising from the
ideas of a 12-year-old boy (in the story). He helped three people for no
pay, and told them not to return the favors to him, but for each of them to
"pay it forward" and help three others. (He did it for a school project,
which was to figure out how to make the world better.) Corny? Or profound?
Phyllis Chamberlain
Phyllis Chamberlain
Susan Young wrote in message <39405AE4...@ionet.net>...
>Phyllis Chamberlain wrote:
>
>> courageous, much as Susan Young has proclaimed her faith (Sort of the
"I'm a
>> fool for Jesus, Who's fool are you?" claim, written on a sandwich board,
>> which entranced me in San Francisco c. 1956.).
>
>Gosh, thanks so much, Phyllis. And whose are you?
>
> >However, Susan Young abides
>> as a doctor's wife in Oklahoma, while Hartley teaches a supposedly
>> hard-headed subject to privileged young women who need above all else to
>> learn how to think straight.
>
>I'm a full-time student, Phyllis, I seriously object to being defined by
>my husband's profession.
I apologize. I used to seethe at being "just the wife." I'm sure it's not
true that there's nothing worse, but at the time one's living it, it feels
unendurable. From a distance of years, it seems to me both honorable and
important, to be wife and mother, but while I was doing it, I felt
suppressed and coerced. Too late smart. (If every mother wants her son to
be a doctor, she wants her daughter to marry one. You should be proud of
your achievement there, too, as well as of the good grades I'm sure you will
earn.)
And by-the-by, I guess I'm a fool for Darwin.
Phyllis Chamberlain
Bruce Mcguffin (Dr)
> Joan Shields <jshi...@rigel.oac.uci.edu> wrote in article
> >> His [Jim Hartley's] belief, as Susan's, is his own -
> >> he doesn't have to defend it anymore than an atheist.
>
> Michael Rooney <roo...@oxy.edu> wrote:
> >But presumably he would prefer that his belief is
> >true, no? In which case, he does have to defend
> >it -- or else regard himself as an intellectual child.
>
> Do you feel the need to defend your belief? I don't.
>
The question is, CAN you defend your faith? There seems to be
an unquestioned assumption that religious faith is a good thing.
I'm not so sure that's true. But, assuming for the sake of argument
that it is, when you made your leap of faith, how did you pick
the particular chasm that you chose to leap across? There are
so many out there, and to a sceptic like me, there doesn't seem
to be much that recommends one over another. If you truly have
faith in your faith, you ought to be able to justify your choice.
Of course, I'm more inclined to read history than theology, so to
me religion is mostly about groups of people killing each other.
Bruce McGuffin
obbook: Foucher de Chartres, A History of The Expedition to
Jerusalem, 1095-1127
obbuttonIsawonateenager'sbackpack: God was my copilot, but
we crashed in the mountains and I had to eat him
Lewis Mammel
> I'm well educated and I have a spiritual belief and a faith. Science and
> faith are two very different things. Strict logic doesn't always work in
> life - it won't follow the rules.
I never could abide this notion, that science goes only so far and no farther.
To me, science is ruthless.
"It has a stark beauty all its own." - Neil Armstrong
Lew Mammel, Jr.
Michael Rooney
Joan Marie Shields <jshi...@rigel.oac.uci.edu> wrote in article
<8hpofs$6uf$1...@news.service.uci.edu>...
> Joan Shields <jshi...@rigel.oac.uci.edu> wrote in article
> >> His [Jim Hartley's] belief, as Susan's, is his own -
> >> he doesn't have to defend it anymore than an atheist.
>
> Michael Rooney <roo...@oxy.edu> wrote:
> >But presumably he would prefer that his belief is
> >true, no? In which case, he does have to defend
> >it -- or else regard himself as an intellectual child.
>
> Do you feel the need to defend your belief? I don't.
Thanks for sharing. But the needs you or I may
feel are perfectly irrelevant to the issue at hand.
So I repeat, this time to you, Ms. Shields: do you
prefer your beliefs to be false or true?
Cordially,
M.
Francis Muir
Yes, the good folk of the Spanish Inquisition had much the same notion.
Francis Muir
Cordially? I thought Mickey Z had an exclusive on that one. Did you
check first? This isn't MP3 ya know.
As to beliefs, quite a lot of people, including myself, believe, but do
not argue, that beliefs of the kind under discussion are not amenable to
logic. Perhaps you would explain why they should be. Does X's God exist?
If X believes so, then he/she/it presumably does.
smw
>
> > Joan Shields <jshi...@rigel.oac.uci.edu> wrote in article
> > >> His [Jim Hartley's] belief, as Susan's, is his own -
> > >> he doesn't have to defend it anymore than an atheist.
> >
> > Michael Rooney <roo...@oxy.edu> wrote:
> > >But presumably he would prefer that his belief is
> > >true, no? In which case, he does have to defend
> > >it -- or else regard himself as an intellectual child.
> >
>
> > Do you feel the need to defend your belief? I don't.
> >
> an unquestioned assumption that religious faith is a good thing.
That's odd -- I was under the opposite impression. But while we're
throwing assumptions about, I'd say that we all live by faith, whether
religious or not, and that we don't owe explanations on rab (that much,
surely, is obvious) even though such explanations can, of course, be
quite intriguing.
Having brought up Lutheran, I'm partial to the splendor of the "hear I
stand, I can't do differently, God help me" line which seems quite
adequate to the nature of faith, which, after all, would cease to be
faith if it could be defended according to the standards to which
Rooney, I presume, would subscribe.
s.
smw
Michael Rooney wrote:
>
> Joan Marie Shields <jshi...@rigel.oac.uci.edu> wrote in article
> <8hpofs$6uf$1...@news.service.uci.edu>...
> > Joan Shields <jshi...@rigel.oac.uci.edu> wrote in article
> > >> His [Jim Hartley's] belief, as Susan's, is his own -
> > >> he doesn't have to defend it anymore than an atheist.
> >
> > Michael Rooney <roo...@oxy.edu> wrote:
> > >But presumably he would prefer that his belief is
> > >true, no? In which case, he does have to defend
> > >it -- or else regard himself as an intellectual child.
> >
> > Do you feel the need to defend your belief? I don't.
>
> Thanks for sharing. But the needs you or I may
> feel are perfectly irrelevant to the issue at hand.
> So I repeat, this time to you, Ms. Shields: do you
> prefer your beliefs to be false or true?
So you wouldn't say that 'faith' denotes a conviction set apart from
other modes of conviction by the very lack of need of evidence?
s.
smw
Phyllis Chamberlain wrote:
...
(If every mother wants her son to be a doctor, she wants her daughter to
marry one. You should be proud of
> your achievement there, too, as well as of the good grades I'm sure you will
> earn.)
Nah, I won't, after all. Caged hunt.
s
Esengo
>I apologize. I used to seethe at being "just the wife." I'm sure it's not
>true that there's nothing worse, but at the time one's living it, it feels
>unendurable. From a distance of years, it seems to me both honorable and
>important, to be wife and mother, but while I was doing it, I felt
>be a doctor, she wants her daughter to marry one. You should be proud
>of
>your achievement there, too, as well as of the good grades I'm sure you will
>earn.)
Phyllis, thank you for writing this. I am in the middle of another
cross-country relocation which my husband's employer has decided is neccessary.
As a "submissive" and supportive wife I've relocated with him from Chicago to
Southern California to New York and now we're headed to Phoenix --this in only
19 years of marriage.
I'm in the process of selling my second business, saying goodbye to
friends, preparing my house for sale.
I feel like "just a wife".
Your words about honor and importance were touching.
Fayette
Kjetil Svarstad
> Lewis Mammel wrote:
>> Joan Marie Shields wrote:
>>> I'm well educated and I have a spiritual belief and a faith.
>>> Science and faith are two very different things. Strict logic
>>> doesn't always work in life - it won't follow the rules.
>> I never could abide this notion, that science goes only so far and
>> no farther. To me, science is ruthless.
> Yes, the good folk of the Spanish Inquisition had much the same
> notion.
Indeed, but nobody *expects* the Spanish Inquisition. Science, on the
other hand, has as its chief weapon ruthlessness and expectation... as
its *two* chief weapons ruthlessness and expectation, so it goes
further by... has as its three weapons ruthlessness, expectation, and
going further... and it follows the rules to allow... science has four
weapons... oh, nevermind.
recycle brains!
Kjetil
Maureen Scobie
>
> Phyllis Chamberlain wrote:
>
> ...
>
> (If every mother wants her son to be a doctor, she wants her daughter to
> marry one. You should be proud of
> > your achievement there, too, as well as of the good grades I'm sure you will
> > earn.)
>
>
> s
OK, I will. If I had had a daughter I would have requested that she get
off her horsey ass and become a doctor. (The god-daughter's sister is
almost there.)
