Thanks for writing, Olivia. And thanks even more for identifying yourself. Doesn't it astonish you how passive a lot of church people can get? The earlier post is the sort of anonymous letter they would usually send someone when they're too full of "social pressure" churchiness to disagree with him to his face.
I'm happy to respond to you. It's not that I'm unwilling to engage the ideas the previous anonymous poster supplied-- It's that they are precisely the objections which I wrote the original post in order to address. So put yourself in my shoes; I saw that I had failed to communicate to him or her. It was not so much a post about morality as a post about a new metaphor with which to communicate successfully where I have always previously failed. And yet I saw a demonstration that-- at least with her or him-- I have failed again. He or she doesn't disagree with what I've said because he or she literally doesn't know what I said.
Just to repeat that one more time. The post wasn't about morality, it was about communicating with this person. I'm not even aiming to persuade any more! Just to create a shared dialect so that they can disagree with what I'm saying, instead of disagreeing with what they think I'm saying. I did not reply because I do not yet have a new way to say it. So I feel frustrated and unwilling to bang my head against that wall until I've given it another few months of thinking up new ways to make myself heard.
I also hope you will forgive me if I'm reluctant to participate in the argument among Christian sects which one is truly Informed. Usually I leave that to you and your co-religionists to fight over. When I left Christianity I abandoned that wild goose chase, and am enjoying the relaxation very much.
That having been said, I will tell you that I don't know how you can get so little from the scripture and not just throw out the whole religion. By the time I threw out as much bathwater as you have, I got to the bottom of the tub and found there was no baby in there after all. So I'll bite. Do you believe in a God who reportedly is intensely interested in getting a message across, and is powerful enough to communicate verbally, directly, and individually to every human, but chooses not to? Does salvation require that one learn Hebrew and Koine Greek?
Which body of writings am I analyzing to determine what ethic is best? Why would I do any such thing?
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Re: Informed Theists v. Blind Followers
Date: 2007-06-23 01:09 pm (UTC)I'm happy to respond to you. It's not that I'm unwilling to engage the ideas the previous anonymous poster supplied-- It's that they are precisely the objections which I wrote the original post in order to address. So put yourself in my shoes; I saw that I had failed to communicate to him or her. It was not so much a post about morality as a post about a new metaphor with which to communicate successfully where I have always previously failed. And yet I saw a demonstration that-- at least with her or him-- I have failed again. He or she doesn't disagree with what I've said because he or she literally doesn't know what I said.
Just to repeat that one more time. The post wasn't about morality, it was about communicating with this person. I'm not even aiming to persuade any more! Just to create a shared dialect so that they can disagree with what I'm saying, instead of disagreeing with what they think I'm saying. I did not reply because I do not yet have a new way to say it. So I feel frustrated and unwilling to bang my head against that wall until I've given it another few months of thinking up new ways to make myself heard.
I also hope you will forgive me if I'm reluctant to participate in the argument among Christian sects which one is truly Informed. Usually I leave that to you and your co-religionists to fight over. When I left Christianity I abandoned that wild goose chase, and am enjoying the relaxation very much.
That having been said, I will tell you that I don't know how you can get so little from the scripture and not just throw out the whole religion. By the time I threw out as much bathwater as you have, I got to the bottom of the tub and found there was no baby in there after all. So I'll bite. Do you believe in a God who reportedly is intensely interested in getting a message across, and is powerful enough to communicate verbally, directly, and individually to every human, but chooses not to? Does salvation require that one learn Hebrew and Koine Greek?
Which body of writings am I analyzing to determine what ethic is best? Why would I do any such thing?