Books galore:
V.S.Pritchett's biography/works description of Chekhov
_The Essential Tales of Chekhov_ edited and with an introduction by
Richard Ford. Translated by Constance Garnett.
There's a Norton edition of _Anton Chekhov's Plays_, too.
I was reading the short stories last night when that interminable
hockey game was being skated out and it struck me that it was near
criminal that I had not read these stories in such a long time.
My recommendation to rab ids: forget for a while the mentoring of
students, the pampering of faculty, the faith of the faithful, the
ruthless expectations of science, grotty coffee pots, and women toeing
the lines drawn in the sand. Instead, sink into your chair, coffee cup
close to hand (clean pot), and read Chekhov's short stories. Strange as
it seems, you will find all rab's concerns threading through the
stories.
cheers,
Maureen
Heather Henderson
jshi...@rigel.oac.uci.edu says...
> Phyllis Chamberlain <ph...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> >Spare me this stupidity, Silke. I even have relatives who believe their
> >success has predestined them for Good Things. Jim Hartley has made the
> >straightforward claim that he is a Believer. One may consider this
> >fool for Jesus, Who's fool are you?" claim, written on a sandwich board,
> >as a doctor's wife in Oklahoma, while Hartley teaches a supposedly
> >hard-headed subject to privileged young women who need above all else to
> >loco parentis, with a primary job of teaching values, in particular those
> >that result in indoctrination to the status quo?
>
> Young - I respect their beliefs though I may not share them all. I don't
> think that Hartley, as someone who is say an atheist, forces his beliefs
> on his students. I'm sure that if they asked, as I have been asked about
> my own beliefs by students (informally), that he would tell them but I
> don't think he would make it a part of his class. His belief, as Susan's,
> is his own - he doesn't have to defend it anymore than an atheist. You
> may not share their beliefs but please, don't patronize them.
Patronizing? The chief patronizer in this thread has been Jim. Fayette
mentioned her bad experience as a member of a fundamentalist church and
he jumped on her with both feet. Apparently he thinks her experience is
invalid and she must be lying or stupid. He's one of those loving,
kindly, understanding Christians, you know.
--
Heather Henderson
hea...@scc.net
http://scc.net/~heather
Joan Marie Shields
>> >But presumably he would prefer that his belief is
>> >true, no? In which case, he does have to defend
>> >it -- or else regard himself as an intellectual child.
>> Do you feel the need to defend your belief? I don't.
Bruce Mcguffin (Dr) <EMcg...@ntu.edu.sg> wrote:
>The question is, CAN you defend your faith? There seems to be
>an unquestioned assumption that religious faith is a good thing.
I can defend my faith for myself - it works for me and since it
doesn't tend to interfer with others' beliefs, that's all the
defense I need.
>I'm not so sure that's true. But, assuming for the sake of argument
>that it is, when you made your leap of faith, how did you pick
>the particular chasm that you chose to leap across? There are
>so many out there, and to a sceptic like me, there doesn't seem
>to be much that recommends one over another. If you truly have
>faith in your faith, you ought to be able to justify your choice.
My spiritual path works for me - which is my justification. When I
am not walking that path I become miserable and not a lot of fun to
be around. When I am, I am at peace and am of benefit to my fellows.
>Of course, I'm more inclined to read history than theology, so to
>me religion is mostly about groups of people killing each other.
Many religions have this history - organized religions aren't for me.
You don't need to be religious to believe in a power greater than
yourself or to walk a spiritual path.
ObBook: Zen Minds, Beginner's Mind
Joan Marie Shields
Joan Shields <jshi...@rigel.oac.uci.edu> wrote in article
>> >> His [Jim Hartley's] belief, as Susan's, is his own -
>> >> he doesn't have to defend it anymore than an atheist.
Michael Rooney <roo...@oxy.edu> wrote:
>> >But presumably he would prefer that his belief is
>> >true, no? In which case, he does have to defend
>> >it -- or else regard himself as an intellectual child.
joan:
>> Do you feel the need to defend your belief? I don't.
Michael Rooney <roo...@oxy.edu> wrote:
>Thanks for sharing. But the needs you or I may
>feel are perfectly irrelevant to the issue at hand.
>So I repeat, this time to you, Ms. Shields: do you
>prefer your beliefs to be false or true?
But it is exceedingly relevent - my beliefs are not contingent
upon whether or not I convince you or anyone else of their
validity. My beliefs work for me - for me they are true. They
may not work for you - for you they may be false. Still, that's
meaningless since you aren't the one who has to live in my skin,
are you?
ObBook: Zen Minds Beginner's Minds - and Just a Corpse at Twilight
Ted Samsel
: In article <8hofug$g66$1...@news.service.uci.edu>,
: > Phyllis Chamberlain <ph...@earthlink.net> wrote:
: > >Spare me this stupidity, Silke. I even have relatives who believe their
: > >success has predestined them for Good Things. Jim Hartley has made the
: > >straightforward claim that he is a Believer. One may consider this
: > >courageous, much as Susan Young has proclaimed her faith (Sort of the "I'm a
: > >fool for Jesus, Who's fool are you?" claim, written on a sandwich board,
: > >which entranced me in San Francisco c. 1956.). However, Susan Young abides
: > >as a doctor's wife in Oklahoma, while Hartley teaches a supposedly
: > >hard-headed subject to privileged young women who need above all else to
: > >learn how to think straight. Or perhaps you believe in the school as in
: > >loco parentis, with a primary job of teaching values, in particular those
: > >that result in indoctrination to the status quo?
: >
: > Personally, I don't see much difference between Jim Hartley and Susan
: > Young - I respect their beliefs though I may not share them all. I don't
: > think that Hartley, as someone who is say an atheist, forces his beliefs
: > on his students. I'm sure that if they asked, as I have been asked about
: > my own beliefs by students (informally), that he would tell them but I
: > is his own - he doesn't have to defend it anymore than an atheist. You
: Patronizing? The chief patronizer in this thread has been Jim. Fayette
: mentioned her bad experience as a member of a fundamentalist church and
: he jumped on her with both feet. Apparently he thinks her experience is
: invalid and she must be lying or stupid. He's one of those loving,
: kindly, understanding Christians, you know.
I think Jim is Jewish.
Or so I gathered.
Joan Marie Shields
>> I'm well educated and I have a spiritual belief and a faith. Science and
>> faith are two very different things. Strict logic doesn't always work in
>> life - it won't follow the rules.
Lewis Mammel <lhma...@ameritech.net> wrote:
>I never could abide this notion, that science goes only so far and no farther.
Even science isn't always logical - or rather, nature (including humans)
isn't always 'logical' - of course, the use of logic depends highly on
the facts that are known, how those facts are weighted and that the
conclusions one draws (using logic), because of the first two, aren't
always valid.
>To me, science is ruthless.
The more I learn of biology (and microbiology) the more amazed I am at
the wonders of nature. The more I learn the less I know and the more
insignificant I become. In all seriousness, it's a truely wonderful thing.
Heather Henderson
>
>
> Phyllis Chamberlain wrote:
> >
> > Jim Hartley wrote in message <393f...@nap.mtholyoke.edu>...
> > >Heather Henderson (hea...@scc.net) wrote:
> > >> Do you consider yourself a fundamentalist?
> > >
> > >Well, I generally use either the sociological term "evangelical" or the
> > >theological term "Calvinist" to describe myself. But, to those who don't
> > >grasp the finer points of Christian theology and use "fundamentalist" as
> > >an invective, I most likely would fit their stereotype.
> >
> > It makes one speechless (almost) to read a paragraph like that. You must
> > understand the meaning of "evidence," since you had to write a thesis to get
> > a doctorate--Do you have a doctorate, Hartley? Did you never take a class
> > in epistemology? Perhaps you're also a flat-earth believer?
>
> You really have no clue what "Calvinist" means, do you.
Do you? How would you like to live in a world run by Calvinists?
Francis Muir
>
> Francis Muir writes:
> > Lewis Mammel wrote:
>
> >>> I'm well educated and I have a spiritual belief and a faith.
> >>> Science and faith are two very different things. Strict logic
> >>> doesn't always work in life - it won't follow the rules.
>
>
> > Yes, the good folk of the Spanish Inquisition had much the same
> > notion.
>
> Indeed, but nobody *expects* the Spanish Inquisition. Science, on the
> other hand, has as its chief weapon ruthlessness and expectation... as
> its *two* chief weapons ruthlessness and expectation, so it goes
> further by... has as its three weapons ruthlessness, expectation, and
> going further... and it follows the rules to allow... science has four
> weapons... oh, nevermind.
ObBook: Chanillo, Sagun *Weak type estimates for Cesaro sums of Jacobi
polynomial series*
Or not.
Joan Marie Shields
>>>Spare me this stupidity, Silke. I even have relatives who believe their
>>>success has predestined them for Good Things. Jim Hartley has made the
>>>straightforward claim that he is a Believer. One may consider this
>>>courageous, much as Susan Young has proclaimed her faith (Sort of the "I'm a
>>>fool for Jesus, Who's fool are you?" claim, written on a sandwich board,
>>>which entranced me in San Francisco c. 1956.). However, Susan Young abides
>>>as a doctor's wife in Oklahoma, while Hartley teaches a supposedly
>>>hard-headed subject to privileged young women who need above all else to
>>>learn how to think straight. Or perhaps you believe in the school as in
>>>loco parentis, with a primary job of teaching values, in particular those
>>>that result in indoctrination to the status quo?
jshi...@rigel.oac.uci.edu says...
>> Personally, I don't see much difference between Jim Hartley and Susan
>> Young - I respect their beliefs though I may not share them all. I don't
>> think that Hartley, as someone who is say an atheist, forces his beliefs
>> on his students. I'm sure that if they asked, as I have been asked about
>> my own beliefs by students (informally), that he would tell them but I
>> don't think he would make it a part of his class. His belief, as Susan's,
>> is his own - he doesn't have to defend it anymore than an atheist. You
>> may not share their beliefs but please, don't patronize them.
Heather Henderson <hea...@scc.net> wrote:
>Patronizing? The chief patronizer in this thread has been Jim. Fayette
>mentioned her bad experience as a member of a fundamentalist church and
>he jumped on her with both feet. Apparently he thinks her experience is
>invalid and she must be lying or stupid. He's one of those loving,
>kindly, understanding Christians, you know.
Yes, you're right, he was - though I think it was more that he felt
attacked (or felt his religion attacked). In my opinion and experience,
they (Fayette and Jim) were both using extremes to define the normal.
I've had experience with Fundamentalists - some were as Fayette described
and some were as Jim described. I've met enough deeply religious people
who nevertheless had a great deal of compassion and love to know that
they aren't THAT rare. These weren't all Christians.
Still, I don't think it excuses Phyllis' surprise that someone who has
a belief system (be it religious or spiritual or both) is necessarily
soft-headed (as opposed to hard-headed). I thought it was insulting, I
felt insulted.
The funny thing is that I've met very few scientists who are rabidly
atheist - in fact, many I have met and associated with have either a
spiritual path or are at least are very tolerant of those who have one.
Most of the rabid athiests I've met (those who have mocked my beliefs)
are in the humanities.
msmo...@netdirect.net
Friday, the 9th of June, 2000
Susan:
[1] Mike Morris would have it that there's
no such thing in my intended profession, but
he knows as little about that as you know about
the generational allegiance of the authors you
happen not to like.
Heh. In point of fact, Mike Morris imagines that there
might exist some hard-headedness among psychological
social workers. However, Susan, Mike also imagines that
he might have an altogether different, *harder* notion
of this requisite hard-headedness than does Phyllis. Unlike
Phyllis, for instance, Mike thinks that scientistic
terminology and weakly correlative study piled on weakly
correlative study does not science make. Unlike
Phyllis, he thinks such hard-headeness must begin where
the engineering pretensions of such a profession
end, where such a profession is openly critical of
itself, openly perceives and proclaims itself to be an
applied branch of moral philosophy, and openly warns
the public that it is *scientifically* no more
ordained than the priesthood or Rush Limbaugh. And
Mike also thinks that the requisite hard-headedness
will demand 10-decimal-place predictive accuracy
from theory *before* said theory is believed in or
cited as the scientific basis of action.
Mike admits that he hears tell of little such
disavowal of authority among psychological
social workers. But, he would welcome learning
of it.
Heather Henderson
> > > >> he doesn't have to defend it anymore than an atheist.
> > >
> > > >But presumably he would prefer that his belief is
> > > >true, no? In which case, he does have to defend
> > > >it -- or else regard himself as an intellectual child.
> > >
> >
> > > Do you feel the need to defend your belief? I don't.
> > >
> > an unquestioned assumption that religious faith is a good thing.
>
> throwing assumptions about, I'd say that we all live by faith, whether
> religious or not, and that we don't owe explanations on rab (that much,
> surely, is obvious) even though such explanations can, of course, be
> quite intriguing.
Nobody should feel they have to explain their faith. And nobody
should feel they have to ramrod their faith down the throats of the
uninterested.
> Having brought up Lutheran, I'm partial to the splendor of the "hear I
> stand, I can't do differently, God help me" line which seems quite
> adequate to the nature of faith
One woman's stalwart defender of the faith is another woman's intolerant
bastard.
Heather Henderson
says...
> Phyllis wrote:
> >I apologize. I used to seethe at being "just the wife." I'm sure it's not
> >true that there's nothing worse, but at the time one's living it, it feels
> >unendurable. From a distance of years, it seems to me both honorable and
> >important, to be wife and mother, but while I was doing it, I felt
> >be a doctor, she wants her daughter to marry one. You should be proud
>
> >of
> >your achievement there, too, as well as of the good grades I'm sure you will
> >earn.)
>
> cross-country relocation which my husband's employer has decided is neccessary.
> As a "submissive" and supportive wife I've relocated with him from Chicago to
> Southern California to New York and now we're headed to Phoenix --this in only
> 19 years of marriage.
> I'm in the process of selling my second business, saying goodbye to
> friends, preparing my house for sale.
> I feel like "just a wife".
> Your words about honor and importance were touching.
Submissive and supportive are two different things. I've moved from New
York to Massachusetts to St Paul to accommodate my husband's career
choices, and will probably have to move again, more than once - that's
something we talked about and agreed on. But he's made accommodations
so I can pursue my career, too. We support each other but neither of us
is "submissive". I think making one spouse the ruler and the other the
subject is a recipe for disaster. Each should be willing to accommodate
the other.
Richard Harter
>
>
>Joan Marie Shields <jshi...@rigel.oac.uci.edu> wrote in article
><8hofug$g66$1...@news.service.uci.edu>...
>>
>> His [Jim Hartley's] belief, as Susan's, is his own -
>> he doesn't have to defend it anymore than an atheist.
>
>But presumably he would prefer that his belief is
>true, no? In which case, he does have to defend
>it -- or else regard himself as an intellectual child.
False dichotomy.
Dispassionate regards,
RH
Richard Harter, c...@tiac.net, The Concord Research Institute
URL = http://www.tiac.net/users/cri, phone = 1-978-369-3911
The internet is overrun with little mice nibbling
away at the fabric of reality.
Jim Hartley
> Spent a good portion of last night talking on the phone with a woman (who
> has no idea I'm involved in *this* conversation) who filed a police report of
> domestic abuse and had her husband escorted from her home by the police so she
> could return. She is deeply involved in an Evangelical church and their advice
> to her (the pastors) is that they cannot condone divorce because it is sin
> (fundamentally physical abuse is not a valid excuse for divorce in the Bible).
> In my mind that is condoning abuse of women. It is sin to divorce a man who
> abuses you but you are not sinning by staying?
Telling a woman that divorce is wrong is manifestly not *condoning*
abuse. "Condone: to pardon or overlook voluntarily, esp. to treat as if
trivial, harmless or of no importance." One can well imagine leaders of a
church explicitly condemning the husband in the case described and still
telling the woman that it is wrong to seek divorce. Now, you may not like
that pair of actions, you may think the woman should be told it is OK to
get a divorce, but the abuse is being condemned, it is not being
condoned. So, to make your case of condoning abuse, you would need the
story to be that the pastors told the husband that his abuse was not sin.
The Mandatory Book Reference: Malachi
--
Jim Hartley
jhar...@mtholyoke.edu
Francis Muir
> I think Jim is Jewish.
> Or so I gathered.
There's some confusion heyar between Jim the Jew and Jim the Fundy,
although in their normal posts it would be difficult to determine which
was which, which is how it should be. At Balliol it was a sconceable
offense to mention either women by name or religion in Hall, and so it
should be here. Not dined at jolly old Coll de Ball recently, but since
women are now admitted as members of the Coll it may be that religion is
now the only remaining no-no.
Ted Samsel
: Friday, the 9th of June, 2000
Would Mike also demand that compassion and empathy be
measured "scientifically"?
"Hold still, we're only gonna hook you up to an E-meter."
Jim Hartley
> But there's never been any anger or harshness directed toward Eve as a
> "transgressor", right? You remember her - responsible for the fall of
> mankind? Weak-willed and deceitful? Condemned to give birth in pain?
> Let me know if any of this rings a bell.
Sure, that passage comes right before the place where God tells *Adam*
(he is *male*):
"Cursed is the ground because of you;
In toil you shall eat of it
All the days of your life.
Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you
And you shall eat the plants of the field;
By the sweat of your face
You shall eat bread,
Till you return to the ground,
Because from it you were taken;
For you are dust,
And to dust you shall return."
So is God abusing men there too? Is everyone being abused??
>Now when one says, as presumably even Heather will in a year or two,
> > "Children obey your parents" or indicates that the kids should "submit
> > graciously" to the authority of their parents, is that child abuse?
>
> Hardly. But women aren't children, and their husbands aren't their
> parents. For a church to insist that women submit to their husbands'
> authority is abuse of an entire gender.
Two can play this game:
For a church to insist that children submit to their parent's authority is
abuse of an entire age cohort.
So, I am still interested why telling wives to obey their husbands is
*abuse* but telling children to do exactly the same thing is not.
The Mandatory Book Reference: Ephesians
--
Jim Hartley
jhar...@mtholyoke.edu
David E. Latane
I was always told that one of the advantages to being an Episcopalian was
that it didn't interfere with your politics or your religion. Perhaps
politics will replace women.
D. Latane
Ted Samsel
: And nobody
: should feel they have to ramrod their faith down the throats of the
: uninterested.
Feelings have nothing to do with "duty".
Jim Hartley
>Do you have a doctorate, Hartley? Did you never take a class
>in epistemology? Perhaps you're also a flat-earth believer?
> success has predestined them for Good Things. Jim Hartley has made the
> straightforward claim that he is a Believer. One may consider this
> courageous, much as Susan Young has proclaimed her faith (Sort of the "I'm a
> fool for Jesus, Who's fool are you?" claim, written on a sandwich board,
> which entranced me in San Francisco c. 1956.). However, Susan Young abides
> as a doctor's wife in Oklahoma, while Hartley teaches a supposedly
> hard-headed subject to privileged young women who need above all else to
> learn how to think straight. Or perhaps you believe in the school as in
> loco parentis, with a primary job of teaching values, in particular those
> that result in indoctrination to the status quo?
It is always nice to see religious bigotry in such pure, undiluted
form.
The Mandatory Book Reference: Newton: *Principia Mathematica*
--
Jim Hartley
jhar...@mtholyoke.edu
Steven Hines
"Jim Hartley" <jhar...@mtholyoke.edu> wrote in message
news:3941...@nap.mtholyoke.edu...
> Esengo (ese...@aol.com) wrote:
> > In my mind that is condoning abuse of women. It is sin to divorce a
man who
> > abuses you but you are not sinning by staying?
> Telling a woman that divorce is wrong is manifestly not *condoning*
> abuse. "Condone: to pardon or overlook voluntarily, esp. to treat as if
> trivial, harmless or of no importance."
When a husband abuses his wife, hasn't _he_ already broken his commitment
to marriage? Why does the wife have an obligation to continue a mutual
relationship with a husband who doesn't honor that relationship as well?
Isn't valuing a broken marriage over the welfare of a human being the
same as considering the abuse "trivial" compared to the idea of marriage?
Doesn't that mean that the church is condoning abuse?
ObBook: _The Battle for God_ by Karen Armstrong
Jim Hartley
> Patronizing? The chief patronizer in this thread has been Jim. Fayette
> mentioned her bad experience as a member of a fundamentalist church and
> he jumped on her with both feet. Apparently he thinks her experience is
> invalid and she must be lying or stupid.
Are you practicing rhetorical flourishes there, Heather, or have you
somehow completely missed the point?
Fayette made a derisive remark about fundamentalists condoning the abuse of
women. Now that is a rather calumnious charge. [You can look up
"calumnious" if you don't know what it means.] I, true to r.a.b. form,
noted her error in making such a charge. You may not like
fundamentalists, you may not agree with them, you may think they are all
ignorant fools with missing teeth, but it is wrong to assert that they
condone the abuse of women.
And then, Heather, you have taken it a step further by trying to show that
Scripture condones the abuse of women; a charge which is also manifestly
false.
> He's one of those loving,
> kindly, understanding Christians, you know.
It always fascinates me when people who believe Christianity to be a
ridiculous falsehood believed only by idiots, complain that Christians
don't play the doormat to their satisfaction. I'd relay to you the tale
of Jesus cleaning out the temple, discuss with you the nature of
excommunication, or mention the warnings about fale teachers, but somehow,
I don't think you'd get the point.
The Mandatory Book Reference: The Gospel According to John
--
Jim Hartley
jhar...@mtholyoke.edu
Jim Hartley
> But presumably he would prefer that his belief is
> true, no? In which case, he does have to defend
> it -- or else regard himself as an intellectual child.
Defend it against what using whose rules of evidence? Get back to me when
you establish the universally applicable rules for uncovering the nature
of the Deity.
The Mandatory Book Reference: Shakespeare, *Hamlet*
--
Jim Hartley
jhar...@mtholyoke.edu
Phyllis Chamberlain
David E. Latane wrote in message ...
>I was always told that one of the advantages to being an Episcopalian was
>that it didn't interfere with your politics or your religion. Perhaps
>politics will replace women.
The Barsetshire series by Anthony Trollope well-demonstrates religious life
within the Church of England. (I recently finished my twelfth novel by
Trollope--all the Barsetshire and Palliser series of books, in which many of
the same characters recur--and am now enjoying Trollope's autobiography.)
Being clergy therein interferes with little save fox-hunting, and not always
that, although a fox-hunting clergyman was more frowned upon than a lustful
one.
I wonder if contemporary politicians ever think to read Trollope. I found
him truly an instruction manual. Fascinating stuff. The reader also learns
everything important about marriage, and men and women getting along
together, and the crucial role money plays in all this.
Phyllis Chamberlain
Richard Harter
>
>
>On Fri, 9 Jun 2000, Francis Muir wrote:
>
>> Ted Samsel:
>>
>> > I think Jim is Jewish.
>> > Or so I gathered.
>>
>> There's some confusion heyar between Jim the Jew and Jim the Fundy,
>> although in their normal posts it would be difficult to determine which
>> was which, which is how it should be. At Balliol it was a sconceable
>> offense to mention either women by name or religion in Hall, and so it
>> should be here. Not dined at jolly old Coll de Ball recently, but since
>> women are now admitted as members of the Coll it may be that religion is
>> now the only remaining no-no.
>
>I was always told that one of the advantages to being an Episcopalian was
>that it didn't interfere with your politics or your religion. Perhaps
>politics will replace women.
>
Nothing will replace women except in Aggie jokes.
ObStory: The Crime and Glory of Captain Suzdahl
iri...@att.com
Kjetil Svarstad <svar...@europe.com> wrote:
> Francis Muir writes:
> > Lewis Mammel wrote:
> >> Joan Marie Shields wrote:
>
> >>> I'm well educated and I have a spiritual belief and a faith.
> >>> Science and faith are two very different things. Strict logic
> >>> doesn't always work in life - it won't follow the rules.
>
> >> I never could abide this notion, that science goes only so far and
> >> no farther. To me, science is ruthless.
>
> > Yes, the good folk of the Spanish Inquisition had much the same
> > notion.
>
> Indeed, but nobody *expects* the Spanish Inquisition. Science, on the
> other hand, has as its chief weapon ruthlessness and expectation... as
> its *two* chief weapons ruthlessness and expectation, so it goes
> further by... has as its three weapons ruthlessness, expectation, and
> going further... and it follows the rules to allow... science has four
> weapons... oh, nevermind.
And herein lies the conflict because the Lord instructed that thou
shalt count to three no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou
shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt
thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then
proceed to three. Five's right out. Once the number three, being the
third number, be reached... etc., etc.
Irina
Jim Hartley
> Any unqualified demand for obedience is potentially abusive in practice
> because it would include obedience to abusive demands. Any arbitrary
> submission of one human being (or a class of human beings) is abusive in
> principle because it curtail the subjects' moral freedom.
> The case for children's obedience is non-arbitrary (which does not mean
> it is therefore a good case).
> You would have to make a case for female submission being
> non-arbitrary.
Why is children's obedience "non-arbitrary"? I can see understand why
there might be more general agreement that it is OK to tell children to
obey your parents than to tell wives to obey their husbands, but I can't
think of any reason to believe it is any less arbitrary to those who
disagree with both admonitions.
But, I'm not terribly concerned with the children issue per se. We also
tell citizens to obey the police or the government, employees to obey
their bosses, students to obey their teachers, children to obey their
babysitters, and so on. Are all of these things abusive too? Or to put
it another way, why is it that we can have all those rules of obedience
and not be abusive, but as soon as we get to "wives obey your husbands" it
is abusive?
And, to make it painfully clear what my point here is--I am arguing that
to term "Wives obey your husbands" as "abusive" is stretching the term
"abuse" beyond all recognition. I am not arguing whether wives should in
fact obey their husbands. I can completely understand someone who says,
"I think it is wrong to tell women to obey their husbands." But to call
it "abusive" seems to me to be a complete misuse of the language.
The Mandatory Book Reference: Simon, *On the Other Hand*
--
Jim Hartley
jhar...@mtholyoke.edu
msmo...@netdirect.net
Friday, the 9th of June, 2000
Silke:
Any unqualified demand for obedience is
potentially abusive in practice because
it would include obedience to abusive demands.
But, why would anyone read such as an
"unqualified demand"? The context would
seem to me to make this demand heavily
qualified, and specifically so as to
exclude obedience to abusive or, say,
unethical demands.
I mean, I know people have read it the
way you suggest, but it seems to me
there just is something wrong about
the way they read.
Mike Morris
(msmo...@netdirect.net)
msmo...@netdirect.net
Friday, the 9th of June, 2000
Ted:
Would Mike also demand that compassion
and empathy be measured "scientifically"?
I'll have to ask him, but I suspect
he thinks compassion and empathy have
no business being metered. It is not
at all that he refuses authority or
respect to the non-scientific, it's that
he refuses authority and respect to
scientism.
Richard Harter
>Heather Henderson <hea...@scc.net> wrote:
>
>: And nobody
>: should feel they have to ramrod their faith down the throats of the
>: uninterested.
>
>Feelings have nothing to do with "duty".
Tolerance is a de facto admission that religious belief is false as is
the claim that the right to be left alone is pre-eminent.
Heather Henderson
> smw (sm...@umich.edu) wrote:
> > Any unqualified demand for obedience is potentially abusive in practice
So you wouldn't consider "blacks should obey white people" to be abusive.
Jim Hartley
> So you wouldn't consider "blacks should obey white people" to be abusive.
Perhaps it would help, Heather, if you tell me what you think the word
"abusive" means.
The Mandatory Book Reference: Carroll, *Through the Looking Glass*
--
Jim Hartley
jhar...@mtholyoke.edu
Heather Henderson
> > So you wouldn't consider "blacks should obey white people" to be abusive.
>
> Perhaps it would help, Heather, if you tell me what you think the word
> "abusive" means.
Whatever your dictionary says, Jim. Now tell us whether or not you
consider "blacks should obey white people" to be abusive, and if not, why
not?
Heather Henderson
> dissolved does not trivialize violence within it (even though I can
> understand how it could both look that way and play out that way in
> practice); it merely manifests a belief about the nature of marriage.
But is the church taking this problem of domestic violence as seriously
as it takes the problem of divorce? Is beating your spouse really
considered a "sin"? If so, how heinous a sin is it?
> I
> could not disclaim motherhood if my children no matter how heinously
> they might behave in the future. I'm not saying that motherhood is
> perfectly analogous to spousehood -- I'm merely pointing out that the
> believe that parenthood is forever does nothing to trivialize any terror
> a child of mine might perpetrate.
What if a parent is abusing a child? Should the child be forced to live
with that parent?
Steven Hines
"smw" <sm...@umich.edu> wrote in message news:394139ED...@umich.edu...
> Steven Hines wrote:
> > "Jim Hartley" <jhar...@mtholyoke.edu> wrote in message
> > news:3941...@nap.mtholyoke.edu...
> > > Esengo (ese...@aol.com) wrote:
> > > > In my mind that is condoning abuse of women. It is sin to divorce
a
> > man who
> > > > abuses you but you are not sinning by staying?
> > > Telling a woman that divorce is wrong is manifestly not *condoning*
> > > abuse. "Condone: to pardon or overlook voluntarily, esp. to treat as
if
> > > trivial, harmless or of no importance."
> > When a husband abuses his wife, hasn't _he_ already broken his
commitment
> > to marriage? Why does the wife have an obligation to continue a mutual
> > relationship with a husband who doesn't honor that relationship as well?
> > Isn't valuing a broken marriage over the welfare of a human being the
> > same as considering the abuse "trivial" compared to the idea of
marriage?
> > Doesn't that mean that the church is condoning abuse?
> No, it doesn't -- considering marriage a sacrament that cannot be
> dissolved does not trivialize violence within it (even though I can
> understand how it could both look that way and play out that way in
> practice); it merely manifests a belief about the nature of marriage.
My impression was that the church acts in the name of God in forming
the sacrament. Presumably it is the will of God that two particular
people be married.
If the husband abuses his wife, I would take that as his indication that
he no longer values the sacrament. In effect, he divorces his wife in
spirit the moment he abuses her. But the wife isn't allowed by the church
to leave the marriage, because she would be breaking the sacrament? I'm
not sure I understand why the church considers its work in enacting God's
will to be completed once the marriage is formed. Shouldn't the church
intervene in the marriage in the name of God?
> I could not disclaim motherhood if my children no matter how heinously
> they might behave in the future. I'm not saying that motherhood is
> perfectly analogous to spousehood -- I'm merely pointing out that the
> believe that parenthood is forever does nothing to trivialize any terror
> a child of mine might perpetrate.
In other words, marriage, once entered into, is a fact in the same way
that motherhood is?
Let me see if I understand: if marriage results from love which results
from God, the mutual love is a fact. In which case the husband, by
offending love and abusing his wife, is commiting a sin against God.
But no matter what he does, neither he nor his wife can contravene the
fact of marriage.
Is that what you're getting at?
Esengo
>Telling a woman that divorce is wrong is manifestly not *condoning*
>abuse. "Condone: to pardon or overlook voluntarily, esp. to treat as if
>church explicitly condemning the
>husband in the case described and still
>telling the woman that it is wrong to seek divorce. Now, you may not like
>that pair of actions, you may think the woman should be told it is OK to
>get a divorce, but the abuse is being condemned, it is not being
>condoned. So, to make your case
>of condoning abuse, you would need the
>story to be that the pastors told the husband that his abuse was not sin.
>
>
>The Mandatory Book Reference: Malachi
Hi Jim, thank you for your response. I really do respect you opinion and
have no doubt that you practice these principles as they should be practiced.
I am sorry we've gotten off on the wrong foot with each other.
In case you haven't guessed...I have not actually abandonned my faith,
I'm just kind of angry right now. I think my God (who is probably the same as
yours) understands that.
I have a hard time believing that God would make this submission issue a
make it or break it sort of rule. My feeling is that it has become distorted
by some and misunderstood by others. "Submission" is not really an issue in a
truly loving relationship.
See ya,
Fayette
smw
msmo...@netdirect.net wrote:
>
> Friday, the 9th of June, 2000
>
> Silke:
> Any unqualified demand for obedience is
> potentially abusive in practice because
> it would include obedience to abusive demands.
>
> But, why would anyone read such as an
> "unqualified demand"? The context would
> seem to me to make this demand heavily
> qualified, and specifically so as to
> exclude obedience to abusive or, say,
> unethical demands.
>
> I mean, I know people have read it the
> way you suggest, but it seems to me
> there just is something wrong about
> the way they read.
I agree, and said much the same thing in another post. This doesn't
entirely solve the problem, of course. Who decides to which acts the
general rule applies? Who decides what is unethical? At least in
Lutheran protestantism, the strain I'm most familiar with, individual
conscience plays a considerable role. If 'obeying' only means 'obeying
as long as I agree with the command,' it's pretty meaningless.
So, on the whole, I don't think context is as important as the nature of
'obey' -- I'm not sure I know what it means in theological debates.
Silke
Heather Henderson
> I've often heard the marriage vows going both ways,
> including the obeisance -- it seems that 'obey' must mean something a
> bit different from what we've been discussing if people can promise to
> obey each other.
But this mutual obeisance goes against the Scriptures, which say
unequivocally that women *must* obey men - they are *not* to usurp
authority over men. Women are viewed as inferior to men, and must behave
that way. How men force them to behave is up to the men, apparently. So
there are two forms of abuse involved here: one explicit, in that women
are treated as inferior humans, and one implicit, entitling men to exact
obedience from their wives in whatever way they deem necessary.
msmo...@netdirect.net
Friday, the 9th of June, 2000
Heather says:
Whatever your dictionary says, Jim.
Now tell us whether or not you consider
"blacks should obey white people" to be
abusive, and if not, why not?
But, Jim just gave you a definition, Heather.
Here is his paragraph:
Of course not, but perhaps that is because
I understand the meaning of the word "abuse."
Perhaps the dictionary will help here--it
is often quite useful in helping us understand
what words mean. The relevant definitions are:
"language that condemns or vilifies usu. unjustly
intemperately, and angrily" or "physical maltreatment."
Also we have "syn: Abuse, vituperation, invective,
obloquy, scurrility, billingsgate mean vehemently
expressed condemnation or disapproval. ABUSE, the
most general term, usu. implies the anger of the
speaker and stresses the harshness of the language."
So, does "blacks should obey whites" condemn or vilify?
No. Does it physically mistreat anybody? No. Does it
imply the anger of the speaker or stress the harshness of
the language? No. I would conclude, under the definition
Jim suggested, that such a statement does not constitute
abuse.
However, the plot thickens. On a lark, I tried
<http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary>
and typed in "abuse". I found what I think must
have been Jim's lexicographical source, which I think
he reported on fairly. However, I then typed in
"abusive", and found
abu·sive
Pronunciation: &-'byü-siv, also -ziv
Function: adjective
Date: 1583
1 : characterized by wrong or
improper use or action; especially :
CORRUPT <abusive financial practices>
2 a : using harsh insulting language :
characterized by or serving for
abuse b : physically injurious
<abusive behavior>
Now, here I'd say "blacks should obey whites"
probably is not abusive---in the sense that blacks
actually obeying whites is not necessarily wrong
or improper, there need be no abuse in it, nor
physical injury, nor is there anything harsh
about the language of the statement. However,
the adjective "insulting" maybe opens a line
of dissent. Because, certainly "blacks should
obey whites" stated with no qualification and
in the current historical context is insulting.
(I will note that I do not consider "wives should
obey husbands" to be equivalent at all, whereas
"blacks should obey whites" is insulting to me,
among others.)
It does seem to depend heavily
on your definition of "abuse" or "abusive",
however. So I for one would be interested
to hear exactly what your definition is,
Heather.
Heather Henderson
> > > >
> > > > "Jim Hartley" <jhar...@mtholyoke.edu> wrote in message
> > > > news:3941...@nap.mtholyoke.edu...
> > > > > Esengo (ese...@aol.com) wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > > In my mind that is condoning abuse of women. It is sin to divorce a
> > > > man who
> > > > > > abuses you but you are not sinning by staying?
> > > >
> > > > > abuse. "Condone: to pardon or overlook voluntarily, esp. to treat as if
> > > > > trivial, harmless or of no importance."
> > > >
> > > > to marriage? Why does the wife have an obligation to continue a mutual
> > > > relationship with a husband who doesn't honor that relationship as well?
> > > >
> > > > Isn't valuing a broken marriage over the welfare of a human being the
> > > > same as considering the abuse "trivial" compared to the idea of marriage?
> > > > Doesn't that mean that the church is condoning abuse?
> > >
> > > No, it doesn't -- considering marriage a sacrament that cannot be
> > > dissolved does not trivialize violence within it (even though I can
> > > understand how it could both look that way and play out that way in
> > > practice); it merely manifests a belief about the nature of marriage.
> >
> > as it takes the problem of divorce? Is beating your spouse really
> > considered a "sin"? If so, how heinous a sin is it?
>
I expect so too, Silke, but I want to hear the details. Preferably from
Jim, who is insisting that fundamentalist Christianity does not condone
abuse.
> In Christianity,
> violence against anybody is a pretty big sin, I think.
Well, not really - it's perfectly OK in some circumstances, like war.
> It is certainly a
> violation of the marriage vows to love and to honor.
Is it? Sometimes "love" and "honor" have to be expressed in harsh terms.
What if you think your wife is going to Hell if she cuts her hair, and
you want to save her from that fate, and you think that the only way to
stop her is to beat some sense into her head?
> I take your point,
> of course -- but a believer might respond that church culture balances
> secular culture here.
Meaning what?
> > > I
> > > could not disclaim motherhood if my children no matter how heinously
> > > they might behave in the future. I'm not saying that motherhood is
> > > perfectly analogous to spousehood -- I'm merely pointing out that the
> > > believe that parenthood is forever does nothing to trivialize any terror
> > > a child of mine might perpetrate.
> >
> > What if a parent is abusing a child? Should the child be forced to live
> > with that parent?
>
> Not allowing divorce is not the same as not allowing separation.
I don't know how fundamentalist Christians view separation. Do you?
Albatross
It is clear from the scripture that women
are to fix the dinner and iron my shirts.
I'm still responsible to take out the trash,
even though the Bible doesn't explicitly say so.
Fred Albatross, esq.
Steven Hines
"smw" <sm...@umich.edu> wrote in message news:394159C1...@umich.edu...
> Steven Hines wrote:
[snip due to newsserver]
> > My impression was that the church acts in the name of God in forming
> > the sacrament. Presumably it is the will of God that two particular
> > people be married.
> > If the husband abuses his wife, I would take that as his indication that
> > he no longer values the sacrament. In effect, he divorces his wife in
> > spirit the moment he abuses her. But the wife isn't allowed by the
church
> > to leave the marriage, because she would be breaking the sacrament?
> Neither is an abused husband, just as a footnote. I think women are
> about as likely to assault their husbands as vice versa.
I suppose.... I'm aware of faiths that more readily accept requests for
divorce from husbands. But I know nothing of the evolution of this
doctrine or how it applies to the Christian fundamentalism we're
discussing.
> > I'm
> > not sure I understand why the church considers its work in enacting
God's
> > will to be completed once the marriage is formed. Shouldn't the church
> > intervene in the marriage in the name of God?
> It does. Marriage counseling and private counseling have always been
> part of the ministry, as I understand it.
Typically, churches are interested in blessing marriages, which means
that they often give inadequate counseling beforehand. But they are
plenty happy to demand that abusive relationships persist in the name
of the marriage they performed. In the same way that prosecutors never
admit to the proved innocence of the people they send to execution.
Nobody likes to admit to an uncorrectable mistake.
> > Let me see if I understand: if marriage results from love which results
> > from God, the mutual love is a fact. In which case the husband, by
> > offending love and abusing his wife, is commiting a sin against God.
> > But no matter what he does, neither he nor his wife can contravene the
> > fact of marriage.
> > Is that what you're getting at?
> Yes. Which, as Jim has pointed out, does not mean that violations of the
> vows are condoned. It merely means that marriage is forever in the eyes
> of the church. Mind you, this doesn't strike me a as a good idea at all.
Seems like an abusive relationship is evidence of a mistake on the
church's part in discerning who God meant for whom.
smw
Steven Hines wrote:
...
> Seems like an abusive relationship is evidence of a mistake on the
> church's part in discerning who God meant for whom.
I think you're somehow blocking off the whole spiritual context, which
is, after all, rather ancient. Marriage, I presume, meant something
entirely different where these vows originated. The interdiction on
divorce, for instance, was probably meant to protect women rather than
men. The idea is, I suppose, that there are promises that cannot be
broken, no matter what happens. I agree that this notion can have cruel
consequences, but it does give tremendous dignity to the promise.
You think (and in practice I probably agree) that misery is a good
reason to break a promise it results from. Or that promises are only
valid as exchange currency. Again, I'm sure I'd often agree in practice,
but I can at least see a different perspective that is neither stupid
nor cruel.
Silke
Esengo
LOL! Grandpa, is that you?
OBbook _Breaking Point, Why Women Fall Apart and How They Can Re-Create Their
Lives_
(and here's one I'm working on): _Unspeakable Acts, Ordinary People, The
Dynamics of Torture_ Could be applicable here....I'll let you know.
Steven Hines
"smw" <sm...@umich.edu> wrote in message news:394164C3...@umich.edu...
>
>
> Steven Hines wrote:
> ...
>
> > Seems like an abusive relationship is evidence of a mistake on the
> > church's part in discerning who God meant for whom.
>
> I think you're somehow blocking off the whole spiritual context, which
> is, after all, rather ancient. Marriage, I presume, meant something
> entirely different where these vows originated. The interdiction on
> divorce, for instance, was probably meant to protect women rather than
> men.
Agreed.
Have men always beat their wives or is this a modern phenomenon?
> The idea is, I suppose, that there are promises that cannot be
> broken, no matter what happens. I agree that this notion can have cruel
> consequences, but it does give tremendous dignity to the promise.
There is dignity in someone promising to stay with a dying spouse,
for example. But nobody intentionally makes a promise to abide being
beaten, and there is no dignity in it for either party.
> You think (and in practice I probably agree) that misery is a good
> reason to break a promise it results from.
The one who commits assault breaks the promise; it's void, valueless,
after that. Holding on to it seems self-destructive (even on the
spiritual level!)
> Again, I'm sure I'd often agree in practice,
> but I can at least see a different perspective that is neither stupid
> nor cruel.
In practice I find it hard to believe that a man who beats his
wife will stop after being informed that it is a sin, as if he
wasn't already aware of that. In other words, I suspect the husband
has given up on the practice of religion, even if he still makes
a pretense of it. At that point, what is the wife's recourse?
Heather Henderson
Except that he only cited definitions 4 and 5, and not 1 and 2, which are
relevant (#3 is obsolete) -
1 : a corrupt practice or custom
2 : improper or excessive use or treatment : MISUSE <drug abuse>
3 obsolete : a deceitful act : DECEPTION
I certainly consider it "improper treatment" to view a gender or race as
inferior to another - don't you?
Also, if we check the thesaurus, we find the following synonyms for
abuse: decry, belittle, depreciate, derogate, detract (from), discount,
disparage, dispraise, minimize, write off. All of which you're doing to
women or blacks if you consider them to be inferior as a group.
> However, I then typed in
> "abusive", and found
> abu·sive
> Pronunciation: &-'byü-siv, also -ziv
> Function: adjective
> Date: 1583
> 1 : characterized by wrong or
> improper use or action; especially :
> CORRUPT <abusive financial practices>
> 2 a : using harsh insulting language :
> characterized by or serving for
> abuse b : physically injurious
> <abusive behavior>
>
> Now, here I'd say "blacks should obey whites"
> probably is not abusive---in the sense that blacks
> actually obeying whites is not necessarily wrong
> or improper, there need be no abuse in it, nor
> physical injury, nor is there anything harsh
> about the language of the statement.
How can you claim that condemning an entire race to subjugation is not
abusive?
> However,
> the adjective "insulting" maybe opens a line
> of dissent. Because, certainly "blacks should
> obey whites" stated with no qualification and
> in the current historical context is insulting.
> (I will note that I do not consider "wives should
> obey husbands" to be equivalent at all,
Why not?
> whereas
> "blacks should obey whites" is insulting to me,
> among others.)
Why?
> It does seem to depend heavily
> on your definition of "abuse" or "abusive",
> however. So I for one would be interested
> to hear exactly what your definition is,
> Heather.
As I said to Jim, whatever the dictionary says. But look at all the
definitions next time.
Esengo
>
I've always assumed it's been around since the cavemen were. Who hasn't seen
those cartoons of cavemen dragging their women around by the hair? (there's
humor for ya)
George Farquhar (1678-1707) - "Women never truly command till they have
given their promise to obey; and they are never in more danger of being made
slaves than when the men are at their feet."
Henry Fielding (1707-1754) - "There is nothing a man of good sense dreads in a
wife so much as her having more sense than himself."
See ya,
Fayette
OBbook _Woman and the Wits_ C. 1899
Ron Hardin
> I've always assumed it's been around since the cavemen were. Who hasn't seen
> those cartoons of cavemen dragging their women around by the hair? (there's
> humor for ya)
Caption, two cavemen watching them pass, ``I don't know what she sees in him.''
--
Ron Hardin
rhha...@mindspring.com
On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk.
Francis Muir
Esengo wrote:
>
> >Have men always beat their wives or is this a modern phenomenon?
> >
>
> I've always assumed it's been around since the cavemen were. Who hasn't seen
> those cartoons of cavemen dragging their women around by the hair? (there's
> humor for ya)
>
> George Farquhar (1678-1707) - "Women never truly command till they have
> given their promise to obey; and they are never in more danger of being made
> slaves than when the men are at their feet."
>
> Henry Fielding (1707-1754) - "There is nothing a man of good sense dreads in a
> wife so much as her having more sense than himself."
>
> See ya,
> Fayette
> OBbook _Woman and the Wits_ C. 1899
On the other hand all the Music Hall jokes about marriage that I
remember were about hen-pecked husbands. I can see that wife-beating may
have been too dark for laughter.
smw
msmo...@netdirect.net wrote:
>
> Friday, the 9th of June, 2000
>
> Heather says:
> Whatever your dictionary says, Jim.
> Now tell us whether or not you consider
> "blacks should obey white people" to be
> abusive, and if not, why not?
>
> But, Jim just gave you a definition, Heather.
> Here is his paragraph:
> Of course not, but perhaps that is because
> I understand the meaning of the word "abuse."
> Perhaps the dictionary will help here--it
> is often quite useful in helping us understand
> what words mean. The relevant definitions are:
> "language that condemns or vilifies usu. unjustly
> intemperately, and angrily" or "physical maltreatment."
> Also we have "syn: Abuse, vituperation, invective,
> obloquy, scurrility, billingsgate mean vehemently
> expressed condemnation or disapproval. ABUSE, the
> most general term, usu. implies the anger of the
> speaker and stresses the harshness of the language."
>
> So, does "blacks should obey whites" condemn or vilify?
> No.
Sorry, in implying that blacks are inferior to whites (and surely it
does imply that), it does indeed vilify blacks unjustly. And, luckily,
we're at a point where 'scurrility' applies as well..
s.
smw
Michael Rooney wrote:
...
> But beliefs are true or false,
Take the sentence, "I believe that tulips are the most beautiful of
flowers" -- what may be true or false here is whether the speaker does
indeed believe it, not whether tulips are, indeed, the most beautiful
flowers. Whether they are or not is a question of, dare I say it, taste.
> and are justified
> through evidence and argument.
Faith is a category of belief that is distinguished precisely by not
justifying itself that way. Cf. revelation.
s.
smw
Michael Rooney wrote:
>
> smw <sm...@umich.edu> wrote in article <3940EB37...@umich.edu>...
> >
> >
> > Michael Rooney wrote:
> > >
> > > Joan Marie Shields <jshi...@rigel.oac.uci.edu> wrote in article
> > > <8hpofs$6uf$1...@news.service.uci.edu>...
> > > > Joan Shields <jshi...@rigel.oac.uci.edu> wrote in article
> > > > >> His [Jim Hartley's] belief, as Susan's, is his own -
> > > > >> he doesn't have to defend it anymore than an atheist.
> > > >
> > > > Michael Rooney <roo...@oxy.edu> wrote:
> > > > >But presumably he would prefer that his belief is
> > > > >true, no? In which case, he does have to defend
> > > > >it -- or else regard himself as an intellectual child.
> > > >
> > > > Do you feel the need to defend your belief? I don't.
> > >
> > > Thanks for sharing. But the needs you or I may
> > > feel are perfectly irrelevant to the issue at hand.
> > > So I repeat, this time to you, Ms. Shields: do you
> > > prefer your beliefs to be false or true?
> >
> > So you wouldn't say that 'faith' denotes a conviction set apart from
> > other modes of conviction by the very lack of need of evidence?
>
> Said usage of "faith" (and its cognates) is a semantic
> innovation of recent date and of dubious motivation.
Take the ancient 'revelation' instead and start again.
s.
smw
Steven Hines wrote:
>
> "smw" <sm...@umich.edu> wrote in message news:394164C3...@umich.edu...
> >
> >
> > Steven Hines wrote:
> > ...
> >
> > > Seems like an abusive relationship is evidence of a mistake on the
> > > church's part in discerning who God meant for whom.
> >
> > I think you're somehow blocking off the whole spiritual context, which
> > is, after all, rather ancient. Marriage, I presume, meant something
> > entirely different where these vows originated. The interdiction on
> > divorce, for instance, was probably meant to protect women rather than
> > men.
>
> Agreed.
>
> Have men always beat their wives or is this a modern phenomenon?
The question is, "did spouses always beat each other or is this a modern
phenomenon"? Aristotle seems obsesses by sons beating their fathers.
> > The idea is, I suppose, that there are promises that cannot be
> > broken, no matter what happens. I agree that this notion can have cruel
> > consequences, but it does give tremendous dignity to the promise.
>
> There is dignity in someone promising to stay with a dying spouse,
> for example. But nobody intentionally makes a promise to abide being
> beaten, and there is no dignity in it for either party.
There remains the dignity of a promise you give to yourself. There are
also worse things than being beaten, which does not mean that being
beaten is not bad.
> > You think (and in practice I probably agree) that misery is a good
> > reason to break a promise it results from.
>
> The one who commits assault breaks the promise; it's void, valueless,
> after that.
But why does the fact that another breaks a promise does not release me
from my promise? You are talking exchanges, contracts, not promises.
> Holding on to it seems self-destructive (even on the
> spiritual level!)
I think it is damaging, too, unless you think that being beaten is not a
very bad thing.
> > Again, I'm sure I'd often agree in practice,
> > but I can at least see a different perspective that is neither stupid
> > nor cruel.
>
> In practice I find it hard to believe that a man who beats his
> wife will stop after being informed that it is a sin, as if he
> wasn't already aware of that.
So why argue with the category of sin at all? Does nobody ever stop
doing something because he or she realizes it is wrong?
> In other words, I suspect the husband
> has given up on the practice of religion, even if he still makes
> a pretense of it. At that point, what is the wife's recourse?
Or the husband's recourse (insincere apologies for the repetition).
Separation? Prayer? Submission to fate? Hope? Forgetting anew? Somebody
brought up children earlier, and repeatedly. Is it better to stay with a
father or mother who occasionally hits you and most of the time loves
you, or to move into a place where nobody loves you and nobody hits you?
Again, I am not suggesting that wives are to husband (or husbands to
wives) as children to parents.
What is the choice faced here? Stay with the woman who is being beaten
and wants to have a divorce. Her priest or minister says she can't. Why
would she want to stay in the church?
It's easy to say "I would leave" or "I would hit back." I don't know.
Silke
smw
Michael Rooney wrote:
>
> smw <sm...@umich.edu> wrote in article <394158E7...@umich.edu>...
> >
> > In Christianity,
> > violence against anybody is a pretty big sin, I think.
>
> Demon-possessed pigs and fig trees excluded, of
> course.
Of course. I like the idea of the fig tree's body. Pigs have too much of
it altogether.
s.
smw
>
> Esengo wrote:
> >
> > >Have men always beat their wives or is this a modern phenomenon?
> > >
> >
> > those cartoons of cavemen dragging their women around by the hair? (there's
> > humor for ya)
> >
> > George Farquhar (1678-1707) - "Women never truly command till they have
> > given their promise to obey; and they are never in more danger of being made
> > slaves than when the men are at their feet."
> >
> > Henry Fielding (1707-1754) - "There is nothing a man of good sense dreads in a
> > wife so much as her having more sense than himself."
> >
> > See ya,
> > Fayette
> > OBbook _Woman and the Wits_ C. 1899
>
> On the other hand all the Music Hall jokes about marriage that I
> remember were about hen-pecked husbands. I can see that wife-beating may
> have been too dark for laughter.
Or too ordinary. Few cartoons about parents beating their children,
either. It's not a joke if it doesn't have the element of surprise,
inversion, repression.
s.
Michael Steinel
>At Balliol it was a sconceable offense to
>mention either women by name or religion
>in Hall, and so it should be here. Not
>dined at jolly old Coll de Ball recently, but
>since women are now admitted as
>members of the Coll it may be that
>religion is now the only remaining no-no.
There was an old Army rule to never bring up a woman's name in the
(officers') Mess. This was obviously intended to protect a woman's
reputation from the bragging of a young subaltern. In the USA I've heard
it attributed to William Tecumseh Sherman, but suspect a Redcoat origin,
perhaps Injuh. And there are now women in the Mess as well as the Hall.
Francis Muir
There was something else tho'. Certainly no surprise. It was expected.
Francis Muir
Ron Hardin wrote:
>
> Michael Rooney wrote:
> > Why shouldn't they be? You're advancing the claim that
> > a special class of beliefs -- those regarding religion
> > -- are exempt from the usual standards of evidence
> > and argument. The burden of proof is in your court.
>
> I believed the chair would support my weight when I sat on it.
> That means, I gave no thought to its collapsing, not that
> I ever in the present actively believed something. (Somewhere
> in Wittgenstein.)
>
> ``Belief'' appears in accounts and excuses. It's not any kind of
> knowing, weak or strong; just as knowing can't appear in accounts
> and excuses in the same way as belief.
> --
> Ron Hardin
> rhha...@mindspring.com
>
> On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk.
But they may believe it, mon cher.
Francis Muir
When the Church talks about revealed Truth, truth always has that
initial cap. It makes it clear that they are not talking about truth in
a Rooneyesque fashion.
Francis Muir
Michael Rooney:
> Nobody is
> inclined to rephrase this into "I did not expect the
> chair to collapse" and deny that it is a belief, except
> a disappointed, blinker-brained logical positivist or his
> latter-day Usenet PR flack.
> I'm not a philosophical skeptic. Thanks again for the
> learned irrelevancies -- are you getting graduate school
> credits for this?
Getting a little touchy are we?
Michael Rooney
Francis Muir <fra...@stanford.edu> wrote in article
<3940E554...@stanford.edu>...
>
>
> Michael Rooney wrote:
> >
> > Joan Marie Shields <jshi...@rigel.oac.uci.edu> wrote in article
> > <8hpofs$6uf$1...@news.service.uci.edu>...
> > > Joan Shields <jshi...@rigel.oac.uci.edu> wrote in article
> > > >> His [Jim Hartley's] belief, as Susan's, is his own -
> > > >> he doesn't have to defend it anymore than an atheist.
> > >
> > > Michael Rooney <roo...@oxy.edu> wrote:
> > > >But presumably he would prefer that his belief is
> > > >true, no? In which case, he does have to defend
> > > >it -- or else regard himself as an intellectual child.
> > >
> > > Do you feel the need to defend your belief? I don't.
> >
> > Thanks for sharing. But the needs you or I may
> > feel are perfectly irrelevant to the issue at hand.
> > So I repeat, this time to you, Ms. Shields: do you
> > prefer your beliefs to be false or true?
> >
> > Cordially,
>
> Cordially? I thought Mickey Z had an exclusive on that one. Did you
> check first?
I've been using "cordially" on Usenet posts since 1989.
My memory may fail me, but in those days on the
Information Frontage Road, the estimable Monsieur MZ
didn't.
> This isn't MP3 ya know.
I suspect Zeleny is a more principled anarch than is
Metallica.
> As to beliefs, quite a lot of people, including myself, believe, but do
> not argue, that beliefs of the kind under discussion are not amenable to
> logic.
That whereof you cannot argue, do not expect others
to take seriously.
> Perhaps you would explain why they should be.
Why shouldn't they be? You're advancing the claim that
a special class of beliefs -- those regarding religion
-- are exempt from the usual standards of evidence
and argument. The burden of proof is in your court.
> Does X's God exist?
> If X believes so, then he/she/it presumably does.
So there really was a spaceship trailing comet Hale-Bopp?
Cordially,
M.
Michael Rooney
smw <sm...@umich.edu> wrote in article <3940EB37...@umich.edu>...
>
>
> Michael Rooney wrote:
> >
> > Joan Marie Shields <jshi...@rigel.oac.uci.edu> wrote in article
> > <8hpofs$6uf$1...@news.service.uci.edu>...
> > > Joan Shields <jshi...@rigel.oac.uci.edu> wrote in article
> > > >> His [Jim Hartley's] belief, as Susan's, is his own -
> > > >> he doesn't have to defend it anymore than an atheist.
> > >
> > > Michael Rooney <roo...@oxy.edu> wrote:
> > > >But presumably he would prefer that his belief is
> > > >true, no? In which case, he does have to defend
> > > >it -- or else regard himself as an intellectual child.
> > >
> > > Do you feel the need to defend your belief? I don't.
> >
> > Thanks for sharing. But the needs you or I may
> > feel are perfectly irrelevant to the issue at hand.
> > So I repeat, this time to you, Ms. Shields: do you
> > prefer your beliefs to be false or true?
>
> So you wouldn't say that 'faith' denotes a conviction set apart from
> other modes of conviction by the very lack of need of evidence?
Said usage of "faith" (and its cognates) is a semantic
innovation of recent date and of dubious motivation.
Cordially,
M.
Ron Hardin
> Why shouldn't they be? You're advancing the claim that
> a special class of beliefs -- those regarding religion
> -- are exempt from the usual standards of evidence
> and argument. The burden of proof is in your court.
I believed the chair would support my weight when I sat on it.
Michael Rooney
Joan Marie Shields <jshi...@rigel.oac.uci.edu> wrote in article
<8hr3l7$q4l$1...@news.service.uci.edu>...
>
> Joan Shields <jshi...@rigel.oac.uci.edu> wrote in article
> >> >> His [Jim Hartley's] belief, as Susan's, is his own -
> >> >> he doesn't have to defend it anymore than an atheist.
>
> Michael Rooney <roo...@oxy.edu> wrote:
> >> >But presumably he would prefer that his belief is
> >> >true, no? In which case, he does have to defend
> >> >it -- or else regard himself as an intellectual child.
>
> joan:
> >> Do you feel the need to defend your belief? I don't.
>
> Michael Rooney <roo...@oxy.edu> wrote:
> >Thanks for sharing. But the needs you or I may
> >feel are perfectly irrelevant to the issue at hand.
> >So I repeat, this time to you, Ms. Shields: do you
> >prefer your beliefs to be false or true?
>
> But it is exceedingly relevent - my beliefs are not contingent
> upon whether or not I convince you or anyone else of their
> validity.
That's not the issue. Do you prefer your beliefs to be
true or false?
> My beliefs work for me - for me they are true.
How do you tell whether or not a belief works for you?
> They
> may not work for you - for you they may be false.
> Still, that's meaningless since you aren't
> the one who has to live in my skin, are you?
But suppose I wanted to live in your skin, say, by
flaying it from your body and making it into a
sporty vest. And suppose that belief, an integral
sacrament of my worship of the Gods of Strife,
worked for me. Would that belief be true, Ms.
Shields?
Cordially,
M.
Michael Rooney
Richard Harter <c...@tiac.net> wrote in article
<39411a01....@199.0.65.59>...
> "Michael Rooney" <roo...@oxy.edu> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> >Joan Marie Shields <jshi...@rigel.oac.uci.edu> wrote in article
> ><8hofug$g66$1...@news.service.uci.edu>...
> >>
> >> His [Jim Hartley's] belief, as Susan's, is his own -
> >> he doesn't have to defend it anymore than an atheist.
> >
> >But presumably he would prefer that his belief is
> >true, no? In which case, he does have to defend
> >it -- or else regard himself as an intellectual child.
>
> False dichotomy.
Quite right -- out of charity to Professor Hartley,
I excluded the possibility that he's simply an
inconsistent knucklehead.
Cordially,
M.